Mehmood, born in 1932, knew everything there was to find out about deprivation. He had to work as child: a brief cameo in the 1943 film Kismet, or selling chicken and eggs on the street, before graduating to a salary as driver of a wellknown film director, PL Santoshi.
Mehmood’s most creative odd job was teaching Meena Kumari table tennis; it did lead to his first marriage, with Meena Kumari’s sister Madhu. Guru Dutt gave Mehmood a mini-break, in CID, for which he was deeply grateful, as a stopgap villain. Comedy came in 1961, with Sasural. The next two decades could only have been predicted by an imaginative astrologer: 300 films, awards aplenty, imported limousines and racehorses. This is what you begin life selling eggs for; you wait for destiny to hatch a few Impalas and Jaguars.
Mehmood learnt one lesson from the irreverent school of existence: help others. Help was the only thing he gave quietly.
It is therefore not very well known that Mehmood opened his home to a young man struggling to find a niche in a slippery world. That young man was Amitabh Bachchan.