Tag: philim

Posted on

Ismail remembers Shammi

Mohd. Ismail is probably the biggest Shammi Kapoor fan from the state. Ismail spent most of his life doing odd jobs at Pahalgam, Gulmarg and other tourists spots that were popular with Bombay filmwallas. He met lot of stars, had himself photographed with quite a few of them. But Shammi Kapoor remained a lifelong favorite. While most of Kashmir Media was a bit quite on passing away of Shammi Kapoor, Ismail was publishing Remembrances. Ran into Ismail at my sister’s wedding reception. He was supplying water.

Savoy Hotel Jammu. February 2012.
-0-

Posted on

Rahman Rahi by M K Raina

For me the interesting part in this film isn’t hearing the famous Kashmiri ‘poet of silence’ actually speak but it is the way his voice comes across as a person, when he talks about his life and then as a poet, when he talks about the thoughts that invade his mind. It is the way his poetry interacts with a listener and then how people interact with him in person, question him. ‘Why silent?’ isn’t the only question. The question could also be why words written decades ago, concerns that first etched them, why those words still offer quasi-resonance.

-0-
First section  of a Ranjit Hoskote essay titled ‘Winter Thoughts about Spring’ (link) starts with a conversation with Rahman Rahi and ends with part were Bollywood eats up culture.

Right, Rahman Rahi with Lata Mangeshkar.

In this film, perhaps the most ironic part is when one sees a young Kashmiri girl in middle of a discussion about future of Kashmiri Language, trying to make a strong point and then struggling to find a Kashmiri word for her point. Or perhaps most ironic part is watching the poet quote Koshur poet Mahjoor and Dilli poet Mir with just as much ease. Or perhaps it is hearing him worry about losing his memories: ASI protected Sun temple ruins of military campaigner Lalitaditya and Muslim Auqaf Trust run Charari Sharief of soul campaigner Alamdar-e-Kashmir Hazrat Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali/Nund Reshi.

-0-

Posted on

Raja Vikarmajitery Kath


  dyar hase chu saf’ras
     yar hase chu na as’nas
  ash’nav hasa chu as’nas
gaye tre kathe beye ze kathe hasa chy’au
  sa zanana chy’auvna pane’ny
     yesa na asi pan’es sai’th
beye hasa
     yus rats bedar rozi
     suy hasa zae’ni raje Vikramajit’ney kur

Monies, sirs, is for a journey.
A friend, sirs, is for when there is no money.
A near relation, sirs, is for when there is money.
That makes three things, and, sirs, there are two others : —
 That woman is not for you
 one not in know of herself
And, again, sirs : —
 He only will win Raja Vikramaditya’s daughter
Who keepeth awake by night.

I never imagined I will read these Kashmiri stories. But here they are, preserved. Preserved complete with all the intellectual rigor that their listening induced among its recorders. The above lines form a mishmash of a particular verse in ‘Hatim’s Tales: Kashmiri Stories and Songs’ (1928), recorded with the assistance of Pandit Govind Kaul by Sir Aurel Stein. I created this mishmash based on the two version offered by Aurel Stein and Pandit Govind Kaul.

The Kashmiri songs and stories in this book were recited to Sir Aurel Stein in 1896, at Mohand Marg, high in Haramukh range, in Kashmir, by one Hatim Tilwon of Panzil, in the Sind Valley, a cultivator and a professional story- teller. They were taken down at his dictation by Sir Aurel Stein himself, and, simultaneously, by Pandit Govinda Kaul. The work is unique in the sense that (as the introduction to the book explains):

“[…] Hatim’s language was not the literary language of Kashmiri Pandits, but was in a village dialect, and Sir Aurel Stein’s phonetic record of the patois, placed alongside of the standard spelling of Kashmiri Pandits, gives what is perhaps the only opportunity in existence for comparing the literary form of an Oriental speech with the actual pronunciation of a fairly educated villager.”

