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On a Pawar trip: A tribute to Lalita Pawar on her 100th birth anniversary

Playing the scheming saas or the golden-hearted matriarch with equal finesse, Lalita Pawar is one of Hindi cinema's unforgettables. Roshni Nair remembers the actor, who died unsung and alone after a 70-year career, ahead of her centenary on April 18

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Lalita Pawar had a career spanning 70 years, in over 700 films—SMM Ausaja
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In one of the best introductory scenes in Hindi cinema, Gangamai, the tart-tongued, supari-chewing kelewali smacks a drifter's hand as he picks up some bananas from her basket.

"Eight annas for a dozen! Two annas for three," she spits.

The tramp, new to Bombay, is a Grade A simpleton. "No no. Three annas for two," he counters.

So conditioned is Gangamai to haggling, she doesn't realise what's just happened. Two bananas for three annas, he repeats. She doesn't relent.

Then, a brief pause. It dawns on her: this man is a yeda! Eyes lit up, her stern expression gives way to peals of laughter. Charmed by his naivete, she hands him two bananas for free. "Leu leu," Gangamai titters, her every word underlined by chaste Marathi inflection.

"Tum kelewali nahi, dilwali ho," beams the tramp, doffing his hat.

Two minutes, 10 seconds is all Lalita Pawar needs to make an impression in a nearly three-hour film. She reappears in Shree 420 (1955), coming to the rescue of the tramp – Raj Kapoor – when he lives on the pavement. But it is this scene which remains etched in viewers' minds.

"Raj Kapoor was one of her greatest fans. He proudly escorted Lalitaji on stage when she received her first and only Filmfare award for Best Supporting Actress (Anari, 1959). When RK Studios got a new wing, he wanted only her to inaugurate it," says film columnist and director Deepak Mahaan.

Of the six other movies Raj Kapoor and Lalita Pawar teamed up in, Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anari is the gold standard. Her Mrs. D'Sa, the austere matriarch with a heart of gold, became a go-to for typical, but endearing Christian characters. Film after film, she played the same person with different veneers: in Mukherjee's very underrated Mem-Didi, Anand, and Mahesh Kaul's Diwana.

It takes an actor of certain calibre to elevate prototypes into performances people never tire of. Her deviousness in Sau Din Saas Ke, Gharana, Sampoorna Ramayana and Khandan is as unforgettable as her largesse in Mukherjee's and Raj Kapoor's films.

"Lalita Pawar said it all with a smirk, hug, or twitch. Even in Anand, where her role is so brief, she stands out with her dent of expressions and body language," Mahaan points out.

But are stock roles all that Lalita Pawar essayed in her 70-year career?

Quick starter

Film history's dollops on the first lady of Indian cinema – as the Indian government honoured Pawar in 1961 – range from the sketchiest worst to entertaining best.

Sketchy, because different sources cite different birth names and places of origin: Lalitabai Hanuman Prasad from Indore and Amba Laxman Rao Sagun from Yeola, Nashik. There's no consensus on her first film either (Patit Uddhar or Raja Harishchandra, both 1929).

Entertaining, thanks to the enfant terrible of Indian film journalism, filmindia's Baburao Patel. We'll get to that later.

"She was Ambika Laxman Sagun, from Yeola," clarifies Dilip Thakur, film journalist and editor of Marathi cinema handbook Shatakmahotsavi Marathi Chitrasampada. "That's why she's credited as 'Ambu' in early films. She became 'Lalita Pawar' after marrying (filmmaker) Ganpatrao Pawar."

In an interview to freelance film journalist Sheila Vesuna in the '80s (Down Memory Lane: "It Has All Been Worth It"), Pawar recounted her childhood as a young artiste in the Aryan Film Company. Her monthly retainer was Rs. 18. She had no formal education.

In 1932, at just 16, she co-produced and played a triple role in the silent, Kailash. Her next production, Duniya Kya Hai (1938), was a talkie adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's last novel, Resurrection.

"…this picture was produced under severe circumstances by an enthusiastic band of workers under conditions which would frighten away several people…" wrote an appreciative Baburao Patel in his review of Duniya Kya Hai. But Baburao being Baburao also noted:

"Lalita Powar was really good, though her appearance is not much in her favour… calling Lalita the Greta Garbo of India [as she was in the film's promotional material, he claimed] not only insulted the great Garbo, it pleaded the individuality of that poor girl Lalita!"

Patel's opinions of Pawar oscillate as much as her career does. He gushes about her Nirali Duniya (1940) and Hindi-Marathi bilingual Amrit (1941). Then, in a November 1946 review of Jhumke:

"Because this role is played by Lalita Pawar who is good in mad roles, Sundri [her character] gives us a fright by her mad actions which she emphasises by flashing a knife in the air… She looks crazy enough to frighten anyone with her wide and mad eyes."

***

For author and film historian Virchand Dharamsey, Lalita Pawar's standout film in from the 1930s is the '31 caper, Diler Jigar. One of India's few surviving silent movies, Diler Jigar has a 15-year-old Pawar play the swashbuckling, sword-wielding masked avenger, Saranga.

