Watching the stunning Rekha as Umrao Jaan stare at you from the big screen, with a single tear shimmering on the long lashes of her crimson eye unsure if it should grace her painted cheeks, it seems like you are looking into her soul—it is like looking through filigreed windows into a hauntingly beautiful but abandoned and desolate house longing for human warmth. There is pain, despair, and a resigned acceptance of fate as she sings ‘Yeh kya jagah hai doston?’ while staring at her childhood home—a symbol of her innocence that she can wistfully look at but not really go back to. It brings to mind Percy Bysshe Shelley’s immortal lines: “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
While I have watched this Muzaffar Ali masterpiece a number of times, this was my first time watching it unfold on the big screen, that too in a digitally restored 4K avatar. “Restoration today is the need of the hour for the entire celluloid world. But the process is rather expensive. So, not all movies have the opportunity or privilege to be restored and digitised,” says filmmaker Muzaffar Ali when we meet for an interview. The 1981 magnum opus is restored by the National Film Development Corporation-National Film Archive of India under the National Film Heritage Mission and re-released as part of PVR INOX’s Timeless Classics initiative.
But it was not an easy process. It was a time consuming, slow process done frame by frame. “We went on to diligently supervise every frame during the process. Moreover, the negatives we had were completely congealed. So, we had to get the negatives from the film archives and use that as a basis for restoration—about 15 minutes of the film was missing. We had to find those separately,” reveals Ali, who sounds elated seeing his labour of love finding a fresh generation of audience.
The Visual Treat
In fact, so far to me, this 1981 classic—which won three National Awards: Best Actress, Best Music Direction and Best Female Playback Singer—was more about its poignant story, nuanced storytelling, stunning music, and of course Rekha’s sublime performance as Umrao. But watching the restored version on the big screen made me to truly appreciate its surreal visual beauty that transports one into a time gone by. Unlike contemporary movies, where aesthetics often creates an intricately crafted but cold world far-removed from reality, the warmth-toned world of Umrao has a lived-in quality that not only enhances the storytelling but becomes an integral part of the poetic experience. “Beauty has its own intense journey, and that journey has to be undertaken like a pilgrimage—aapka man jab tak fakeeri mein nehi hoga aapko yeh nazar nehi ayegi. Unfortunately, today people don't have time, whether it’s Bollywood or anywhere else…people are in a hurry to prove things. They don’t even have the time to discover themselves or their past. And until you understand your yesterday deep enough, you are not in the position to touch people with your work,” Ali elaborates.
That is something that came naturally to him. The movie, adapted from Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s 1899 book Umrao Jaan Ada, was set in 19th century Lucknow. And hailing from a royal family of Kotwara (Ali is the eldest son of Raja Syed Sajid Husain Ali of Kotwara, one of the oldest princely states of Uttar Pradesh, situated just 160 km from Lucknow), that world was not too far removed from his own. “It was a journey within,” says Ali. “Although it was about 150 years back, and things change fast, there were certain things that didn’t change as much—I could see traces of that Lucknow in my own home mostly through my mother and the people around her. So, I had all these kinds of ready references around me. Also, it was not just about building the character of Umrao, there were all these other characters and each had to come across as equally authentic—their culture, their body language, their nuances, the way they use textile, how they use their eyes, everything needed to be part of the psyche. One false note and everything would have fallen flat. And it wasn’t easy. Production design, unlike cinematography, music etcetera, is still a weak spot in India, and we are talking about 45 years back. To be true to a period in time and place, it has to come to you from within—otherwise you don’t know what you can put in there to make it sound true. Every frame of Umrao Jaan was a personal experience—every ray of light that was in the frame came from personal experience, every sound, every kind of shade had its own impact on the emotion,” he explains.
Building From Sketches
What helped in putting together such a spectacular visual landscape was the fact that Ali is also a prolific painter. In fact, he had his first one-man show of paintings at the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta in 1968. “I think my strengths, especially while working on Umrao Jaan, were being from Lucknow and knowing that world, being poetry and music driven, and being a painter.”
He reveals that he had sketched the whole film out before starting the shoot of Umrao Jaan. “I can’t shoot without sketching I can't shoot…I don’t know where to put the camera if I don't sketch out the scene first,” he says admitting that it was an influence of working with Satyajit Ray during his advertising years at Clarion McCann Advertising Services in the 1960s. “I observed Mr Ray closely and that is how he would prepare to shoot a film. I think the whole discipline of preparing for a film is something I got from him.”
