The Nargis Shirt

Nargis was born Fatima Rashid on June 1, 1929 in Calcutta into a Muslim family who had moved there from Rawalpindi. She acted as a child actor but her career took off to new heights as an adult, in the late 1940s. She often acted opposite Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor. Nargis and Raj Kapoor’s romantic chemistry, in particular, left audiences hooked with iconic films such as Barsaat, Awaara, and Shree420. Nargis was known for being able to pull off both serious roles and comic lines with ease, as well as a range of characters, from a widowed mother to an erudite lawyer. Film history fans cannot dissociate Nargis from the powerful image of her ploughing a field on the poster of the landmark film MotherIndia (1957). In it, she played Radha, a widowed young mother who rebuilds a village by herself to give her children a chance at life. The film was nominated for an Oscar and also won her a Filmfare for Best Actress. The following year, she married her co-star Sunil Dutt, who played Radha’s