Osian's Auction Catalogue The Greatest Indian Show On Earth | September 2014

207 Rekha in UMRAO JAAN.1980 Directed by Muzaffar Ali Colour Photographic Still / PHO 15.9 x 15.7 in (40.5 x 39.8 cm) Provenance J.P. Singhal Family Collection, Mumbai ` 9,000 – 13,500 US$ 150 – 225 GBP 90 – 135 208 Rekha & Vinod Mehra in JAAL.1986 Directed by Umesh Mehra Black & White Photographic Still / PHO 19.4 x 14.6 in (49.2 x 37.2 cm) Provenance Private Collector, New Delhi ` 3,000 – 4,500 US$ 50 – 75 GBP 30 – 45 “Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan is an adaption of the Urdu novel Umrao Jaan by Mirza Mohammad Hadi Ruswa which purports to tell the true story of a famous courtesan of Lucknow in her own words… In the context of a cinematic genre that insists on casting the figure of the courtesan as a fallen woman and yet, at the same time, idealizing her as a figure of purity imprisoned in circumstances that are not of her making, Ali’s Umrao Jaan partlyde- mythologizes the Courtesan genre in a manner that can be compared to the way in which other New Wave films transform the idioms of the Muslim Social...Yet Ali’s film does not fully escape the pull of the genre. The kotha is represented as a prison from where the coutesan seeks desperately to escape, and Umrao Jaan dramatizes the pathos of a woman who, even as she has mastered the arts of love, is denied the longed-for attachment of one who can really and deeply care for her, as she sings in her final song.” Ira Bhaskar & Richard Allen. Islamicate Cultures of Bombay Cinema. New Delhi: Tulika Books 2009; p.188. 300 REKHA IN UMRAO JAAN