Dilip Kumar's 100th birth anniversary: Is Ganga Jumna his best performance ever?

Here is  a trick question. Which is your favourite Dilip Kumar film? Many would say either Bimal Roy’s Devdas or Nitin Bose(?)’s Ganga Jumna. Some others who liked the lighter side  of the Thespian’s histrionics would mention Ram Aur Shyam or Kohinoor. But no one in the right mind would single out Mehboob Khan’s Aan among the best of Dilip Kumar. The garish theatrical film, a poor vainglorious adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew, directed by Mehboob Khan of Mother India, just went “aan and aan.” (as one international critic had eloquently said).

Hence to see Aan in PVR’s package of Dilip Kumar’s festival celebrating 100 years of the  maestro, was a bit of a ‘schlock’.

To find Ganga Jumna missing from the package is akin to The Godfather going missing from a Marlon Brando festival. If a poll is conducted, at least 80 percent of Dilip Kumar’s fans would vote for Ganga Jumna as his career’s best. So would I. It is a work of many- splendored beauty spreading its ineradicable strengths far and wide.

Dilip Kumar played Ganga, the Robin Hood styled outlaw in an Awadhi setting being pursued by his cop-brother Jumna, played by Dilip Kumar’s real-life brother Nasir Khan. Many, including me, felt Dilip Kumar should have played both the roles. His Ganga is a textbook of  transformative acting. Before playing the bumpkin from rural Uttar Pradesh, Dilip Kumar wanted to master the Awadhi language of the region. No half-measures for this method actor. The mighty Thespian got himself an Awadhi tutor who helped the actor mould his fluent Urdu into a freewheeling Awadhi-Bhojpuri accent.

His impeccable Awadhi accent, his rustic dancing skills in the song Nain ladd jaiyhen, his  climactic dialogues and above all, his courtship of Dhanno played by the ravishing Vyjayanthimala, who rightfully won the Filmfare award for Best Actress (Dilip Kumar didn’t, and more on that later)…these were some of the qualities that make Ganga Jumna a joy forever, and a Friday.

Vyjayanthimala, who worked in six films with Dilip Kumar, singles out Ganga Jumna as her favourite. “It was a challenge. Here I was, this Tamil actress who could speak Hindi without any accent after much training and tutoring. In Ganga Jumna, I was expected to speak the Awadhi dialect, and that too without any accent.”

She received tremendous support from her erudite co-star. “Dilip Saab would record the dialogues on tape  and send  them to me to rehearse and prepare. When we shot for the  film, the words  just flowed  effortlessly. I think our onscreen  chemistry was always special.  But in Ganga Jumna it  was  extra-special.”

Both Vyjayanthimala and Dilip Kumar were electrifying in Ganga Jumna. But it was Vyjayanthimala who won the Filmfare award. The best actor award at the 9^th Filmfare awards  went, not to Dilip Kumar but Raj Kapoor for Jis Desh Mein Ganga  Behti Hai. This bizarre  rebuff provoked a huge uproar across the nation.

It is interesting that Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor were nominated for best actor during the same year for films which they had ghost-directed. Ganga Jumna and Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai were officially directed by Nitin Bose and Radhu Karmakar (Raj Kapoor’s semi-permanent cinematographer), respectively  .

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

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