A Favor Returned
By Dr Asif Javed
Williamsport, PA
Back in 1963, a middle-aged man walked into the office of Eveready Pictures in Karachi and requested to see the owner. In dire financial straits, he had come to plead the case of his daughter who needed a break in the film world. He was shown in. As the visibly uncomfortable visitor, overawed by the atmosphere, stood at the door of Mr Aanad’s posh office, he tried to compose himself. As he entered, Jagdish Anand looked at the unexpected visitor for a few seconds, suddenly stood up, walked up to him, embraced him, asked him to sit down and asked for tea. The visitor was flabbergasted at this unexpected welcome. He should not have been: he had been recognized by Mr Anand.
Two decades earlier, this visitor and Jagdish Anand had met, in very different circumstances, in the peripheral town of Bhera. That was back in the early 40s. An actress by the name of Monika, who hailed from Bhera, had found some success at Calcutta. She was employed by Indira Movie Tone. Having completed the shooting of Poran Bhagat with Kiran Diwan, she had come back to visit her family in Bhera. As was customary then, most young and single actresses would have a family member chaperone them to the movie studios. In Monika’s case, her brother did that.
While at Bhera, Monika’s brother was approached by a neighbor. Naturally, Monika was considered somewhat of a celebrity in her hometown. The neighbor requested her brother’s help to get a job for his son who had just finished high school. Help was promised. After a few days, the neighbor’s son accompanied Monika’s entourage as they left Bhera. On the way back to Calcutta, Monika’s brother stopped at the Lahore office of Monika’s film company, and introduced the neighbor's son to the local staff. Having done that, he wished the young man good luck, left, and totally forgot about him.
This young man was hired by Indira Movie Tone. Although he started as a clerk of sorts, he soon impressed his supervisor with hard work and dedication. Within a few years, he was promoted, and sent to the Karachi office. As luck would have it, partition came and Indira Movie Tone departed, leaving our young man in possession of the whole enterprise on this side of the border. Although of Hindu religion, he opted for Pakistan. Being a shrewd businessman, he saw an opportunity. The company’s name was changed to Eveready Pictures. Under his astute leadership, Eveready Pictures went from strength to strength. Some readers may recall that back in the 60s and 70s, when Pak Film Industry was booming, Eveready Pictures was a big name in movie production and distribution. That young man, the current owner of Eveready Pictures, was Jagdish Anand. And his visitor that day was none other than the brother of actress Monica. Anand had recognized his benefactor from decades earlier but his visitor hadn’t.
After the exchange of pleasantries, the visitor came to the point: his sister Monika’s acting career had ended at partition. The family had moved to Karachi and Monika was happily married. The brother, however, had fallen on hard times. He had a daughter with no acting experience. But she was a decent dancer and had been performing in various dance clubs of Karachi. Could Mr Anand help? Anand picked up the phone, called his company’s Lahore office, and declared that the next movie produced by Eveready Pictures would be Punjabi, and that he had already selected the heroine.
Thus began Shireen’s journey in Bollywood. Her first movie was made in just eighteen days. Hurriedly made, just to please Mr Ananad, the end product was poor. Everyone, including Shabab Karanwi, the director, expected it to fail at the box office. To save himself from embarrassment, Shabab Karanwi decided to use his assistant Haider Chaudhry's name as the director. But, unbeknownst to all concerned, the gods of good fortune were smiling at Shireen. The movie, Tees Mar Khan, was a success and became a silver jubilee. In hindsight, it seems that the unexpected success of this movie was due to Shireen’s dances; there were lots of them. Banghra, a Punjabi movie from India, had only recently had tremendous success, also due to the heroin’s dances. This may have helped too. Regardless, Shireen’s career took off. Over the following seven years, she worked in thirty-three movies, mostly as heroine. Some of her movies were blockbusters like Malangi, Jeedar, Manmauji and Panj Darya. In early 70s, she faded away and has not been heard since.
The ancient and sleepy town of Bhera, which is mentioned more than once in Babar’s Tuzk-e-Babari, used to be considered the backwater of Sargodha. There was a small road through Mandi Baha-Uddin, this scribe’s hometown, that provided access to GT Road at Gujrat. A rail track, now abandoned, connected it to Malakwal and on to Lalamusa. The Lahore-Islamabad Motorway has changed all that.
Interestingly, Bhera’s contribution to the movies is not just limited to Shireen. Meena Kumari’s father, Ali Buksh, was from Bhera too, although the tragedy queen was born and raised in Bombay and most likely never visited Bhera. Balraj Sahni, one of the most gifted and respected actors of his generation, though raised in Rawalpindi and educated at Lahore’s Govt. College, had a Bhera connection too: both his parents were from Bhera. Neelo, who started as an extra in Bhawani Junction back in the 50s, is also from Bhera. After a fairly long and successful career, she had retired from acting in late 60s, having married director Riaz Shahid. After his untimely death in 1972, financial difficulties forced her to resume acting in the mid-70s. Despite being almost middle-aged and overweight, she surprised many by playing heroine, again, in several movies before finally calling it a day.
Now back to our story: Jagdish Anand succumbed to a heart attack in 1977. Eveready Pictures has survived the difficult times of Lollywood and is doing fairly well, being run by Shatish Anand, Jagdish Ananad’s son. Shireen’s whereabouts are unknown. But their story has lessons. For one, it shows that, sometime, one has to be present at the right time, at the right place, and things just work out. And also, an act of kindness, done decades earlier, was remembered by someone who, when the opportunity came, paid it back-many times over. Such are the uncertainties of life!
(The writer is a physician in Williamsport, PA and may be reached at asifjaved@comcast.net)