The stories that Hatim told included not just a story of fabled Vikarmajit, but also of Mahmud of Ghazni, albeit in a familiar fabled grab of a benevolent king who goes around town at night in the grab of a poor man. He also tells the story of a farmer’s wife who complains to a Honey-bee about harshness of a revenue collector. The stories are told in songs and verses. The most amusing Kashmiri song offered by this book is the one about the turmoil created in lives of Kashmiri working class by Sir Douglas Forsyth‘s mission to Yarkand in 1873-4.  The workers, cobblers, tillers, carpenters and all with a typical tongue-in-cheek Kashmiri humor sing:

Yarkand anan zenan

Khoni keth doda-not ware heth
bari drav
Lokan chu sapharun tav
Tahkhith doda-gur Jenatuk bagwan


Yarkand anon zenan
Watal dop watje bonay sara zah


Chim mangan dalomuy ta kah
Tsoratsh ta or heth met hay, pakanawan

I found Govinda Kaul’s translation (rather his pick of English works for certain Kashmiri work) a bit too easy on Imperialists, almost turning the song on its head.  Here’s what the song conveyed to be:

Yarkand he is conquering
Carrying a milk-pail in his haunch,
earthern pots in a load
he goes forth

For people
journey is exhaustion

He , forsooth

White horse

Heavenly God
Yarkand he is conquering

Cobbler said to Cobbler’s wife
“I shall not remember forever,
they want my leather and lace,
leather-cutter and awl,
and they want me.
O, they are taking me too”

Yarkand he is conquering

You may read the complete book here at openlibrary.org
-0-

Related Post:

-0-

Pandit Govinda Kaul belonged to the clan of famous Birbal Dhar. Famous D.P. Dhar was a direct decedent of Birbal Dhar.

-0-
Unrelated Post:
about short film that I was involved with in a minor way Raag Sarkari. (Nominated for IFFI, 2011).The story of a day in the life of a Jailer somewhere in U.P. and day happens to be D.P Dhar’s first death anniversary.

-0-

Posted on

Kashmiri in the Log Cabin talks

Bakshi Ghulam Mohamed, a mute  and perhaps an unwilling witness to one of the funniest ‘log cabin’ sequence from Indian Cinema, listening in on ‘a storm outside-a storm inside’ innuendos being passed between Saira Bano and Shammi Kapoor in Junglee (1961). Don’t tell me that should have been Sheikh Abdullah. 

Posted on

‘Habba Khatoon’ of Basheer Badgami, 70s

After Doordarshan Centre was established in Srinagar in 1972, a number of tele-films were made.  These first few films were about things that all Kashmiris used to cherish, mytho-memories and words of their Habba Khatoons, Rasul Mirs and Badshahs. Among these tele-films Habba Khatoon by Basheer Badgami was probably the most popular and famous. The film had Reeta Razdan as heroine in the role of  poet-queen of Kashmir and Ghani Khan as King Yusuf Chak. The songs were sung by Shamima Dev (who later went on to be Azad [previously]).
-0-
This much I know from ‘A History of Kashmiri Literature’ by Trilokinath Raina. But till recently I hadn’t see any of these films ( who knew a few of them were shown in Kashmir Film festival organised by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in 2009 [.pdf of Films Schedule]).

-0-

This morning [thanks to Mrinal Kaul] I came across the famous Habba Khatoon.

Uploaded to Youtube by 44x4x4x [who given his profile picture there, a painting called ‘A Beauty of the Valley’ by G. Hadenfeldt, found in ‘The Charm of Kashmir’ (1920) by V.C. Scott O’connor‘ , is probably already a reader of this blog or someone who somehow found a part of it. I big thanks to the uploader for sharing].

Posted on

Kherishu, Varishu. I love you, I need you!

