One was a rank newcomer, only a couple of films old, when the other passed away at a tragically young age (by which time he was already a legend). There was little reason for the worlds of the two to coincide. Yet, Guru Dutt and Sanjeev Kumar are forever bound together thanks to what remains, arguably, the most ill-fated of films in the annals of the Hindi film industry: K. Asif’s Love and God. And all the three dramatis personae involved with it — K. Asif, Guru Dutt and Sanjeev Kumar — died young, at 49, 39 and 47 years of age, respectively.
It was the early 1960s and K. Asif was basking in the glory of his magnum opus Mughal-E-Azam (1960), a film close to 16 years in the making. He was also gearing up to put together his next epic, Love and God, based on the legend of Laila and Majnu. By this time, the mercurial filmmaker had had a falling out with his star of Mughal-E-Azam, Dilip Kumar. Asif had married Dilip Kumar’s sister, and since he was already married at the time, Dilip Kumar refused to bless the union. With Dilip Kumar out of the equation, Asif decided to cast Guru Dutt as Majnu and Nimmi as Laila.
Thus began a saga that lasted over 25 years before ‘a distorted, unfinished’ version of Love and God film could be patched up for ‘release’. As Sumant Batra and Hanif Zaveri say in their book, An Actor’s Actor: The Authorized Biography of Sanjeev Kumar, ‘The film was doomed from the start.’
With Guru Dutt’s death, Love and God came to a grinding halt
To begin with, Guru Dutt was not convinced that he was the right fit for the role and expressed his apprehension about not ‘looking like Majnu’ right after the mahurat at Mohan Studios. Even as the shooting commenced, Guru Dutt remained unconvinced despite Asif reassuring him that he was Majnu in the director’s vision.
By the time the film began rolling in 1963, Guru Dutt’s personal and professional life was in turmoil. He was rumoured to have attempted suicide twice and had slipped into depression and alcoholism. Oblivious to his hero’s condition, Asif went ahead full steam to realise his vision, which involved the creation of heaven in the climax. As far as its director was concerned, Love and God had to put Mughal-e-Azam to shade in the grandeur and opulence stakes, come what may.
But fate willed otherwise. On October 10, 1964, the industry woke up to the news of Guru Dutt’s death. Love and God came to a grinding halt. And stayed that way for the next few years, till the filmmaker came across Sanjeev Kumar at a preview theatre.
Interestingly, this wasn’t the only Guru Dutt film that Sanjeev Kumar came to be cast in. LV. Prasad had conceptualised Khilona (1970), based on Gulshan Nanda’s story, with Guru Dutt in mind. As Guru Dutt got busy with Love and God, Prasad postponed his film. The death of Guru Dutt left Prasad high and dry and it was then that Sanjeev Kumar, who had played the role in a Gujarati adaptation, Maare Jaav Pehle Paar, stepped in.
Though Asif recognised the actor’s potential in that brief meeting, he did not offer Love and God to him immediately. Instead, the actor was asked to accompany the filmmaker to the deserts of Rajasthan for Sasta Khoon Mehanga Pani, in which Sanjeev Kumar was given a small role. To his consternation, the actor spent the next 20 days whiling away his time under the merciless sun bedecked in ‘uncomfortable costumes and heavy make-up’. On the last day of the schedule, Asif called him for two brief shots, leaving the actor wondering why he had been dragged to the scorching heat in the first place.
The answer came a few days later as Asif announced to the media that he had found his Majnu. As Sumant Batra and Hanif Zaveri write, ‘What Sanjeev did not know was that Asif had been testing his mettle, to find out if he had what it took to be the lead actor of Love and God. The gruelling hours spent under the sun were essential to see if Sanjeev could portray the role of Majnu. The sheer desperation, exhaustion and anxiety that would feature on Majnu’s face were translated perfectly on Sanjeev’s. Not only did he look like the Majnu Asif had visualised, but he had also demonstrated that he could endure hardships. Shooting in the desert wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, but Sanjeev had proved that he had the patience and the perseverance to see it through.’
