It is sad but true that the veteran comedian Jagdeep died yesterday night at the age of 81. To condole his death, we pay a tribute to the great comedian by offering our heartfelt condolences to his sons Javed Jaffrey and Naved Jaffrey and reproducing a rare interview with JAGDEEP by JYOTHI VENKATESH which appeared 37 years ago in Free Press Bulletin dt May 28, 1983) .
My last meeting with Jagdeep was very memorable. I had gone to interview him for a radio programme called Lux Sitaron Ki Pasand which was being aired every Sunday on Vividh Bharati. When I reached his house at Bandra, I was shocked to see him sitting with a glass of whisky at 11 am. At that time, he had walked out of his house to stay with a girl who was young enough to be his daughter, after a bitter fight with his wife. I had a good relationship with him as a cub journalist and when I insisted that I had to record the interview with him as scheduled, he said that he was game for the interview and would agree to record the interview for me, if and only if I also would have whisky with him.
I had no other alternative but to drink and do the interview simultaneously, because the programme had been scheduled to be broadcast two days later. The interview lasted for almost two hours and after the interview, Jagdeep insisted that I stay back and have lunch. Till date, I can never forget that gesture of the great comedian who was known as Soorma Bhopali with his unique mannerisms.
It was with Afsana that Jagdeep made his bow 72 years ago in 1948 in filmdom. He was barely 9 years old then. “It was a darwan’s role in a play staged by kids in the film. I spoke my dialogues in Urdu. It was difficult to get extras who knew Urdu then. After the partition, I and my brother had crossed the border and come down to Bombay in search of some livelihood. We were practically on the footpath during those harrowing days. I grabbed the offer when an extra supplier staying in my neighborhood asked me if I would do the role and promised me three rupees for it.”
Jagdeep is actually his screen name. His original name is Sayyed Ishtiaq Ahmed Jaffri. He was known as Master Munna in those days as a child star. According to him, the memorable films in which he could make his presence felt were D.M. Pancholi’s Aasman with which O.P. Nayyar has got his break as a music director, Footpath directed by Zia Sarhadi with Meena Kumari and Dilip Kumar in the lead and Phani Mazumdar’s Dhobi Doctor.
“In every way Dhobi Doctor proved to be the turning point in my life. Though mine was a tragic role in it, Bimalda offered to cast me in a comedian’s role in his film Do Bigha Zameen as Lallu Ustad. I still remember Bimalda’s words that a person who could make one weep can also make one laugh heartily. It was then and there that I decided to take up comedy roles. I realized that a role is a role whether it is that of the leading man or the comedian.”
According to Jagdeep, every artiste has a definite place in the industry. “It is absolutely a very wrong notion that a character artist has to hang around the hero and pamper his every wish to be in his good books in order to survive. In view of my having survived in the industry for the past 35 years, I am being treated with dignity by producers as well as the stars. It is only the press which gives us a step motherly treatment and runs only after stars. Hardly one or two magazines have dared to feature me on the cover.”
To his credit, Jagdeep has quite a few films as a full-fledged leading man too with leading ladies like Vyjayanthimala. It was with Bahar that he arrived as a comedian. “The late A.V. Meiyyappa Chettiar bound me to a contract and dared to cast me as a hero. However I realized that I was just not cut out to be a hero, because the kind of films made those days’ required chocolate faced heroes who had nothing to do but to prance around with the heroine. I have absolutely no regrets having lost the bus as a hero and taken the plunge from the leading man to the comedian”
Jagdish adds, “It is no joke to be a successful comedian. It is difficult to make people laugh. Today the audience is very intelligent. You cannot fool them like in the past with slapstick comedy. I’m happy with my standing in the film industry today as a comedian in demand. I have no ambition to be a hero like Asrani did. In fact at this stage of my career, I do not want to experiment with a different role other than that of a comedian, because the audience expects me to be the same old Jagdeep and wouldn’t be able to stomach me in a different role, say, as a villain or a tragedian. It is too late for me to turn over a new leaf.”
Ramesh Sehgal cast Jagdeep in Shikwa which is perhaps the first and last film in which Dilip Kumar and Nutan were teamed together. Though even the mahurat shot was taken on the young Jagdeep, after three or four reels were ready, he was thrown out of the film. Yet Sehgal cast him as a pickpocket in his film Railway Platform with which Sunil Dutt got a break.
“People raved about my performance and this instilled a lot of confidence in me, though mine was a very minor role when compared to that of Sunil Dutt’s. Even today it’s my belief that what matters is one’s performance in a film and not the length and the breadth of one’s role.”