by B.N. Goswamy
A sophisticated instrument
I DOUBT if many people have ever seen it or — even from among those that have seen it — many have noticed the detail I am going to speak of. But there is a remarkable, oft-published, Mughal painting showing the birth of the prince who was later to rule India as Jahangir.

Global fusion album
VIOLIN maestro L. Subramaniam has joined several music teams across the world to create a unique album which he says seeks to prove that the music of various continents can be fused to create harmony.

Melodrama was his forte
By Devinder Bir Kaur

RAJENDRA Kumar. Dilip Kumar Part II. Cast in the same mould as the “Tragedy King”. His brand of melodrama may have been inspired, but his romantic style was unique. Girls loved it. Whether he read a “prem patra” to Vyjayanthimala in “Sangam”, dedicated a nazm to a burqa-clad Sadhana in “Mere Mehboob”, described Saira Banu as “kamsin” and “nadaan” in “Aayi Milan ki Bela” or showered Vyjayanthimala with flowers in “Suraj” — the romantic aura was overwhelming.

Rajendra Kumar (Tuli) made a shaky start in “Vachan” way back in 1955. Five years before that he had played an extra in Dilip Kumar-Nargis starrer “Jogan”. Then followed “Toofan aur Diya”, “Mother India”, “Khazanchi”, “Talaq”, “Chirag Kahan Roshni Kahan”, “Dhool ka Phool”, “Gunj Uthi Shehnai”, “Kanoon” and “Patang”.

Although Rajendra Kumar did not have a very powerful role in “Mother India”, the film itself was very powerful. And he always expressed pride in being a part of Mehboob Khan’s epic saga which till today remains a landmark in Indian cinema.

Rajendra Kumar was a thorough professional and did his homework before going to the sets. For “Goonj Uthi Shehnai”, wherein he essayed the role of Ustad Bismillah Khan, he would sit near the great master and observe him playing the shehnai and then practise before a mirror. His joy knew no bounds when the Ustad on seeing the film commented that he felt he was seeing himself. For “Kanoon” (B.R. Chopra’s songless film) too, in which Rajendra Kumar played a budding advocate, he would bring home the long dialogues and rehearse these and the next morning don the black professional gown from the house itself and go to the studio. Years later, for “Saathi” too he walked around his house and compound with a stick in his hands and eyes closed to bring alive the blind man he was playing in the later part of the film. For “Mere Mehboob” he had the writer of the film sit on the sets to check any flaw in his Urdu dialogue delivery, as the hero was a character from Lucknow. And Rajendra Kumar did such a fine job that after the film’s release he received innumerable fan letters, particularly from Muslims who believed that he was a Muslim with a Hindu name for films, like Dilip Kumar who was Yusuf Khan in real life.

The 1960s saw Rajendra Kumar rise like no other star had risen, and there was a time when every film starring him was a silver jubilee hit. There were times when he had six or seven films running in their silver jubilee weeks at the same time. It was a success that was unbelievable and Rajendra Kumar was soon known as “Jubilee Kumar”. No other actor has had as many silver and golden jubilees, sometimes in a row, which is a record good enough to go into the Guinness Book of Records.

The ’60s saw films like “Aas ka Panchhi”, “Ghar Sansar” “Pyar ka Sagar”, “Sasural”, “Zindagi aur Khwab”, “Dil Ek Mandir”, “Gehra Daag”, “Humrahi”, “Mere Mehboob”, “Aayi Milan ki Bela”, “Sangam”, “Zindagi”, “Aarzoo”, “Suraj”, “Palki”, “Aman”, “Jhuk Gaya Aasman”, “Saathi”, “Anjaana” and “Talash”.

Rajendra Kumar was known to indulge in heavy melodrama and wept buckets of tears playing the ever-sacrificing hero. In “Dil Ek Mandir” he is Meena Kumari’s ex-lover who as a doctor has to attend on her ailing husband Raaj Kumar. Meena, fraught with tension, suspects that he is deliberately neglecting her husband. And Rajendra assuages her fears by not only saving her husband’s life but also sacrificing his own.

In “Sangam” too he plays the silent lover who sacrifices his love when he realizes that his best friend too loves the same girl. Rajendra Kumar had felt that the gem Dost dost na raha... was a wrong statement. On the contrary, he had sacrificed his love at the altar of friendship and let his lady love marry his best friend. So how was Dost dost na raha...? he would ask.

