Kishore Kumar: The Detached Traveller

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Door Ka Raahi was meant to be a mirror of his heart signifying the associated mysteries and showing the stark realities of the life he walked past, dared to or dreamt of
Creative artistes need an equivalent outlet to express basics and Kishore Kumar was no different. The episodes of his life were gradually transforming him into a man with a past. His emotional sufferings only made him go closer to himself. In his solitude thus, he found his pastime.
'So many things have happened in my life that I feel all wrung out now, as though I have lived not one life but many and each chapter of it has left me with a crying need to say something, express some conclusion. And the only way open for me to do that was via making my own films." 1
The 1960s saw him as the lonely wayfarer but on his terms. A stark reminder that the journey of life is essentially a lonely one. This thought occupied the maximum of space in his uncluttered mind, so much so that he would sit down one day surrounded by numerous blank sheets of paper. On one such blank sheet, he wrote at the top: 'Door Ka Raahi" 2
He went on writing unabated that day till he was satisfied of the proximity his script offered towards discovering the real Kishore Kumar. As he was through with the rough draft, he began the film. That was 2nd January, 1966, at Karjat with Ganga, Asit Sen and Abhi Bhattacharjee 3 and at a time when his wife was still hopeful of a life. Ganga was in fact the only compromise he had to make in an otherwise uncompromising venture. Madhubala wanted her sister and Kumar wanted a Madhubala look-alike to relieve the moments.
The script was quite different from the final film as it emerged during its release. He selected Sumita Sanyal, a popular Bengali actress of the era, recorded a song and shot a few scenes with her only to shoot off a tangent yet again. Main ek panchi matwala, recorded at Bombay Labs and the first ever playback song of son Amit too did not get to see the light of the day. The song initially was juxtaposed in a series of nursery rhymes in the Grundig Tape Recorder which Kishore Kumar made his son listen to on his sporadic visits to Bombay 4. With years of such chopping and changing in every conceivable aspect of filmmaking, he could ultimately steer his pet to the desired conclusion.
With Door Ka Rahi, Kishore Kumar probably started the habit of utilizing the precincts of his house for shoots. Streams and fountains would make their forays into his premises. He had permanently employed a few construction workers who were always kept on their toes through an alternate cycle of dismantling and erecting structures. The house on the hills, made famous by the bonfire with Ashok Kumar in the wheelchair, was originally the garage at Gouri Kunj, now dismantled and converted.
The film was made in fits and starts as the fancy seized him. Most of the film was shot on the bucolic locales in Maharashtra with mother Gouri Rani Devi accompanying the crew in some cases. For the climax though, along with the lonely wayfarer's final journey, he too browsed through the snows of Kulu and Manali for the shooting. Falling prey to unbridled passion, he became extremely quixotic during the shooting schedules and made it a habit to go outdoors during the monsoons. That people would question his sanity, gladdened him and egged him on. Distributors came forward on the strength of the story and its music and fled with equal alacrity as Kishore Kumar gave a thumbs down to their 'box office ingredients". After all, Door Ka Raahi was a 'slice of life" film. A slice of his life.
Partially inspired by George Steven's 1953 venture Shane 5, again an Alan Ladd starrer, Door Ka Raahi was a promise to himself in face of unprecedented despondency. A promise of a long escape to a supreme unending place surrounded by a haven of peace and tranquillity. Inspiration from Shane was not new to him having taken a leaf out of this Victor Young theme to compose the title song of Neela Aasmaan more than a decade back. Censored on 13th September, the film hit the screens on Nov 19th, 1971 at the Apsara, Chitra, Minor and the Defence theatres in Bombay. Those days Danny Kaye was also performing in Delhi in a UNICEF organized show but Kishore Kumar was simply too busy or maybe uninitiated to meet his American counterpart to whom he was often compared.
Door ka Raahi starts with mountainous roads cloaked under heavy snows where tired of walking all alone and at the cusp of his body detaching from the soul, Prashant could afford a well-earned rest. With relaxation leading to reminiscence, his weary eyes travelled a memory lane downstream and the turns and twists of helplessness, his life meets with. For a few he has some answers, for most he did not.
His horizon transcended through his innocent childhood and into his youth where even a divine and devoted Karuna couldn't come in his road guided on his wings of thoughts. His first slice of real life gets noticed in the scene where he recovers the pawned ornaments of his friend Bimal's wife much to her discomfort.