Shooting began again in 1969, with Sanjeev Kumar in the lead
Thus, in 1969, Love and God began shooting again. This time with Sanjeev Kumar in the lead. Fastidious as Asif was, he put Sanjeev Kumar on a rigorous diet regimen that forbade alcohol, among other things. Guards were deployed to keep an eye on the actor, and the filmmaker also appointed a doctor to monitor his diet and health.
Committed professional that he was, Sanjeev Kumar abided by the restrictions imposed on him. After all, this would be the crowning achievement of his career. After a makeup session that lasted over six hours, the actor so embodied the look of Majnu that Asif had visualised that the filmmaker is supposed to have said, ‘Yeh hai mera Majnu aur Majnu aisa hota hai.’
As the shooting commenced, the actor and the filmmaker developed a close bond. In a radio interview with Amin Sayani in 1974, Sanjeev Kumar said, ‘Asif Sahib had a huge influence over me, if my mother wanted me to do something, she would ask Asif Sahib to talk me into it. She even requested him to force me to get married, but Asif Sahib asked my mother to let him first complete Love and God, and once that was over, he would get me married at his own expense. My mother laughed and told him that by then I would be too old to get married.’
As it turned out, the film was never completed. And Sanjeev Kumar never married!
Tragedy struck barely a year into the shoot when K. Asif passed away in March 1971. The film seemed to be destined to remain incomplete. It is said that Asif visited the dargah of Hazrat Sufi Hamiduddin Baba’s when shooting for the film in Rajasthan. It was here that he had a vision – an apparition advising him not to attempt creating God’s heaven, saying, ‘Heaven can only be made by God. If you don’t follow my instruction, you will have to face consequences.’ Asif paid no heed to the vision and continued with creating the sets for the climactic heaven.
Asif’s death was a blow that the film never recovered from, though Sanjeev Kumar left no stone unturned. Eventually it was K.C. Bokadia who came on board in the mid-1980s to ‘complete’ the film. Bokadia had produced Sanjeev Kumar’s Rivaaz in 1972 and when the actor approached him for Love and God, he was willing though he realised the film would be a costly affair and he did not have the resources. By the mid-1980s, however, with the success of Pyar Jhukta Nahin and Teri Meherbaniyan, he became a big player and took it on. He spoke to Gulshan Kumar, owner of T-Series, and a special screening of Love and God’s rush prints was arranged.
Sanjeev Kumar too passed away, leaving the film incomplete
Fourteen years after the film came to a halt, the shooting commenced again. In the words of Sumant Batra and Hanif Zaveri, ‘A set of a tehkhana was created by art director M.K. Sayyed at Chandivali studio and the chief assistant director Baldeo Pal picturised some scenes here on Sanjeev Kumar with the help of cameraman R.D. Mathur. Apart from shooting, Sanjeev also began to dub at B.R. Dubbing theatre and the last dialogue he dubbed was “Maine namaaz ada karli hai Laila ke daman par.”’
But if there was ever a project cursed, it was Love and God. Sanjeev Kumar fell ill soon after and before long, he too passed away, leaving the project incomplete. Undeterred, Bokadia resumed shooting with Sanjeev Kumar’s body double but by then it was a lost cause. The scene that Asif had banked on giving him immortality – the creation of heaven – was left out from the final cut and some mid and long shots of Guru Dutt were retained, so that both ‘Guru Dutt and Sanjeev Kumar can be seen playing the same part in the film’.
Playback singer and dubbing artist Sudesh Bhosle had lent his voice to Sanjeev Kumar’s last completed film, Qatl, and he was roped in to do the same for Love and God. Such was the reputation that the film had gathered by now, Bhosle said, ‘At this point one gentleman advised me not to dub for Love and God because according to him this film was jinxed and whoever worked for this film died soon. But I disagreed and gave the audition and I was selected to dub for Sanjeev Kumar.’
No wonder the film that was released in 1986 was a mess that had none of the filmmaker’s vision. However, that it managed to get a release says something about the resilience of those who were part of a film that started out to make history. In the end, it did. Even if it was one no one associated with it could have envisaged.
(The author would like to thank Sumant Batra for permission to quote from his book An Actor’s Actor: The Authorized Biography of Sanjeev Kumar and for information on Love and God.)
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film and music buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer
