In the 1950s and ’60s they just brushed past us. Even today, they evoke distinct images of romance. Muslim socials in Bombay cinema were like a gentle breeze of spring: magnificent havelis, scintillating fountains, men in sherwanis, women decked in ornate jewellery, music and poetry flowing like honey with umpteen shers and shayris belted out as repartees at every turn, the energising qawwalis; the gentle gesture of the palm being lifted to the forehead as the characters uttered Aadab in salutation and every couplet being appreciated with a Subhan Allah. Along with it flourished Urdu, the knowledge of which was a perquisite to excel in most of the major fields of filmmaking.
The dominance of Urdu has a lot to do with the origins of the film industry in Bombay. There were roughly two major influences the first influence was from Bengal. Movies made under The New Theatre seemed more like Bengali movies with Hindi dialogues. The second and the one with a long-lasting influence was of the Parsi theatre. The likes of Ardeshir Irani, Sohrab Modi and Prithviraj Kapoor brought the traditions of theatre into cinema.
It is noteworthy that the first Indian talkie, Alam Ara, was a Muslim social with completely Urdu dialogues. Later, Sohrab Modi’s Pukar (1939) laid the foundation of a Parsi-theatre based historical in Hindi cinema. The influence of Parsi theatre went beyond the use of Urdu. The song-and-dance formula owes its popularity to the Parsi theatre to a great extent. When the Bombay film industry grew, Urdu, by default, became the language of cinema. The sophisticated diction and intonation that came with Urdu lent the dialogues a class that was difficult to reproduce in other dialects.
Urdu also had an impact on the direction, songs and dialogues that came with any story what the scholars called as the Islamiyat of cinema. Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa or Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam carried the air of a Muslim social, which spread across movies in that era.
The ’50s and ’60s saw the growth of Muslim socials with the likes of Anarkali, Barsaat ki Raat and Chaudhvin ka Chand. The genre peaked with K Asif’s magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam (1960). Close to its heels came Mere Mehboob. For the first time, a Muslim social was celebrated for three hours in full-blown Technicolor.
But the decadence had set in. The trends were changing. The writers, directors and the above all, the dynamics of society were changing. Unemployment and poverty were no more seen through the lens of idealism, for which Urdu poetry seemed best. The
angry young man had set foot and the language of the street took over. This change is exemplified by Kamal Amrohi’s masterpiece Pakeezah (1972), the last pitch of a connoisseur of Awadh to hold on its glory of yore.
The movie, probably set in pre-Independent India, personified the vanishing culture through the character of Meena Kumari. Mehboob ki Mehendi by H S Rawail, whose Mere Mehboob set cash registers ringing, turned out to be a damp squib. M S Sathyu’s Garam Hawa (1973) shattered all romantic notions of the contemporary Islamic society, forcing filmmakers to come out of the dream world. Muzzafar Ali’s Umrao Jaan came for a change in 1983.
But the genre was dead, as was visible with the disastrous performance of Razia Sultan. Muslim socials had finally sloughed away into obscurity and by the ’90s, Urdu was a matter of past. It became impossible to continue to portray something that was no longer there. Globalisation made new amendments in the use of language. Urdu had ceased to become amenable, and petered away. Also, the problems post-1980s that came up in the Muslim society changed the portrayal of its characters in cinema.
But it would be inappropriate to ascribe the use of Urdu entirely to Muslim socials. The major reason why Urdu virtually became the lingua franca of the Bombay film industry was the heavy presence of artists and writers of the Progressive Movement.
The left leaning writers, like K A Abbas, Zia Sarhadi, Rajender Singh Bedi, Abrar Alvi, Kaifi Azmi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Jan Nisar Akhtar, wrote predominantly in Urdu, making it the medium of expression even in dramas with Hindu characters. The foray of artists from IPTA (Indian People Theatre Association) made Urdu the language of the performing artistes. This was a perfect example of the secular ethos of cinema.
In the ’70s, their role began to wane with the entry of a new breed of writers, who were unfamiliar with the language. Urdu slowly slid into the horizons of incomprehension. The sole success in recent times was Jodha Akbar. Shyam Benegal’s Sardari Begum and Sudhir Mishra’s Khoya Khoya Chand were lamentations of a splendid past.
Mahatma Gandhi advocated the use of Hindustani — a blend of Hindi and Urdu. But the wounds of partition made certain irreversible changes. Hindi was perceived as a language of the Hindus and Urdu, with its Persian script was labelled a Muslim language. Scholars opine that had the Progressive writers taken to the Devanagiri script instead of the Persian, perhaps Urdu would have survived the ravages of politics, bias and ignorance. Making changes to the
refined forms of both languages, they have blended to become what Gandhi called Hindustani. Today, when one walks through Daryaganj in Old Delhi, famous for its Urdu books, one can gauge the dwindling popularity of the language.
The on-screen change reflects the changes that have taken place in the realms of politics, culture and academics. When NRI romances and peppy love stories rule the roost, it’s better to say Keh do na You’re my Sonia rather than come out with the silken tresses of Chaudvin ka Chand.
Urdu is now relegated to theatre and the pages of literature. It is a loss, not just of some songs or dialogues, but also of an entire culture. As for cinema, the famed havelis, shervanis, shers and shayris represent a bygone era an era gone with the wind.
Loss of melody
Hindustani film music, over 60 years ago, was dominated by composers and lyricists who wrote in Urdu. Composers like Ustad Jhande Khan, Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan Bareillywale, Master Ghulam Haider, Master Innayat Hussain, Khursheed Anwar and Saleem Iqbal rubbed shoulders with the likes of Raichand Boral, Pankaj Mullick, Timir Baran, Khemchand Prakash, Pandit Govind Ram, Gyaan Dutt and Master Krishna Rao.
A film song then was raga-based and also drew from folk melodies. Among the singers, K L Saigal had the most moving voice. The emerging queen was a classically trained teenager called Noor Jehan. Lata Mangeshkar’s phenomenal run was to begin a couple of years later.
Would Urdu’s unimpeded progress in an undivided India have furthered the cause of film music in Bombay, Lahore and Calcutta, the three centres where Hindustani films were being made, in addition to Pune? The quality of lyrics would certainly have been better simply because of Urdu’s immense malleability.
The work of lyricists like ‘Majrooh’ Sultanpuri, ‘Sahir’ Ludhianvi, ‘Kaifi’ Azmi and Rajinder Krishan in the post-Partition era points to a further fecundity of ideas if history had been kinder. Although Hindi film music in the 1950s and ’60s had become a legitimate art form, one has a sneaking feeling that pure melody would have survived relatively unscathed into our times, as it evidently has not.
As for Hindustani classical, it’s the Pakistani ustads who lost more. That’s another story.
-Agencies