'Dukhon ka kya hai who to sabhi ke Jeevan me aate hain. Magar kisi ka kya adhikar hai ki koi kisi ko apne se jyada dukhi samajhkar, majboor samajhkar apne upkaro pe khelna chahe" (What's there to peeve about sorrow? This is a ubiquitous happening in all our lives. But to think of someone else as more grief stricken and sympathy prone is stretching things a bit too far.) That was exactly how Kishore Kumar walked through the sixties with the countenance of Madhubala on one arm and giving a thumbs down to the fourth estate and detractors on the other.
Moving next to the illicit intentions of Peetambar where a young orphan Jeetu (Amit) comes into the way, gets seriously injured in the process and all he gets out of life is death. That was his birthday too. Now Prashant moves further and sees the rose planted by Jeetu as approached by the golden ray of dawn. There lay on the cheek of the plant, a big red rose with shining dew drops, almost tear-like. That was a catharsis moment even outside the realm of the camera for Kishore Kumar was making himself a part of an extremely rare cinematic event. A director father taking the screenplay head on and making his eighteen-something son 'die". Kishore Kumar could draw a distinct line and separate the emotions from the story requirements and dared to step in hitherto unknown territories. That scene though caused a few unsavoury moments at a personal level with Ruma. 6
On the path of truth, he still had to go a fair distance till he would permanently shut his eyes. A life where as he pointed out, except death, he would be devoid of an accomplice. No wonder he pours his heart out when he was made to say 'Hamesha ke liye kab aaya tha" in response to a plea of staying a little longer. That statement summed his attitude to life. His romance with the ephemerals versus being dubbed an eccentric notwithstanding identical situations.
Prashant became an enigma both for those whom he helped and those he deserted. None more exemplified than the stormy night at a wheelchair-bound Joseph's corner who in him saw his son George whose untimely death had left a huge void in his breath and perhaps an even bigger one in his daughter-in-law Monica's heart. For during the times, he was present, he became their candle. Monica felt better. And lighter too.
Tumhari tarah mai bhi majhabi pabandhiyon ko nahin manta. That statement by Joseph too was unwittingly autobiographical although little were they made aware that Prashant had a divine duty to perform, his devotion confronted at various stages. His devotions tested with various temptations, some skirted but most faced with the calmest of demeanour. Many promises too were awaiting fulfilment starting from a gratitude for converting an indigent childhood into the mainstream. That gratitude came with celibacy. Perhaps the only tenets confronting the real Kishore Kumar. Or perhaps an unfulfilled dream or an unfinished task or an introspection. Or a splice of all.
Talking of Majhabi Pabandi or the bondage of religions, worth noting is this third chapter and the relevance of Christianity in an autobiographical film. Those days Kishore Kumar was living in lonely splendour in a bungalow tastefully embellished which comes as more than a pleasant surprise for an all-male household. A number of statuettes and photographs of Christ adorned his residence leading Rahul Dev Burman among others to again conjecture another change in religion. Kishore Kumar would have a tough time convincing them that the representations were part of the film and had nothing to do with proselytization. Shooting at home was more convenient and indeed a lot cheaper. 7
The outlet of Christianity in the conduit of his thought process though did little to alleviate the long phases of despondency primarily characterized by the death of both his wife and mother in a span of fifteen months. Door Ka Raahi was thus perhaps Kishore Kumar's most serious, poignant and autobiographical film, given that almost all his films had a slice of his life, in sizeable proportions. The story of a man dedicating his life for the oppressed and the impoverished was a subject he couldn't fulfil in real life although he wanted badly to be a part of such a premise. That gap was actually Door ka Raahi, the tale of the wayfarer. Recalls Tanuja:
'It was a 7 o'clock shift. We were shooting in his house. I reached at 7.30 with the makeup. He was rehearsing on the harmonium. He sang some songs for us. Those sad numbers. We had tears in our eyes. Shooting had to be cancelled. 'Why are you making me cry?"
'Because I want you to share my sorrows." 8
Door Ka Raahi was meant to be a mirror of his heart signifying the associated mysteries and showing the stark realities of the life he walked past, dared to or dreamt of. At the end, he could confidently assume that the mirror had absorbed the vilifications without the glass losing its sheen.
