PAKEEZAH

An entertaining look at one of the landmarks of Hindi cinema

Meghnad Desai tracks the film’s tortuous journey and reveals fascinating, little-known aspects of it. He foregrounds the craftsmanship, perseverance and perfectionism of its maker, Kamal Amrohi, who would wait weeks for the perfect sunset. Desai sees the film as a ‘Muslim social’ set in a ‘Lucknow of the Muslim imagination’; as a woman-centric film with a dancing heroine at a time when they were a rarity; and above all, as a film that harkes back to an era of ‘nawabi culture with its exquisite tehzeeb’, a world that is lost forever. Pakeezah: An Ode to a Bygone World is a fitting tribute to a film that Meghnad Desai calls ‘a monument to the golden age of Hindustani films’.