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Golden memories and stolen credits
Roshmila Bhattacharya
Thirty-seven years after its release, Teesri Kasam is in the eye of a storm over a mishmash of fictitious credits on the DVD cover. Producer-lyricist Shailendra’s son, Dinesh talks about the controversy and the film his father lived and died for
inesh, son of the late lyricist Shailendra, is an angry man. A few weeks ago, his brother Manoj who lives in San Francisco dropped in at a video store to pick up a DVD. He was surprised to see a DVD of Teesri Kasam, the only film his father ever produced. Delighted, Manoj reached out for it and was in for a shock. The DVD released by Sky and priced at $11.99, had Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman gracing the cover jacket. But it was not Shailendra who had produced this evergreen classic but two strangers, Anil Mehra and Ayub Khan. The director was not the talented debutant Basu Bhattacharya but the never-heard-of Ram Lakhan. And the composers of the film were not the legendary Shankar-Jaikishen but Amar-Ackdar. A disbelieving Manoj paid for the DVD and rushed out of the shop to dial his brother in Mumbai.
“I was dismayed by what Manoj had to tell me,†says Dinesh. He recalled an e-mail he had received some time ago from a film enthusiast wanting to know if his father had produced Teesri Kasam because on the Yahoo web site the film was credited to two other gentlemen. At the time he didn’t take the letter seriously thinking this was an ingeneous ploy by someone to get himself listed as a film producer. But after hearing from Manoj he realised that the matter could no longer be taken lightly. “My brother had the DVD in his hands when he called and this was tangible proof that a hoax was being perpetuated. There are people out there selling my father’s film and making money from it. I don’t want compensation but this illegal business has to stop. It is an insult to my father’s memory...the entire Hindi film industry,†Dinesh rages.
Manoj was told to fly down to Mumbai as soon as possible with the offending DVD. The family was consulted and it was decided that the brothers should call a press conference to invite opinion on the subject. On May 31, the DVD was made public. The press was horrified. Someone suggested that the Information & Broadcasting Ministry should intervene because the nation’s pride was at stake, Teesri Kasam having won the President’s Gold Medal for Best Film in 1966. Manoj and Dinesh were also advised to meet with representatives of the Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association.
A couple of days later, Manoj flew back to the US to try and track down the guilty ones. Dinesh meanwhile has been in touch with IMPPA and will be writing to the I & B ministry soon. He admits he is contemplating legal action. “The film is a legacy. Teesri Kasam was very close to my father’s heart. He lived and died for it,†Dinesh says quietly.
The incident has sparked off a treasure trove of memories for Shailendra’s youngest son who was only 10-years-old when the film was being shot. Dinesh remembers rushing to Mohan Studio after school to walk around the mela that had been created by art director Desh Mukherjee. “Most of the stalls were incomplete and it gave me a thrill to run in and out of them knowing that they were unreal and yet would look so real on screen,†Dinesh flashbacks.
He also has fond memories of noted dance exponent, Lachchu Maharaj who choreographed the film’s dances. “Lachchu Maharaj was such a shy and soft-spoken gentleman yet, when it came to dance, he knew exactly what he wanted,†marvels Dinesh. Even today ‘Paan khaiye saiyan hamare...’ has feet tapping and fingers snapping.
However, the man who most impressed the young boy was Basu Bhattacharya. A young man and a first time director, Basu was lord and master on the sets. “And watching Basuda with awed fascination, I decided that when I grew up I too would be a director like him,†Dinesh smiles. Later, he did go on to assist Basu Bhattacharya and even directed a film for Kamal Haasan, Ladies Only that is yet to be released.
Basu Bhattacharya himself started out as an assistant to Bimal Roy. Shailendra was one of Roy’s favourite lyricists and an integral part of his camp after Do Bigha Zameen. It was inevitable that Basu and Shailendra would bump into each other during the shooting of Madhumati. Roy’s young assistant was the butt of jokes for the pocket book of short stories he carried around with him. One day, when Shailendra saw Basu engrossed in his book, he curiously asked him what was so special about the story he was reading. Basu Bhattacharya immediately handed over the book to Shailendra and asked him to read Maare Gaye Gulfam. “You can then judge for yourself why Phanishwarnath Renu’s short story is so special,†Basu told him. Intrigued, Shailendra read the story...and was instantly mesmerised by it.
