Gautam Kaul Early last month, the Pakistani news daily Friday Times, gave a surprise to its reader by featuring an essay on an Indian film which for its sweep on nostalgia for its past, has remained unmatched. What was also surprising was the detail in the recall of this film and the newspaper space it was allowed to occupy, which was nearly two third of the full page. Our film of interest was indeed “Mere Mehboob”.
Made in colour and released in the country in 1963, starring the late Sadhana, Ashok Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Nimmi, Ameeta, Johnny Walker, Pran at el, directed by H. S. Rawail and supported by excellent camera work by Gian Singh, and music laid out by Naushad , the film is still recalled by its erstwhile youth audience for the ‘Sadhana cut’ hair style and the whole show of Islamic fashion which triggered the interest in the wearing of ghararas, shararas, kamiz and salwars among the women folk both in Muslim and Hindu families.
This is not to say the film was full of classical music which filled the slots in the ‘hit parade’ programmes in the country. Once released, the film refused to be pulled out of the release theatres nation wide. Language did not matter.
The film still did silver jubilee runs in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Bengal. What was also most interesting for the feature in Friday Times, was the detailed recall of the whole story of the film and what each artist did in this story. To us across the border, the mention of importance of the non Musli.