Simply Ismat

A Very Strange Man is a delightful, bold and no-holds-barred novel that rips off several saris and dhotis as it twirls us around the cinema industry of the 1940s and ’50s. It takes us straight from the studio floor into the bedroom when the famed love affair of a “well known director”, who makes a Kaagaz Ke Phool-like film, with a newly arrived “Telugu film dancer” whom he calls “Chandni”, is scorching several lives.

But Chughtai is no passive observer — she is an experienced scriptwriter and filmmaker. She comments, without the stench of a moral preacher, on sexuality, as unhappy men and women find and lose partners. Long before Shobhaa De stumbled on naked bodies in Bollywood, Chughtai was writing about drunken orgies and cocaine parties. This is an under-the-bedsheets view of Bollywood and honest in its assessment of men and women.

The Guru Dutt-type Dharam Dev creates and destroys careers (including his own), while his wife Mangala, quite obviously based on the tragic Geeta Dutt, succumbs to the combined balm of a young lover and alcohol. Zarina or “Chandni” is a fascinating woman — a willing victim, ready for exploitation so long as she can further her own career. Her in-built survival instinct finally defeats the besotted Dharamji who finds her impervious to his blandishments.

Much like her script for the film Sone Ke Chidiya, which was based on the life of Nargis, Chughtai was unafraid of articulating social comment drawing on real experiences. This did not add to her popularity, as is pointed by the translator Tahira Naqvi, but it has given us a wealth of material in which, through thinly disguised identities, we see the painful lives of celebrities. It is as contemporary and modern now, as it was when it was published.

However, just a few small suggestions — perhaps the translation could have been a little less literal. Similarly, there are other uneven patches. In the first sentence of the introduction, the genius Saadat Hasan Manto is accused of belonging to the progressive writer’s club — he, who was condemned by them as a “reactionary”, must be turning in his grave.

But overall, this novel is a gem: of course, for Chughtai this would have been a mere sleight of hand, her writing is as effortless and enjoyable as our reading of it.
(Kishwar Desai has written a play on Manto and a biography of Nargis)