The abiding enigma

Meena Kumari who ruled the Indian film industry for over two decades stood out amongst the likes of Dilip Kumar, Nargis, Madhubala, Motilal, Balraj Sahni, Ashok Kumar and other such towering personalities of her time. As her 46th death anniversary has just passed by on March 31, it must be said that calling Meena Kumari “tragedy queen” is selling her short for in each of her film she essayed such complex emotions be it as a woman in love, bhabhi, bahu, mother or a troubled woman, that the audience yearned to go deeper into the mind of the character. Convincing acting Another similarly difficult film was “Sharda” in which Meena Kumari played a character, who by force of circumstances gets married to the father of the man she loves, played by Raj Kapoor. In “Aarti”, we see Meena Kumari in the role of a selfless doctor who falls in love with a “muflis” poet played by Pradeep Kumar with Ashok Kumar in a negative role. During a career spanning 33 years, Meena Kumari starred in about 92 films including “Daera”, “Parineeta”, “Ek Hi Raasta”, “Dil Apna Aur Preet Paraye”, “Kohinoor”, “Bahu Begum”, “Kajal”, “Zindagi Aur Khwab”, “Pyar Ka Sagar”, “Purnima”, “Bheegi Raat”, “Majhli Didi”, “Kajal”, “Gazal”, “Phool Aur Patthar”, “Baharon Ki Manzil”, “Chitralekha”, “Dushman” and “Mere Apne”.