You can only cope with so many deaths around you. Of course, people will die. Everything will die. All glory is fleeting. That is the law of nature. But for death to come when we least expect it is something pretty intriguing. We dwell on all the artistes, those in whose presence and performance we spent decades, who have passed on.
The other day we remembered, with rather a jolt, that it was the first anniversary of the death of the renowned Tagore artiste Papiya Sarwar. The reputed Indian movie actor Dharmendra passed away only weeks ago. In these past many years we have recalled the artiste Jagjit Singh in his ghazals. Now, here was a fine artiste, one whose tranquil melody clearly transported us to undiscovered worlds of pleasure. Jagjit Singh was for many of us a reminder of how beautiful it is to fall in love, over and over again. Now that he is gone, we can only live on the memories he leaves behind.
And that is precisely what you can also say about Mehdi Hasan. Those of us who have progressed from childhood to middle age and then to old age somehow have always felt that Mehdi Hasan was for ever, that he would go on singing until the end of time. That is the sentiment we generally have about great artistes.
It did not occur to us, even as Mehdi Hasan lay ill in bed for years together, that he would never sing again. We ought not to have been taken aback by the news of his death. But we were. Today he is a memory and all we can do is go back to his old songs, those he sang in his prime, and imagine he is yet around us.
We little thought that Abdul Jabbar, that fine singer whose songs of romance together with the patriotic melodies he came forth with -- and the latter were through Shwadhin Bangla Betar -- would one day be part of memory. And Mahmudunnabi, a singer whose replacement has never been found, remains a bright star in our artistic firmament. The passing of the thespian Razzak was occasion for us to recreate the joy he infused in us through the various roles he played in our movies. Anwar Hossain, he of Nawab Sirajuddoulah fame, has simply been irreplaceable. And, yes, it will be very hard for us to forget that mishti meye of the big screen, for Kabori was among the artistes who defined our movie world for decades. When she succumbed to Covid, we grieved. The grief has not gone away. Rosy Samad, the tall, beautiful actress we loved in the movies, went silent years ago.
Every year when July comes around, it is time to recall Uttam Kumar. He remains a formidable presence in our lives. Romantic hero, cruel landlord, funny man. Call him what you will, for he has enacted all these roles on the big screen. Add to all that the rather poetic association with Suchitra Sen and what you have is a tale generations of Bengalis will read and talk about. There is something more. It is that when you remember Uttam Kumar, you cannot but remember Hemanta Mukherjee. As the latter said once, only weeks before his own death in 1989, Uttam Kumar was his voice; and when the actor died, something died in the singer as well.
You often ask the ancient question: Why must the gods take away, suddenly and without much of a notice, those we need to be around us for a longer bit of time? Uttam Kumar died young, in his early fifties. Richard Burton too was in early middle age when he transited to the other world, wherever that might be. Think back on Sanjeev Kumar, that natural actor with the soft voice and the growing plumpness.
Till the end of his life, Dilip Kumar, a Pathan whose Urdu was impeccable, remained an embodiment of artistic refinement. He will always be the standard by which artistes in our subcontinent will be judged as they play out their roles in the movies. Pakistan’s Mohammad Ali and Waheed Murad, rather unknown to today’s youth as they look for celebrities in these pretty mediocre times, shaped the contours of the film industry in Lahore and Karachi.
There are some deaths you can accept with equanimity, to be sure. And you can because of the feeling that such deaths are only natural. Shammi Kapoor, who once would not rest from gyrating around beautiful young women for little rhyme or reason in the song sequences of the movies he acted in, eventually got to be in a state where bodily expansion would not allow him, almost, the liberty of seeing his hips move in normal fashion. He is dead, just as his sibling Raj Kapoor is dead. Both suffered enormously from the ailment of having to be the owners of tremendous girth. Shashi Kapoor, who looked set to be alive for quite some time more, battled his own girth for many years before life went out of him.
Not long ago, our very own Sultana Zaman and Kobita passed on. For those of us who were born in the 1950s, Sultana Zaman will always be a beautiful tale dating back to our schooldays in the 1960s. Her performance in such movies as Chanda and in a raft of Bengali movies is a reminder to us of a charming era that once was and may never be again. With Kobita, you realize that she was not a great actress, but neither was she a mediocre one. She died, we are informed, in terribly sad circumstances.
Must that always be the case? Should artistes who once sent happiness our way be so neglected in their advancing years that they are as good as forgotten?
When you open the entertainment pages of newspapers these days, you come across a glut of images of young artistes who may not quite measure up to the powerful men and women who once enriched the culture of your land. Those artistes were not part of any band, fortunately. They were artistes, not celebrities. They were a large presence on the strength of their individuality.
Do we remember them, though? Are we interested in knowing of the kind of life Bashir Ahmed and Farida Yasmeen and Shahnaz Rahmatullah and Niloufer Yasmin happened to lead before they passed on? Mohammad Ali Siddiqui and Saiful Islam are gone, but who will emulate them in these times, if at all?
It is time to remember Mohammad Rafi again. It is that moment on a gloomy winter’s day to go back to the love songs sung by Ahmed Rushdi, to the perennial quality of the melodies rising from deep within in Shyamal Mitra and Shotinath. Talat Mahmood’s was a voice described as velvety. When comes such another?
When artistes pass on, something dies in all of us.
