Obituary: Manoj Kumar should be celebrated for ‘Shor’ and ‘Shaheed’, not the caricature of ‘Om Shanti Om’

One of India’s acclaimed actor-directors – Manoj Kumar – is no more. The original ‘Mr. Bharat’ – and for many, the only Mr. Bharat.

For anyone steeped in the magic of true Bollywood film universe, Manoj Kumar’s work should be celebrated for ‘Roti Kapda Aur Makaan’ and ‘Purab Aur Paschim’.

As well as his turn as a doting father in ‘Shor’ and the star turn he put into his role in ‘Gumnaam’ (a well-made murder mystery that owes a lot to Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’.) 

Now, everyone would associate most Manoj Kumar movies for an overdose of patriotism. It’s true that he loved being associated with the ‘Mr. Bharat’ tag. But take it from me, his films were films weren’t just about highly emotional dialogues on the meaning of India. There was a phase in the late 1960s and right through the 1970s that Manoj Kumar created a body of work that was ahead of its times.

Take ‘Roti Kapda Aur Makaan’, which at its centre was focused on urban angst and unemployment among the youth. It’s a theme that’s timeless, but handled with such verve by Manoj Kumar, who directed and played the lead alongside Amitabh Bachchan (on the cusp of turning into a superstar) and Shahshi Kapoor (in one of his best roles). There was also an ethereal Zeenat Aman…

Take ‘Shor’. Again, it was about the plight of never having enough to get by. But it’s also a fairly deep insight into the equation between a father and son, wracked by the loss of a wife and mother, respectively. But for me, ‘Shor’ was about that song – ‘Ek Pyaar Ka Nagma Hai…’. Never has love, loss and yearning been expressed as evocatively as in this one.

The true ‘Shaheed’

Above everything, Manoj Kumar embodied ‘Shaheed’, the 1965 film based on the final days of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, the revolutionaries who were hanged in pre-Independence India. Yes, there have been others playing out the Bhagat Singh role, notably so by Ajay Devgan, and by Bobby Deol. But it’s still Manoj Kumar’s Shaheed that will go down in history as the definitive take on Bhagat Singh. (Is there anyone who will not feel the goosebumps when coming across ‘O Mere Rang De Basanti Chola…’?) 

Any Manoj Kumar fan should not venture beyond ‘Kranti’, his last immensely successful outing, which came out in 1981 and held its own against the wave that was Amitabh in his mega-stardom phase.

Beyond ‘Kranti’, Manoj Kumar’s oeuvre featured duds such as ‘Clerk’. Let’s not go there, and cherish the memories provided by an ‘Upkar’ or a ‘Who Kaun Thi’.

One final word – for a generation of Hindi movie watchers, Manoj Kumar will be nothing more than the caricature that showed up in Shah Rukh Khan’s 2007 venture ‘Om Shanti Om’. Sure, apologies were made to Manoj Kumar, but the bad taste endures.

Some icons should remain untouched. Manoj Kumar is one of them.

Rest in peace, Mr. Bharat.