Beauty who played vamp
V. GANGADHAR
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She started off as heroine but destiny had other plans for Nadira.
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Young Nadira in Aan.
Even in death, Nadira did not get the attention she deserved. The media paid more attention to the suicide of a young TV actress and model. But the 74-year old would not have minded, she cared more for human company than publicity. Nadiralived with her maid in a huge Peddar Road flat.
From Nazneen Begum in the 1930s who died on the streets of Mahim, a Mumbai suburb, the history of Bollywood is littered with sad stories of stars who died uncared for and unloved.
This was the fate of Vimi, dancer Cuckoo, Bharat Bhushan, Master Nissar and more recently Parveen Babi.
Nadira (real name Farhal Ezekil), a Maharashtrian Jew, had more reason to feel this neglect because in her prime she was a star. This regal beauty had done nearly 150 films and TV serials too.
On a rainy day in 1949, Nadira had taken shelter from a thundershower, when the wife of producer Mehboob Khan spotted her. Nadira had just passed her SSC at that time. And Khan was looking for a new face to play the heroine opposite Dilip Kumar in his Technicolor film, "Aan."
After overruling parental objections, Mrs Mehboob Khan groomed her for stardom. She taught Nadira to dress, walk, dance, drive and ride.
Hired at a princely salary of Rs 1,200 a month, Nadira enjoyed the critical acclaim for "Aan," which was a box office hit. She had to wait for some years for similar acclaim, which came with Raj Kapoor's "Shree 420." The great showman persuaded her to accept the vamp's role for this film. With cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other, she played Maya who tries to lead the hero astray and away from his real love, Vidya (Nargis).
Great impact
The part made such an impact that Nadira was flooded with similar roles. Her career as a heroine was forgotten. But she did full justice to her roles in "Dil Apna aur Preet Parai," "Amar, Akbar Anthony," "Pakheeza" and "Julie." Her last film was Shah Rukh Khan's "Josh."
Nadira's parents divorced when she was four. Later her mother's second husband deserted them. With difficulty the mother brought up her two children and somehow found money for their education.
Nadira saw only two movies during her school days, "Laila Majnu" and "Mirza Sahiba." She was a minor when the shooting for "Aan" began. On working with Dilip Kumar, Nadira said, "He was a strange man. For the first five or six days, he was quite friendly but suddenly called me a `despicable character.' I thought he was praising me till I looked up the dictionary... Our rapport ended then and there."
On Mehboob Khan's direction, "Thinking back, I feel it was a bit amateurish. As an arrogant princess, I had to look haughty and Mehboob Saab said this effect could be achieved by my raising my eyebrows all the time. By the time the shooting ended, I felt that my eyeballs would come out!"
"Twice, and both times unlucky," confessed Nadira about her marriage.
On why she continued to do vamp roles, she said, "After the success of `Shree 420,' producers queued up with offers for similar roles. I was recovering from the emotional shock of my second marriage and there was no one to advise me."
"I had lots of friends and admirers," she recalled, "but was afraid to take the final step."
For years, she looked after her sick parents, who despite being divorced, lived with her.
With no good scripts coming her way, Nadira found a new challenge in the TV medium where she played several major character roles.
Strangely enough, she admired Richard Nixon. "Watergate or no Watergate, he was the greatest president of the US," she declared. I left without arguing the point!
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