“I guess, it reminded my father of Mathura where he had grown up, a world far removed from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai’s show business,†Dinesh muses.
Shailendra whose full name was Shankardas Kesrilal Shailendra, was born in Rawalpindi on August 30, 1923 but when he was just a child his family moved to Mathura where he spent his early years. A job in the railways brought him to Mumbai in ’47, but he spent more time scribbling poetry than holding down a responsible job. For him poetry was life and life itself was poetry. Perhaps that’s why Shailendra was moved by the lyrical simplicity of Phanishwarnath Renu’s short story.
Maare Gaye Gulfam was the story of Hiraman and Hirabai. He is a simple gaonwala who ferries goods around on his bullock cart. One day, he is persuaded to carry some black-market goods and almost lands in jail. After his skirmish with the police, Hiraman swears never to get caught in the black-marketing racket again.
Soon after, Hiraman is hired to transport bamboos. On the way there is an accident and Hiraman is beaten up by two angry men whose carriage overturns when their horse swerves to avoid a head-on collision with Hiraman’s bullocks. After the thrashing he receives, Hiraman takes a second vow: never to carry bamboo again.
One night he is approached to take a woman to a fair 40 miles away. Hiraman agrees and when he catches a glimpse of her beautiful face, mistakes her for a fairy. The simple-at-heart Hiraman has had little interaction with the fairer sex, having lost his child bride before she could come home to him and then being forever bullied by his sweetly domineering sister-in-law. When he is told by an amused Hirabai that she is no apparition, he believes that she is a bashful virgin from a respectable home and all through the course of their journey shields her from the prying eyes of strange men on the road. Hirabai who is really a bazaru aurat who keeps men entertained through the nights with her nautankis, is enchanted by Hiraman’s naivete and entranced by the songs he sings.
“‘Duniya bananewale...’ is one of my favourites too even though it was not written by my father but his friend Hasrat Jaipuri,†confesses Dinesh. The song recounts the tragic fate of Mahua who falls in love with a stranger but is sold off to a trader by her mercenary step-mother. Undoubtedly, the ill-fated Mahua’s tale of woe strikes a chord with Hirabai who perhaps sees parallels in their lives. The song is a pointer to the future too.
As the bullock cart gently rolls down the dirt lanes untouched by combustion engines, the two Hiras who carry the pain life has unconsciously brought them with quiet dignity, are drawn to each other. Phanishwarnath Renu traces the budding friendship between the two strangers who come from different worlds and share a common name, with delicacy and sensitivity.
Moved by the simple charm of Hiraman’s folk songs, Hirabai makes him her guru and her meeta, eliciting a promise from him that he’ll teach her his music and be a good friend. Three days later, they arrive at a dusty provincial town where the nautanki company Hirabai has come to join has set up its tent. And their idyllic world shatters as reality intrudes...
Hirabai wanting to prolong their golden days together, invites Hiraman to stay back for a few days. He is easily persuaded. Hirabai lives out her dream of domesticity by cooking and feeding him in her tent. He in turn entrusts her with all his savings and happily crowds into the tent with several other wide-eyed men to watch Hirabai dance. Moving with vivacious grace, Hirabai projects her hopes, dreams, desires and eventually her sense of loss into the songs she sings on four successive nights. And Hiraman loses his heart to her forever.
At one of Hirabai’s performances someone in the audience makes an insulting remark. Instantly, Hiraman who views himself as the protector of Hirabai’s imagined modesty, rises to defend her honour. When the jaded nautanki dancer hears of the fight, she is angry with her new-found friend. He’s unrepentant and urges her to leave a profession that brings her no respect. But Hirabai loves her craft. Dancing under the lights brings her as much satisfaction as driving the bullock cart gives Hiraman, she points out.
With time however, Hirabai’s anger melts in the face of Hiraman’s unflinching devotion and her dormant desires surface. Like every woman she too dreams of a home and a family. Hiraman, she realises, can give her all this and the respect so far denied to her. She starts toying with the idea of leaving the nautanki company.
