Weekend

In this weekend blog, I am writing about a Bollywood film which was released more than 62 years back, and it was eagerly awaited film of that year. It has so much pre released hype that the film was screened for the President  and other govt dignitaries in the Rashtrapati Bhavan even before its commercial release in India. It has been said that if you are fan of Bollywood films then if you have not watched three films in your lifetime then you have missed some thing great. The three films are Mughal e Azam, Sholay and third one is this film on which this blog is based. Actually this film is based on the Producer and Director’s earlier  film of 1942 named Aurat. If you have still not guessed the film-it is Producer & Director Mehboob Khan’s MOTHER INDIA.

The film starred Nargis in title role, other cast members were Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, Raaj Kumar, Azra, and Kanahiyalal . The film had music by Naushad and songs were written by Shakeel Badayuni. The film had 12 songs and all the songs were hit.

Now here are some unknown facts about this film

1. The title of the film was inspired by an American Book ‘Mother India’ written by Miss  Catherine Mayo. This book degraded the Indianness  and Indian culture & society, and the book at that time was severely criticised by Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders, and many Indian writers.
2. When the film was announced, that time Information Ministry thought this film may be inspired by the above book and asked Mehboob Khan for interview and told him to narrate the story of his film Mother India. After the officials listened the story the making of the film was cleared.
3. In 1958 this film was sent for Oscar Awards in Foreign film category, but it lost by one solitary vote.
4. Actually shooting of the film started much early even when the script was not fully ready. In the film there is a scene of floods, Mehboob Khan directed his team to shoot the floods which actually happened in UP during 1955.
5. This fact is widely known but still I am writing about the same. The major part of the film was shot in Umbergaon, a small place near Bombay during those days (now it is big industrial town in state of Gujarat). During the shooting of fire sequence in the film, the film’s heroine Nargis was actually caught inside the fire, and Sunil Dutt without fearing for his life saved Nargis. This cemented their love for each other which was developing between them during the shooting of the film.
6. It so happened that before the release of the film Nargis and sunil Dutt got married, but on the insistence of Mehboob Khan, their marriage was kept secret, as Mehboob Khan that time felt it might adversely affect the film because in the film they were playing the roles of mother and son.
7. Earlier the role of younger Birju, adult Birju was played by Sunil Dutt, a Indian origin actor of Hollywood Sabbu Dastagir was finalised, but due to some reason he could not do the same. Later Mehboob Khan picked a boy from slums of Bombay known as Sajid Khan, whom he later adopted. Sajid Khan acted in few films and TV serial when he grew.
8. Before Sunil Dutt was finalised for the role of Birju, the role was offered to Dilip Kumar who had accepted the same. But Nargis was against this and her point was that Dilip Kumar and Nargis pairing is known as romantic pair, so audience will not accept them in the roles of Mother and son. Both Mehboob Khan and Dilip Kumar had to accept her viewpoint and Dilip Kumar walked out of the film. Later in one interview he mentioned that he will always regret on missing this role.
9. The original budget of the film was Rs 40 Lakhs but it went over budget and by the time film was completed its cost went up to Rs 60 Lakhs, which was very high in those days. Friends do you know how much business this film did during its first run in India-it was whooping Rs 8 Cr, which was record at that time, but 3 years later this record was broken by Mughal e Azam.

Nargis became the first Indian artist who won international award as    best actress for this film in Karlvory film festival.

So these were some facts about one of the greatest Bollywood film, I hope you enjoyed reading the same.

Waiting for your views/comments/feedbacks.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

20^th Mar 2020