In April 2009, four months prior to his death, Gulshan Bawra, one of the lyricists of Harjaee [1981], recounted how another song in the film was created:”We had gone for the shooting of a film in Kashmir and dusk had fallen over the valley. Near a ropeway, I heard two locals call out to each other in a language I did not understand. One of the silhouetted men seeded to ask a question and the other seemed to reply in the affirmative. My panic swelled as the only recognizable word sounded like “shoot”. I interpreted this as “Should I shoot?” and “Yes, shoot” respectively. I hurried away from the scene, understandably quickly. A couple of days later a friend of mine in Bombay clarified amidst relieved laughter that what I had heard was “Kherishu?” and “Varishu” which meant “How are you?” and the reply “I am fine”. When I told the two words to Panchan, he asked,”Which language is this? Russian?” “No, this is Kashmiri,” I replied. An amused Pancham used the words for an Asha Bhonsle-Kishore Kumar duet and the song “Jeevan me jab aise pal…Kherishu, Varishu was born.

From – ‘R.D.Burman The Man, The Music'(2011)  by Anirudha Bhattarcharjee and Balaji Vittal.

-0-
The two Kashmir words were finally passed off in the song to mean I love you and I need you.

Posted on

Mainz Raat, 1964. The first Kashmiri Film

The film starts with a man welcoming a recently orphaned young son of his sister into his family. The man’s young daughter takes a special liking for the orphan boy. The plot is set for a childhood romance that will blossom in youth. The local bad boy of the village with perhaps a linking for the girl grows an instant dislike for the boy. How the world conspires against them and how their love survives, that in a nutshell is the premise of the film

On the surface of it, there isn’t anything new to this story written by Ali Mohammed Lone, a man with literary background. It is plot of countless Hindi films. But it is the social background, the Kashmiri culture, within which this simple story is told, its music, the idioms of its language and the gesticulation of its people, that all add various unique delicious layers to the experience of watching this story unfold on screen. Even to a  Kashmiri viewer it offers layers of ecstatic wonder, layers that the interested viewer can devour to his contentment in each viewing.

 Although nothing much is known about the film’s Director, Jagi Rampaul and the Producer, M.R. Seth, this film was considered path breaking enough back in 1964 to win a President’s Silver Medal. Generations of Kashmiri people remember this film for some great performances by lead cast: Omkar Nath Aima as hero Sulla.Sultan, Mukta as heroine Sarye/Sara, and an outstanding act by Pushkar Bhan as villian Barkat. But most of all this film was remembered for its use of folk songs and some beautiful new Kashmiri songs written by famous poet-writer-painter artist G.T.Santosh and set to music by great Mohan Lal Aima. For generations this film has been known as the first Kashmiri film ever made.

What now follows is not a review of the film, it’s something else, it’s how the film interact with memories.

The opening scene of the film when Rajab arrives in the village to check up on Sultan.

Children playing Hopscotch or Sazlog in Kashmir, taken by James Ricalton in c. 1903,

Rajab, known fondly as Rajab Kaka or Rajab Uncle, distributing sweets, maybe Shirin or Nabad, sugar candies, to children of the village.

After burying Sultan’s mother, Rajab Kaka takes Sultan alongwith him back to his village. As they start of, a woman hands him Kulache for the journey and beseeches him to take care for the motherless child.

Sara, the daughter of Rajak and Sultan hit it off instantly. Meanwhile…

Sara’s brother Razak is chilling out with Barkat the bad boy. Barkat spots the Pandit boy, Poshkar walking with a stack of hay on his back. Just for fun, Barkat flings his cigarette bud onto the load on Poshkar. As Poshkar slowly and without knowing carries a blaze on his back, the bad boys laugh out at the scene.

Sultan and Sara reach the spot, Poshkar gets rescued by Sultan. With this episode Sultan makes a friend, the Pandit boy Poshkar.

‘Myane Bhagwano’, O my God. Poskar’s cry on realizing that his stack was on fire.

‘love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave’

The boy and the girl grow up, already deeply in love.

‘Batt’e Aaprawun’. Sara feeds Sultan.

Barkat fumes.

Sara and Sultan will marry each other, is an eventuality even hinted by old Rajab Kaka.

