Living In A Ruthless World

“Tis fate that flings the dice and when it flings, of kings makes peasants and of peasants makes kings’ – thus wrote English poet John Dryden. There is no escaping this bitter truth and Sumit Paul drives home the point with a few examples from the world of showbiz

- Sumit Paul

A few days ago, the Times of India (TOI) stated that an actress of yore, Geeta Kapoor, who acted in a classic like ‘Pakeezah’, was abandoned by her choreographer son in a hospital in Mumbai. He left his helpless mother to fend for herself. When Meena Kumari breathed her last at Elizabeth Nursing Home in Mumbai, there was no money left in her house to pay for her hospital bills. She died a pauper. After having no work for years, actor Bhagwan Dada had to sell his house and cars and eventually shift to a chawl (shanty). Actress Nalini Jaywant died a lonely death. Neither her relatives nor Hindi film industry’s big names, with whom she had worked, were aware of her death.

Known for often playing mother and grandmother in films, actor Achla Sachdev was bedridden for months in a hospital in Pune. Barely anyone from the Hindi film industry visited her. In the last years of his life, actor Bharat Bhushan had to sell his belongings to make ends meet. Actress Vimi, known for films like ‘Hamraaz’ and ‘Patanga’, was in debt when she died in a general ward of a hospital in Mumbai. ‘Laari Lappa’ girl Meena Shourie died unlamented and unattended in a government hospital in Lahore. Famous character-actor Kanhaiyalal (who enacted the role of a crooked moneylender in Mehboob Khan’s classic ‘Mother India’) ironically died in poverty.