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Meena Kumari

By Vinod Mehta

 650.00 inclusive of all taxes

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About the book

The Life and Times of India’s Greatest Tragedienne Vinod Mehta’s riveting account of Meena Kumari’s life begins with her death, weeks after the release of her  swan-song Pakeezah. He goes back in time to Meetawala Chawl in Dadar East, where she was born, and to the flats and mansions she lived in, the studios where she worked, the hospital where she died and the cemetery she was cremated in. Having never met the star, Mehta talks to all those who were close to her – her much-maligned husband Kamal Amrohi, her sisters, her in-laws, her colleagues and co-stars – to create a complex portrait of a woman who carefully cultivated the image of someone ‘unfairly exploited and betrayed by her lovers and lady luck’. It was a picture that blended with her on-screen persona. The media had, after all, already anointed her Hindi cinema’s ‘great tragedienne’. First published in 1972, this revised edition comes with a fresh introduction by the author and introduces a legend of Indian cinema to a new readership.

Pages: 252

Available in: Paperback

Language: English

Vinod Mehta

Vinod Mehta (1942-2015) left home with a BA third classdegree, experimented with a string of jobs, including that of a factory hand in suburban Britain, before accepting an offer to edit Debonair. He went on to become one of India’s most influential editors, launching a number of successful publications from the Sunday Observer to Pioneer to Outlook. Vinod Mehta has authored a biography of Meena Kumari (2013) and published (in 2001) a collection of his articles under the title Mr Editor, How Close Are You to the PM? His much-acclaimed memoir, Lucknow Boy, was published in 2011.

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