Manoj Kumar (1937 – 2025)

Some film personalities go beyond what they actually did, like Manoj Kumar. He was an actor. He was a producer. He was a director. But beyond all this, he made mainstream cinema (I like to make a difference between “mainstream cinema” and “commercial cinema”) that spoke to people. He made himself a part of the zeitgeist. Upkar (whose ‘Mere desh ki dharti‘ was a Chitrahaar staple) had its roots in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s slogan: Jai jawan, jai kisan. It was about war, it was about food. Purab Aur Paschim was about Indians needing to feel proud about being Indian. (I love the irony that this film was released a year before Hare Rama Hare Krishna, which shot Zeenat Aman into the spotlight and changed the “Indian heroine” forever.) Roti Kapda Aur Makaan was about corruption and the scarcity of bare necessities. And so on.

None of these are perfect films, and they are sometimes simplistic — but they stood for something. They stood for the idea that you could make a movie about a society for a society. Of course, this was long before home viewing, when films had glorious runs in theatre halls because that was the only way to watch them. But something resonated with the people. In films like Roti Kapda Aur Makaan, Manoj Kumar took the themes that were seen in the parallel cinema of the 1970s and made them palatable to masses who wanted a “good movie” (the hero burns his degree certificate in his father’s funeral pyre) as well as a wet-sari dance. Speaking of the latter, there’s also the lyrics. The heroine wants the hero to join her in the rain, but he has a job interview. She sings: “Tere do takiya ki naukri mein mera laakhon ka saawan jaaye.” Waah. It’s not just the contrast between “do takiya” and “laakhon“. Her dismissal of his “need” in favour of pure pleasure would reflect in her ditching him for a rich man, worth… “laakhon“.

If you look beyond the jingoism, you’ll find a touching “I believe in India” heart in Manoj Kumar’s cinema. If Raj Kapoor celebrated Nehruvian socialism, Manoj Kumar questioned what it had come to — though with fingers crossed. That’s not a bad legacy to leave behind.