[rajnish manga]

Mehta’s book also tells us about the signature white dress that Meena Kumari used to adorn in all her public appearances. Shabana Azmi reportedly told someone how she was struck by all things white in Meena’s house when she had gone to see her ostensibly at the behest of her father Kaifi saheb. I also recalled while reading Mehta’s book lines from A S Byatt’s novel Possession where the two characters Roland and Maud by some “powerful coincidence” both pictured the ideal state of being as an empty, clean, white bed. This fetish for white needs a separate essay but there is in Byatt’s words the possibility of exploring and celebrating “companionable silence” through white. Mehta also states that Meena loathed ostentation and parties and “the synthetic bonhomie of the film world. Most people considered her a snob, only intimates knew she was genuinely bored by such occasions”. Yet she appeared at Filmfare award functions in her trademark white saris and used to recite her own or Faiz’s ghazals on such occasions. She won the best actress award four times and there was one year when she was nominated in all three competing films as the best actor!