Notice the headgear on the woman who walks into Poshkar’s shop to barter an egg

A Kashmiri woman drawn by drawn by H.R. Pirie  in around 1908

The only comic sequence involves a woman who walks into Poshkar Nath’s shop to barter an egg. In a demonstration of typical Kashmiri humour, Poshkar Nath quip’s about the size of the egg.

After the joke, the stage gets set for the gloom to descend. Barkat starts poisoning Razak’s ears, how the village people are not saying nice things about Sara and Sultan. Razak, in a round around way tries to reign in his sister, but Sara snubs him. Razak goes to his father complaining about relation of Sara and Sultan. Razak seems more worried about the fact that Sultan can stake a claim on what he believes to be his property and land. Rajab Kaka tries to put some sense into his son, but the worms of doubt get laid into his mind too. After a villager also asks him about Sara and Sultan, the father feeling ashamed, publicly lashes out at Sara.

Now Barkat plays he next move. Using his minions, he takes the matter to village panchayat with the purpose of throwing Sultan out to village.

As the minions start to take control of the panchayat’s proceedings, Pandit Poshkar Nath moves in to defend the case in favor of his friend Sultan.

The matter ends with Poshkar Nath not only stopping Sultan’s excommunication but using his wit even manage to get a ruling that Sultan has a right to the property.

Barkat isn’t very happy with this outcome. The object of his immediate anger is Poshkar.

Barkat plans to destroy Poshkar by looting the supplies coming in from city for Poshkar’s shop. As the plan is being executed, Sultan comes in at the last moment and fights off the looters.

‘Kal’e Thol’ – Sultan’s  Kashmri Headbutt.
The only other genuine Kashmiri combat move involves throwing a Kangri over  the opponent’s head.
I have actually seen my father perform this artistic maneuver many moon ago.

After this the forces that try to seperate Saran and Sultan only get stronger. Sara sees a storm coming. She shares her worries with her friend, the wife of Poshkar. [There voices drowned in the gurgling of the stream.]

Meanwhile, Poshkar Nath tries to talk sense into Rajab Kaka who now seems to be dying of guilt. Rajab Kaka admits that he still loves Sultan like his own son but it’s the voice of the villagers that he fears.

The lovers grow sadder. Razak sings his love’s lament. Rajab Kaka dies. Razak get’s into mounting debt due to his gambling habit. Barkat makes his next move. Sara knows what is coming her way.

A Kashmiri Hanji woman with Kanz and Muhul.1904

 She talks to her friend about the fate that has befell her.

She asks God for help.

The village bard sings. The visuals get poetic.

Sara gets buried under autumn leaves of Chinar. Harud, autumn is upon the village and upon Sara. Play of seasons is constant theme in modern Kashmiri literature. This scene pays dues to that theme.

Razak finally gives in and to settle his debts, agrees to marry-off his sister Sara to Barkat.

Sara’s Mainz Raat arrives. Before the night, she meets Sultan one last time. Sultan bemoans his fate, swears over his love and respect for Rajab Kaka. Sultan bemoans his orphan status.

He tells her he is happy for her. He tells her maybe it wasn’t meant to be. He asks Sara why isn’t there Henna, Mainz , on her hand.

 The film gets its title from this sequence. It’s the most significant scene of the film.Sara’s Mainz raat is symbolically arranged by her lover Sultan when he puts bangles around her arms and wishes her happiness.

Sara is married off over the sound of Kashmiri wedding song. [At this moment my mother walks into the room, without asking what I was upto, goes through my cloths singing the song from the film. A song about Mainz.]
The brilliance of Mohan Lal Aima’s use of music shines through. He was at his peak back then. Even the use of background score for someone the scenes is well ahead of time and imaginative. And the music is just not limited to folk, there’s contemporary film, with a distinct Indian Cinema touch of the ear and there is classical Indian music setup. [I will be posting a Soundtrack from the film sometime soon. A cleaned up sound extracts from this film]

Sultan looks on.

