The incomparably accomplished Manoj Saab shared many unrevealed incidents with me. In one of my last conversations, I had asked him why he hasn’t directed a film for so long. “I haven’t been able to make any film because of my back problem. Sadly, I don’t have the comfort of working with Manoj Kumar the actor anymore. He is capable of telling home truths in the most understated manner. So I’ve to select from the stars today. But Akshay Kumar respects me. In his film with Katrina Kaif Namaste London, he said, ‘If you want to know what India is all about take a look at a DVD of Purab Aur Paschim, and you’ll know. In fact, Purab Aur Paschim is the mother of many subsequent films.”
Manoj Saab revealed that he has an eye for talent. “Do you know in Shor when Sharmila Tagore ditched me. She was supposed to play my wife’s role that Nanda finally played. I had offered that role to Smita Patil. She politely told me she was not interested in acting at that point in time.”
He also revealed that he had no intentions of turning a director. “God has given me honest eyes and pure ears. I never intended to be a director in the first place. I became one by default when during Shaheed I had to direct the film unofficially. Then Lal Bahadur Shastri raised the slogan of Jai Jawan Jai Kisan. That’s how I made Upkar.”
When I commented on his epic achievements as actor and director, Manoj Saab humbly said, “I give credit for my success to my parents. My father was a poet philosopher. I came to Mumbai with two targets. One was to be a hero, the other was to make 3 lakh rupees, 1 lakh each for my two parents and 1 lakh for my siblings. When I had left home in Delhi in 1956 to come to Mumbai to become a hero, my father gave me a letter. In that letter, he said, ‘My blood can never commit blunders, only mistakes’. I made mistakes in my career. But not blunders. I am not a greedy film person even as an actor. While my contemporaries Dharmendra and Shashi Kapoor acted in nearly 300 films each, I’ve done hardly 35 films in my entire career.”
Manoj Saab’s last directorial Kalyug Aur Ramayan was, according to him, his best script. “But because it went through a lot of changes, it lost its sheen. My characters were called Ram and Sita. There was a song in the film Kalyug ki Sita milne judge ko chali / Sau chuhe khake billi haj ko chali… The moral police took offence. Some people in our society specialize in stopping creative people from doing what they do. The censor board threatened to ban the picture. I changed the title from Kalyug Ki Ramayan to Kalyug Aur Ramayan. The film was not the same any longer.”
The master creator directed masterpieces like Upkar, Shor, Purab Aur Paschim and Roti Kapada Aur Makaan. Which is his favourite among his films? “Shor in 1972. It was about a man and his son. I remember I had gone to sign Jaya Bhaduriji after seeing her in Guddi. I told her, Shor is about a father and son. The son can’t speak and the father pines to hear him. But the day that the son speaks, the father can’t hear any more.’ No Indian film had been made on such a thin storyline. And that is the only film I directed in which I was not named Bharat.
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Do you know they took one sequence from Shor and made an Iranian film in 1987 called The Cyclist, which won numerous awards. Shor was the first film that I edited myself. The great Hrishikesh Mukherjee, who was the chairperson of editors’ jury, gave me the Filmfare award for Best Editor. Coming from such a skilled technician, that was a special challenge for me.”
