MEENA KUMARI
THE QUEEN OF TREGEDY
Meena kumari traditionally known fr perfecting the role of the tragedienne in films,in actually the embodiment of the woman as essence rather than flesh .in a career spanning three decades ,she chiselled the contours of two role models and created some kind of the woman as wife and the woman as mother.
The first role she almost perfected ws in the guru dutt classic sahib bibi aur ghulam
(1962) as the protagonist , chhoti bahu. fighting fr her rights in the 19th century feudal milieu of bengal,chhoti bahu ws the epitome of the partivrata nari(devoted wife).she may have been viewed as an iconoclast by her family members, bt her iconoclasm too ws born out of desire to be the perfact spouse.
Nothing more and nothing less. languishing in her boudoir while her husband chhote babu(rehman),an autocratic,purely hedonistic zamindar followed the dictates of his manhood in distant brother , chhoti bahu plotand achemes to bring the prodigal back to her .she rebels against social and religious and injuctions, resorts to alcohol, dances and desperately tries to seduce her husband, so tht he might remain faithful. bt all along her profligate ways--- drinking and aggressively seducing ---- were condemned by her own conscience. Even as she let down her hair and lifted the cup of liquor to her lips, she bemoaned the fact tht she ws breaking the behavioural code prescribed fr good hindu wives. yet the fact tht these transgressions were peramount in any woman's life---- a good wifes's dharama deified her further. here ws a neglected woman who in the sober 1960's ws throwing herself at a man's feet in a drunkrn stupor, aggressively demanding satiation. bt the fact tht this act ws depicted as a glorious sacrifice (chhoti bahu ws sacrificing her religious virtuosity) nt only sanctified it, also created a prototype fr the sixties savitri (a typically faithful wife) fr her husband's well being, this celluloid savitri could even compromise her religious sanctimony for the observance of a greater duty. tht of the woman as wife.
in dushman, her propriety sets straight the men (rajesh khanna) who murderd her husband. khanna , an alcholic, awomaniser and a truck driver is forced to stay with the window and her family as punishment meted out by the courts. the sentence comes as a godsend. fr the widow's virtuousness and unwavering propriety cures him, nt only of his profligate ways, bt it clieanses his soul too.
in gulzar 's mere apne the mother -figure weaves her cleansing magic, nt on an individuals , bt on groups of individuals .the old woman and her talisman of goodness makes her an oasis of peace in the midst of a city torn apart by gang warfare. whn everything fails to cure the anarchic hoodlums of their overriding lust to kill,plunder and loot it is the mother figure wo manages to purge the city and the humans of their evil.
Reverence then ws the only virtue permissible to Meena Kumari's celluloid image .
for meena kumari represented a rarefied concept of traditional womanhood tht ws divested of all its physical antecedents .if beauty , nt sensuality , ws the defining characteristic of her physicality , then pain nt purity ws th keynote of the metaphore for melancholia , whr suffering and self -secrifice became more pleasurable than satition and self-appeasement .
it wsn't incidental tht meena kumari perfacted the role of the virinal nautch-girl in kamal amrohi's pakeezah. fr it ws only meena wd her metaphorical sancity and overriding penchant fr tragedy who could infuse body and saul into cinema's biggest oxymorn.
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