|
Magazine
Exercise in nostalgia
ZIYA US SALAM
|
Kishwar Desai’s book is dispassionate without being insensitive.
|
Barely has the ink dried on Mr. and Mrs. Sunil Dutt, wistfully brought together by their daughters, Namrata and Priya Dutt, than we have Kishwar Desai — yes, the better half of Lord Meghnad Desai — penning a biography o
f the arguably the first couple of Hindi cinema. And in a country where hagiographies pass off for biographies, she has been bold, at times, disconcertingly so, to write a book that is dispassionate without being insensitive.
Focussed approach
At times she is razor-sharp, like a smart journalist knowing the deadline and the impact of her words: well, she has been with our electronic media earlier. At others, she is a fine accumulator. Always, she shuns headline-making stuff, no fascination with sensation, just a tidiness of thought complemented by an honesty of implementation. The result? A book that does nobody any disfavours. No pontification, no wistful ‘if only’ sighs, just a focussed approach that, however, does not prelude asking uncomfortable questions: Nargis’s Raj Kapoor alliance, her brothers’ insecurities, Sunil Dutt’s fears when she got the Padma Shri. And Dutt Junior’s drug dalliance. Not to ignore the TADA case ,,. All this comes with a comforting dash of the predictable: how the marriage lasted, Nargis’s nomination to the Rajya Sabha, Sanjay Dutt’s launch with “Rocky”. The family is allowed a touch of sorrow with Nargis’ illness given elaborate space, and Sunil Dutt’s passing away handled with the dignity that comes only to the tender-hearted.
Kishwar, once an editor with Roli Books, does not duck or distance issues. She deliberately avoids having a go at the Dutts. Instead, she nudges, indulges in a little prodding, and comes up with a book that offers fresh insight into the world of one of the greatest actresses of Hindi cinema, and her husband, who had his own ghosts to exorcise before marrying a lady much more successful, much more feted.
Talking of Nargis’s death with long reproductions from the diaries of the children, she says, “The children never got a chance to cuddle up with their mother, as Priya wanted to do desperately, because as soon as word of death got out, thousands of people descended upon them, first at Breach Candy, and then at the house…There was public hysteria over her death.”
No pictures
The book does not have many pictures: hardly of any of the premieres, none of any D-days, not even getting the National Award. That has been taken care of by the Dutt siblings in their book. Kishwar confines herself to some lesser-known photographs besides two touching ones of the last journey of the husband and wife, Nargis’s in black and white, Sunil’s in tricolour. It is moments like these which show Kishwar to be a writer with a head and heart in the right place.
Much like the book. If the pictorial essay was an exercise in nostalgia, this is an appraisal that projects both the subjects and the author in fine light.
Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt; Kishwar Desai, Harper Collins, Rs.395
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
|
