The character of Chhoti Bahu in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is a lonely suffering wife, who took to alcohol to please her philandering husband. This role was played by Meena Kumari and is considered one of the most brilliant portrayals in Hindi cinema by any actress.
The film was based on the 1953 Bengali novel, Saheb Bibi Golam by Bimal Mitra. Guru Dutt was very sure that Meena Kumari is the only actress of that time who could do justice to that role, So he approached her to do this role. Meena Kumari was very busy and had no dates for Guru Dutt that was in 1958.
Waheeda Rehman wanted to play the role of Chhoti Bahu. She even did a screen test, but the photographer V.K. Murthy realized that she was too young for the mature role. So the role of Jaba was given to her.
Guru Dutt then tried an Indian girl living and acting in London but "she was entirely unsuitable". Desperate, he completed the entire film by 1961 except for the role of Chhoti Bahu.
Before selecting another heroine, he once again contacted Meena Kumari he went to her home and offered the role again. By now, the rift in her relationship with Amrohi had widened and she was taking on more films. When Guru Dutt arrived at her home, he found she was away shooting and left the script with her sister, Khursheed Bano. When Meena Kumari returned, she was shocked to find the script of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. She started reading it immediately and called Dutt at 2 a.m. to tell him that she would play the role of Chhoti Bahu.
Meena Kumari had one request for the legendary filmmaker. She asked for the film to be shot in a linear way, as the story progresses so that she could map the changes in her character. This was the first time both of them had shot a film in this way, from start to finish, exactly in keeping with the timeline of the script.
The film was shot at Dhankuria Mansion near Calcutta, but Meena Kumari didn't come to the haveli, its interiors were recreated on a set in Bombay. She gave consecutive forty five days for the shooting of this film.
As the film progressed, she devoted herself to this character. Vinod Mehta who wrote the Biography of Meena Kumari quotes a passage from her diary where she writes, "This woman is troubling me a great deal. All-day long-and a good part of the night-it is nothing else but Chhoti Bahu's helplessness. Chhoti Bahu's sorrows, Chhoti Bahu's smiles, Chhoti Bahu's hopes, Chhoti Bahu's Tribulations, Chhoti Bahu's endurance, Chhoti Bah's ... Chhoti Bahu's... Chhoti Bahu... Oh! I am sick of it."
The character of Chhoti Bahu was seen as a gamble for Meena Kumari given that the traditional representation of an Indian woman up until that point was of a virginal woman. A woman who could drink herself to self-destruction?
She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for this role. In fact, she was nominated for all the three nominations for this category No one before and after this got all the nomination for a particular category.
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Meena Kumari
Song of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam 1962
Song of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam 1962
Scene of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam 1962
Scene of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam 1962
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