{"id":1373,"date":"2014-03-31T09:14:22","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T09:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2024-03-31T20:45:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T15:15:22","slug":"meena-kumari-timeless-beauty-legendary-actress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/meena-kumari-timeless-beauty-legendary-actress\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legend That Was Meena Kumari"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Meena<\/p>\n

\"Meena

Mahajabeen Bano who grew up to be Meena Kumari (Pic: Google Image Search)<\/p><\/div>\n

When we talk of\u00a0Meena Kumari \u2013 the legendary actress, the films that come to mind immediately are\u00a0Pakeezah\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam<\/em>. Reason? Perhaps no other actress would have been able to do justice to those hugely challenging roles, where she had to break herself down in pain, anguish and melancholia to come up with such true to life performances.<\/p>\n

Widely acclaimed for her heart-touching performances in tragic and grief-stricken roles, Meena Kumari earned herself the epithet of\u00a0\u201cTragedy Queen\u201d.\u00a0She lived a short life (she\u00a0died\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>March 31, 1972 before she could cross 40) but left behind a repertoire of inimitable performances\u00a0in roles that were often tailor-made for her.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Meena Kumari was born as Mahjabeen Bano to Ali Baksh and Iqbal Begum on 1st August 1932. While her father was an actor in Parsi theater, her mother was a stage actress before marriage and was related to the renowned Tagore family in Bengal.<\/p>\n

Her acting career started as a child artiste at\u00a0the tender age of six\u00a0in the film Leatherface<\/em> in 1939.\u00a0\u00a0Writes Nikhil E Iyer in his article Meena Kumari, The Music Maestro<\/a>, “She started her career playing the role of a child actress in few movies like Nai Roshni, Leatherface, Pooja<\/em> and few others. She worked in many more movies playing the role of a child actress\u00a0 like Garib, Pratigya<\/em> and Lal Haveli.<\/em> She achieved a big break in Duniya Ek Sarai<\/em> (1947). There was another movie Bahen<\/em> which released in 1941. In this movie, merely at the age of 8 yrs, she sang a beautiful song with Beena Kumari Tora kajra lagoon mori rani<\/em>. In this song, Meena Kumari is looking very cute and this song was the initial break which she got for her bright life ahead.”<\/p>\n

Just look at the innocent happiness of the charming Mahajabeen Bano in this song from the Nalini Jaywant-Sheikh Mukhtar starrer 1941 movie Bahen (Farzad-e-Watan)<\/em>. This was the first recorded song of Meena Kumari who went on to act in 93 films. Music was by Anil Biswas and lyrics by Safdar Aah Sitapuri. A junior edition of the impish Lolita in Parineeta<\/em> with those unmistakable eyes and smile \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Tora kajra lagoon mori rani (Bahen, <\/em><\/strong>1941)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n