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NIMMI Aan: Mehboob Khan wanted to film the movie in Technicolor and he was wondering how to accomplish the feat. There were no proper cameras and the processing had to be done in London, which meant an enormous expense and it seemed like an impossibility. Yousuf Sahab had a series of meetings with the brilliant Faredoon A. Irani and he convinced the ace cameraman that with his kind of expertise he could shoot the entire film in 16 mm and have it blown up to 35 mm. Faredoon Irani accepted the challenge.
When Aan went to the Technicolor lab in London the chief technician in the lab expressed a keen- ness to meet Faredoon Irani to congratulate him for the skill with which he had filmed the movie using an obsolete camera. When it was blown to 35 mm nobody could find out that it was filmed on 16 mm.
Aan was a worldwide success. At the London premiere British actors and directors were so impressed by Yousuf Sahab that they were inviting him to settle down in the UK and work in English films.
The premiere of Aan in Ceylon was one of the biggest in terms of the massive crowds that lined the streets from the airport to the hotel where we were put up. They were all Dilip Kumar fans. Such was the mass hysteria that the crowds broke all cordons at the airport and breached security at the hotel to see him. In Aan Yousuf Sahab played a poor villager who was deft with the sword and was an expert at fencing.
I remember the London distributor of the film (titled Savage Prin- cess), [the legendary filmmaker] Sir Alexander Korda, asking Yousuf Sahab how he performed the fencing scenes so perfectly.
He was so impressed that he came to India soon after and Mehboob Sahab invited him to sound the clapper board for the first shot of Amar.
NIMMI recalls: His break-up with Madhubala was imminent by the time we completed the shooting of Amar. I think he came to know about Premnath and Madhubala being more than just friendly co-stars.
WAHEEDA REHMAN Aadmi [released in 1968]Even though the director was Bhim Singh it was Dilip Sahab who was at the helm.It was a mystery to me why Dilip Sahab did not give his name as director in the film credits when all the hard work behind the camera was being done by him, motivating both the technicians and artistes to give their best.
When I was working
in Satyajit Ray’s Abhijan [1962], Mr Ray asked me if I could speak to Dilip Sahab about a film he
had in mind, an idea he believed was perfect for Dilip Sahab. I spoke to Dilip Sahab but he did not
give any reply. He just looked thoughtful. So I told Mr Ray to speak to him. I gathered later that Dilip Sahab did not agree to do the film because it required him to appear bare bodied.
HARISH SALVE
His troubles began when the Income Tax Department decided to assess him on allegations of having earned black money – something for which Bollywood was, in public perception, notorious. The as- sessment would not only result in a large demand for escaped tax, but also penalties equal to the es- caped income, and possible prosecution for evasion of tax.
A raid conducted upon [A. R. Kardar,] the disgruntled producer[and director] of a movie called Dil Diya Dard Liya [1966] (clearly stage managed by him) supposedly yielded evidence by way of secret accounts maintained by him in which there was an entry against DK of a sum of Rs 10 lakh. There was no corroborative evidence to show that anything was paid by him or received by Dilip Sahab; nor indeed was there any material to suggest that the producer had a sum of Rs 10 lakh (a king’s ransom at that time) to pay in cash. Yet an allegation was made that Dilip Sahab possessed concealed income; penalties were imposed and there was a threat of a potential prosecution.
The assessment was made. He wisely pursued legal remedies, and there was some respite when an appeal against this perverse assessment was allowed.
The year 1974 saw a spate of preventive detentions of those alleged to have committed economic offences (however tenuous the allegations) and personal liberties became a hostage to a shrill cam- paign to trample underfoot the rights of those alleged to be economic offenders in the march towards socialism.
My first case was Income Tax Officer vs Dilip Kumar alias Yousuf Khan, to be heard by the tribunal on a day-to-day basis in June 1975. The hearing was set for the second week of June 1975.The hearing began and the department’s representative – a senior and experienced officer – tried tirelessly to put across the department’s case to the tribunal – only to increasing chagrin of the mem- bers whose tentative comments were carping to the point of being cynical as to what this case was all about.
And then all hell broke loose.
On 25 June the infamous Emergency was declared.
My father had to seek a short adjournment as (being a Congress MP) he had to fly to Delhi for a day or two.
My youthful anger at the injustice heaped upon this iconic Indian, increased exponentially at what I considered dishonest suspension of democracy under the power of numbers and rhetoric – a view I still maintain. It was in this surcharged atmosphere that the hearing went on for about three weeks.
Realizing the potential of his client’s skills in vocal mesmerization, my father obviously decided to unleash him upon the unsuspecting members of the tribunal at some time (although he did not, as a foxy interlocutor, disclose his intentions to us).
The opportunity presented itself in a moment when the tribunal members asked my father about how a movie was produced. My father asked for leave to ask his client to explain the process – this brought the roof down on the department’s case!
What chance did those poor mortals – of an age when they possibly swooned over Suhaana Safar in their youth – have against the scene that had just unfolded.
By the end of that day, the fate of the case was sealed even if the arguments carried on. Dilip Sahab spoke for over 40 minutes explaining not just how movies are made but how he had been pilloried. This was followed by a two-minute silence – almost as though to mourn the death of the department’s case.
I joined the bar in 1980 – and the first case I appeared in the Supreme Court was the petition for leave to appeal by the Income Tax Department against the tribunal judgment in favour of Dilip Sahab.
To my immense joy, it lasted for all of two minutes before the judges threw it out!
