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Daera
Director: Kamal Starring: Janki Das, Kammo, Kumar, Meena Kumari, Nasir Khan, Roopmala
Music Director: Jamalsen
Singers: Talat Mohamed
The droop of her kiss curl, the anguish-laden voice never more than a sob
from abject despair, the unblemished beauty made Meena Kumari the ultimate
tragedy queen in Indian Cinema. This is an image to which she remained shackled
for the rest of her life - the lonely sorrowful woman whose desires remain
unfulfilled in a cruel world.
She was born Mahjabeen Ali Bux, daughter of the Parsee theatre actor and music
teacher Ali Bux and the dancer Iqbal Begum. Having hit upon hard times and
living near Rooptara Studios, Ali Bux sought to get his daughters into films.
Mahjabeen was renamed Baby Meena and cast in Vijay Bhatt's Leatherface (1939).
Her early adult work consisted of mainly mythologicals like Veer Ghatotkach
(1949), Shri Ganesh Mahima (1950) and fantasies like Alladin and The Wonderful
Lamp (1952). She hit the big time with Vijay Bhatt's Baiju Bawra (1952).
With Baiju Bawra, the suffering Indian Woman found a new face in Meena Kumari.
The heroine in the film is ever ready to negate herself for the material and
spiritual advancement of the man she loves and is even willing to annihilate
herself to provide him the experience of pain so that his music would be
enriched! It was a strong performance and fetched her the inaugural Filmfare
Award for Best Actress.
She became Film Director Kamal Amrohi's second wife and with Daera (1953), Ek Hi
Rasta (1956), Sharda (1957) and Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi (1960), Meena went
from strength to strength playing the suffering woman, the martyr to perfection.
In Daera, her barren life and subsequent disintegration underscores the Indian
Woman's lack of selfhood and remains one of the great moments of screen acting.
In Sharda she gave a tour de force performance as Raj Kapoor's lover who becomes
his stepmother. Unfortunately coming in the same year as Mother India, Nargis
swept all the awards but the Bombay Film Journalists Association named Meena as
their best actress of the year for Sharda.
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