But in every prem kahani there’s a villain who keeps the lovers apart. In Teesri Kasam he’s the lascivious zamindar who is beguiled by Hirabai’s charming coquetishness and asks her to spend a night with him. Hirabai is outraged by the proposition. Hiraman almost turns physical. Reeling under the dual humiliation, the landlord becomes vicious. Realising that she’s put her nautanki company in trouble by refusing the zamindar’s overtures and inadvertently endangered Hiraman’s life, Hirabai admits to herself that for women like her the door to both worlds is shut. “You think I am a prostitute, he thinks I’m a goddess,†she tells her predator bitterly. Neither accepts that she’s a woman whose choice of profession will always deny her acceptance in respectable society. Unwilling to live a life of lies and fearing the loss of a loved one, Hirabai sends Hiraman away.
A heart-broken Hiraman takes his teesri kasam—he’ll never carry a woman from a nautanki company again.
Meanwhile, Hirabai leaves the nautanki company and sends word to Hiraman that he should meet her at the railway station so she can return his savings to her. On the appointed day, Hirabai waits on the platform for hours. Hiraman doesn’t come and eventually she boards a train with a heavy heart. “The camera freezes on Hiraman in his cart, his hand raised to hit his bullocks to urge them to move faster, as the train carrying Hirabai, perhaps to another nautanki company, passes by. That’s my favourite shot in the film,†informs Dinesh who sits down to watch the film anytime and everytime he sees it playing. “I stopped counting after 1000,†he laughs, adding that every shot brings back fond memories of the shoot.
Interestingly, the film was conceived with Mehmood in the role of Hiraman and Nutan playing Hirabai. “My father and Basuda wanted an actor who had no image,†points out Dinesh. But then, Raj Kapoor got to hear about the film his old friend Shailendra was making and, one fine day, walked up to the lyricist and told him simply, “I want to do your film.†And Shailendra didn’t think to refuse him.
Raj Kapoor had discovered Shailendra at a meeting of revolutionists in ’47, when the freedom struggle was at its peak, passionately reciting one of his fiery poems, Jalta hai Punjab. The actor-film-maker met Shailendra later and told him he wanted to buy the poem from him and also asked him to write songs for his film. Haughtily, Shailendra turned him down but after the birth of his first son, hard up for money, he approached Kapoor himself and wrote the songs for Barsaat. “The film was a superhit and after that Rajji was always a regular in our lives,†says Dinesh.
In later years, critics argued that Raj Kapoor was too old for the role of Hiraman even though it was an effortless performance with just the right degree of wistfulness, vulnerability and poignancy. Dinesh doesn’t agree. He insists that RK despite his Chaplinseque image which could have been a handicap, suited the role perfectly.
Nutan also made way for Waheeda Rehman because she was pregnant with Mohnish at the time. Waheeda who started her career as a vamp in CID, played a street-walker in Pyaasa, an inadvertent home-breaker in Kagaz Ke Phool and a woman who walks out on her impotent, elderly husband to move in with her lover who promises to launch her as a dancer in Guide, was always ready for the challenge of a meaty if different role. Teesri Kasam was another milestone in her chequered career.
Asit Sen and Iftikhar who played the lascivious zamindar, made up the rest of the cast.
The film started with a song recording in ’62 at Famous Studio, Mumbai. The song was the unforgettable ‘Sajan re jhoot mat bolo...’, a song of the road in the mould of ‘Mera joota hai Japani...’ from Shri 420. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning. The air-conditioner broke down that day. Fans had to be installed and blocks of ice brought into keep the studio cool. However, once Mukesh started singing the heat and the discomfort was easily forgotten. “After the final take everyone gathered at the studio that day converged around my father, congratulating him for the words he had written,†Dinesh beams proudly.
Shooting started at Mohan Studio with another heart-rending melody, ‘Aa aa bhi jaa, raat dhalne lagi...’ “Almost immediately, the film ran into trouble as distributors got cold feet. Teesri Kasam was just too off-beat a project. People credit Shyam Benegal for having flagged off the new-wave cinema but I’d say Teesri Kasam was really the turning point for what we later dubbed the parallel cinema movement,†Dinesh argues.
Shailendra was plagued with problems, literally from day one. Not only were his distributors demanding commercial compromises, there were many in his unit, people he trusted, who only wanted to make money from the project. “My father was swindled left, right and centre. Everyone made money from Teesri Kasam...everyone but my father,†Dinesh sighs.
