Once Upon A Cinema: Nimmi; the doe-eyed princess

The incredible Tabassum, who has been in the public eye for almost as long as India has been independent, and in the course of 75 years moved from being a movie actress to TV show host to YouTube sensation, was born as Kiran Bala Sachdev to Ayodhyanath Sachdev, who had participated in the Indian freedom struggle. Raj Kapoor was a family friend and often mocked little Tabassum for that mouthful of a screen name that she had. Instead, he preferred her pet-name, Kinni. Sometimes he also called her “Badi Bi” because she often spoke like grownups. She endured all of that. But when one day Raj Kapoor told her he was about to name one of his heroines Kinni after her, Baby Tabassum cried her lungs out. There was no way she was going to let this happen. They tried to explain and pacify her, but she lay down on the floor and bawled. There was no way anybody else was going to get the name Kinni. So the venerated Raj Kapoor had to bow before the iron will of that little girl. He chose to name his heroine a similar sounding ‘ Nimmi ’. Nawab Bano’s family was no stranger to the movie business, though she hadn’t experienced any of it. She and her grandmother now lived with her aunt Jyoti, who was married to a handsome singer-musician by the name of Ghulam Mustafa Durrani, who was quite the star. Her mother, Jyoti’s sister Wahidan had done bit roles in several films of Mehboob Khan. Owing to these connections, the 15-year-old Nawab Bano was allowed into the premises of Central Studios to watch the shooting of Andaz, which was being directed by Khan himself. The film starred Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Nargis. It was one of the abiding casting coups in the history of Hindi films. Those two men never shared the frame again. Be that as it may, Nawab Bano was on the sets watching them act. One day she entered and saw Jaddan Bai sitting on one of the two chairs in the room. The other chair was empty, but Nawab didn’t dare to sit beside her. She was the mother of Nargis, after all! Nawab continued to watch, standing. Jaddan Bai realized there was this young girl standing beside her, clearly intimidated. She insisted and made Nawab sit. Between takes, Raj Kapoor approached Jaddan Bai to touch her feet. He prostrated before the matriarch, and his eyes caught the girl sitting beside her. Many years later, Nimmi maintained that if that Raj Kapoor hadn’t bowed down to touch Nargis’s mother’s feet that day, she would probably have had a different life. Raj was looking for a new heroine for his second directorial venture under the RK Films banner,  Barsaat. Nargis had already been cast for the romantic lead opposite him. He was looking for the second lead, a girl with the most innocent face ever, who would attract the audience’s sympathy. The script demanded it but Raj was unable to find anyone who fit that description. Till that very moment. He kept staring for a beat and then asked her name. By the time she responded, the girl’s fate had been sealed.

Barsaat released on 22 April 1949. It was a dream debut. Nimmi was remarkably confident for someone with zero on-screen experience. Not one dialogue or look was out of place. It was as if she was born to do this. The title song Barsaat mein humse miley tum was featured on her, and so was the climax of the film. The audience responded to this assured debut and Nimmi was up there on the marquee. She was a star, and the people were eating off her hands. Nimmi was inundated with offers. Within a year or two, she had major releases with the three kings, the ruling triumvirate of Dev-Dilip-Raj. With Dilip Kumar in particular, she had an enviable strike rate: every single film that they worked in together is not only successful but a classic. They did five films together: Deedar (1951), Daag (1952), Aan (1952), Amar (1954) and Uran Khatola (1955). Two of these, Amar and Aan, were both directed by the maverick Mehboob Khan. Amar, even by today’s standards, would be a disturbing film. Nimmi plays Soniya, a rustic girl who has been resisting the advances of the village toughie, and while running away from him, ends up at the palatial mansion of upright lawyer Amar Nath (Dilip Kumar). In the darkened halls, Soniya is raped by Amar, the paragon of virtue and righteousness. The crime would’ve gone unnoticed if not for Anju (Madhubala), who stands up for her. Nimmi’s performance as the naïve village girl and her loss of innocence was impeccable. The film features her in an underwater sequence, possibly one of India’s earliest.   Aan (1952) was a swashbuckling spectacle in lively technicolour. It was one of India’s first colour films. Aan was released worldwide under the title Savage Princess. Nimmi hit the British tabloids when she refused to be kissed – on the hand – by Errol Flynn during the London premiere of Aan. Nimmi witnessed unprecedented popularity due to her role in Aan, which wasn’t even the main lead. Cecille B. DeMille offered her a film, and so did three other Hollywood filmmakers. Nimmi turned them all down, preferring to continue doing films in Hindi. With further hits like Uran Khatola, Basant Bahar and Bhai Bhai, Nimmi blazed a trail through the 1950s. Her swansong Love and God, K. Asif’s ill-fated love saga, could have been her most grandiose film, if not for the production delays and the untimely deaths of the hero Guru Dutt and eventually K. Asif himself. By the time the spliced-together, fragmented film released in 1986, Nimmi had long retired and settled down to a life of happy domesticity with S. Ali Raza, who had written her films Amar and Aan, and Mehboob Khan’s undying classic Mother India. Amborish is a National Film Award winning writer, biographer and film historian.

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