“Aarzoo”, made at the peak of Rajendra Kumar-Sadhana popularity, too was a love triangle. In a style typical of Rajendra Kumar, he opts to sacrifice his love, Sadhana, on two counts. Having lost his leg in an accident, he does not want to inflict himself on her. Besides, his best buddy Feroz Khan too loves her. Extremely entertaining, despite the strong overtones of melodrama, “Aarzoo” had beautiful songs, especially Bedardi balma tujhko mera mann yaad karta hai....

“Suraj” showed Rajendra Kumar as a swashbuckling hero with swords, horses et al. It also exposed the lighter side of his personality. In fact, he played his jovial self to the hilt in “Jhuk Gaya Aasman”, and to a certain extent in “Aayi Milan ki Bela”.

Besides selecting roles wisely Rajendra Kumar also showed his acumen in investing sensibly. While one heard of some of the top stars of yesteryear dying in utter poverty, one also heard others quoting the example of Rajendra Kumar who had been moneywise. He was believed to be one of the richest stars of Hindi films. But humbly Rajendra Kumar would give the entire credit to God and luck.

Rajendra Kumar’s film career had never had it so good. But eventually time caught up. In the ’70s and ’80s his hit and not-so-hit films included “Dharti”, “Ganwaar”, “Geet”, “Mera Naam Joker”, “Aap Aaye Bahar Aayi”, “Gora aur Kala”, “Gaon Hamara, Shehar Tumhara”, “Lalkar”, “Tangewala”, “Do Jasoos”, “Sunehra Sansar”, “Aahuti”, “Sajan Bina Suhagin”, “O Bewafa”, “Sajan ki Saheli”, “Love Story” and “Lovers”.

By now other younger stars came in and Rajendra Kumar became a part of the past, albeit a rich past. He turned to production and launched his son Kumar Gaurav as a star in “Love Story” in 1981. The movie was, in the language of Bollywood, a super-duper hit. Rajendra Kumar by this move had also started a new trend of launching star-sons, which is being followed to this day. Rajendra Kumar also produced “Naam” which too brought his son critical acclaim.

Good work does not go unnoticed. Rajendra Kumar was honoured with the Padamshri Award in 1969. He was also conferred with Justice of Peace honour and served as Honorary Magistrate. He was awarded the National Honour by late Pt Jawaharlal Nehru simultaneously for “Kanoon” (Hindi) and “Mehandi Rang Lagyo” (Gujarati). He received a special Shastri National Award and was associated with several charity schemes.

Rajendra Kumar has left behind a rich legacy. Rajesh Khanna may have swept the nation with mass hysteria in the early ’70s and was referred to as a “superstar”, it was Rajendra Kumar who with his long list of hits can be called a superstar in the true sense of the term.

by B.N. Goswamy
A sophisticated instrument

I DOUBT if many people have ever seen it or — even from among those that have seen it — many have noticed the detail I am going to speak of. But there is a remarkable, oft-published, Mughal painting showing the birth of the prince who was later to rule India as Jahangir. The scene is set in a palace interior, with the Emperor Akbar’s principal queen lying in confinement, having just given birth to a son. A whole crowd of excited women is close at hand, bustling about with the immediate tasks in hand, looking eagerly on, making celebratory music, or simply standing around, jubilation writ on faces. But the detail that interests me — at least in the context in which I am writing — is brought in elsewhere. Just outside the gate of the inner chamber, decorated as it is with a string of auspicious mango leaves, are seen sitting, on a narrow platform, some men — astrologers and soothsayers and horoscope-casters — obviously summoned in haste to record the moment, the precise time of the princely birth, so that they can go on to foretell things. Among them one recognises, easily, a Hindu jyotishi, seated making careful calculations, but also a Muslim figure holding up in his hand a flat, circular metal disc which he is studying intently. The disc is an astrolabe. We do not see this object too often in painting, but here the rendering is unmistakable.

If one is wondering what an astrolabe is, it can be described simply as a two-dimensional model of the universe, or, like dictionaries do, as “an instrument formerly used to take altitudes, and to solve other problems of practical astronomy”. In effect, however, this highly sophisticated instrument was something that served, in medieval times, two distinct but related world: those of astronomy and astrology. Of immense use also in navigation — Vasco da Gama is known to have used it in his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope — the astrolabe could be employed for taking remarkably accurate readings: the positions of the stars and of planets, the course of the movements of heavenly bodies, the location of places on this earth.