One of the opportunists was Dinesh’s own mama. Shailendra had initially planned to shoot the film in the cowbelt of UP and Bihar till the fear of dacoits lead him to contemplate a change of location. His wife’s brother suggested that they move to Bina, a small town near Sagar in Madhya Pradesh. “It was foolish carting the cast and crew to Bina when the film could easily have been shot on the outskirts of Mumbai. But my mama, who was the production controller, had his own agenda. I was later told that there was a girl in Bina whom he was in love with and shooting a film in her home town was one way of impressing her,†Dinesh says with a wry smile.
Later, a careful study of the accounts revealed that 17-18 suits had been stitched for a film whose hero wore only dhotis. “The suits were stitched by Hangalsahab who was the most expensive tailor of the time. No one knows why they were ordered or for whom but they certainly added up to the fast-escalating budget of Teesri Kasam,†Dinesh rues.
Shailendra was also conned into buying a couple of bullocks so “continuity†could be maintained. After one schedule in Bina, the bulls were kept in a tabela near Jogeshwari. “One fine day my father was told that the bulls had died. So he bought new bulls for the next schedule,†Dinesh informs.
The shoots in Bina slowly drained Shailendra’s accounts but turned out to be fun outings for his family. “Our relatives from all over India would gather at Bina for what would invariably turn out to be a great picnic,†Dinesh laughs.
The kids in particular had a blast taking bullock cart rides and racing down the kachchi roads of Bina. “We were also a part of the song, ‘Laali, laali dhooli...’ It was great fun though at the time I had no idea what it was costing my father,†Dinesh remembers.
The film took four years to complete. Even when it finally limped to the finish, Shailendra was advised by many to change the ending. “Hirabai and Hiraman have to come together. You need a happy ending otherwise the film won’t run even two days,†the first-time producer was repeatedly told. But Shailendra stuck to his guns. It was because of the ending that he had fallen in love with the story and made the film. He wasn’t going to be swayed by commercial considerations. “I’ll release the film alone if I have to,†he told his detractors, pointing out that if he changed the end there would be no teesri kasam, which in effect meant that there would be no film. Incidentally, Dinesh informs, the title Teesri Kasam had been given by his father. “It just popped out at a brain-storming session and everyone present instantly agreed that it was very apt,†Dinesh narrates.
The film was released in Delhi-UP first. Dinesh remembers he was very excited because he was accompanying his parents to Delhi for the film’s premiere. But all his plans went phut when Shailendra got a call advising him not to show up in the capital. He had stood guarantee for some distributors and there was a legal problem during the film’s release. Shailendra was inadvertently drawn into the mess. To not be able to be at the opening of his own film came as a shock to the debutant producer. What made it worse was that Teesri Kasam was a non-starter and was pulled out on the third day after its release.
Shailendra was shattered by the debacle. “He wasn’t prepared for the fact that the film he had backed for four years, would be summarily rejected by the people. It was unthinkable that they didn’t identify and empathise with the story of Hiraman and Hirabai. However, it was not so much the financial losses that he suffered that hurt my father as the betrayal of friends and family in whom he had invested so much trust. He was let down badly by so many people he had been close to,†Dinesh says sadly.
Shailendra was at the peak of his career in ’66 when Teesri Kasam was released. Dinesh believes that with the kind of money he was making as a song writer he could have covered the losses of Teesri Kasam in six months. But after Teesri Kasam’s disastrous first run in Delhi-UP, Shailendra just lost interest in writing poetry...in life itself.
Dinesh has fond memories of the drives he and his brothers would take with their father every morning. “He was an early riser and as soon as we stirred around 6 a.m., he would bundle us into his car and drive us down to Juhu beach. There was a hotel called Sea View on the beach those days in front of which there was a pile of boulders. My father would sit on these rocks and write while we played in the sands till it was time for us to return home and dress for school. It was a misconception that he wrote his songs while drinking. It was on these rocks that he did his best work, without even a cup of tea in his hands,†Dinesh says fiercely.
However, after the release of Teesri Kasam these writing sessions just petered away. It was as if the creative force within Shailendra had died. “After Guide Goldiesahab (Vijay Anand) wanted my father to write the lyrics for his Jewel Thief too,†says Dinesh. Shailendra had gives Vijay Anand an unforgettable song in ‘Rulake gaya sapna mera...’. The song was ironically a reflection on his state of mind after his dream shattered. That was the only song Shailendra wrote for Jewel Thief.
