A tribute to Raaj Kumar on his birth anniversary!

Today happens to be the enigmatic Raaj Kumar’s 95th birthday if only he were alive. We reproduce this rare interview by JYOTHI VENKATESH which appeared first in the now defunct film monthly MOVIELAND issue dated
July 1987 published in Malaysia, as a tribute to him.

Raaj Kumar is now a legend on his own, like Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor, who are his colleagues. Though Raaj Kumar is comparatively a junior having taken up a career as an actor in films after serving the army, what sets him apart from the rest of his ilk is that he does not mind calling a spade a spade. “I am very unpopular in the industry because I do not mind being frank. I do not mind calling a spade a spade”, said Raaj Kumar when I meet him for this interview at the Premier Studios in the far flung suburbs of Mysore recently, when he is shooting for producer Pranlal Mehta’s latest venture Surya in which he has been pitted along with Vinod Khanna and Bhanu Priya.

“I have put in not one or two but thirty years in the show business”,  quips Raaj Kumar who has to his credit less than even a hundred films. “Even when I was playing the young leading man, I never used to sign more than five or six films at a time. I have never believed in running from one set to another or from one shift to another. I have never worked in more than one or two shifts because I do not run after money. What matters to me is quality and not quantity. I certainly beg to be different from the kind of stars today who are actually not stars but shopkeepers who grab the signing amounts doled out to them by nincompoops who turn producers overnight and distribute their dates to them. Today the stars are just jokers who do not know what they are doing in the mad rat race in order to crave for themselves security.”

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Raaj Kumar continues. “It was not so in our times. Take Dilip Kumar for example. The total number of films in which he has worked in his entire career may not be more than the number of films which are on the floors of say Vinod Khanna or Dharmendra today. Even today Dilipsaab is working in hardly a few films even though there are producers who are more than willing to sign him on. Do you know that I am working on only three or four films today and turning down at least half a dozen projects every day?

Besides Surya, I am also working in producer Ratan Mohan’s Mahaveera. Mind you, in both Surya and Mahaveera I am doing only a guest appearance or what you call a special appearance and yet I am charging them what I normally charge a producer for working in a film. It does not matter to me whether I am working in a film in a full fledged role or in a guest appearance. If the producer wants Raaj Kumar to work in a film, hum zaroor kaam karenge, if I am paid my price.

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“I have always admired Shammi Kapoor as an actor, as well as a star. How many new girls he has gifted the industry. I remember there was a time when every other film of his would have a new heroine. The list is endless. Saira Banu, Sharmila Tagore, Kalpana, Asha Parekh etc. He lived and enjoyed his life as a star, really as a star. He lived lavishly on and off the screen and most of the stars or rather so called stars today need to take a tip or two from him. Shammi had also discovered so many new directors. Today it is sad but true that the stars run after the directors.

“If you ask me what the difference is in filmdom then and now, the answer is simple. In those days,the stars used to fight openly for the best lines, best roles, whereas today they fight with one another subtly behind each other’s backs. Today there is no discipline at all because the star is flitting in from one set to another and trying to honor his commitments to ‘hazaar’ producers. The dedication is missing and what a change has taken place. I remember then Prithviraj Kapoor and Jagdish Sethi used to fight on the sets over better scenes with one another and the director and the writer too. Today the leading man prefers to scissor away his colleague’s better scenes behind the scenes.

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“I wish we had the producers of yesteryears today who were sincere about their jobs. Today we do not have dedicated producers. Instead we only have assemblers or what you call in filmi parlance proposal makers who survive on stars and depend on big names to earn money for themselves. The music director composes songs for a film, the fight composer composes the fight scenes, the dance director choreographs the dance numbers for the film, the dialogue writer writes the choicest of the dialogues and the actors recite their lines in front of the camera and the cameraman decided where to place the camera for the final take. Where is the real director today? Where are the good filmmakers today?

“Perhaps with the exception of Raaj Kumar and Kamal Amrohi, we do not have any good director today.Kamalsaab is not making pictures any more after Razia Sultan flopped. And even Chetan Anand with whom I had worked in a large number of films is not making any films any more. Only Raj Kapoor is making or rather trying to make good films the way he deems fit without bothering to bow down to the distributors. What is the contribution of the directors to films these days? Practically nil and that is one of the main reasons why I am not taking up offers to direct films on my own. You see, I am still not inspired to do films as a maker. I’d rather continue to work in films as an actor. I have lost count of the number of films which I have done over the last 30 years because I do not maintain a diary.

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“What I cannot stand in this industry or for that matter anywhere else in the world is dishonesty. I hate to cheat others and expect that no one will try to cheat on me. I believe in straight dealings. I am very adamant about my price. People who are straight and honest will sing in praise of me whereas people who try to cheat me will crib about me because I treat them mercilessly. Tell me why do you think I have worked in film after film with makers like Chetan Anand, Brij etc, when I am ‘reputed’ to have deserted several filmmakers halfway through the making of their films like K. Razdan, who could not complete his film Ulfat because of me as he claims? I leave you to come to your own conclusions.

“I enjoyed working with Essmayeel Shroff in Bulundi and producer Pranlal Mehta in Marte Dum Tak. I worked with him and Mehul Kumar for the first time in Marte Dum Tak because I liked their approach to a film. They provided me with the complete script and dialogues and promised me that they will not try to change it here and there once the film gets going on the floors. I readily agreed to work in Surya for Pranlal Mehta and now Surya is scheduled for release in September this year and I am committed to work in one more film for producer Pranlal Mehta. It will be directed by Mehul Kumar with Govinda and Mandakini beside me. When I was working in Marte Dum Tak, Pranlal’s financier called me up to inform me that he was coming to my house to hand over to me a sizable sum due to me in cash. Would you believe it or not, I told him not to come and keep the money with himself because Pranlal may need it for making the film. I told him I was ready to wait till the picture was completed and took the money only after I finished dubbing too and came back home after a long vacation abroad. I did this because I had implicit trust in the producer.

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“I am not one of those ungrateful actors who sever their past associations once they become stars. I agreed to work in Mahaveera in a double role- one that of an underworld Mafia Don and the other that of a Police Commissioner for director Naresh Saigal only because he had directed me in Ujala when I was a newcomer and he had encouraged me at that time. Even today if Brij and Chetan Anand want me to do a film for them, or for that matter Kamalsaab wants, I will be ready to do one for them for old time’s sake, because I know for sure that they will not waste me in their films once they sign me on.”

Raaj Kumar continues to be an enigma even today. At Mysore, the day I was closeted with him for this interview, another journalist sought his appointment for an interview and Raaj Kumar asked him to come to his hotel suite at 8 pm. The scribe landed ten minutes past 8 pm and Raaj Kumar’s valet shooed him off because Raajsaab did not want to sit with the scribe who didn’t value his time. That’s Raaj Kumar for you- an eccentric genius who is a staunch disciplinarian!