Mother India (1957)
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Bollywood's 'maa': Made in China, perfected in India
Saeed Khan,TNN | May 11, 2014 The Times of India
AHMEDABAD: Bollywood's ideal mother has her roots in China. There is a fascinating story behind legendary film-maker Mehboob Khan's classic portrayal of the revolutionary idea of a mother.
Khan was inspired by Hollywood's film based on Nobel laureate Pearl S Buck's novel 'The Good Earth' and another book, 'The Mother'. Based on these, he created the character of Radha in the 1940 feature film, 'Aurat', which was remade in 1957 as 'Mother India'. This image of the Indian mother has continued to pop up over the decades in Hindi films, and, starting 'Deewar', dominated storylines in Amitabh Bachchan's films.
Film historian Bunny Reuben recounts how Mehboob was moved watching this film because "the story of poor parents struggling to eke out a living from mother earth in China was no different from the circumstances of poor peasants struggling to do the same in India."
But the question is: What was so special about Mehboob's efforts since the storyline was simply borrowed? Biographer Biren Kothari, in his recently published book on Sagar Movietone, describes, "Neither of the two novels talked about a mother resorting to the killing of her beloved son. It was an original element added to the script by Mehboob."
Mehboob's characterization of Radha, who finally killed her son, was not accepted by his colleagues. They decided to consult producer Chimanlal Desai's wife, Nandgauri, to gauge how an Indian woman could react to such situation. The idea was to narrate the story to her to get her input.
But as the story approached its conclusion, rather than narrating the climax to her, Mehboob asked what would she have done if she were in Radha's place. Kothari writes, Nandgauri quickly responded: "I would rather sacrifice his life for the greater good without the shadow of a doubt".
The woman that approved this mother image behaved in the same fashion in real life. According to Kothari, when Nandgauri's son Virendra got involved with an actress and deserted his wife, Nandgauri boycotted her son and took a vow not to meet him again.
