Moon Moon Sen On Suchitra Sen: “She was so loved by everyone….She was my entire universe.Beautiful memories seem so painful at the moment.I think everyone’s mom is very special. But she was special to not just me but all of Bengal , and beyond.I can’t think straight right now…But yes, I’ll tell you whatever I remember right now…What was she like? She was very undemanding as a person. She was the closest to me. But she knew I had my life to lead and came to terms with that.She liked being alone.But it’s not that she didn’t like meeting people.She liked meeting interesting people. As a child I remember her always working. I was put in boarding school in Darjeeling and then in England. It was a big joy and privilege for me to come back home for every holiday…thrice a year to spend time with her.Every time I was home I realized how special she was. When I left to go back to boarding school in Darjeeling and later in Surrey she’d cry more than I did. I was very spoilt and pampered.Later when I was studying in Kolkata even when she was at work she would ring up twice a day to find out about me, my meals etc…As I grew older I realized how special she was. During my vacations she’d bring me down from boarding school in England to any part of India.I remember my father driving me to the Taj hotel from the airport in Mumbai when she was in the city shooting for Aandhi.I had to be content with those three annual visits.After school during college I lived with her in Kolkata.We were very very close.When I got married(quite late) and moved out, it must have been very difficult for her .I looked after her when I was there. My going away must have been very hard for her. But she never expressed her anguish.I have a very kind husband. Every morning I went to see my mother and my husband never minded.My husband has always given me a lot of space…. My mother not only dealt with the film industry on her own terms and also look after the home and me. She did everything that a man and a woman combined could do in a family. She was both father and mother to me.We slept in the same room,ate together and did everything together. I remember I’d be doing my studies and she would be in the next room just back from her shooting relaxing sipping tea and keeping an eye on me. I knew she was always there for me…I can feel her presence now too.When I was not in boarding school she would make sure she was home when I needed her, although she wouldn’t pick me up or drop me to school.She didn’t have time for that.We had a nanny for all that. Sometimes she would come to school to pick me up. People would not accost her. They respected her privacy all her life in Kolkata. When did I realize she was an iconic star?As a child I knew her as my mother at home and as the actress in the studio.She started the star-system in Bengal. No one had an aura like hers.But our most fun times were when I was in boarding school in England. Both my parents would come to pick me up and we would drive to Scotland and other destinations. There was no question of her privacy being violated during those precious family holidays in and around England. Even in India everyone respected her need for privacy. But it’s a myth that she didn’t meet people. She met everyone she had to and was extremely polite and easy-going in her social interaction. Of course she had a fierce temper which my daughters and I have inherited. She was very choosy about her friends and a stickler for punctuality. If anything didn’t go well while shooting my mother would be extremely upset and would make no effort to hide it.That’s because she was very particular about the quality of her work. One reason why she quit acting in the 1970s was the kitschy mediocrity that overtook Bengali cinema in the 1970s and 80s.Many of the directors she knew well and felt comfortable working with , passed away.The scripts that were offered to her were awful.Uttam Kumar passed away and she’d say, ‘Whom am I going to work with?’ Once she left acting she left it behind completely. When I started acting she would hardly ask about the film industry except maybe an odd question about how GulzarSaab was doing. She was extremely fond of him. Otherwise she was totally out of cinema both Bengali and Hindi. She let her stardom go quite easily. But stardom never let go of her. I remember I was on a flight with Andhra Pradesh’s eminent producer D Rama Naidu. He said to me, ‘Tell your mother I’ve a blank cheque waiting for your mother whenever she decides to work with me.’ And Salim Khan Saab told me she refused Yash Chopra’s Deewaar.After she opted out they changed the whole script.From Ma and Sons it became just sons. …I think she missed the company of like-minded people.She had me and her aunts , sisters , nieces and very few friends. Initially my mom had 9 sister. Now it’s just 4 who are alive.They were here after mom’s passing away….Why am I do different from my mother? I don’t know! That’s just the way it is. I am more outgoing. But let me tell you, when she was working anyone could approach her.She was there to help quietly. She looked after her makeup man’s schooling. She looked out for her entire staff, visited their homes if they were indisposed. Her charitable work was not tom-tommed. She was a very generous soul.She had a great deal of self-respect mixed with a whole lot of humility. But she never allowed outsiders to come close to her. One thing she always taught me was to hold my head high. She taught me so many values that I find so credible now.She followed them herself. When we are younger we want to find out everything on our own.As we grow older we realize our parents were right. She never put any restriction on the way I dressed or behaved. When I joined the Hindi film industry many people smirked about Suchitra Sen’s daughter wearing a bathing costume. But my mother always let us swim.And I’d move around the house wearing sun-suits. When I grew older I wore mini-skirts. Not once did she comment on my clothes. She told me, ‘You aren’t comfortable wearing a Saree? Don’t worry about it unless we’re going to a Shraddh or something.’ It made no difference to me if the Hindi film industry thought I was wild because I wore a swimming suit.Now the Mumbai film industry has grown up a bit. During my days it was different.My behaviour seemed unconventional inMumbai.I’d keep shuttling between Mumbai and Kolkata trying to keep a balance between my mother and husband in Kolkata and my career in Mumbai. I had this bunch of wickedly fun-loving girlfriends to keep me company in Mumbai and my husband would send his friends over toMumbai to keep me company.I’ve been very lucky with my mother and my husband. After a point I stopped working in Mumbai and moved back to Kolkata because I wanted to be with my mother.I felt she was lonely without me. Now I am without her…For her final journey I dressed her up so beautifully. I made sure her face was covered from public view. What a pity that was! Because to the end she was so beautiful. She kept urging me to do a few more films and to write. I suppose now I will write again. Maybe a coffee table book about my mother.You know, I promised her I’d never write about her personal life. Keeping out her personal details it’d be very easy for me to write a coffee table book on my mother.I feel my daughter Raima can take over my mother’s histrionic legacy forward and my daughter Riya would take forward my mother’s spiritual legacy.During my mother’s final days Riya was holding her hand through the pain, giving her strength . My mother used to say Riya had the makings of a great comic actress.Now she’s gone leaving behind memories .They would never fade.I am certain of that.”
Rishi Kapoor On His Mother Krishna Kapoor :
“Of course I’d love to talk about my mother.But why on Mother’s Day only? Every day should belong to the people you love the most. I refuse to slot my loved ones according to a day of the week….Mother’s Day, Father’s Day…can you believe it, they even celebrated a Grocery Day!! And if that isn’t enough they also had an Asthma Day!! I refuse to discuss my mother as just a special person for a day. Having said that I don’t mind talking about her any day of the year.But where do I begin? What do I say? What can one say about one’s own mother? Whatever we as family are today is because of her.I am still her bachcha. Can you believe it? I am going to be 63 and she still fires the hell out of me. She advises me on where to go, and how to conduct my life. I keep telling her that I am old enough to make my own decisions. My daughter is married. My son is now living away from home. I am a grandfather. Let me make my own decisions, for God’s sake, I’m a grown-up man.But she doesn’t listen!But seriously ,I want to make my mother happy . My childhood memories with her are of school holidays in Jabbalpur. My Nanaji lived there. So we’d visit twice a year, summer and winter. There my motherwould be the happiest with my uncles and aunts.Apart from being the wife of a celebrity she was also a celebrity- sister. My maternal uncles were the actors Premnath and Rajendranath. My mother had tremendous endurance power. She is an amazing shock absorber. She stood steady through all my fathers stormy work pressures and all other stress. There were times when they had problems. But she overcame all the trauma . With 5 children to look after she still managed to keep her family life beautifully together. It is said, bardasht ki hadd hoti hai. Not with her. She made sure my childhood was very lovely.She made sure all of us, three brothers and two sisters had a normal happy childhood.”
Mother’s Day Special: “My Mother Was My First Dedicated Audience”: Lata Mangeshkar
“I have vivid memories of my mother even when I was 3 or 4. I remember the exact colour of the saree she wore, the design of her ear-rings , the rings that she wore in her toes… I remember every detail of my childhood specially the times I shared with my mother. I was a very precocious child. My mother had a very tough time curbing my enthusiasm. I had so much energy.I would be running around the whole day singing to everyone the songs that I heard my father(renowned classical singer and theatre actor Pandit Dinanath Mangeshkar) teach to his students. I had an instantaneous grasp over tunes…and this quality came in good stead when I became a professional playback singer. I would learn songs very fast, and I would rush to the kitchen to sing my newly-learnt song to my mother. The kitchen was very large as food for a daily stream of guests had to be prepared. My mother would be toiling endlessly in the kitchen, and I’d hop skip and jump into her domain. There were many large containers in the kitchen containing the food grains, the spices, etc. I would plonk myself on one of the containers and announce in Marathi, ‘Maai, I’ve learnt one more song.’ She’d sigh and let me sing. Then I’d say, ‘Now listen to this one.’ She would let me go head while continuing to cook. Then I’d persuade her to listen to a third and fourth. Finally her patience would wear thin and she would say, ‘Don’t burn my ears any more. Go and play.’ She would shoo me away. But I’d soon be back with one more…My mother as my first dedicated audience. It was with her that I realized the importance of holding the listener’s attention while singing live. My mother never differentiated between us sisters(Lata,Meena, Asha, Usha ) and our only brother(Hridaynath). In fact all of us women in the household became our only brothers’s collective mother.”
