Holidays can make you wander in weird and wonderful ways. Not necessarily in the world out there but also within, often with a book, music or film for company.
I have been killing time, in my time off, by journeying into 1957, arguably Hindi cinema’s best year by far.
But it hasn’t been about revisiting the usual classics, more about zooming in on films that got confined to the fringes of our consciousness and reminiscences, overtaken in the march of history by giant slayers like Mother India , Naya Daur , Pyaasa, Do Aankhen Barah Haath, Paying Guest, Tumsa Nahin Dekha, and Nau Do Gyarah.
1957 was indeed an embarrassment of riches—from the state-of-the-nation documentation in Ab Dilli Door Nahin and HumPanchchi Ek Daal Ke to experiments with sci-fi in Mr X ; from an Indo-Russian co-production Pardesi to an unusual relationship quandary in Sharada. It was when tragedy queen Meena Kumari sported one of her rare on-screen smiles in the comedy Miss Mary and thespian Balraj Sahni got his only credit as co-director for Lal Batti.
The 50s was the decade when the Bengal School, led by Bimal Roy, created an enviable space for itself in Mumbai with filmmakers like Satyen Bose, Subodh Mukherjee, Shakti Samanta, Dulaal Guha bringing up the rear. My picks of 1957 also happen to be by Bengalis—Asit Sen’s whodunnit, Apradhi Kaun?, made under Bimal Roy Productions; Amiya Chakravarty’s romcom, Dekh Kabira Roya, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s debut, Musafir.
Just the right ingredients
Apradhi Kaun? has all the right ingredients for a good murder mystery—a dead father and his three sons, a contested will, a couple of dead bodies and femme fatales, several suspects and a black shadow looming large. At the centre of it is detective Rajesh, played by Abhi Bhattacharya, who shares his pedigree more with the Western Hercule Poirot than an indigenous Byomkesh Bakshi.
Weighed against contemporary standards the script might feel slack and wobbly at times, what with needless comic and romantic tracks and some strands left hanging and unexplained. But it is also extremely modern, especially in how it spins a great double role for Gajanan Jagirdar; more so in how he plays it as though he were two different actors.
Most of all, it’s the many red herrings and the big, unexpected reveal that make the movie do Agatha Christie proud. The year 1957 saw the last Amiya Chakravarty’s films, Kathputli and Dekh Kabira Roya ; he passed away that March. However, his take on love, in Dekh Kabira Roya, will continue to hold currency to date—how love has become all about thoughts rather than feelings, how it is being dictated by the mind rather than the heart, how people are loved for what they do, not how they are.
Melodic musings
Bucking the norm, Chakravarty uses some great classical melodies—‘Kaun aaya mere man ke dware’, ‘Humse aaya na gaya’, ‘Meri veena tum bin roye’—in a comedy and weaves the tale around a table at the Janta Coffee House where the three struggling artistes—a writer, a singer and a painter—rue their problems and predicaments in love and life, over cups of black, hot and cold coffee, while the waiter looks on.
In a case of mistaken encounters, three women fall in love with them assuming the writer is the painter, painter the singer and singer the writer. The finale may seem politically incorrect what with the women being blamed conveniently and things getting resolved too easily. But a little bit of tinkering and I can see Ranbir Kapoor play Anoop Kumar’s singer with aplomb and Deepika Padukone step in just as well for Shubha Khote, who mistakes him for a writer.
The house in Musafir— its ‘To Let’ board and the flowering plant — symbolises the cycle of life and death and sorrow and happiness. Three different stories of tenants who move in and out of the house reflect early signs of Hrishida’s lifelong concerns in cinema. Dilip Kumar dying of cancer is the first of his obsession with death, in film after film; on how it makes one value life.
The tales of an eloped couple finding acceptance from the boy’s parents and of a young, unemployed man failing in his suicide bid and eventually finding a good job, uphold the primacy of family, that things will turn out well in its folds—a given in Hrishida’s world.
The highpoint: Dilip Kumar singing ‘Lagi nahin chhoote Ram’, ever so delicately, with Lata Mangeshkar. There may have been many attempts by popular stars to croon their own songs but not one has sounded quite as mellifluous.
Namrata Joshi is Associate Editor-Cinema with The Hindu in Mumbai
