One of Hindi cinema’s quintessential vintage heroines has been the late Nargis Dutt. One of the leading actresses of her era, Nargis frequently played women who were educated, sophisticated and self-reliant. She received numerous honors for her diverse body of work, which included literary drama and screwball humor. She played one of the strongest female characters in Hindi cinema in Mother India. Other movies like Shri 420 with Raj Kapoor propelled her to stardom. The evergreen song Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua in the rain has managed to endear audiences across generations.
Did you know that Nargis was not her real name? She was born in Kolkata as Fatima Rashid. She was introduced to cinema as a child actress at the age of 6 in 1935’s Talashe Haq where she was credited as Baby Nargis. In Persian, the word ‘Nargis’ refers to the daffodil flower, Narcissus. She was then given the name Nargis in all of her films.
After her debut, Nargis had more cinematic appearances. She starred opposite Motilal in Mehboob Khan’s Taqdeer in 1943 when she was just 14 years old. She received a lot of appreciation for her performance, and the movie became a box office hit. It was deemed “an excellent debut” by Filmindia.
The 1944 movie Anban featured Nargis as the lead after Taqdeer. The 1945 period drama Humayun, in which she featured opposite Ashok Kumar, the top actor of the day, and the mythological movie Ramayani followed. She starred in Nargis in 1946. These films had a mediocre level of success. She and Raj Kapoor collaborated for the first time on the 1948 drama Aag, in which she plays a homeless lady who becomes an actor. Her most successful film was Mother India where she played mother to her real life husband Sunil Dutt.
She was also honoured with the Padma Shri award for his contribution to the film industry.
Nargis Dutt died of pancreatic cancer on May 2, 1981, just a week before the release of her son Sanjay Dutt’s debut film Rocky.
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