|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"YOU are seeing me now, when I am old and ugly. You should have seen me then, when I was young and ugly." The grand old lady of stage with her booming laugh and her immense love of life is known to have said. And this sets the tone of the book on the woman, the actor, the dancer, who lived through a life, chequered and fascinating. Brave, feisty and talented, Zohra trod where few women of her generation had dared to, and she did it with `E9lan, honesty and laughter. If anyone were to ask her audience/readers what they think is the overwhelming feature of Zohra Sehgal is, I believe they would say it’s her humour, which comes through with every laughing wrinkle on her face. She’s been awarded the Padma Shri in 1998, Kalidas Samman in 2001, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2004. She received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour, in 2010, and still she wears her remarkable life with a lightness that makes her so dear and so utterly lovable. Could it be the indefatigable Pathan spirit that makes her still set the screen afire? Or is it her famous candour that gives such honesty to her performances that makes her the scene-stealer even over such towering stars as Amitabh Bachchan?
The first part of the book traces the remarkable lineage of the Grande Dame. She was born Zohra Mumtaz (Sahibzadi Zohra Begum Mumtaz-ullah Khan) on April 27, 1912, in Saharanpur. Zohra was the third of seven children of a land-owning, aristocratic family of Rohilla Pathans in Uttar Pradesh. From the beginning, Zohra was not much for rules and traditions. She and her sister were sent to Queen Mary’s Girls College, Lahore, where strict purdah was observed. In 1930, she set off for Europe by road with her uncle, travelling many routes and roads, sometimes wearing a burqa, crossing Iran, Palestine, before reaching Damascus, Egypt, and finally catching a boat to Europe. Once in Europe, she decided to become a dancer and got admission to Mary Wigman’s ballet school in Dresden, Germany, becoming the first Indian to study at the institution. After her return to India, Zohra joined the Uday Shankar Ballet Company in 1935 and travelled the world from the North Cape to the Nile, from San Fransisco to Penang. It was here that she met her talented husband Kameshwar Segal, eight years her junior and of a different religion, but that didn’t daunt our Zohra. Jawaharlal Nehru was to attend the wedding reception, but he was arrested a couple of days earlier for supporting Gandhi’s Quit India Movement. The Segals moved to Bombay, in 1945, where they stayed in Chetan Anand’s flat, Zohra joined Prithviraj Kapoor’s Prithvi Theatre as an actress on a salary of Rs 400 a month and stayed with the group for 14 years, touring India extensively. Zohra’s book is full of rich incidents and dryly told short incidents, which are hilarious. Zohra loves to laugh at herself and invites her readers to join in the fun. About her film offers in Bombay, she says, "Because of my dance background, I was offered strange and exotic roles, all of them making me shudder at the emphasis on ‘sex’ and the ‘box office’. One director suggested that I appear almost naked out of a fish bowl to do a voluptuous dance." Tragedy struck, when Kameshwar, her husband as brilliant as he was sporadic, going through peculiar phases of highs and lows in his career and his moods, committed suicide. Zohra then moved to Britain in 1962 on a drama scholarship. It was a tough period since she had two small children to support, was without job or money. She spent 10 years this way till in the 1970s she was ‘discovered’ by British TV and films and we saw her in serials like Jewel in the Crown, Amma and Family and Tandoori Nights and in films such as Bhaji on the Beach, The Mystic Masseur and Bend it Like Beckham and since then there has been no looking back for Zohra, who has endeared herself in one role after another with her irreverent humour and charm. Almost a 100 years of living under her belt and a rich palette of varied experience; associations with people the readers have only heard about, performers par excellence, poets, authors, politicians, artists and dancers, in India and abroad have enriched Zohra’s life tremendously and it reflects in her world view. She is currently based in Delhi, India, where she stays with her daughter, Kiran Segal, noted Odissi danseuse. Her son, Pavan, who works for the WHO, married Seema Rai, the granddaughter of Munshi Premchand, and the couple has three children. At the end of her
account, Zohra sums up her life saying, "`85True, physically and
mentally I have worked very hard, but I would have garnered much more
recognition had I started a group or school of my own. This, I
suppose, I was too lazy to do. Hence I feel I never got my just
desserts; but I did get a little name, a great deal of experience and
unlimited enjoyment in my work in spite of all its hardships. What is
more, I wouldn’t have it any other way!"
|
||
|
|
||
What
a life it’s been! The book tries to tabulate it, but even for the
author Zohra, it’s impossible to pin the irrepressible Zohra down.
The good thing is that the pages contains many of the letters she
wrote herself, years ago, so we get a whiff of the young Zohra as she
worked, partied and trained in the various parts of the world.