Once Upon a Cinema: The Making of Raj Kapoor's Jaagte Raho

How the Kapoor family lived and worked in Calcutta is a forgotten chapter of history. The Kapoors moved to the city because of Prithviraj Kapoor’s stint with New Theatres, but he was also working in theatre. They lived on Hazra Road, near Kalighat. Prithviraj Kapoor went to the studio each day on his bicycle. Shashi Kapoor was born in Calcutta, and Shammi and Raj spent a large part of their growing-up years in the bylanes of the bustling metropolis. Raj Kapoor was studying at St. Xavier’s School and could speak a fair bit of Bengali. He later reminisced in one of his biographies that in the neighbourhood everyone used to call him ‘Prithvir Chhele’ (the son of Prithvi). He also frequented the Durga Puja pandals and musical soirees.

This was the 1930s and Calcutta, the city, was still in its cultural prime. Music, literature and the arts were thriving. It wasn’t unusual for artists from other parts of the country to congregate there to showcase their work. New Theatres was a major contributor to this. Indian cinema’s biggest stars were all attached to the studio, including the likes of Kundan Lal Saigal, Kanan Devi and Prithiviraj Kapoor. But Prithviraj was also interested in theatre. Historically, both Bombay and Calcutta have been the nerve centres of Indian theatre. One can only imagine the kind of plays he must have done in the eastern metropolis before he moved permanently to Bombay and laid the foundation of Prithvi Theatres. Raj was in his teens and was exposed to his father’s work. So life came full circle when he produced and starred in a Bengali film directed by one of Calcutta’s most revered theatre exponents.

In the 40s, as Raj was trying to build his empire in the form of RK Studios in Bombay, Shombhu Mitra was in Calcutta busy building an empire of his own. He was one of the key functionaries of Indian People’s Theatre Movement (IPTA) which he joined in 1943. The very next year, he co-directed Nabanna with Bijon Bhattacharya, which is still considered a cult of Indian theatre. It created waves across the country. In 1948, while Raj Kapoor formed R.K. Films and R.K. Studios with his first directorial Aag, Shombhu Mitra set up his own theatre group called Bohurupi. It IPTA that brought Mitra in touch with Khwaja Ahmed Abbas. Abbas wanted to make a film based on Jabanbandi, one of the plays by Bijan Bhattacharya. He roped in Shombhu Mitra as an assistant director. The film was Dharti Ke Laal (1946), partly based on Bhattacharya’s play and partly on Krishan Chander’s story Annadata.

Raj Kapoor had one thing in common with the likes of K.A. Abbas and Shombhu Mitra: the upliftment of the downtrodden. They looked at it with different glasses, though. While Mitra and Abbas were hardcore leftists, Raj was a believer in socialism. He had been to the USSR and was deeply affected by Italian neorealism. Those were different times, and most artists, writers and musicians – even the popular ones – were disturbed by the state of the have-nots. Like Shombhu Mitra, Raj was also acquainted with K.A. Abbas, who went on to write several films for his banner, beginning with Awaara (1951) and concluding with Henna (1991).  In the early 50s, Shombhu Mitra came to Bombay to stage the Hindi version of Bijan’s play Jabanbandi, which was called Antim Abhilasha. The money collected was to be used for charity, and Prithviraj Kapoor was one of those standing there with a white sheet after the play, collecting money from patrons.

One fateful evening, Raj Kapoor and Shombhu Mitra met to discuss a possible collaboration. Raj had just produced Shree 420 and Boot Polish, both stark tales of class struggle. His image was of a sensitive artist whose ambitions transcended petty commercial considerations. This may have touched Shombhu Mitra at some level. Shombhu and his friend Amit Moitra wrote a screenplay in 12 hours flat. On hearing the script, Raj told Mitra, “I’ll direct this. You act in it.” Shombhu Mitra said in turn, “Let’s do the opposite.” Mitra had assisted Abbas and was excited by the possibilities of the medium. The world over, cinema was evolving as one of the most potent media to talk about the human condition.

It was decided. The film was to be made in two languages: Hindi and Bengali. Raj would not only act in both versions but produce them under his RK banner, while Shombhu Mitra was to co-direct them with his collaborator Amit Maitra. The Bengali version was titled Ek Din Ratre, while the Hindi one was called Jagte Raho. The two versions were nearly identical, with some minor but interesting distinctions. The plot was nearly identical: a peasant from an unnamed village is wandering the city streets looking for water to drink. Not only does he fail to get it, eventually there is a bloodthirsty mob chasing after him. Less than a decade after Independence, the film lays bare the hypocrisy, corruption and decadence that had already crept in. Everyone was interested in saving their own skin and wasting away their lives in debauchery. The screenplay pulls no punches. The film had spectacular music by Salil Chowdhury. Salil himself wrote the lyrics in the Bengali version, while Shailendra and Prem Dhawan did the honours in the Hindi version.

The song Zindagi khwab hai (sung by Mukesh) featured Motilal as a drunkard, swaying and telling unholy truths about a society at odds with itself. In the Bengali version, Chhabi Biswas played the role, and the tune was a very different Ei duniyay bhai shobi hoy (sung by Manna Dey), which arguably is a more blatant critique of not only all of creation but of its creator as well. The film didn’t do well in India. A truncated version was shown in festivals overseas, and it won a Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Many believe that it was projected as a Raj Kapoor film, without much attention spared to the actual directors. Raj himself was rather fond of the film, referring to it as one of his “two special children”, who didn’t succeed. Despite the critical acclaim, Shombhu Mitra refused to explore a career in film directing. He went back to staging plays that continued to raise very uncomfortable and unpleasant questions. He only directed one other film, a Bengali social drama called Shubha Bibaha (1959).

Amborish is a National Film Award winning writer, biographer and film historian.

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