Once again refusing to tread the beaten track, Kishore Kumar demonstrates a deep insight of human shortcomings and sufferings and also a rare bias towards an entity, commonly termed nature. The nature of Kishore Kumar and the Kishore of nature both had an overwhelming presence in every frame. Nothing was perfect in him yet in his imperfection lay his perfections. Almost like nature, a second mother to him. Rarely had a screenplay seen such ostensible display of nature in a story which at a first glance had little to do with the earth elements except the traveller in his journey. Panthi hoon Main is actually a take-off from the Aami Chini go Chini song from Charulata. While Ray relies on the plush interiors and the piano, Kishore Kumar restricts himself to the outdoors just near the main gate of Gouri Kunj. Gouri Kunj had never looked greener since.
A man of many parts, Kishore Kumar released an advertisement in Screen through Kishore Films terming his occupation as an 'Eight-fold assignment". He was the author, scenerist (evolving the screenplay), the Director, Producer, Music Director, Star, Singer and one more. With Door Ka Raahi, he started wearing the hat of a distributor too.
Kishore Kumar had an extremely logical and interesting take on the uncluttered roles he had devised for each of his eight layered assignments. The writer and the Director Kishore Kumar were the indigent duo with no money to afford even a secretary but making up with a self-respect to die for. The Producer, Singer and the Star on the other hand is a lethal combination of a temperamental and a maverick businessman, highly busy and equally dangerous and one who stays at arm's length from the writer director team. This team is rated to be the stronger of the two as the star and the singer finance the producer. The writer director, although is another Kishore Kumar on a different plane altogether. Absolutely uncompromising and a thorough unflinching aptitude for shooting until he gets it right. In other words, the other team of the actor-singer-Producer has to finally compromise to carry forward the day.
He had his own theory on film distribution too. Stories abound as to how he would warn his distributors not to touch his films because of a confession that even he finds it difficult to comprehend his films sometimes. Grapevine has it that he had even described Door Ka Raahi as 'boring" to the distributors in town. The distributors took him seriously.
He thus made it a desire to present the film faithfully on the screen without the usual cropping and the gloss that had taken the commerce of the cinema by the scruff of its neck. This or his financial instability in view of the huge family expenditure and an equally lofty tax burden made him to go for a black and white Door Ka Raahi is something we would never know. Or could it be the discontinuity considering that the film started in the mid-sixties.
'If I continue to make films to my own satisfaction, just as I choose and please, that I shall have to forget about the conventional distributors who are tradition bound to what they believe is the commercial film.
I have already opened my own distribution office in Bombay and Delhi and I have plans to expand in other circuits. Basically, Kishore Films will distribute my own film though there is nothing to prevent me from backing worthwhile ventures produced by dedicated film makers. I shall have only one yardstick-steer clear of the common rut, the usual, the commercial. Back the offbeat even if it makes or breaks you." 9
'Door Ka Raahi" was indeed a 'make or break" movie for Kishore Kumar to continue with his persona. Aided by four unknown gentlemen, Dilip, Duttaram, Ramsingh and Ram Prasad, the make-up artistes, who did their best in making him look at life through the windows of the autumn. Far away, beneath the particles of snow, he lay in the icy grave buried alongside those remembrances. The lonely wayfarer at last could shed his loneliness.
1. Star & Style Oct 15, 1971
2. Ibid. Kishore had a few other titles involving Door in his sleeves like Doorandaaz and Door Ka Rishta. (information retrieved from Leena Chandavarkar's Facebook post)
3. Rangbhumi February 1966
4. Interviews of Amit Kumar by Kavita Chibber and others
5. Shane ends with a question mark as to whether he did die in the end. In Door Ka Raahi, no such confusion exists.
6. Amit Kumar in G- Oct 90
7. Filmfare October 1969
8. Quote attributed to Tanuja -Sad and Glad of Kishore Kumar by Ashish Rajadhakshya
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9. Released by Kishore Films in Screen dated 19.11.1971
Parthiv Dhar is a Kishore Kumar biographer. Anirudha Bhattacharjee is the co-author of the best-selling book 'RD Burman: The Man The Music' by Harper Collins. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
About the Author
Parthiv Dhar
Parthiv Dhar
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New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
August 04, 2025, 13:49 IST
News opinion Opinion | Kishore Kumar: The Detached Traveller
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