 Barkat get a wife. He is infuriated at seeing those bangles around Sara’s wrist.

He knows he has caged a bird.

Now, having again lost all his possessions, Razak realizes his follies. He is repentant.

We now see a new side of Sara’s personality. There is residence. She fights with her husband over the state of his brother. She wants Barkat to help Razak out. Barkat too notices this side of Sara’s personality. He who used to flick knives is now beaten by the verbal lashing of his wife.

He gets a quasi heart-attack. We now see a new side of Barkat’s personality too. Strong, evil Barkat now comes across a weakling afflicted by consequences of nature. He, the corrupter of simple village folk now sees cure, refuge in city, the capital of corruption. It’s a textbook Indian film situation but to see Srinagar at the seat of corrupt requires a present Kashmiri viewer to really challenge his senses.

Srinagar is the waterdown version of big bad Bombay in this social setup.

Barkat acts like an a Kashmiri version of Devdas. He wants to drink as much alcohol as there is water in the ocean. Definitive Devdas inspiration. He smokes, drinks and gambles. Back then when Srinagar wasn’t yet cleansed, among other things Srinagar still had vice centers like gambling den, drinking joints and cinema hall. Now these are only private pleasures in the city.

Sara now shows another facet of her personality. She now weeps for her husband.

Over the grave of her father, she cries for husband and wishes his return. Her two brothers, Razak and the Pandit brother Poshkar Nath console her.

Now, Sara, the woman who used to tie threads on Pir’s mazaar for fulfillment of her love, grabs a black veil and prays to Mustafa, the head of all Pirs.

The beauty of it is that this transitions is presented so logically that it takes imagination to conjure up conflicting natures of her personality.

She is delighted when Sultan volunteers to find and bring back Barkat from the city.

Sultan grabs Barkat from a den and brings him to Sara.

Barkat is dying. He is repentant. He wants the bird be set free.

Barkat dies.

Earlier in the movie on being asked by Poashar Nath about getting Sara married, Rajak Kaka had said that by the end of Harud, autumn, Sara will be happily married off.

The season has changed. Harud is over. We hears the songs of reaping.

We see Sara and Sultan together working the field, reaping. We see a new sun rising.

-0-
I first watched this film on Doordarshan in its afternoon regional film telecast on some weekend more than a decade and a half ago when I was still a teenager. I must admit I didn’t grasp most of it back then but it felt significant back then as some of the sights and sounds from the film remained with me for a long time.

A couple of years back, when Kashmir again started churning inside my head, I remembered this film. Given the state of film archives in India, I never thought I would be able to watch it again. I felt the loss of this film.

The complete film, probably procured from Pune film archives (which for some unknown reasons does not list it in its online listing) is now available on Youtube channel of Rajshri.  For some strange reason a quick google search on this film will have you believe that the film was made in 1977. Which of course is wrong. It was made in 1964. And for obvious, self-defeating financial reasons the channel uploader had tagged this film with all kind of nasty, profane keywords (hence the pathetic related videos over there). Which of course is wrong. But at least we now have the film, even if it now swims in a river of innoquitues that is Internet.

-0-

I cannot by help think that if this film was to be re-made now, it will be pregnant with elaborate political connotations and undercurrents. It will be something flashy and sense numbing, something that will try to educate you but won’t let you think, something that will try to interpret ideas but won’t dare you to interpret. It will be real. It won’t be cinema. It won’t be something as simple as Mainz Raat of 1964, the first Kashmiri film. 

“The first film Maanziraat was released in 1968. It was directed by Pran Kishore, featuring Omkar Aima as the hero and Krishna Wali as the heroine, with Som Nath Sadhu, Pushkar Bhan and others as the supporting cast”
~ Came across this interesting  bit in ‘A History of Kashmiri Literature’ by Trilokinath Raina. In the original credits Pran Kishore Kaul is mentioned as Assistant Director. Also the lead actress is named as ‘Mukta’. But from what I have heard, the actress as almost certainly Krishna Wali. Pandit community is so small that I have actually heard about the tough days that the woman had to face in her real life.

