I first saw Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan as a child
and still remember being taken in by the film’s story and the performances of
the lead actors. When I could understand the film better, I saw it again and
again and again. To date, it has remained one of my favourite films with some
of the best dialogues, scenes, music and, of course, https://lyrics.The film’s
strength, I believe, was its narration
Based on a classic Urdu novel’Umrao Jaan Ada’ by Mirza Ruswa, Umrao Jaan
tells the story of a courtesan set in Lucknow of the early 19th century.Young
girl Ameeran is kidnapped who is sold to a kothewali for a paltry sum She is
bought by khanum a brothel incharge.She changes ameeran’s name to umrao
jaan.Umrao jaan(rekha)grows up into a talented singer, dancer and a poet
Umrao jaan meets nawab sultan and falls in love with him, but her dreams are dashed. She seeks solace in the arms of a bandit, who later gets killed.She is forced to move back to lucknow and she is again struck in the brothel.Life comes a full circle for umrao.When she is called to entertain some Lucknowi nawabs, she finds the place to be
familiar. And realizes the just next door is her home where she had been born
and brought.Eager and enthusiastic to meet her family members especially her
younger brother whom she was attached to, she steps into the house, hoping to
have a joyful reunion with them. But sadly her hopes shatter when her brother
asks her to leave saying that she was now a courtesan and courtesan’s did not
step into the homes of people with families. She goes away from there
disillusioned.
The tragic story of Ameeran, kidnapped and sold in a `kotha’, her
failed love life and the sad and lonely life she has to reconcile with in the
film’s end, was beautifully told. The grandeur in the film was subdued, didn’t
shroud the story or the characters.There isn’t, according to me, even the
slightest flaw in the film’s gripping direction. It takes the viewer to a
different era when girl children were randomly picked, sold and later disowned
by their own parents/family. The most heart rending scenes being that of a
teenager Ameeran being kidnapped even as she played with her kid brother and
that of her returning home and her brother declaring to her that she did not
exist for them. The best and biggest tear-jerker scene, of course, is when
Umrao returns to the kotha she had left and removes the dust from the mirror in
her room.
Rekha as umrao jaan was a revelation, farooque shaikh did full justice to his role
While all the songs from this film were hits, my all-time favourites have been
yeh kya jagah hai which she sings while performing in Faizabad where
she was kidnapped from as a child. The best lines that speak of her plight in
this song, that has haunted me to date, are `tamam umra ka hisaab maangti hai zindagi. yeh mera
dil kahe to kya .yeh khud pe sharmsaar hai’ and… `mere liye bhi kya koi udaas
bekarar hai’.Yet another melody is In
aankhon ki masti ke