According to him, sketching out the frames is a crucial part of his filmmaking process. “When you are with your pen and sketchbook, you are taking yourself into a zone where nobody's been—you don't know what's going to emerge on that blank paper. You may have a script in your hand and you may have shot all the locations as a kind of an exercise, but when it comes to putting it in terms of a scenario, it’s very important to see that scenario from different camera angles as well as the movement of the camera. Sketching it all out helps in having a clear idea of the shot.”
The Ray Of Inspiration
Not only had Muzaffar Ali worked with Satyajit Ray at Clarion McCann Advertising Services, where Ray was the vice chairman and the art director at that time, but his Umrao Jaan was released just four years after the release of Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khilari. Both adaptations of novels, the first written by Mirza Hadi Ruswa and the second by Munshi Premchand, were set in 19th century Lucknow—while Umrao starts unfolding in the 1840s Lucknow and goes on till the end of the end of the 1857 Revolt, Shatranj is set in 1856, right before the Revolt.
“I loved how passionate he was about his own milieu, about his city… I wanted to absorb that passion and put it to my milieu, which is Awadh. Till then the films that were being made in Bombay showed just caricatures of Awadh—there was nothing authentic. I wanted to take Ray’s frame of context—the way he looked at Bengal, especially Calcutta, in his movies. So, there was a direct inspiration of Ray on Umrao Jaan.
When I watched Shatranj, I was very impressed by the filmmaking. However, I wanted to show the Awadh I knew in my way. Ray’s Awadh was his, and the way Premchand saw it—with a dash of cynicism. I wanted to pour in compassion and maybe become a bit subjective. I also thought that the movie had certain weaknesses, especially in the depiction of the characters. It is essentially a movie with two characters, two nawabs played by Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey—while Saeed was brilliant and did wonders by bringing out little nuances that would blow your mind, Sanjeev Kumar’s portrayal didn't ring true…he didn’t have the right accents or nuances. So, there was a huge contrast between the portrayal of the two protagonists. I think Sanjeev wasn’t the best casting choice in hindsight, but then once the die is cast, the filmmaker can’t really do anything about it.
As a filmmaker, as a person, and a protagonist of a culture, Ray was a very vital presence. He had a special kind of empathy for me, and he would take out time to talk to me, but he was measured with his words. Ray’s works gave me a proper understanding of authenticity—how to be honest to the medium and to your craft. Ray’s movie gave Awadh a context of authenticity.”
Rekha: The Muse And The Art
But there was something about Umrao Jaan that went beyond what pen and paper could dictate. And that was the sublime performance as Rekha as Umrao—a performance where the actor bled into the character and the vice versa. “Rekha became Umrao and Umrao became her—she is still living it,” says Ali.
“If there was no Rekha I would've been lost. The way she took in that character, the way she took it to her soul—she literally breathed that character. Very few actors will do that. But she just got so absorbed…it's something that she's living even now, it has become part of her persona. I consider myself very lucky. Sometimes, although rarely, an actor delivers more than your expectations—and that was Rekha in Umrao Jaan,” he says, adding that one of the aspects that made the National-award winning performance feels so real was the fact that Rekha understood the power of poetry. “People often don’t realise how ethereal a woman can look when she is reciting something from her soul. When a beautiful woman absorbs poetry and makes it her own, aligning it with her own heartbeat, then something amazing happens. Most women don’t understand this and the recite a poem or a ghazal as something romantic and become too affected in the process.”
According to the filmmaker, it was her eyes that were instrumental in the casting process. “When I saw her eyes, I realised this is the person who can tell the story and embody the joy and sorrow of the character. There was no looking back from there. She took in everything in a very organic way. She breathed the script; the dialogues were coming out of her soul—I still don’t know how she achieved that kind of a depth with the lines.
Rekha, born as Bhanurekha Ganesan to a Tamil father and a Telugu mother, was far removed from the world of Lucknow. Ali credits her power to observe and imbibe what she managed to do with Umrao. “She meditates into a role; she lives the role. She became Umrao Jaan. And credit goes to her power of observation.”
But the material she was given to work with was crucial. “We didn’t let anything reach her without its due distillation and maturity; it was all in its ultimate best form. In fact, when we were in Lucknow, I didn't allow anybody to meet her accept those people who could bring that special adaa. We introduced her to people with the right intonation.”