-0-

Posted on

Zooni, the great film that never got finished

[Cross posted on my other blog about other thoughts that inundate my mind]

Dimple Kapadia puts on makeup as she gets ready to shoot for ‘Zooni’.
A Kashmiri crowd, of mostly teenagers, looks on. 1989.

Came across this beautiful image in ‘Mary McFadden: high priestess of high fashion : a life in haute couture, décor, and design’ [ at Google Books, check it out for her story about the film that never got finished]

In a New York Times article dated 1990 [link], she is quoted saying:

‘This is like a Cecil B. de Mille production, with 1,000 people in two village to dress. There are no records of how people looked, and no miniatures like other places. I took a melange of looks from the high courts of Persia and Suleiman the Magnificent in Constantinople, so they have more of a Persian feeling. The Mogul Empire had not yet influenced Kashmir.’

For much of late 1980s, Muzaffar Ali, back then already acknowledged a master filmaker for his cinematic rendering of Urdu novel “Umrao Jan Ada” (1905) by Mirza Haadi Ruswa telling the story of a 19th century Lucknow courtesan , was busy planning his next big project, cinematic rendering of the folklore surrounding 16th century Kashmiri poet-empress Habba Khatoon, known to her people as Zooni.

This film was going to be his masterpiece, a project so ambitious in its approach to the subject, an attempt so detailed in its planned execution that it would have been absurd to call it an Indian film at all. Who had heard of a well researched Indian film?

American designer Mary McFadden did the costume designs. Art historian Stuart Cary Welch was  consulted for getting the feel of the era right. The two men behind Umrao Jaan’s musical soundtrack weaved something special for this one too: Akhlaq Mohammed Khan ‘Shahryar’ offered lyrics while Khayyam put those words to music. With his plans to shot the film on location in Kashmir, there was the need to capture the intrinsic beauty of the locale, its people and of the story on camera. The scenic beauty of Kashmir needs to be approached either with a certain restrain or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, with a feeling of Fanaa (not to be confused with that nasty ‘eye of needle meets I don’t know what’ film). Camera was handled by Basheer Ali, a new talent, a protegee of Ishan Arya, the cinematographer for M.S. Sathyu’s Garam Hawa (1975). You would have had to watch the film to know which way it went. The project had already taken some time in making. But it seemed like something worth waiting. Dimple Kapadia, was moving from her nadir of Zakhmi Aurat and on way to her zenith of Rudali. Maybe Zooni was going to be her zenith. Vinod Khanna was well past his peak and well passed his Osho days. But if he was still man enough to sell soaps, he was man enough to portray a king, he already looked the part, riding a horse in that popular soap ad, there was going to be much galloping in this film too (the age of galloping men was to end later with Khuda Gawah (1993) starring the better half of Amitabh-Vinod Khanna duo). Yes, there would have been fans and critics who would have judged their performance. There would have been verdict of the box-office. But we are getting too far. Who worries about the box-office while  the film is still being made? (Don’t answer.)

The film never got finished even as all the songs had been recorded and a lot of scenes had been shot in Kashmir.

By the end of 1990, with the situation in Kashmir going from normal to bad to worse, to at one point seeming like the end, Muzaffar Ali must have got that terrible feeling in the gut that the film may never get finished.

Maybe it would have been just another film, ‘Oji he should have retired after Umrao Jaan. What point this Zooni? These indulgent directors, I tell you.’, that kind of thing and not something that Muzaffar Ali claims would have changed the history of India. Can films change history? Or maybe it would have been special. It would have found an appreciative audience. We may never know.

And perhaps this was the last Indian film to be called a Cecil B. de Mille kind of production.

A trailer of Zooni  uploaded to youtube by Basheer Ali. In last couple of decades the world has got used to crisp images, only HD even on Rs.9000 camera. So the film was look dated now but at least the music can be digitally mastered. Song in the background ‘Rukh-e-Dildaar Deedam Daras Ko Aaye Preetam’.  I read about this song at this blog post by Shahryar’s son about his father’s failing health. I do hope at least the soundtrack of this film gets released.  But the way Zooni and Kashmir are intertwined. There is even little hope of that.