The actress known for playing stenciled characters was once a stunt film doyenne.

"Diler Jigar was astounding, with great technique and a meaty part for the heroine. But the rest of the '30s wasn't of much note for her," Dharamsey outlines. "She worked with a little-known filmmaker (husband Ganpatrao Pawar) and actors. Her career took off only after 1939, when she moved away from Pawar."

Of cheats, slaps and resilience

Why Lalita Pawar stopped working with her husband is fodder for conjecture. Common belief is that she'd discovered him having an affair with her younger sister.

"So she filed for divorce. In those days," stresses Deepak Mahaan. "She refused to be defeated. Especially after the accident."

'The accident', as Mahaan puts it, is recounted so often, it's a katha in filmdom. During a scene in 1942's Jung-e-Azadi, actor Bhagwan Dada slapped Lalita Pawar so hard, she suffered facial paralysis and a permanently-damaged left eye.

That was the end of Lalita Pawar, leading lady. It would be years before she could work again.

We'll never know what possessed Bhagwan Dada to hit her this way, but suffice to say he's to Lalita Pawar what Puneet Issar is to Amitabh Bachchan.

Marathi filmmaker Jaiprakash Karnataki, whose sister Nanda and father Master Vinayak both worked with Lalita Pawar at different stages in her career, says: "Anyone else would've got a complex. But the way she used her damaged eye was remarkable: to express villainy, joy, cunning, sadness, amusement. No one else could do it and no one ever will."

Always the bête noire, Pawar's comic flair isn't talked about as often as it should. Compared to slapstick stars of yore, she enacted situational humour so deftly, her characters in themselves became laughably sincere. Take the lovelorn Sita Devi Verma in Professor (1962) or the uproariously-wily Bhagwati in Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.

Veteran actress Shashikala, who worked in 11 films with the woman she's often compared to, recalls her first glimpse of Lalita Pawar. "I'd gone to watch the shoot of (Marathi film) Ramshastri, where she played Anandibai. Wakahi I got scared looking at her," she says. As an 11-year-old, little Shashikala was awed by Pawar's ease with 'becoming' one of the most infamous figures in Maratha history.

But the off-screen Pawar was a sharp contrast to the on-screen hellcat. "Bai was a livewire, always cracking jokes. Hasa hasa ke hamari buri haal karti thi!" she laughs.

Ramshastri, informs Dilip Thakur, was the film that catalysed Pawar's second innings as a 'negative character'. And her role in the Marathi Sasurvashin (remade as Sau Din Saas Ke in Hindi) set the tone for the awful mothers-in-law you see on Indian TV. Although poor Pawar can't be faulted for those monstrosities.

Actress Jayshree T, who played Pawar's daughter in Marathi blockbuster Chatak Chandni, concurs with Shashikala about 'Bai'. "Lalitaji was witty, and also disciplined – never late, never gappa maroing unless a shot was canned, never giving directors a hard time. I learned all about professionalism from her," she says.

Sunset years

Knowledge about Lalita Pawar's real life is as chequered as her film history. While it's known that she later married producer Rajprakash Gupta and had a son, her family has been virtually untraceable after her death on February 24, 1998. Her body lay undiscovered for two days in the family home in Aundh, Pune.

"We don't know why she left Bombay for Pune. But while Lalitaji stayed in Juhu, she was described by neighbours as amiable and a voracious reader – she'd taught herself to read over the years and amassed a library. She was very good at playing cards too," shares Deepak Mahaan.

Deepak Shivdasani's Bhai, released in October 1997, was Lalita Pawar's last film. Starring Sunil Shetty, Sonali Bendre and Pooja Batra, it was a remake of Telugu hit Anna. In it, the first lady of Indian cinema appeared as Om Puri's mother.

Shivdasani reminisces about the first call he'd made to persuade her to act again. "She was overwhelmed that someone had approached her, saying 'Beta, mera age ho gaya.' But when I convinced her, she was raring to go."

Pawar was a filmmaker's dream, he adds. Though she had some trouble without a walking stick, the 81-year-old soldiered on, remembering lines without prompts. She even chided Batra once for changing few words here and there.

"Lalitaji was also concerned about expenses. She'd apologise profusely for her round-the-clock help staying in the hotel. I'd say, 'Please don't embarrass me, we tolerate far worse from other actors'!" Shivdasani laughs.

***
'Character actor' is a vapid term, a sneaky little way of saying 'Not good enough to play lead'. Yet, such actors fuel the gears of films we love and have grown up watching: think Lalita Pawar, Shashikala, David Abraham, Om Prakash, Utpal Dutt – those taken for granted because they make something of two-dimensional characters.

One such actor, Aruna Irani, worked with Lalita Pawar in 14 films. Relaying how Pawar would pull her leg ("She'd tell me 'You have such a unique sparkle in your eyes. Do you wear lenses or are you a mastikhor?'"), she wraps up with an analogy:

"Bai never got her due. But that's what aachaar (pickle) is. No matter what you eat, aachaar enhances its flavour. We're aachaars. It's our job to make food tasty even if one doesn't realise it."

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