Umrao Jaan leaves Lucknow cold

Film dedicated to the famous courtesan fails to find admirers in Lucknow

LUCKNOW: When Asha Bhonsle crooned “in aankhon ki masti ke mastaane hazaaron hain” in 1981, she was paying an ode to Umrao Jaan’s numerous admirers in her heyday. But on Friday, the film dedicated to the famous courtesan of Oudh failed to find admirers by the thousands in this city of Nawabs.

On its release on Friday, not only in Lucknow, the film failed to jingle cash registers throughout the UP territory, the largest and considered, financially, the most crucial for Bollywood releases.

“On an average, we got 50 per cent occupancy in theatres showing ‘Umrao Jaan’ throughout the UP territory today,” Ashish Agarwal, secretary of the UP Cinema Exhibitors’ Association, told DNA.

“We were quite excited about the film… we thought the controversy over it would draw large crowds to the theatres, and we would see full houses over the weekend, but a full house seems to be an exception,” he said.

“We expected today’s collection to at least cross the one lakh mark. But now I think we would reach that figure in three days,” Vinod Anand, manager of Pratibha theatre, told DNA after the noon show got over. Most viewers, he said, emerged disappointed and complained of the film being too long (a full three hours).

‘Umrao Jaan’ had courted a lot of pre-release controversy as several prominent Lucknowites and Maulanas took umbrage to the producer JP Dutta’s comments on Lucknow. They had criticised the film saying its music, costumes and ambience did not reflect Lucknawi culture. 

Cleric and secretary general of the Shia National Front Maulana Yasub Abbas, who was perhaps the first to raise hackles over the film, was even more vitriolic after watching the film on Friday. “Muzaffar Ali’s ‘Umrao Jaan’ was a hundred times better than this one… this is a parody of Lucknawi culture,” he told DNA.

He pointed out that Abhishek Bachchan, who plays Nawab Sultan, wears a ‘saafa’ (a headgear). “It was worn by labourers… nawabs wore ‘topis’… the film-makers should have done some homework before mounting such a beautiful period film,”
he said. 

Renowned historian, writer and an authority on Lucknow’s culture and monuments Yogesh Praveen feels no differently. “In those days, the nawabs used to send their sons to learn ‘tehzeeb’ (courtesy) from the ‘tawayaf’ (courtesans). JP Dutta’s Umrao Jaan wears revealing dresses with plunging necklines and she bathes in a swimming pool… this is ridiculous… it is actually an insult to Lucknawi culture,” he told DNA.

The original Umrao Jaan, made by Muzaffar Ali in 1981, was closer to reality as it was shot extensively in and around Lucknow with the Nawabs’ palaces and other historical monuments as the backdrop, said Praveen. “I don’t know why JP Dutta chose to shoot his film in Jaipur,” he lamented.