From 1936 to 1996, there was no year when a Hindi film with this legendary actor as the hero or a key supporting character or even a cunning villain did not hit the big screen. In his over six-decade-long career, he appeared in 340-odd films and TV serials. The actor being talked about is none other than Ashok Kumar. Born on this day, October 13, in 1911 as Kumudlal Ganguly, Ashok Kumar's journey to becoming an enduring Indian actor was nothing short of a film story itself.
Born in a family of prominent lawyers with his father having been a hostel roommate of future President Rajendra Prasad, he was expected to take up the same profession but instead, he chose to join the fledgling Hindi film industry - though behind the scenes. Throwing up his law course, he had come to Bombay in 1934, seeking Bombay Talkies owner Himanshu Rai's endorsement to go to Germany's famed UFA studios. However, Rai convinced him to stay at a studio where his brother-in-law Sasadhar Mukherjee was a sound technician.
All changed when Najm-ul-Hassan, Jeevan Naiya's male lead eloped with Rai's wife and his film co-star Devika Rani. While she was coaxed back, the male hero was dismissed. A distraught Rai saw him, then a lab technician and film editor, smoking outside, something clicked, and he ordered him to take over as the hero. The film's German director Franz Osten was not happy to take him on but Rai overruled him and rechristened him Ashok Kumar. From this rather unpromising start, Ashok Kumar rivalled Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, and Dilip Kumar, and went on to establish himself as India's first superstar.
Ashok Kumar was, however, not always a positive presence - onscreen, that is. In 1950, he became the first star to portray an anti-hero in Sangram. After the film ran for sixteen weeks in packed houses, the then Bombay Home Minister and later Prime Minister Morarji Desai objected to it. Kumar's late daughter Bharati Jaffrey recalled wrote in the book Dadamoni: The Life and Times of Ashok Kumar, "In the sixteenth week, the police commissioner came home to say that Home Minister Morarji Desai had decided to ban the film. Why? Because of the impact of your performance. This film was about a boy spoiled by his indulgent father who gets into nefarious activities: he gambles and kidnaps the girl he loves. You tried to explain to the police commissioner that the film has a moral, that ‘the hero gets his punishment.’ But he said, 'Dadamoni, the problem is that you are on the other side of the law. In the gunfight when you shoot and the police get injured, the audience was cheering for you! The law cannot permit this. You are a role model, Dadamoni; people want to follow you and will end up against the law. We cannot let you do that.'" Sangram was subsequently banned in the state.
Kumar is also credited with introducing rap to India, with the song Rail Gaadi in the 1968 film Aashirwad. At the appropriate time, he moved on to playing supporting roles in line with his age - without ever getting typecast. He was also seen frequently on the small screen every week in the mid-1980s as the wise patriarch, summarising every episode of Indian TV's first soap opera Hum Log, often. The legendary actor died at the age of 90 on December 10, 2001 due to heart attack at his residence in Chembur, Mumbai.
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