One could go into the history of the astrolabe, and its scientific predecessors, such as the armilla, or the manner in which it entered, through the Arabs in Spain, the awareness of Europe, before those great advances in astronomy made by men of genius like Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo. But this is not the place for it. Except, perhaps, to mention in passing the name, and the achievements, of Ulugh Beg, grandson of Timur and thus one of the ancestors of the Mughals. This remarkable and passionate man, working from his capital city of Samarkand, prepared astronomical tables that are still spoken of with great respect, founded a whole academy of astronomers, and “caused the most magnificent instruments to be made for their use”. The astrolabe was undoubtedly among those instruments.

I know remarkably little about astronomy or astrology, and therefore about astrolabes. If I continue to be interested in that device, therefore, it is because I find it to be among the most elegant looking of all instruments, the sheer regarding of which is a pleasure. Understandably, the form and the structure of the astrolabe underwent changes over time, and varied greatly with the progress of astronomy. But, as it took final shape, the making of it was developed into a fine art alike in the Islamic world and in Europe. Considerably larger than a pocket watch, in some ways it resembles it, especially an old-fashioned one, with its circular form, and its boss at the top from which it can be held. But there the resemblance would end, for the astrolabe was far more complex than a watch in appearance, with its inner rings, and its movable label or index called the alhiddada — Arabic word — turning upon the centre, and of course the wide range of names and numbers carefully engraved into the metal surface. Made as it routinely was of brass plate, it glistened in the hand of the holder, leading one early writer to speak of it as made “of fine gold precious, with pointes and cercles merveilous.”

Astrolabes show up occasionally in the collections of antique dealers, even in India, and one has helped museums here acquire them. But they are nothing like the instrument, now referred to as “the Toledo Astrolabe”, which is currently making news in the Western world. That astrolabe, previously undocumented, appears to go back to the 14th century and is believed by scholars to belong almost certainly to Spain. It has great elegance of appearance of course, but it has turned into something of a puzzle, too for the beautifully engraved inscriptions on it are not only in Latin and Arabic, but also bear traces of Hebrew.

The name Mas’ud occurs in an inscription, and it is believed that it is he who added the names of the zodiacal signs in silver cartouches at the back in Arabic. If Arab astrolabes routinely featured Mecca as a reference point on them, on this one Jerusalem and Reims are pointed to by the plates. Was it finished over a long period of time, scholars are beginning to wonder? Or, does the object represent a collaborative effort between Christian, Jewish and Muslim craftsmen?

The puzzle will remain for a long time. But it is a truly fine object, this “Toledo Astrolabe”. The price? Astronomical.

Colonial doubts

While reading up on astronomy, strictly in connection with the above note on the astrolabe, I chanced upon a passage — in a 19th century English work — on India’s contribution to the field. Dismissing generally the glowing descriptions “of antiquity and perfection” that old cultures often give of themselves, the author however added: “We have...an Indian astronomy committed to writing, which represents the celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and which, therefore, could only be produced by a people far advanced in science. “But then hastened to raise questions about whether all this developed in the land itself or came from outside sources. And went on to speak, in a truly colonial tone — disparaging, sarcastic, prejudiced — of the people of this land “who now blindly follow its precepts without understanding its principles”!

Global fusion album

VIOLIN maestro L. Subramaniam has joined several music teams across the world to create a unique album which he says seeks to prove that the music of various continents can be fused to create harmony.

The album Global Fusion, released by Detour/Atlantic Records, has four pieces combining music and instruments as varied as Indonesian chants, Indian percussion, Spanish guitar and the Chinese erhu.

“I hope it will be as much an insight into the music traditions of the world for the listener as it was for me while making it,” Subramaniam was quoted as saying in a release by the records dedicating the album to the late violin legend Yehudi Menuhin.

The album starts off with “Jai Hanuman”, a unique fusion of Indonesian chants, Australian didjeridoo and Indian percussion.

The next piece “Lost Love” is described as a “very mystic micro-tonal composition” where the Japanese tradition Koto blends very powerfully with the Indian violin. — PTI