The Tragic fall of a Super Star

Every culture is rife with stories of remarkable men and women who struggle against all odds to succeed in life. Such stories are usually exaggerated and reproduced in movies or books with great fanfare. Political leaders, sport personalities, writers, musicians, actors and actresses, entrepreneurs, scientists as well as social workers belong to this category. However, there also exists the ignored and detested real life tales of those who do not succeed. Men or women who wished to fulfill their dreams and strived every moment of their lives but were either led astray or fell victim to invariable circumstances of fate. The life of Ali Hassan alias Vijay Kumar is a clear example of such forgotten individuals.

Born in a small village of K.N. Shah at Dadu, Sindh, Ali Hassan was sucked into the allure of the blooming film industry in the 1950s. Like other young men of his age, he went to Karachi and worked menial odd jobs even though his natural flare for acting was admired by all and asunder. Ali’s dream to enter movies affirmed at a time when Indian films were regularly showed in Pakistan.

Ali wanted to try his luck in Bollywood but was unable to cross the border into India. Ali’s son, Shahzeb, mentions that his father then went looking for work in movies at Lahore. He met the actor Allahuddin at data darbar and earned some roles as an extra in Punjabi movies. However, disappointed from the environment of Lahori film industry he returned home. Contrary to his wishes, Ali was married to a common village girl at K.N. Shah.

During the days of Shah Pahlavi in Iran, he decided to venture into this neighboring state, also known as mini-Europe at the time. This was in the year 1959, when Ali Hassan was almost thirty years old. He entered the country illegally through Balochistan but gained legal recognition in a short period. Ali worked at a radio shop during the day and roamed around film studios at night. After many years of dragging his heels, he was finally able to impress producers and acquired leading roles in Iranian movies.

Inspired by one of Bollywood’s most famous Peshawar born personality, Yousef Khan, better known as Dilip Kumar, he also took the screen name of Vijay Kumar. Completely influenced by the Indian maverick, Ali Hassan also styled and acted like Dilip Kumar. His picture even shows an eerie similarity to Dilip Kumar’s face.

During his days in the Iranian cinema industry, Ali worked with the country’s most famous stars and walked in the extravagant corridors of Shah Pahlavi’s high and mighty palaces. Ali played numerous memorable roles in TV series, theatres and high budget Iranian movies. He even got the opportunity to work with Pahlavi’s friend, Nancy Reagan, the wife to be of another film star, former President Ronald Reagan. Yet, today he is not only unrecognized in Pakistan but also virtually unknown in the country where he had once earned much fame and fortune.

Although Ali was married with a son and daughter at Dadu, he indulged in relationships at Iran. He married four times in his adopted country. First two were ordinary Iranian city girls while the last two belonged to the film industry. Interestingly, he had later brought his Sindhi wife to Iran as well. However, his village wife returned home after spending a few years in Iran since Pahlavi’s westernized Persia was unsuitable to her lifestyle.

Vijay Kumar, homesick and hopeful of success in his own country also returned to Pakistan in 1974, leaving behind 15 years of high life. Ali brought his Iranian wife, Aqi, back with him. Crowds regularly gathered around this girl, who walked around without a burqa. Feeling terribly out of place Aqi eventually rushed back to her country. She pleaded for Ali to come with her but inspired by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s populism, he had made plans to be step into politics. Being a famed actor of Bhutto’s in-laws country, Ali was able to get in touch with the young leader. His connections with Mrs. Bhutto were well known since he had first met her during his years as a patron of Shah Pahlavi. Even today, one can find pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Shah Pahlavi at his small house in K.N. Shah.

Sadly, Ali Hassan had barely entered the political arena when Bhutto was arrested and hanged in 1977. He wisely answered the call of his Iranian silver screen wife to cross the border and join her. Unfortunately, when Ali was still planning his departure, Ayatollah Khomeini’s ‘revolution’ took place. Bulldozers which ran over Iran’s cinema houses targeted film stars and producers as well. Ali Hassan’s doors to Iran were permanently closed and even his wife had to seek exile in Germany.

When Bhutto was hung, Ali Hassan stuck a black flag on top of his home, which was taken down at the time of his death many years later. His miseries, however, did not end with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s execution. The movie industry in Pakistan was crushed into dust by Zia’s Islamization campaign. Cinemas and production houses closed down while a large number of artists fled the country. Ali’s years of acting suddenly died and never resurrected.

In 1983, when the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) was at its peak against Zia’s martial law, Ali received news that his son from an Iranian wife, Shaista, had died in the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, Ali was sidelined by leaders of MRD in Dadu. Resilient as always, he found new ways of protesting. He began gathering street children and schoolboys and took out rallies with his young recruits. They marched the streets of K.N. Shah, shouting anti-government slogans and espousing PPP’s resistance against Zia.

This unique form of protest gained Ali much attention and it was only a matter of time before Vijay Kumar was scrutinized by government security agencies. By now, people did not know of any Ali Hassan or Vijay Kumar but simply called him, ‘Irani’. He was arrested by the police and punished by being publicly flogged. While still at jail, thieves swept all prized possessions from Ali’s home. Upon his release two years later, Ali had nothing except for a few pictures from his acting days and film reels of Farsi language movies the robbers had left behind as worthless. In 1986, his wife at the village died of natural causes, his only daughter got married and son Shahzeb departed to his stepmother in Iran, where he joined the army.

The money Ali had earned as Vijay Kumar were spent in futile attempts of running a business. To survive, Ali had to sell the only property on his name. When there was nothing to sell, he opened a shop of homeopathic medicines, of which he had once completed a course. He also tried to open a radio repair shop but suffered failure there as well. Vijay Kumar, who had once lived luxuriously and roamed in the company of Iran’s princely elite, was reduced to a beggar.

During the day, Ali went about the streets of K.N. Shah playing the Sindhi chapri wearing a silly crown-shaped hat, clutching a worn begging bowl with multiple beads around his neck. At night, he went to cinemas houses with his VHS cassettes and requested them to play his Iranian movies.
At the end of his days, Ali Hassan traversed the streets of his village in a delirium. Dressed in rags, he muttered senselessly in English and Farsi and slept on pavements.

In the summer of 1992, people of K.N. Shah rushed a fainted man from the street to the doctor’s clinic on a donkey kart. The doctor immediately diagnosed the man had committed suicide by drinking poison. Ali was buried by kind souls at the local cemetery. Here, the life of Sindh’s only performer to have gained recognition in a foreign country ends. In his poor store of homeopathic medicine at Tehsil K.N. Shah of Dadu, there are still remnants of bygone days including a picture of his with Nancy Reagan.

People of K.N. Shah remember ‘Irani’ but few are aware of his success in Iran’s film industry. He is spoken of as the feeble madman, who begged on the streets in dirty clothes with pictures of his acting years plastered on a stick.
One reads the story of Ali Hassan and is forced to agree with the bleak portrayal of life by N.M. Rashid. Who can deny that life is any different than the condition of a decrepit old woman? How is life not a dreary gathering of scraps on streets? Does it not resemble a sharp, tragic and maddening laugh at a person’s decades of struggle? Is it any different than a detestable fakir woman: long haired, yellow teethed, covered in a dirty patched robe, continuously shrouded in darkness?