Melancholic life of Meena Kumari: Why did she always hide her finger under her veil?

Misfortune took a liking to her right from her arrival on earth. Baby Mahjabeen was born in a family of artists struggling to make both ends meet. Ali Bux was hoping for a son, but when his wife delivered a daughter, disappointed, failing to pay the doctor, he dropped the newborn in an orphanage. Hit by his conscience after a few hours, he revisited the orphanage and brought his daughter home. This wasn't the end, but just the beginning of Meena Kumari's tumultuous life.

Her father was a failed a theater artist, mother a dancer, the family was is shambles. To contribute to a poor family burdened with three daughters, little Mahjabeen was forced into acting, as baby Meena.

The father was an actor, mother, a dance artist, both unsuccessful in their own ways. The burden of realizing their failed dreams was also thrusted on her tender shoulders. Her childhood was cut short in the struggle to feed the family and making up for the incomplete dreams of her parents. Baby Meena wanted to study, go to school like all other children, but her world was limited to the lights and cameras within the periphery of a studio.

Once on the way from Mahabaleshwar to Pune, the actress met with a car accident; it was quite a major accident that had her admitted in hospital for several days. During this time,writer-director Kamal Amrohi, whom she had met through Ashok Kumar, would visit her regularly. Days when they couldn't meet, they would exchange letters. Love between the two started blooming during this hospital stay. But despite treatment, the little finger on her left hand couldn't be fixed. It was broken for life and appeared twisted. With time, Meena Kumari grew adept at hiding it from the glaring camera.

In February 1952, Meena Kumari, then 18 years of age, married 16 years senior, Kamal Amrohi in a secret and simple Niqah ceremony. This marriage was kept a secret from their respective families, as well as the media. Amrohi was already a married man with three children.

Father, Ali Bux, learned of the marriage several months later through a cook, and immediately recommended a divorce. Meena was adamant and didn't want to leave her husband, which caused the rift between the father-daughter. The rift intensified when she bailed out of a Mehboob Khan movie against her father's will, to act in Amrohi's Daaera. The doors of her parents' house were thus shut on her forever.

Refused entry to parental home, Meena Kumari turned her car toward Amrohi's home, where the most wretched segment of her life waited to begin. Amrohi was an insensitive husband. Though he let the actress pursue her career further, he had imposed several restrictions on her. He had even appointed a sky to keep an eye on the actress. Biographer Vinod Mehta claims in his book that Meena Kumari was not only emotionally distressed in this marriage but was also subjected to physical violence. Her identity in this marriage was reduced to such insignificance, even the assistant of Amrohi, Baqar Ali enjoyed the audacity to slap her after Gulzar entered the actress's make-up room for some work.

Meena Kumari was picked as a delegate to represent India when Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam was selected as India's entry to the Berlin Film Festival. It was a matter of great prestige; the then IB Minister had arranged for two tickets - one for Meena Kumari, another for Amrohi - to travel to Berlin. But Amrohi refused to go, and Meena Kumari couldn't make it to Berlin either. After repeated public humiliations at the hands of her husband, and continuous physical and mental abuse, she finally put her foot down and separated from Amrohi.

After this separation, Kumari was pushed into another phase of foresakenness. She looked around for love, but found none. Her name was often associated with co-stars, though nothing ever materialized for the doleful beauty. Dharmendra, Gulzar, Saawan Kumar Tak, all had their shares of rumored link-ups with her, but she found companionship in none.

She was also a patient of chronic insomnia and was on sleeping pills. When pills failed to bring her respite, and loneliness started to haunt her down, the Pakeezah actress turned toward alcohol. Before she knew, she had become an addict. Depression, together with excessive drinking, took a toll on her health. In 1968, she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.

Though most of us know Mahjabeen Bano as Meena Kumari, the epic actress who had exhibited her brilliance in a gamut of varied characters, there is another identity that only a few know of. She was also a sensitive poet who had written extensively in Urdu under the pseudonym, Naaz. As Naaz, she distanced herself from public and her public image. She poured her heart out on a piece of paper. After living a life that started with rejection on her own family for 38 years, she succumbed to cirrhosis, and breathed her last three weeks after the release of the blockbuster, Pakeezah.