My Turn: Why Fear When You Are in Love
When a flash mob in Times Square grooved to “Jab Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya” (“Why Fear When You Are in Love”) as they promoted the Broadway musical Mughal-e-Azam, the writer was reminded of the time her uncle got free tickets to the premiere of the film on which the musical is based.
It was August 1960. My uncle returned from work, and after dinner he met with his cronies in his living room for a game of rummy accompanied by Scotch whisky. On account of his position in the bank, he had received two free tickets to the movie premiere of Mughal-e-Azam.
My uncle was a sportsman. He was six feet tall and looked like a South Asian John Wayne. He played hockey and tennis in college. After being chosen for his first employer’s team, he became the second employer’s team captain and played cricket in that capacity for many years. When he was too old for cricket he took up tennis, which he played until 48 hours before he died at the age of 71. In the evenings after my uncle returned home from the office, his friends gathered in his living room after a light supper, to play rummy or bridge.
On the rare occasions when he watched a movie, he preferred action films, and he steered clear of film premieres. I went to the movies with him once. It was one of those stunt films with fight scenes, shoot ‘em ups, galloping horses—and where men tossed each other from the roofs of speeding trains and villains laughed menacingly. I was appalled, but my uncle approved of “men being men.” He passed away before the ideas of women’s liberation, LGBTQ+, and gender assignment were prevalent. I wonder what he would have made of them.
Kaki (my aunt) was a diminutive woman. Her world revolved around her husband and family. She visited relatives and her fingers were never idle. She was always crocheting, quilting, knitting, or preparing eatables like laddoos and chaklis even as she supervised the kitchen. Her one passion was going to the movies. At the end of her morning constitutional, Kaki would stop at our house and, over a cup of tea that my mother offered, she would relate to us—my mother and we three sisters—the story of the latest movie she had seen, giving us a blow-by-blow account of every melodramatic moment with great enthusiasm. With appropriate facial contortions and gestures, she portrayed to us the evil villain and the plight of his hapless, virginal victim.
Mughal-e-Azam was being screened at the brand-new Maratha Mandir Theater, which looked like a white wedding cake. The movie would become an epic. It was a historical drama/romance with song, dance, top stars, lavish sets, and one of the highest budgets. The film ran “House Full” for seven years with a brisk trade in black market tickets. One song in particular, “Jab Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya,” the very one that was to be staged by a flash mob in Times Square in New York
63 years later, had been filmed in technicolor. It was the first Bollywood film song with that distinction. The song created a sensation; it was on everyone’s lips. And the movie took the nation by storm.
Kaka had accepted the tickets to the movie premiere on account of Kaki, but by the evening of the premiere he had forgotten all about it. That evening, while he was holding his cards and waiting to reveal his hand, Kaka remembered the tickets. Kaki was over the moon: imagine attending the premiere of Mughal-e-Azam! She was engulfed by feelings of excitement and panic. It was already past the start time of the show. Kaki glanced nervously at Kaka, but he was absorbed in the game in his armchair and showed no sign of quitting.
Kaki, however, was determined to go. But who would accompany her? She looked around frantically. The theater was situated in Central Bombay, at quite a distance from where my uncle and aunt lived in Bombay’s Churchgate. The five sons were not around, so Kaki had to request Krishna to be her escort.
Krishna, the manservant and factotum, had been with the household for nearly 25 years at the time. I don’t know if he cared for movies. He was a good cook—and though feeding and catering to a family of seven must have been onerous, he had an equable temper and never lost his cool. When the five hungry sons (they had no daughters) demanded dinner, he would tell them calmly to sit at the table, and that dinner would soon be ready. Then, unflappable as ever, he began the process of picking stones from the rice that was to be cooked for that meal.
Krishna was a good man, honest and frugal. He rode his bicycle to the market to avoid spending money on bus fares, and he bought the cheaper fish even though the family would have greatly preferred the more expensive variety. He took in his stride whatever the household demanded of him. But Krishna looked a little scruffy because of a beard that had grown over four days. So he said that he must shave. He was allowed to do so while Kaki got dressed, but when she was ready, Krishna had only done his left cheek. He had to stop and go searching for his belt for his short pants. Unable to find it, he had to make do with a piece of string.
They rushed to the theater in a taxi. Luckily, by the time they arrived, the fans waiting outside to catch a glimpse of the “stars” attending the premiere had dispersed. Most of the movie must have been over by now. Even so, Kaki and Krishna emerged from the cab and entered the darkened theater with great anticipation. They were escorted to their choice VIP seats—after the interlopers who occupied those seats in their absence were sent packing by the usher.
Then, as if she had been waiting for this very moment, the heroine burst into song in a hall of mirrors: “Jab Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya.”
The story of the court dancer who loved Prince Salim (later Emperor Jahangir) is a tragic one, but no less tragic was the fate of Kaki and Krishna who got to see less than half of the movie! “But,” Kaki said proudly. “I did not miss ‘Jab Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya.’”
Ravibala Shenoy’s humorous stories have appeared in The Aerogram, Funny Pearls, and Rivulets.
She has published award-winning short stories, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, and poetry in online and print publications, including Khabar.
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