Recently Google Doodle paid tribute to Meena Kumari, Bollywood’s “Tragedy queen”. And here we’ll be talking about the “Historically Incomparable” actress of Bollywood, Meena Kumari…
Tribute worth paying!
It was an auspicious occasion of her 85th birth anniversary on 1st August, Wednesday. There Google appreciated and thanked to her great work in acting and performing awesome roles. This Bollywood diva was shown in a red saaree with her prominent expressions.
A journey of life – Meena Kumari
Come Let’s uncover the phases of her life’s journey…
Her Childhood –
Meena Kumari, born on 1st August 1933 as Mahjabeen Bano, was a great actress, poet, and a singer. She originally marked her origin from a very poor family of theatre artists. She started her career in the film industry from a very young age.
At the age of four, she worked in the movie Leatherface, released in 1939. She seemed quite uninterested in the film industry lane and wanted to study but her parents used to force her to studios. Later asked about her earning at a young age, she concluded that eating gave her peace that she was able to help her family in some way or the other. When she started earning, she self-educated herself .she always had the desire to study and she accomplished it on her own, she sees this too as one of her achievements.
Her Acting Career –
Meena Kumari was one of the finest and an iconic actress of that time. She inspired the generation of her time by her mesmerizing acting. The actress was also known by many names including “Tragedy Queen”, GURU DATT and Cinderella of Hindi movies. She gave the best and memorable movies like ‘sahib biwi or gulaam’,’Baiju bawra’, ‘Bahu begam’ and ‘Pakeeza’. Her roles depicted loneliness and love very perfectly on screen. She also played some humorous roles in movies like – ‘Kohinoor’, ‘Shararat’ and ‘MIss Marray’, that made a special place for her in the hearts of her fans. In a span of 30 years of her career, she nearly gave 92 movies and played her role very well.
After few days of the release of her movie ‘Pakeeza’, she became very ill and went into a coma. On 31st March 1972, the film industry went under a shock. Meena Kumari left the world cause of her liver failure due to an excessive amount of alcohol consumption. According to her wish, she was buried at the rehmatabad cemetery in Mumbai. She died at a very young age of 38, just after few weeks of the release of her one of the best film ‘Pakeezah’. Meena Kumari was a treat to the film industry and that day there was a real loss.
She won many awards along with 4 film fare awards for best actress. ‘baju bawra’, ‘Parineeta ‘,’Sahib biwi or Ghulam ‘ and ‘kaajal ‘ made her handle those Filmfare awards. Onscreen she used to perfectly portray the role of bhartiya Nari and their struggle. She used to define the role of women and their condition in the 50s.
Tanha Chand –
Apart from being a great actor, she wrote many poems. Her poetry generally used to have an essence of loneliness and made poems had deep meanings and lines about love. Her poems showed the case of lost. ‘Tanha Chand’ hold whole of the collection of her poetries. It was beautifully compiled by Gulzar and got published in 1972 after her death. Called a tragedy queen, her reel and real life both were a tragedy, her loneliness, family, her roles, her nearly everything, she had a very bad addiction to alcohol. Maybe was a reason for this name.
Her words to describe her life
“Tum Kya karoge sun kar mujhse Meri Kahani
Beluft zindagi ke Kisse hai phikey phikey…”