Kashmir in Hindi Cinema
Bollywood should give back the legendary naive characters
Nasir Ahmed
From sixties to eighties, the The Indian Hindi film industry, popularly known as Bollywood and Kashmir enjoyed a sort of made for each other relation. During this period dozens, rather scores of movies were shot in Kashmir on a plethora of subjects, mainly romance, action and family drama.
Kashmir used to be the most favorite outdoor location of Bollywood. A film was treated as incomplete if it did not have song or two shot in the lush green environs, dense forests or along the heavenly brooks and stream of Kashmir. The Kashmir touch would be a guarantee of success for the movie at the box office. There were many films which were exclusively Kashmir centric, and almost entirely shot in Kashmir. The film units would camp here from months together to complete their assignments. The producers used to send the lyricists to Kashmir to conceive romantic songs for their movies.
Come spring, the Kashmir would wake up to greet hordes of Bollywood’s film units in different parts of Kashmir. The Oberoi Palace Hotel (Today’s Grand Lalit) used to be the action centre of all the film units who visited Kashmir. The lush green lawns of the Oberoi are witness to scores of romantic songs, which have been picturised there during the course of three decades.
The ever green song of sixties “Aey phooloon ki rani baharoon ki malika”, “Arzoo”, 1963 showcases the exotic lawns of the Oberoi and the Mughal gardens. The ever green romantic song “Yeh sman saman hey yeh pyar ka”, “Jab Jab Phool Khile” 1964, was shot on the deck of a house boat in the Dal Lake in the evening hours. This song became an instant hit and became synonymous with the romantic beauty of Kashmir along with other numbers like “Pardesion se na akhiyan milana”, “humko tum pe pyar aaya”, and “Ek tha gul aur ek thi bulbul” and so on.
The top directors of Bollywood believed that in Kashmir they are getting multiple backgrounds at a single location, just by moving the angle of the camera.
When it comes to picturization of the picturesque beauty of Kashmir, Ramand Sagar’s “Arzoo”, 1963 has probably no match. The film is a romantic story, mostly shot in Kashmir. Its songs became a hot throb for the youth at that time. Even today the songs keep on playing on television and radio channels soothing the aching hearts.
This film was screened across the world by the Indian embassies in order to promote the beauty of Kashmir and woo the foreign tourists to visit Kashmir.
There are many super hit Bollywood films like “Junglee, Kashmir Ki Kali, Janwar , Phir wohi dil laya hoon, laat sahib, Mere Sanam, Dil ne Phir yad kiya, Bairag, Khoon Pasina, Kabhi Kabhie, Karma, Mausam, Aap ki kasam, Bobby” etc to name a few, which have been wholly or partially shot in Kashmir. The box office block buster “Betab” was shot almost exclusively in a small valley on the Pahalgam-Chandanwari road. The valley is now called Betab valley and is well sought after picnic spot in Pahalgam.
Thankful film makers did not hesitate to use the splendid beauty of Kashmir in their songs. “Har Chehra yahan Chand”, Abroo 1968”, was picturised across Kashmir at multiple locations very nicely portraying the mesmerizing beauty of Kashmir. “Kitni khoobsurat yeh tasweer hai, yeh Kashmir hai”, “Bemisal 1982” is just another poetic expression of beauty of Kashmir and Bollywood’s love for her.
The movies would carry the message of love through the beauty of Kashmir without any prejudice. The stars would mix with public, shoot in the open with people watching them. I remember watching Dilip Kumar and Saira Bano shooting for the song “Choti si umar mein lag gaya roge” at Pahalgam Golf Corse for the super hit move “Bairag”, and Amitabh bhachan and Vinod Khanna shooting a fight scene in the forest across the Lidder River for the film “Khoon Pasina”.
However, with the onset of Militancy in the early nineties, Bollywood deserted Kashmir, for obvious reasons. While Kashmir got entangled in worst kind of miseries and misfortunes, Bollywood found alternate locations and forgot Kashmir as if it never existed.
In the meantime new breed of stars and film makers came up, and Bollywood also shifted from Indian to foreign locations. Kashmir no longer remained a requirement. The industry became exceedingly commercial .The natural beauty got replaced by glamour and obscenity for which suitable locations were needed.
Kashmir became a forgotten story.
In the meantime, the mood across the country had changed. Kashmir and Kashmiris were loathed and demonised. The print and the electronic media played havoc with the image of Kashmir. Our miseries were described as cruelties, and misfortunes as political crimes as a matter of national policy.
It was in this scenario Bollywood tried to make a comeback, though with a different agenda. This time it was to play its role to contribute to the national pool to demonise the hapless people of Kashmir.
They came with the assurances that they would portray Kashmir’s pain, but did the opposite. Most of the comeback movies were used to glorify the armed forces and malign the character of Kashmiris. They soon found that demonising Kashmiris and Pakistan and venerating armed forces had huge commercial benefits as well. Hence more and more films were made on Kashmir, with or without actually shooting them in Kashmir.
Movies like “Mission Kashmir, Roja, Diljale, LoC Kargil, Fanna, Yahhan, Lakshya, Shaurya, Lamhaa, Sikander, and Baby” fell in line with the collective conscience of the country, messed up the ground realities to castigate Kashmiris and glorify the army. The films did good business and played a great role in further misleading the general public about the events in Kashmir. Yes they did portray an odd noble Kashmiri or an odd cruel army officer to fake neutrality.
Government of India encouraged such films and in fact provided logistic support to the producers of such films. Recently, in a radio interview, J P Dutta, the producer of war movie “Border” himself admitted that he was approached by home ministry to make a film on Kargil war, which resulted in making of “LoC Kargil”.
Probably the only exception to this trend was the movie “Haider”, which tried to portray Kashmiris as victims and as terrorists. But the film did not do well across the country and the film makers and the writer were branded as antinational and sympathizers of terrorists by various columnists, film critics and general public. Depicting the truth about Kashmir was branded as betrayal with India; hence the movie did not do well at the box office.
Kashmir would love if Bollywood would again give them the likes of legendry naive characters like Mahamdoo, Film “Arzoo” and Raja, Film “Jab Jab Phool Khile”. And Kashmir’s message to Bollywood would be best put in the lines of the title song of the 1966 movie “Dil ne phir yad kiya” shot in the tranquil waters of Dal Lake.
The author can be mailed at ahmed.nasir10@yahoo.com
