Shaheed movie manoj kumar biography
•
After almost a decade, inom happened to watch Manoj Kumar’s classic Shaheed, which retold the story of the glorious revolutionaries of the late 1920s, who led a parallel battle against the British rule. From a cinematic perspective too, this film, directed by S Ram Sharma and produced by Kawal P Kashyap, is a landmark, for this marked the birth of Manoj Kumar as we know him.
The movie tells a story, now familiar through history textbooks and multiple re-tellings on the silver screen. The movie begins with a description of India as a country where mothers like Jijabhai have brought up sons like Shivaji to kamp fearlessly for the cause of freedom and where the likes of Maharani Lakshmibai have chosen death over a life of slavery. In the same country, Bhagat Singh (Manoj Kumar) grows up in a family of patriots.
| Ma, ab toh azaadi titta pyar ho gaya hai…. Dekhna, ek din mera pyar manzil överdel zarur pahunchega |
Well into his youth, he comes in touch with other revolution
•
Shaheed: The definite Bhagat Singh film which almost didn’t get made, listen to its songs
Manoj Kumar was played Bhagat Singh while Prem Chopra and Anant Purushottam Marathe played Sukhdev and Rajguru respectively. Kamini Kaushal essayed the role of Vidyavati, Bhagat Singh’s mother, Manmohan was seen as Chandrashekhar Azad. The film was critically acclaimed and the best review came from Bhagat Singh’s mother who really liked Kamini Kaushal’s portrayal of her. In fact, Shaheed became an official document for Bhagat Singh’s proud mother and the Government of India, recalls the veteran actor adding that throughout the film the three of them (Kumar, Chopra and Marathe in the roles of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru respectively) never wore makeup. “But for the scenes where the three are taken to the gallows, we applied makeup (laughing). Do you know why? So that hum achhe aur sundar lage. After this film, Prem, Marathe and I became comrades for life,” said Kumar.
•
Dustedoff
One thing that has long puzzled me is Bollywood’s reluctance to do real life stories. Where Hollywood has created films on the lives of people ranging from Napoleon’s one-time fiancée to an obscure British missionary in China, we have, to show for years of fascinating history… Shahjehanand Changez Khan, both so badly warped that they bear little resemblance to fact. Dr Kotnis ki Amar Kahani is a refreshingly unusual film in being relatively accurate, as well as entertaining—but a flash in the pan.
Our generally avid enthusiasm for the freedom movement and its exponents gave me hope that Shaheed, the story of Bhagat Singh, might be worth a watch. This, after all, was the young man who inspired an entire slew of films, beginning with (or so Wikipedia would have us believe) a film in 1954, followed by a 1963 film starring Shammi Kapoor, and this one: the first of Manoj Kumar’s many patriotic films. There have been later films—2002, for instance, saw two film