Kamini Kaushal tribute: There will never be another like her

I first met Kamini Kaushal through my filmmaker friend Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, who wanted to cast her in a television commercial. I went along because I was a big admirer and wanted to meet her.

This was sometime in 2009. The meeting went off differently than I’d hoped. Once talk about the commercial was over, I naturally wanted to chat with Kaushal about her movie career and working with some of the luminaries of Hindi cinema.

After all, Kaushal, an all-time great herself, began working in films way back in the 1940s and was an integral part of the 1950s, which is considered Hindi cinema’s golden age. Her career began with an early social realist film, Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar (1946). The longevity of Kaushal’s career can be gauged by the fact that she played Shahid Kapoor’s understanding grandmother in the 2019 blockbuster Kabir Singh and had a cameo in Laal Singh Chaddha in 2022.

Kaushal was a leading lady for over a decade, and then had a long innings as a character actor in motherly and then grandmotherly roles. Along with Nargis, she was one of the early actresses to have adopted a natural performance style in Hindi cinema.

Radiating gentleness and warmth, Kaushal was a refreshing change from other film personalities I had met, most of whose lives revolved around their movies and who were living mostly alone and forgotten. Kaushal barely wanted to talk about films. She had always been clear that there was more to life than cinema. This had been her mantra all along, right from when she started acting, and she stuck to it.

The rat race never bothered Kaushal, and she took a break from films whenever she wanted. Even as I tried talking to her about working with Bimal Roy or Dilip Kumar or how she came to be on the cover of the first ever issue of Filmfare in 1952, she would veer off and discuss current events in the country or one of her life’s high points, meeting Mao in China.

In fact, when we walked in to meet her, she was working with her tailor on designing some lovely cushion covers. She clearly looked happy and at peace with herself.

I subsequently interacted with Kaushal twice in 2018, when she was shooting for an archival project with Shivendra’s Film Heritage Foundation, this time discussing her roles and experiences. Although Kaushal was 91 at the time, her memory was razor-sharp. Once she got talking, it was fascinating listening to her.

Kaushal was born Uma Kashyap on January 16, 1927, in Lahore. She spoke about growing up in undivided India and shared memories of her father, Rai Bahadur SR Kashyap, a professor of botany. He died when she was just seven, leaving behind a diary of some of his writings, which was one of her prized possessions.

Kaushal’s family gave both its boys and girls the freedom to do whatever they wanted, which was rare in those days, she said. She was studying for a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with Honours at Kinnaird College in Lahore when Chetan Anand offered her a key role in his upcoming film, Neecha Nagar. Anand was her brother’s friend and had heard her on the radio.

Kaushal initially brushed aside the offer, but finally agreed, in her own words, “for a lark” after her brother asked her to reconsider. She came to Mumbai to work in the film.

Neecha Nagar, which examined how the rich who are living high up on a mountain exploit the poor living on the plains below, received much critical acclaim. It won the Grand Prix at the 1946 edition of the Cannes Film Festival, the first ever Indian production to be awarded this honour. Kaushal recalled that her work too was highly appreciated. Her death scene in the film had a major impact on audiences.

Chetan Anand gave her the screen name Kamini Kaushal – since Anand’s wife was also called Uma and she too was acting in Neecha Nagar, Kaushal needed a different name. She asked for something with K to go with the names of her daughters, Kumkum and Kavita.

Kumkum and Kavita were actually Kaushal’s nieces. Kaushal’s elder sister had died in a road accident, leaving behind two young girls. In 1947, Kaushal wed her brother-in-law BS Sood, an engineer with the Bombay Port Trust, for the sake of the girls. She refused to look upon her choice as an act of pity or any sort of sacrifice. She simply said that it was something that needed to be done.

Once Kaushal returned to Bombay with her husband and daughters, she began to get film offers, beginning with Jail Yatra (1947) and then Filmistan’s Do Bhai (1947). Do Bhai had one of her biggest-ever hit songs, Mera Sundar Sapna Beet Gaya, sung by Geeta Dutt. Except for the last line, the entire song was filmed in a single shot.

Soon, more films followed. Kaushal was among the actresses who worked with Hindi cinema’s triumvirate in the 1950s – Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor. She recalled Kapoor, with whom she worked in Jail Yatra and his directorial debut Aag (1948), as a childlike, impish prankster on the sets and ever the showman.

While doing Ziddi (1948), with Dev Anand at Bombay Talkies, she remembered him as being extremely shy and bashful, rarely even lifting his head to talk to her. They worked together again in Shair (1949) and Namoona (1949).

However, it was Dilip Kumar with whom Kaushal really gelled, and the two made quite the hit pair. Between 1948 and 1950, they co-starred in Nadiya Ke Paar, Shaheed, Shabnam and Arzoo. Kumar’s intensity and seriousness had a huge impact on Kaushal, and they got involved with each other.

In between breaks from filming for Shivendra’s project, Kaushal was matter-of-fact about her relationship with Kumar. Sometimes, when two people spend a lot of time with each other and hit it off, it’s perfectly possible for them to fall for each other, she said.

Although she fell in love with Kumar, she couldn’t leave her husband and her nieces. This was the one time her marriage faced tensions, and her husband wanted her to leave films altogether.

Kaushal possibly opened up about this private part of her life because her husband had already referred to it in the book he co-wrote with BK Karanjia, An Alien in Bollywood: An Autobiography.

Kaushal, now fully committed to her marriage, would have three sons of her own in due course. Each time, she took voluntary work breaks to raise her family. Watching her children grow and spending key moments of their lives with them were bigger joys than her film roles, she said.

No talk of Kaushal’s career is complete without mentioning her superb performance in Biraj Bahu (1954), directed by the great Bimal Roy. Her eyes lit up at the very mention of the film.

Kaushal recalled that Roy made her read the Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay novel on which the film was based 20 times before the shoot. By the time filming began, Kaushal said that she was living and breathing Bijar’s every tiny detail and nuance.

Roy was extremely soft-spoken and gave her a lot of leeway in terms of how she interpreted the role, never telling her what to do but reacting to what she was doing. Kaushal excelled in the film as the devoted wife of Abhi Bhattacharya’s character, bearing all her hardships with inner strength and dignity. She considered Biraj Bahu as one of her best roles.

Two other films were close to Kaushal’s heart: Kidar Sharma’s Jhanjhar (1953), in which she thoroughly enjoyed playing a jovial Bobby-soxer type, and her last film as a lead, Godaan (1963), based on the Munshi Premchand novel. She felt that she gave one of her finest performances ever in Godaan, right up there with Biraj Bahu.

Although Kaushal was pregnant when Godaan was offered to her, the makers waited for her, and she was glad that they did. She found it extremely challenging to portray the short-tempered, no-nonsense but kind-hearted rural woman Dhaniya, whose love and devotion towards her husband, Hori, is unwavering.

Kaushal shot with the Film Heritage Foundation for two more days, but I sadly couldn’t be there. So, I really don’t know what she thought about the rest of her career, of switching to character roles with another Shaheed (1965), in which she played mother to Manoj Kumar’s Bhagat Singh, or of her television work in the 1980s, playing Aunt Shalini in the British Raj-era series Jewel in the Crown (1984). Or even about her transition from playing mother to friendly and understanding grandmother.

Kamini Kaushal was that rare artist who was content with life and had few regrets. There will never be another like her. I was fortunate to have interacted with her. Sometimes, life is good, after all.