By Jagmohan Singh Barhok
On His Birth Anniversary
An advocate by profession, Mehar Mittal made a foray into plays and later films as a comedian. Comedy, it would be conceded, always remained the back bone or mainstay of his acting prowess, more especially in Punjabi cinema. Although there were many comedians available and some were in the waiting list, Mehar Mittal continued to be the most popular of them all. Indeed, he had become synonymous with the Punjabi cinema. Almost every Punjabi film has Mittal in one role or the other, mostly , as a comedian. His entry on the screen made the audience burst into laughter. A graduate of Law from the Punjab University Mittal was popularly called the Dada Kondke of Punjab. What Kondke is to #Marathi films Mittal is to Punjabi cinema, with the difference. Mittal also featured as a hero in about half a dozen movies .
His acting in a play called “Laadla” later culminated into “Maa Da Ladla ” film produced by the comedian in 1973, with Vijay Tandon playing the hero. Both later worked together in “Teri Meri Ek Jindri” & few other films. Mittal’s other notable films include the likes of “Mamla Gadbad Hai” (There is some thing fishy about it),”Long Da Lishkara” ( The gleam of the nose pin), J. Om Prakash’s maiden Punjabi film “Aasra Pyaar Da”( Banking On Love), “Jeeja Saali”, “Do Madari” , Putt Jattan De ” ( The sons of Jats), ” Udeekan” ( A long wait), “Jatt Te Zameen” & “Ucha dar Babe Nanak Da”, “Sardara Kartara & ” Sawa Laakh Se Ek Ladaoon”, “Walayati Babu” (1981), “Shareeka” & “Qurbani Jatt Di”(1990) also starring Preeti Sapru, Raj Babbar & Gurdas Mann. Mittal played roles in Hindi films , especially those produced by Dara Singh & Raj Kumar Kohli including “Bhakti Mein Shakti”, “Sohni Mahiwal”, “Gopichand Jasoos” , “Jeene Nahin Doonga” & Dharmendra starrer “Pratigya”.
Mehar Mittal was not included in the script of “Chann Pardesi” for the producers trio thought they had a bigger star cast to boast, not knowing that Amrish Puri, Om Puri & Raj Babbar were not yet established actors & so was Rama Vij & Rajni Sharma. Resultantly, the distributors refused to book the film. It was only later when Mittal was included in the film, the distributor principally agreed to go ahead with the film. Like Dada Kondke, however, double entendre remained Mittal’s forte, too. It is difficult to say which of the two set the trend for the use of double meaning words in films, because Mittal had been on the film scene longer than Dada Kondke who died in 1998. Mittal turned religiously spiritualistic towards the end of his life. Breathed his last on 22 October 2016 at Mount Abu.
Beginning with too small an amount of rupee 50, Mittal’s remuneration swelled to 5000 per day plus a standby Taxi at his disposal in 1980s, revealed Mittal to me during the shooting of one of his films some time in 1985-86.
I visited the actor’s residence twice at Chandigarh & often met him during functions held in Chandigarh. On his invitation I had visited his For Bungalow residence, too in 1992. I was welcomed & properly entertained. We invariably wrote articles about him in the leading English Dailies like National Herald, Patriot, Pioneer including Weekend Review & Screen published from Bombay besides Hindi & Punjabi dailies. I also took him out for a photo session at a Farm House near Panchkula in mid 1980s.
