Secret Lives

Hamraaz was offered as a two-line story idea by writer CJ Pavri to producer-director BR Chopra. Pavri’s idea ended with Meena finding out about Rajesh’s death and realising she’s pregnant. It was Chopra who added the romantic triangle and made it a story of two husbands who team up in order to find out who killed their wife.

For the two husbands, Chopra went to his Waqt stars. Raaj Kumar wore the army officer’s greens with the same élan as he wore his trademark white pointy, shiny shoes. Sunil Dutt, meanwhile, had the better role as the dashing lover boy. He got to sing most of Mahendra Kapoor’s songs, romanced Mumtaz on stage and Vimi off stage, tinkered with a first-generation video camera and played a neat Othello with the theatrical make-up, wig and costumes in place (secured by Chopra from London). Dutt even gets a shirtless moment — he is shown skipping while wearing striped trunks. While their onscreen chemistry is fine-tuned — we even get a “tum mujhe chhod kar nahin jaa sakte” moment between Dutt and Raaj Kumar — off screen, there were a few ego tussles. In the hotel room scene, where they come face to face with each other for the first time, the shooting was held up for hours because Raaj Kumar refused to be hit by Dutt. Chopra narrated the incident in a video interview to his younger brother, Yash Chopra, “In the hotel room scene, we had initially decided that Raaj Kumar will beat Sunil Dutt but then I changed my mind because Raaj Kumar could not be that character so I gave the pistol to Sunil Dutt. Raaj Kumar refused to shoot and he came to my office and expressed his hurt that how could the other hero beat him up! I had to explain to him that’s about the two characters. We had to do the scene later and had to buy the furniture of the hotel room and put it in the studio so that it looked like the hotel room.”

Hamraaz is memorable also for its debutante leading lady Vimi. Chopra spotted her at a party at music composer Ravi’s house and instantly offered her the part. He had to get her industrialist husband Shivraj Aggarwal’s permission before she came on the sets. “Her theme song was Naa muh chupa ke jiyo… I needed this type of a girl, someone who looked scared, who had made a mistake and, for that reason, I wanted a new girl,” said Chopra.

With her mink coats and sarees, diamonds and pearls, Vimi did full justice to Sahir Ludhianvi’s words, “kisi patthar ki moorat se mohabbat ka irada hai.” In spite of such a huge launchpad, Vimi couldn’t carve a successful career. This mother of two died tragically young, all alone. In his book Tears of a Mystic Rose, Vimi’s son Rajneesh writes about his mother’s death. “One morning on November 19, I woke up to see the newspapers announce the untimely death of my mother under mysterious circumstances. No one was with her at the hospital at the time of her death as my father and that side of the family were prevented from seeing her due to a court order. Her body was taken for cremation, unfortunately with none of us present. Such a tragic story… that a famous movie star was cremated with very few people present for the last rites.”

Like all Chopra films, Hamraaz too comes with a message or two. Raaj Kumar’s character makes a social statement when he says, “Humne shadi ki pavitrata ko nahin maana… humne chori ki… mohabbat ko gunah ka roop de diya… hamari shadi ek bhool ban kar reh gayi.” Dutt makes a plea to all couples, “Mujhe apni biwi par bharosa karna chahiye tha… use apna hamraaz banana chahiye tha.”

The music of Hamraaz remains evergreen. My favourite is Tum agar saath dene ka vaada karo. Chopra gave all the credit for the musical success to Sahir and rightly so. Only Sahir can write, “Tum naa samjho tumhara muqaddar hoon main… main samajhta hoon tum meri taqdeer ho.”