Fatima Rashid - the flower of India
Nargis, considered to be one of the most well-known actresses in the Indian Hindi film industry, was born as Fatima Rashid. Her screen name means 'Narcissus', the flower. Making her screen debut as a child actress in the 1935 movie Talash-E-Haq, she began her actual acting career with the 1942 film Tamanna. She was introduced into the world of cinema by her mother Jaddanbai, who was a classical singer and courtesan, to avoid her from becoming a courtesan too.
She has made many critically acclaimed movies with the celebrated actors Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar. Some of the best picks are Barsaat, Awaara, Andaz and Deedar. During her career, which spanned from the 1940s to the 1960s, her most successful movie was Mother India. This movie won her the Best Actress award at the Filmfare Awards. Appearing as Radha in this movie, it was one of the best known roles she had ever played. It was on the sets of this movie that she met her future husband Sunil Dutt, who had reportedly saved her from a fire during the film-shoot. Nargis chose to quit acting after her marriage. The couple was blessed with three children, Sunil Dutt, Namratha and Priya Dutt.
Nargis was the recipient of the Urvashy Award, the highest honor bestowed on a movie actress in the Indian film industry. Other prestigious awards that she received were Karlovy Wary Award, National Film Award and the esteemed Padma Shri, which was for the first time conferred on a film actress.
Apart from winning many awards, Nargis formed the Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe, along with her husband. Comprising of many well-known actors and actresses, this troupe entertained the Indian soldiers at borders. Her troupe was one of the first ones that performed at Dhaka, after the Indo-Pakistani war. Mrs Dutt was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha. However, she could not complete her tenure as she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and succumbed to it.
Other than being known as a great actress, Nargis was also recognized as an ardent social worker. She was the first patron of The Spastics Society of India, where she worked for the benefit of spastic children. Even after her death, her presence was obvious, as her seat was left vacant on the premier of her son Sanjay Dutt's debut movie, Rocky. She has the Nargis Dutt Memorial Cancer Foundation established in her memory.
Nargis and her movies
Nargis Dutt (1 Juna 1929 – 3 May 1981), born Fatima Rashid but known by her screen name, Nargis, was an Indian film actress. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest actresses in the history of Hindi cinema. She made her screen debut as a child in Talash-E-Haq in 1935, but her acting carer began in 1942 with Tamanna. During a career that spanned from the 1940s to the 60s, Nargis appeared in numerous commercially successful as well as critically appreciated films, many of which featured her alongside actor and filmmaker Raj Kapoor.
One of her best-known roles was that of Radha in the Academy Award-nominated Mother India (1957), a performance that won her Best Actress trophies at the Filmfare Awards and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In 1958, Nargis married her Mother India co-star, actor Sunil Dutt, and left the film industry. She would appear infrequently in films during the 60s. Some of her films of this period include the drama Raat Aur Din (1967), for which she got the inaugural National Film Award for Best Actress.
Along with her husband, Nargis formed the Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe, which roped in several leading actors and singers of the time and held stage shows at border areas. In early 1970s, she became the first patron of Spastics Society of India, and her subsequent work with the organisation brought her recognition as a social worker, and later a Rajya Sabha nomination in 1980.
Nargis died in 1981 of pancreatic cancer, a few days before her son Sanjay Dutt made his film debut in Bollywood. In 1982, the Nargis Dutt Memorial Cancer Foundation was established in her memory. The award for best feature film on national integration in the annual National Film Awards ceremony is called the Nargis Dutt Award in her honour.Mother India - Fatima's best movie
The film begins with the finishing of a water canal for the village set in the present. Radha (Nargis), as the mother of the village, is asked to open the canal and remembers back to her past when she was newly married, mirroring the new independence of India. The wedding between Radha and Shamu (Raaj Kumar) was paid for by Radha's mother-in-law, who got a loan from the moneylender Sukhilala.
This event starts the spiral of poverty and hardship that Radha endures. The conditions of the loan are disputed, but the village elders decide in favor of the moneylender, after which Shamu and Radha are forced to pay three-quarters of their crop as interest on the loan of 500 rupees. While trying to use more of their land to alleviate their poverty, Shamu's arms are crushed by a boulder. He is shamed by his helplessness and is humiliated by others in the village. Deciding that he is no use to his family, he leaves and does not return. Soon after this, Radha's mother-in-law dies.
Radha continues to work in the fields with her children and gives birth again. Sukhilala offers to help alleviate her poverty in return for Radha marrying him, but she refuses to sell herself.
A storm sweeps through the village that destroys the harvest and kills Radha's youngest child, and the villagers start to migrate but decide to stay and rebuild because of Radha's urging. The film then skips forward several years to when Radha's two surviving children, Birju (Sunil Dutt) and Ramu (Rajendra Kumar), are young men. Birju, embittered by the exactions of Sukhilala since he was a child, takes out his frustrations by pestering the village girls, especially Sukhilala's daughter.
Ramu, by contrast, has a calmer temper and is married soon after. He becomes a father ,but his wife is soon absorbed into the cycle of poverty. Birju's anger finally becomes dangerous and, after being provoked, attacks Sukhilala and his daughter and violently lashes out at his family. He is chased out of the village and becomes a bandit. On the day of the wedding of Sukhilala's daughter, Birju returns to exact vengeance. He kills Sukhilala and takes his daughter--but Radha, who had promised that Birju would not do harm, shoots Birju, who dies in her arms.
The film ends with her opening the canal and reddish water flowing into the fields. It is the tale that is constantly repeated in real life. When Radha was married, her mother-in-law borrowed five hundred rupees from the village money-lender, Sukhilala. The payment plan was simple: each year, Sukhilala would get one-fourth of the crop they grew. That was what Radha's mother-in-law thought was the deal. Sukhilala had actually taken advantage of her lack of education and written in the contract that he would receive three quarters of the crop. When his evil came to light, the village elders, not wanting the police to come to the village, ruled in Sukhilala's favor. Mother India is the evergreen story of a family's struggle to survive against the evil of Sukhilala.