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 Hum
kothon se flimon mein aaye aur yahan izzat payee/
Aur ye sharizadiyan izzatdar gharon se filmon mein aayeen/
aur yahan kothe bana deeye!'
(We came from kothas to films and earned respectability,
but these girls came from respectable homes to films
and made their kothas here!).
A heroine of yester-years, obviously a daughter of a
kothewalli, once recited the above couplet
in front of me.
Yes, some girls did come from the houses of kothewallis.
Nargis for instance was the daughter of Jaddanbai. And
everyone knew it. She faced a lot of humiliation for
quite some time. Once, at a family function at the R.K.
Studios. Raj Kapoor's wife Krishna and mother--aware
of her involvement with Raj – snubbed her by ignoring
her. After torturing-her-thus, Raj's mother remarked.
“Nargis, the cleft between your teeth is increasing
day by day!” Nargis had a gap between her teeth
which they used to fill with wax for the shoots. Nargis
just laughed wryly. Krishna commented, “When Nargis
laughs she looks like the harlot of Anhonee!”
But this 'harlot' was to be nominated to Rajya Sabha
by no less a person than Mrs Indira Gandhi!
If the RK films brought glamour and fame to Nargis
with the films like Aag, Aah and Shri
420, Mehboob Khan's Mother India brought her the
respectability as an actress. Sunil Dutt who played
one of her two sons, the other being Rajinder Kumar,
rescued her from a fire on the sets of this film, Nargis
had already walked out of Kapoor's life since he wasn't
willing to accept her publicity.
When Dutt married her, industry thought this to be
an attempt of a B-grade star to climb on the bandwagon
of a more successful Nargis. But he had other plans.
Nargis retired from films and got seriously into social
work and politics.
Her work among spastics and home group Ajanta Arts'
shows for the jawans during the Indo-China
war, brought respectability to Dutts, which also got
Sunil Dutt repeatedly elected to Parliament.
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