After Teesri Kasam was released, whenever Vijay Anand came home, Shailendra would lock himself in a room and instruct his family to tell the director that he was not in. However, Vijay Anand refused to take “no†for an answer. And even after being turned away several times with this obviously untrue excuse he still visited everyday. “After a while he started putting her car in the garage and waiting at the corner for my father to emerge,†Dinesh grins. Realising that Vijay Anand couldn’t be put off, Shailendra finally told him one day that he didn’t feel like writing anymore. On his advice, Vijay Anand finally opted for Majrooh Sultanpuri to write the songs of Jewel Thief.
Teesri Kasam was released in September ’66. On December 14, Shailendra died.
The lyricist whose songs were always so vibrantly alive, paradoxically, was always obsessed with death. May be the fatal attraction stemmed from having lost his mother at a young age. After the debacle of Teesri Kasam and the desertion of his friends, Shailendra was drawn even more strongly to death. He started drinking heavily. It was an overdose of alcohol that eventually killed him.
On December 13, he was admitted to the hospital. His condition was critical. The following day he was gone. December 14 was Raj Kapoor’s birthday. Many say that it was Raj Kapoor whose Sangam was one of the reasons for the delay of Teesri Kasam. Dinesh refutes the allegation.
Shailendra was gone... But the songs he’d written and Shankar-Jaikishen had scored, continued to play on. The melancholic ‘Sajanre baire ho jaye hamar...’, the sorrowful ‘Aa aaja re...’, the coquettish ‘Paan khaye saiyan hamar...’, the tragic folk lore ‘Sajan re jhoot mat bolo..., the soulful ‘Maare gaye gulfaam...’ and Manna De’s ‘Chalat musafir...’...they were all magical melodies that left an indelible mark on the minds of listeners. And when Teesri Kasam was released in ‘67 in Mumbai, it drew huge crowds to the theatres.
“It was unbelievable that a film that had been pulled out of Delhi theatres after just three days, was sold out in Mumbai’s Apsara theatre for five weeks. It would have successfully run for several more weeks but it had been booked for just four weeks,†Dinesh informs. It was replaced by Dev Anand’s publicist, Amarjeet’s production Duniya. “And it was amusing to see people coming out after seeing Duniya singing ‘Duniya bananewale, kahe ko duniya banaye...’,†Dinesh laughs.
The film recorded full houses at other centres too. It was selected for the Moscow International Film Festival in ’67 and was well-received as a classic. In ’66, it won the President’s Gold Medal for Best Film. “Unfortunately, my father wasn’t around to savour its success. He died heart-broken, prevented from even watching the first show of the film he had struggled four years to complete,†Dinesh mourns.
The money took its time coming in. For 4-5 years it was the court receiver who handled the film and its earning following a legal tussle. It was the court that released the film and paid those who claimed a share of the profits. But eventually, the family got its share too.
Teesri Kasam was counted amongst the classics by Doordarshan and screened many times on the national network. Now it’s on demand on other channels too and TV rights are bringing in a lot of money for Shailendra’s family. “Though the film went over budget, we’ve earned a 100 times more than what my father invested in the project,†Dinesh agrees.
Teesri Kasam along with Devdas and Bandini is reportedly Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s favourite film. It was undoubtedly one of Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman’s finest performances. The only Hindi film Subrata Mitra, Satyajit Ray’s long-time cameraman ever photographed because it was his cherished dream to shoot song-and-dance sequences. his black-and-white frames and excellent technique catching the eye of Merchant-Ivory for whom he framed four films including, The Householder and The Guru. And it definitely was director Basu Bhattacharya’s best work.
“Basuda repaid my father by eloping with Bimal Roy’s daughter Rinki soon after the release of Teesri Kasam,†Dinesh grins When news of the runaway marriage reached Bimal Roy he retaliated by banning Shailendra. Their cold war lasted for a few months during which Gulzar was recruited to write the songs for Bandini. He penned just one song, after which Roy and Shailendra patched up again.
Interestingly, an excellent qawwali that had been recorded for Teesri Kasam was later edited out. “It’s a wonderful song. I have the original tape and I listen to it often. I’m very fond of it and hope to use it some day...somewhere,†says Dinesh.
Meanwhile, he’s gearing up for a court battle to give his father the credit he is due...
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