-0-

Bombay film industry had long tried to make a film of Habba Khatoon. All attempts were doomed. First attempt was by Mehboob Khan in 1960s, it was going to star Saira Banu as the queen and Kamaljeet was the king. The project was shelved after Mehboob Khan’s death in 1964. Another attempt was made in 80s by Sanjay Khan who wanted to cast Zeenat Aman as the queen. The songs for the film were recored by Naushad with Rafi. The film was never completed and the songs from the film proved to be last collaboration between Rafi and Naushad.[song]

-0-

Posted on

‘Bombur ta Yambarzal’. From Russia. With Love.1965.

The story of first Kashmiri Opera so far (previously covered here):

In 1952 Dina Nath Nadim on a visit to Peking gets to see Chinese classical opera, White Haired Girl. He is impressed with the format and believes that it could very well work for a Kashmiri story with Kashmiri folk music. 1953, only a year later, drawing inspiration from a popular Kashmiri legend about change of seasons, he comes up with Bombur ta Yambarzal (The Narcissus and the Bumble Bee). That year this opera is staged for the first time at famous Nedou’s Hotel. Acclaimed to be first of its kind in the entire country, it proves to be a roaring success among the public who can’t keep themselves from singing the songs from this original production. Quasi  propagandist context mixed with genuine folk music, a popular story that everyone knows, earnest socialist fervor triggered by promise of a new political change, another new beginning – this creation of Nadim, not yet disillusioned, offers it all. It is a significant achievement.

An achievement significant enough to draw a special audience. In 1955 the show, that has already had a few re-runs, is again put up at Nedou’s Hotel for special guest – military leader and Marshal of the Soviet Union Nikolai Bulganin who is accompanied by First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev. At the end of the show, the two political giants offer Nadim a hug each. The story was believed to be allegory on American Capitalism and Soviet Socialism.

That was the story of ‘Bombur ta Yambarzal’ this far.

Nadim was joyous that day.

Dina Nath Nadim, the artist, between the two colossus Khrushchev and Bulganin. 1955.  Found this rare photograph (by Anatoliy Garanin) at RIA Novosti website. Dina Nath Nadim stood  unidentified, unmarked, with his crew.
 [Came across this photograph thanks to Autar Mota ji]
Update: July 7 2013.  Another photograph of the event. Via: Photodivison India
[Update: July 29,2013 Details about the performers in the photograph sent in bt readers]

This great interest of Russians in a Kashmiri story wasn’t sudden. It was cultivated. In 1955, on a diplomatic goodwill mission for USSR to Kashmir, Uzbek communist leader Sharaf Rashidov, a name that in later years would be called ‘a communist despot’ and a few years later would be called ‘a true Uzbek hero’, came across Dina Nath Nadim’s modern re-telling of an inspiring old Kashmiri story. By the end of 1956 Rashidov was already out with his interpretation of the story in a novella titled ‘Kashmir Qoshighi’ ( also known as Song of Kashmir/Kashmir Song/Kashmirskaya song) acknowledging Nadim’s work.

-0-

 Much dwelling, much seeing, much tasted from pleasure and burning the teacher has asked the schoolboys,whose young eyes were alert, and mind just spriad it’s wings for a long-distance flight:


– Where the wisdom of people originates?


– In experience, – one has answered.


– In thought, – another has answered.


– In connection of experience and thought, – third has answered.


And again, having thought, the teacher told:


– The experience of the man dies together with the man, the mind of the man dies together with the man. For the tam of ours is short! The wisdom of the people originates in memory of the people. It is – ocean, from which the mining flows and springs becoming on the way the rivers are born. Memory is the consequent of wisdom and it is the reason of it. But where the memory lives and what gives it force to pass, enriched, from century to century, from past times to times of future?


