Hindi films from Bollywood are often deemed lowbrow and vulgar. For decades, young middle-class movie buffs in India have been brought up on this truism. Just as they have been led to believe that there can be no decent romance in languages other than the Queen’s English, or that only the Punjabis get it mostly right in matters of food, mounting of gala weddings and defying families in matters of heart.

It is therefore time to go against the tide of public opinion. For starters, let us look at the very concept of vulgarity. The term ‘vulgar’ comes from the Biblical fold and it literally means ‘of the people’ — hence the term Vulgate’s Bible.

So if Mughal-i-Azam is vulgar, then so be it. Why should we hesitate from asserting that the romantic musical still remains shamefully close to many Indians across generations. Mughal-i-Azam, a timeless musical from the 1950s, a romantic veritable Midsummer Night’s Dream, took K.A. Asif a decade to make and has been on every Indian movie lover’s shortlist since 1960. If it is vulgar, then we want more of it.

At the heart of this romantic musical is the haunting and luscious beauty of Madhubala, a young beauty from an impoverished Muslim family, pushed into films by an avaricious father, with a Hindu name like her colleagues Meena Kumari and Dilip Kumar.

Madhubala’s beauty and her early death before its decline made her a timeless icon, inimitable and strictly not for sale

A Hindu name, it was felt in the immediate post-Partition years, would smudge her Muslim identity for the majority audiences, who were still feeling unsettled about our largely hybrid world of entertainment. As Madhu Bala, literally translated to ‘Honey Girl’, she would become more palatable.

In the film Mughal-i-Azam, one must mention the much celebrated role of Akbar, played by Prithvi Raj Kapoor to much approbation. His Akbar today seems more of a cross between a madman and a Khap Panchayat patriarch. Similarly, Saleem, his rebellious son, played by Dilip Kumar, seems in the harsh light of action films today, a bit of a coward, despite his good looks. He remains a resonant and remote son of a bossy father whom he defies weakly, mumbling his displeasure. The officially young find such compliance appalling now.

But it is the young, mischievous Madhubala, as the dancer Anarkali, who truly sparkles with her giggly uninhibited sexuality and her bold declaration of love for the prince as she dances.

From the 21st century divas in Bollywood, the audiences demand a ‘hot bod’ and clothes that show it to the fullest. But in Madhubala’s case, her body is largely irrelevant. It is her face that even now can launch a thousand movie battles. Madhubala is Woman, as opposed to other contemporary talents like Meena Kumari who, despite better acting talent, will remain a soft woman from Parineeta or Sahib Bibi, waiting on her man to thaw and love her.

However today’s stars, wearing high-end dresses by designers such as Manish Malhotra or Sabyasachi and branded make-up, attempt and fail to emulate her bewitching smile and those heavy-lidded eyes, streaming a fluid sexuality that no mascara can lend, no eyeliner enhance .

Post-Madhubala Bollywood, in trying to create a clone, is only making beauty a commodity that can sell other commodities: high-end clothes, personalised accessories, FMCG goods, laptops, swanky bathrooms and cars.

Madhubala was perhaps not an adroit and polished actress the way Meena Kumari, Nutan or Waheeda Rehman were. She was a presence, whether the scene played in a regal hall of mirrors or a forlorn auto workshop. Only music can showcase such a presence.

And some of her best scenes play out through the haunting music that accompanies her arrival. Her best directors were musically sensitive photographers such as Asif who, in some strange way, understood the unavoidable attraction of her half mischievous, half tragic self-containment that rode the wings of songs such as ‘Mohey panghat pe’...or ‘Ik larrki bheegee bhaagee si.’

It is notable that Asif’s reels of an earlier version of an unfinished Mughal-i-Azam, featuring a different cast, were discarded after Madhubala stepped in. Asif did not try to extend the quintessential appeal of Madhubala for his audiences by giving her long wordy dialogues (the kind Akbar or Saleem were to mouth with all the thunderous resonance of popular Parsi theatre style ‘dialogue delivery’). He accepted her wisely for what she was.

Physically, Madhubala remained the way she was till the end, somewhat ‘shapeless’ by today’s standards. A closer look reveals a dangerous lack of vitality around her eyes, brought on by a congenitally defective heart which caused her to die so young.

Legend has it that, before her illness was discovered and shooting for Mughal-i-Azam began, she and her great love Dilip Kumar came close to getting married. But her father would not let go of his golden goose and forbade matrimony for her.

Madhubala seems to have receded thereafter in some place deep within herself and, in Mughal-i-Azam, she seems to be responding to situations created for her by the scriptwriter with a profound weariness and a premonition of an early death.

This makes the tragedy of Anarkali even more touchingly real and haunting. Think of the slow ravishment of a peacock feather caressing her face or a bunch of grapes being dangled seductively close to that luscious mouth by Saleem. She seems to be responding to an inner reality, less to her lover.

Madhubala’s kind of sad interiority soon came under threat by a new breed of actors that went on to rule the screen after the 1970s — the not-so-good looking but intellectually sparkling triad of Jaya, Shabana and Smita Patil and the earthily buoyant Mumtaz and Zeenat Aman.

These new actors were trained and well read. They projected everything they had towards their screen lovers and villains, leaving nothing in reserve. Madhubala’s passive acceptance of the inevitable by women was by now a thing of the past.

Her illness, though cruel and lingering, saved Madhubala from being pushed into emulating the others while fighting the ravages of an advancing age. Like Marilyn Monroe, Madhubala’s beauty and her early death before its decline have made her a timeless icon, inimitable and strictly not for sale.

Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist

By arrangement with The Wire

Published in Dawn, ICON, January 5th, 2025