Keeping the legacy alive

Over 11 years, after the passing away of the legendary Ashok Kumar at the age of 90, his eldest daughter Bharati Jaffrey is striving to keep his memory alive. Death anniversary screenings of Dadamoni’s films, exhibitions of assorted memorabilia, and a collection of his songs on CD, are just some of the attempts that have reminded us of an actor, who strode across the early black-and-white era and the ostentatious vibgyor entertainers to the television medium.
Yet Bharati has an abiding regret. Despite the family’s unwavering efforts, a commemorative postal stamp has not been sanctioned. Neither has a road been named after the thespian around the Chembur tree-lined area where he lived in an old-worldly bungalow overlooking a verdant golf course.
Inevitably, the bungalow was eventually sold to real-estate developers. The family now occupies apartments in the high-rise, which sprouted in the patch of land where Ashok Kumar spent a major part of his life.
Vis-à-vis the postal stamp and road christening, ministers of all hues and clout in New Delhi have promised to “look into things” but there has been no progress at all in bestowing Ashok Kumar his posthumous dues. Bharati’s quiet campaign continues, despite the odds.
And when I spoke to her last Wednesday, Bharati seemed to be defeated. Exactly a month had elapsed since her 59-year-old sister, Preeti Ganguly, passed away on Decemeber 2, following cardiac arrest. “I feel as if a part of me has gone with her,” Bharati said over the phone, “She was my baby sister — rebellious but lovable to the core. Our father didn’t want her to act. Being conservative, papa felt that his daughter wouldn’t be able to cope with the pressures of show business. When she began to act and became a popular comedienne, dad thawed, but made it clear that he wouldn’t recommend her for roles.
She had to find her own way.”
Ironically, one of Preeti Ganguly’s most remembered roles was in Basu Chatterji’s Khatta Meetha (1978) toplining Ashok Kumar and Pearl Padamsee. Of the 23 films she appeared in, Preeti was typecast as the overweight funster, but tackled her roles with the kind of spontaneity — particularly in Chatterji’s Swami, H.S. Rawail’s Laila Majnu and Manoj Kumar’s Kranti — which endeared her to the audience. She was more than a known factor to the 1970s and ’80s generations, which makes the lack of any kind of print media coverage on her death surprising. Perhaps it’s the classic question of being “out-of-sight-out-of-mind”.
Indeed many instances can be cited of major screen personalities whose passing away went unnoticed, be it Cuckoo or Sulochana aka Ruby Myers.
For a while, Preeti joined the Osho ashram. Once she lost kilos of weight, filmmakers shunned her. In their eyes, she had lost her USP. After an absence from the screen for over two decades, Preeti was seen in Aashiq Banaya Aapne briefly but that’s it. She focused rather on helming the Ashok Kumar School of the Dramatic Arts in the compound of the Chembur bungalow. “She did continue to teach wherever and whenever she could,” Bharati narrates, “and was more than self-sufficient. A brief marriage later, she was a bit shaken but recovered her combative spirit.”
Bharati’s sister Rupa lives in Pune with her husband, the former actor Deven Varma, Their brother Arup — who acted in Bezubaan but quit after that — stays in the apartment next to Preeti’s. “Preeti’s gone… but that still hasn’t sunk in. She was always in the forefront of organising little functions in the memory of our father. Whenever there was a crisis, she had the answers.”
Piquantly, Bharati doesn’t have a clue about who owns the rights of the films that Ashok Kumar produced. Many producers have wanted to remake his classic ghost story Mahal but the family has to be sure about copyright issues. She asks, “Papa’s Sangram was remade into Shakti but did anyone acknowledge that?” A few of Dadamoni’s paintings, homeopathic remedies and posters — like the superb one of Sangram showing Ashok Kumar with Nalini Jaywant — are Bharati’s prized possessions. She ends our conversation with, “Now that Preeti’s gone, perhaps there’s no point talking about possessions and the past. One has to reconcile with a today… without my kid sister.”

The writer is a journalist, film critic and film
director