It is a figure on a wall and a picture on a canvas.


It is a line on an stone and book.


It is a fairy tale, tradition and legend.


It is a song and music.


In them memory of people, which widening the beaches, flows from breed to breed, in them is wisdom of people, which as all the inflaming plume, is transmitted from breed to breed

~ lines from Rashidov’s Song of Kashmir (via this interesting Russian article)

-0-
By the start of 1960, the dream was already over for Nadim and many of his friends. The poets were coming to term with new realities, promises broken and perhaps their own role in the events of past. Making a departure from his earlier ‘progressive’ style, in his 1959 poem Gassa Tul (Blade of Grass) Nadim wrote*:

This blade of grass
Like me
Soft silk when sap was there
Bowed to the sun and waved with the wind.
In winter nights its roots were lost.
Robbed of its sap, it stood erect,
Dried up, stiffened with false pride,
Changed in kind, having outlived its day.
Blow on it, it crumbles;
Step on it, it is dust;
Show it a flame and
Ashes is all.

-0-
1965 was the year of second Kashmir war between India and Pakistan. It was also the year when USSR’s famous Soyuzmultfilm studio produced an animated film called Наргис. Soyuzmultfilm excelled at producing animated fairy tales and other popular stories targeted at children, but for Наргис the story came from Rashidov’s Song of Kashmir. Interesting the film retained the original Kashmiri names of all the characters sketched originally by Dina Nath Nadim, all the names except Yambarzal who is given the popular name Nargis, the name of this film.

This film tells the story of flower Nargis awaiting the arrival of Bombur who is no where to be found even as winter is over. Nargis roams around and calls out for him. An evil witch (Wav or storm in Kashmiri version) transforms her master Harud (Autumn) into Bombur but Nargis sees through the ploy, in his rage Harud kills Nargis. Nature God intervenes and chases away Harud who is finally revived by tears of wailing Bombur.A happy ending like the one in Nadim’s version and unlike the original Kashmiri story in which Bombur turns blind and spend his life looking for Yambarzal moving from flower to flower.

Nargis
Bombur
Wav
Harud

With the birth of Doordarshan, by mid-1970s, animated films from Russia made appearance on Indian television science, they would keep up such appearances for decades to come even after the fall of USSR and Soyuzmultfilm getting devoured  in capitalist market.

In his early 1970s poem Hisaab Fahmee (Know the Science of Number) about a man whose account balance has gone haywire, Nadim laments*:

It never became four,
At last I saw only a cypher,
One round zero,
Now shrinking, now swelling again,
Like breathing in and out.

-0-
* translated by T.N. Raina

Posted on

Yashodhara Katju – First Kashmiri Actress

In 1941 when Pandit Nehru’s young niece decided to join the film industry not only did Yashodhara Katju become the first Kashmiri heroine of silver screen but perhaps one of the first woman from a good family to set foot in the not so good film industry – an event that was certainly newsworthy.

Film India, August 1941.
From FilmIndia Magazine collection generously shared with me by Indian film enthusiast Memsaab who runs one of the best blogs on Indian Cinema.

Text from the news-piece:

Well-known Society Girl Joins Indian Films

Miss Katju, niece of Pandit Nehru Comes to National Studios

Fourteen year-old Yashodhara Katju comes from a famous family of Kashmir Brahmins who have settled in the United Provinces for generations.

Well connected by ties of blood and friendship with some of the leading families of U.P. Yashodhara is at present studying in the Senior Cambridge class and in addition happens to be an accomplished dancer, having taken an extensive training under some of the best dancers in the country. She is reported to be a fine exponent of the Manipuri and Kathakali schools of dancing.

Her first screen role is likely to be in “Roti” a social picture directed by Mr. Mehboob for the National Studio.

Yashodhara Katju. Film India, August 1943

-0-
Interestingly, right next to that news-piece was an ad for Afghan Snow cream. One of the biggest name in beauty creams in India right until the 1970s.