Madhubala in ‘Dulari’ (1949) (Photo: By FilmIndia - https://archive.org/stream/filmindia194915unse#page/n617/mode/2up, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65729232)
Perhaps there is some poetic dimension to the fact that the woman who was called the “Venus of Indian cinema” was born on Valentine’s Day in 1933. I am talking about Madhubala, by a wide consensus the most beautiful Indian actress of all time, apart from being quite effortlessly talented. Today marks the 89th anniversary of her birth.
I have not written much about Madhubala except a short, somewhat silly, post in 2010. On her birth anniversary I republish it. I could have done a longer piece but what would be the point of that?
July 10, 2010
Every time I see Marilyn Monroe I think of Madhubala and every time I see Madhubala I think of Marilyn Monroe. For me they are seamlessly interchangeable. They trigger the same set of neurons in my brain. Apart from the obvious ethereal beauty of both women, what brings them together for me is an inexplicable but ever so light touch of tragedy on their faces. It seems sadness always stalks pure beauty.
As always such observations have no basis in fact but are merely instinctual inferences which may or may nor be true. But they are never less than compelling, I hope.
Both women died at the age 36. Monroe was born in 1926 and died in 1962. Madhubala was born seven years later, in 1933, and died, seven years after Monroe in 1969. Both conveyed a sense of having embarked on an undefined lifelong search and, equally, having profoundly failed to find whatever it is they were looking for.
Both changed their given names, Madhubala from Mumtaz Begum Jehan Dehlavi and Marilyn Monroe from Norma Jeane Mortenson/Baker. I am not even going to stretch this comparison and say how close Jeane and Jehan sound. There, I said it any way. Both captured the national imagination of their respective countries with an effortlessness that is the defining quality of great beauty.
Something, let’s call it intuition, tells me that had the two of them met, they would have understood each other in the first second of their interaction without exchanging a word. And then they would have agreed never to meet again.
