Birha Bahag Ki Meena (Sumaira Hameed)- Novel Review by Shoby

Birha Bahag Ki Meena (Sumaira Hameed)- Novel Review by Shoby

K. Asif 's Mughal e Azam, Kamal Amrohi's Pakeezah and Sir Sanjay Lella Bhansali's, Devdas, Saanwariya & Bajirao Mastani. To me, if anything deserves to be called as a cinematic gem, it is just these movies. To me, they are the ones who have really achieved the cult status in terms of film making in the history of Indian film industry. The films have really changed the way how the films were being made..

Let me halt the discussion on other three movies for some other time and let us focus on the 20th Film-Fare winner Pakeezah. Aap ke paon bohat haseen hain... Inhain zameen per na utaiye ga, meley ho jaey ge. Whenever I watch the movie, it gives me chills, the real goose bumps. I can never forget the sequence where Salim renames Sahibjaan as Pakeezah and she runs away having millions of different thoughts in her mind. If Mohey Panghat is one of my most favourite choreographed song then Thaarey Rahiyo is also in the same list. 

So whenever I watched Pakeezah, to me it acted as one of the most brilliantly executed tragedy in Bollywood courtesy an awesome screenplay, a realistic art direction, some not seen before choreography, serene lyrics, grand musical arrangements and above all out of this world bravura performances by the leading cast especially Meena Kumari.

No, this review is definitely not on Pakeezah, however this brief introduction was mandatory to acquaint you about what Pakeezah is to me as a film and once again Sumaira Hameed has come up with an idea which no one else as yet has dared to explore in the digest history of Pakistan.

Writing a biography of a famous personality is not an easy task to do. And the bigger challenge arises when you are writing the larger than life character of someone who actually lived in the world and that too in a novel form. It may needs an entire long book to encompass the life of this celebrated actress. I must say that Ms. Sumaira is the bravest of hearts who took the challenge of penning the Tragedy Queen of Bollywood Meena Kumari's life within a few pages.

Birha Bahag ki Meena is a story that girdled the life time journey from Munna to Meena Kumari. The poor girl who was born in a family of struggling artists. Whose mother & sisters were all struggling actresses and father was a gem of a musician who was in search of that one big opportunity. And her father was all set to leave her on the doorstep of a orphanage. Jurm, wajood mein ana...

Mahjabeen (Munna) who lost her childhood inn the darkness of poverty started acting in smaller roles in her childhood. She was not allowed to play as other children of her age do, so she started collecting stones on the sets of the films and considered them her companion.

She never wanted to act but fortune has written something else for her. With the passage of time she started proving her acting prowess but again she never wanted to be the big thing in glitz & glamour world. She was a pure artist, the one who treats the work as the most sacred thing. Main ne to kabhi amar honey ke khawab nahi dekhey... Bus mera fun buland ho jaey... 

And then she fell in love with a well known writer Kamal Amrohi, who when praised her beauty, she became The Beauty in real sense. Woh khamoshi se geet ho gai... Tum ne "us" ko "un" ker ke usey mehram ker diya... Ah... Serene

I feel Sumaira Hameed took a great volume of risk in choosing this topic as if even a minor of hte things goes wrong, you simply loose the path but how should I praise the beauty of her writing. She never made us feel like we are reading life story of a celebrated actress who has won multiple awards.

While reading Birha Bahaj ki Meena, you carry on your journey with the character of Munna and you seriously start feeling the same as she (the actual Mahjabeen) would have felt while going through the whole. She used to write a diary and interesting part is, you will find the mood of diary quotes getting changed with the change in her life times.

The writing of Sumaira is at its peak when she makes you stand in front of those two love birds who ultimately parted the ways. I honestly felt like watching a class theatrical act or a Bollywood tragedy especially while reading the dialogues like Titli ke paron ko hathon mein masal ker tum kehtey ho main bad'chalan hoon... Tumhari mohabbat zehar ban ker meri rooh mein mein dor rahi hai or tum kehtey ho main ghattiya hoon...

Sumaira this time made us visit the inside of Bollywood Film nagri. As they say, all that glitter is not gold proves really correct here. I felt myself wandering on the sets of Pakeezah with living characters talking all around me. I felt like I was very much part of the same time who saw the making of this epic for 16 long years. Kamal Amrohi once said that he  he hoped to create a film which would be worthy of her as an actress, and worthy of the love he felt for her as a woman, whereas Meena Kumari regarded the film as Kamal Amrohi's tribute to her.

Birha Bahag ki Meena is not here to tell you what was right or wrong. It is not preachy and never tries to crack your mind about who does what wrong. I looked to it as a salute to love, a homage to passion, a respect to the world's most sensitive relationship. I am pretty sure that if anyone would have tell the story of Meena Kumari with utmost delicacy & authority, it was none other than Sumaira Hameed.

Sumaira's dialogues in this novel are absolutely stunning. Her use of Hindi dialect in this story made the happenings looks even more real. Let me tell you, that I consider Saanwarya as a painting in motion. And here I am announcing one more thing, Birha Bahag ki Meena, to me, is a poetry in prose. 

Meena lost her life for the sadness of love and Sumaira has woven the actual emotional thread that made Mahjabeen, the Meena Kumari, the tragedy queen of Indian film industry.