Umrao
Jaan
"A
film is injected into the human bloodstream, images become emotions, emotions
become nostalgia, my next feature has to be a deeper emotional experience."
"The blend of innocence and beauty, helplessness and sensuality, spiritualism
and reality, literature and times, craft and irony of fate, nostalgia and
heartbreak; it was a blend of several opposites; complex in the medley of
cinematic montage, yet a simple distilled emotion of an innocent helpless
girl in a callous world Umrao."
The film was based on a classic novel by Mirza Mohhamad Hadi Ruswa written
in Lucknow in the late 19th century about a mid nineteenth century courtesan
when Awadh culture was at its height. Ironically, this was also the moment
of its disintegration.(Img8)
Interwoven into the colourful tapestry of the light and shade of the refined
decadence of the period, is the life of a woman who, while being the victim
of the most circumstances, emerges as a mature, highly cultured human being,
an accomplished poetess in her own right.
Umrao is a young girl who is abducted from her simple and happy home in Faizabad
and sold to a ‘tawaif’ (courtesan) of Lucknow, Khanum Saheb.
(Img
9)She is then trained in music, dance and letters and takes
the city by storm with her poetry and singing. Umrao has a wide range of experiences:
her first love affair with the sensitive Nawab Sultan, her escapades with
Faiz Ali, a notorious dacoit, her attempts to free herself from her bondage
in Lucknow and many more. And it is through her poetry that these experiences
are transcended and translated into an expression of beauty and heartbreak.
It got its poignancy from the tender but strong emotion of a helpless young
girl belonging to a respectable family of Faizabad, abducted out of personal
animosity and sold to a courtesan in Lucknow. The story was a graphic account
of happenings, nuances of a milieu of a culture which has reached its zenith,
character sketches of people representing a wide range of the classes in a
society of that era and how they behaved true to their type and irony of fate
and emotions that touched the heart.(Img
10)
Awadh and Lucknow in particular had reached its pinnacle in cultural refinement
and the tentacles of the East India Company could not afford to allow its
further evolution which meant that an integrated society would become difficult
to rule. The story therefore is set in a time when we witness this transition
through the effect of the mutiny on the common person. Within the framework
of all this, a film had to evolve which would capture the essence of the story
and create something very individualistic and different.
(Img11)
This became a four-pronged approach. Firstly the evolution and development of the character of Umrao
and the creative artist in a woman; secondly, the recreation of the ambience;
thirdly the dialectics of history; and fourthly, create a cinematic statement
that would enter the blood stream of the viewer.
Umrao Jaan could have been felt and made only at that time.
Umrao Jaan received several awards at the 29th National Film Festival including
Best Music, Best Actress, and Best Female Playback Singer. Umrao Jaan also
received the Bengal Film Journalist Association Awards for Direction, Music
and Actress.
Umrao Jaan also received the Sur Samsad Award for Best Producer and Best
Director. Along with this it received the prestigious Filmfare Award for
Best Director and Music. It represented India at almost all Festivals of
India, abroad. It was India’s official entry in the Tashkent, Japan and
Manila Film Festivals. It was also awarded the Golden Disc for music sale
by HMV.
Umrao Jaan heralded a movement in ghazal appreciation with lyrics by Shahryar
and music by Khayyam. Rekha too appeared like never before and never again.(Img12)
Muzaffar Ali enriched by the emotional harvest of the response of Gaman
and Umrao Jaan has conserved himself from being consumed by Bollywood genre
of filmmaking, and is now a symbol of aesthetics and humanity.