My Mother , Shukat: Shabana Azmi : “She was remarkable in many ways . She always chose her own path, and though she continued to be her own person all her life, she never faltered as a wife , mother or housekeeper.”
In Shaukat Aapa(as she was affectionately known throughout the film industry) Shabana sees a majestic merger of tradition and progress. “The traditional and the modern were perfectly balanced in her personality.My relationship with Abba (father Kaifi Azmi) has always been the more celebrated one.But both my brother Baba and I have been deeply connected to mum too. In the last couple of years the roles had reversed and she had become my child .Her presence in the house was hugely comforting.”
Shabana says, “The woman I admire most is my mother Shaukat Kaifi who has been a wonderful wife ,mother housekeeper but most importantly, her own person and a noted theatre actor. She found the perfect balance.My mother Shaukat Kaifi who is a very respected theatre artist was working with Prithvi Theatres and used to strap me on her back as a 4-month old child and carry me to work because we couldn’t afford a maid. When I was about 3 years old I started accompanying her on her tours during vacations from school..I would go to sleep backstage with the smell of greasepaint all around me.”
The bond between Beti and Mum is still evident “ Mashallah, Shaukat Kaifi was my mother, my child and my friend.Warm compassionate generous to a fault. But brutally frank.In her final years her memory was failing. But she remembered lines from a play that she did at age 10! She continued to be a fabulous hostess till the end. Her love for sarees only increased with time.When (nobel laureate)Amartya Sen wrote a glowing review of her memoir Kaifi & I she bought 16 sarees for herself at one go. When I gasped that I had never done that in my life pat came her answer, ‘Well, Amartya Sen has never praised you during your life so far.’ My mom was a riot! I thank her with all my heart. By the way, I honestly think she would rather have me gift her a saree than speak so sentimentally about her!!”
Shaukat Kaifi, as she liked to be known, married the love of her life Kaifi Azmi when she was very young. She often spoke passionately about her early years of struggle with her husband. “Kaifi was closely associated with the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and the Progressive Writers Association (PWA),and through him I became associated with theatre . From the day we were together our struggles were mutual. The children Shabana and Baba came shortly.And our struggles grew .But they never seemed insurmountable,” Shaukat Aapa once confided.
Speaking on her mother’s most memorable movie role in M S Sathyu’s Garam Hawa she told me. “I vividly remember the shooting of Garm Hawa. In theatre for IPTA I had played many lead roles with Balraj Sahni. This role of his supportive wife was not difficult for me at all. Even today if you tell me to do a scene I can do it in a jiffy.What helped my performance was the dialogues by my husband (Kaifi Azmi) which were very natural.Balraj was hesitant about doing the role. He asked me, ‘Kya main yeh role kar sakta hoon, Shaukat Appa?’I assured him that only he can pull it off, that he was a better actor than me. It was because I convinced him that he did the role.For me the hardest scene was the one where I had to react to my screen daughter(Gita Siddharth)’s death.I am a method actress, and I could actually feel the emotions of a mother who has lost her child.For the first time we all felt we were working in a movie where the dialogues seemed to be like real life. If I tell you how we did the dubbing you’d probably laugh in amazement. Balraj and I had to dub without sound on screen. And the tape containing the dialogues was lost.So we had to relive the emotions through our imagination. We had no audio reference for the dubbing.We were all from the Indian People’s Theatre Association(IPTA) and we had no money.But being from a theatre background we were all used to roughing it out. My nephew Ishan Arya was the cameraman.We all believed in the film.We knew we were working on something extraordinary.
She told me one of the most memorable sequences in Garam Hawa was borrowed from Shaukat Aapa’s life. “The scene where the old lady wants to return to her ancestral home is from my own life. When my father left his ancestral home, a distant relative took over the house. My grandmother felt it was unjust to evict her from her own home where she had come as a bride.When she was on her deathbed she told her son,my father that unless she returns to the ancestral home she can’t die.My father took his mother in his arms and carried her to the ancestral home. I had related this incident to Kaifi and he included it in the film so beautifully.”
Multi-faceted, passionate about art and life and , a fiercely committed wife and a devoted protective mother, Shaukat Kaifi, you were much more than a woman. You were the life force. Long live the empowered woman.