And she created magic out of it. “The way she took to the language and to the essence of the words was amazing. The whole writing was blended to the trajectory of the character—as the screenplay is unfolding, the words are supporting what she is. Very few times the lyricist is able to rise to the goings on in a character's life; when that happens, the poet's words become larger than life, and the impact is that of dynamite. The same goes for the musicality. The music was not born in a day; it took us two years between Khayyam and Shahryar and me to achieve that kind of resonance—I only said yes to what really pulled my heartstrings. Then beyond that, when the singing pours in, and especially if it is Ashaji’s voice, it is pure magic. Then came Kumudini Lakhia’s choreography which was so delicate and sensitive; it was grace in every movement. So, the soul was being given to Rekha, stage by stage, step by step. And she kept rising with each input, with each element,” Ali reminisces.
Aesthetics This, Aesthetics That
Umrao Jaan is a heart-breaking story of Amiran, a child and a soon-to-bride, who is kidnapped and sold by a person exacting revenge on her father. Her dark complexion gets her a raw deal, and she lands up in a kotha. Here she is given a new name and identity—Umrao Jaan. She What follows is a life punctuated with betrayals and manipulations—as the pleasure woman, she is treated as a plaything, to be used and discarded by men. During the Revolt of 1857 she flees Lucknow with her guardians, and luck brings her back to her hometown. There she finds her family—the family she had yearned to meet every single day of her life. But her mother, who initially embraces her daughter, is made to disown her due to societal stigma. Dejected and disillusioned, Umrao Jaan eventually returns to Lucknow accepting her fate. For her it is as Milton said in Samson Agonistes: “calm of mind, all passion spent.”
Although it is a story of a woman’s continued misfortunes, unlike certain contemporary filmmakers in Bollywood who are often accused of exploiting women’s suffering for aesthetics, in Ali’s hand it becomes a universal story of resilience. “The resonance of pain is the most artful thing. The best way to do it is through poetry and music.” Pointing out the focus being on creating the emotional landscape instead of a purely visual one—the pain should resonate with the audience; it can’t be a mere visual aesthetics”.
Talking about aesthetics, what is his take on the Gen Z obsession with it? “Aesthetics has gone haywire—today, people don’t know exactly where they're coming from or where they’re going,” he guffaws, reiterating that aesthetics is a deep journey. “It has come from culture, it has come from moments, it has come from a lot of very in-depth exploration of space, light, sound and so on. Yes, there's a yearning for that. But then there's a yearning for Mickey Mouse also. The world is hungry for images. What kind of image you can give is up to your own journey.” Indeed, Umrao Jaan will be an opportunity for this aesthetics-obsessed generation to experience a movie where the visual aesthetics is rooted in history, where the vignettes into royal lives are based on lived experience, where poetry and music add to the poignancy of the storytelling and not just to a Spotify list. Hence, after its theatrical run, Ali is looking at an OTT release. “It is a film with its own unique aura. It is a very intimate and personal film. And that makes it great for OTT viewing as well. Very few films of this vintage have gone on OTT. I am hoping it will now straddle both the small screen and the big. It is a film for the now and for the tomorrow.”
Indeed, as John Keats said: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
Not Art For Art’s Sake
But Ali’s elegiac masterpiece is more than just a thing of beauty. It weaves in social issues like child marriage, poverty, fair-skin bias, child trafficking, corruption, moral bankruptcy, but above all, women’s place in a deeply patriarchal society. Umrao’s journey is essentially that of a woman, whose real name and identity is taken away by the society, seeking agency. She earns her own money but can’t buy freedom. Every time she tries to rise above her situation, society keeps pulling her down with brutal force.
The irony is that the society and its malaise remain almost the same even in 2025 keeping Umrao Jaan relevant as ever. “Things haven't changed—the trials and the tribulations, and the predicament of a woman remains constant. Maybe the poetic philosophy of Umrao is now missing,” he says adding that the movie gives inner strength and resilience to be able to face the world with dignity. “Umrao Jaan is still a contemporary vision of a woman. The film is futuristic enough to stand the test of time.”
Umrao Jaan is a universal story of resilience while being trapped in a cycle of misfortunes. It doesn’t have a fairytale ending, because real life seldom does.
Image Credits: Sushmendra Dubey
