“Mr. & Mrs. ‘55” - Guru Dutt (1955)

Guru Dutt’s meteoric career as a celebrated actor and director in Indian cinema was tragically cut short by his untimely death at the age of thirty-nine in 1964.  Even so, over his relatively brief productive life, Dutt was a principal ingredient of a number of cinematic masterpieces, including Pyaasa (1957), Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960), and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962).  Less well-known, though, than those acclaimed dramatic works, but one that is still very much deserving of your consideration, is Dutt’s earlier Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 (1955), a romantic comedy directed by and starring Dutt [1,2]. 

Since Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 is a comedy, you might be tempted at first to dismiss the film as some sort of lightweight fluff and assume it was made in accordance with the typical cliched production values of that genre.  After all, this film was made well before the advent of television in India, and typical films at that time were expected to appeal to a very broad spectrum of the Indian public.  But Dutt was not typical.  He had already assembled for this film most of his top-grade production team that would feature in his subsequent masterpieces, with scriptwriting by Abrar Alvi, cinematography by V. K. Murthy, and film editing by Y. G. Chawhan.  So it is not surprising that Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 featured some of the characteristic high-grade cinematic stylistics that made all of Dutt’s films unique and so memorable:

• moody, shadow-laden set lighting
• multi-plane image compositions with fluid camera movements
• emotive closeups – often as unspoken reaction shots of the principal characters
• narratively embedded songs that directly contribute to the unfolding of the story

And in addition, although we might expect a romantic comedy like this to just focus on personal relationships, Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 also features interesting reflections on larger social issues that prevail in India and other parts of the world.  Many of these issues were brought to the fore and/or accentuated in India by values from Western civilization that were introduced mostly via British colonialism [3].  When Westerners, fueled by ideas from the Enlightenment (17th to19th centuries), arrived in India, they emphasized objectively obtained scientific truths and the idea of universal human rights.  These notions sometimes conflicted with India’s rich, but tradition-oriented, culture.

Some of the particular issues that were at least implicitly referred to in this film are:

• Social Status (i.e. class and wealth distinctions)
  Distinctions in class, caste, and wealth have always been significant in India.  And the upper-classes usually maintain that only they adhere to the proper moral values.
   
• Aping the British 
  When the British increasingly imposed their rule over India in the 18th and 19th centuries, many Indians over this time, seeking to curry favour from their British overlords, attempted to imitate their masters in all respects and mannerisms.  And naturally, this led to a large backlash against all the bootlickers who would choose to “ape the British”.  This contempt for those who would ape the British continues in India to this day.
   
• “Objective” Truth (and lies) 
  There are always concerns everywhere about truth – both literal truth and underlying truth.  And modernists place a particular emphasis on objective truth, which they feel underpins modern scientific societies.
   
• Women’s Rights 
  It is only relatively recently that women have been accorded to have rights equal to those of men.  The idea of fundamental human rights, irrespective of race, color, creed, or gender, is a modernist notion that has taken some time to receive acceptance in traditional societies like India.  In particular, there are clear-cut distinctions between men and women; so some people question whether they should have identical legal rights.
   
• Spousehood
  Apart from basic issues of gender equality before the law, there are still acknowledged distinctions concerning spousal obligations and expectations.  And these distinctions vary greatly across all manner of gender and social groupings.  The questions asked under this category are: just what, precisely, is expected, demanded, or permitted of a spouse?

These various issues had complicated interpretations and ramifications during the earlier part of the 20th century when Indians seeking sovereignty were looking for ways to unify their forces.  This was complicated, given the varying communities within India – Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsis, etc.  The practical approach adopted seems to have been to seek agreement among the various constituents concerning secular laws and to allow the individual communities to manage their own personal laws, among which were varying standards on spousehood.  In fact, even within Hinduism, given its complex nature and evolution, there is considerable variation around India concerning the understanding and application of personal laws.  So this general approach towards a common legal framework (i.e. that of distinguishing secular laws from personal laws) was deemed more likely to achieve a common buy-in across all sectors.  Thus the general movement towards modernism and universal rights seems to have been reflected more in the secular laws, while the personal laws were left to the traditional social managers and showed less progress towards modern, universal rights. 

As film scholar Jyotika Virdi has commented [3]:

“The Indian Republic inaugurated secular principles in criminal and commercial laws and all aspects of property — except inheritance. Inviolate personal laws would govern the private sphere, varying according to each community's dictates. However, these laws, requiring contemporary interpretations of medieval and ancient scriptures, fail the acid test of delivering gender justice.”

However, a major progressive breakthrough in the area of personal laws concerning gender equality was achieved in 1955 with the passage of the Hindu Marriage Act [4] that was to apply to all Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs.  This law applied more modern standards to the act of marriage, and, in particular it gave these women, for the first time, the right to sue for divorce.  For this reason it was popularly known as the “Divorce Bill”.  (As a point of comparison, we note that the right for a woman to get a divorce in Iran was not established until 1967 [5], and this law stimulated an enormous conservative backlash that helped fuel the later revolution there.)  Of course, more conservative elements of Indian society opposed the new divorce bill, so the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act was a major topic of discussion at the time.

In fact this law still represents a major milestone in Indian legal history, as noted by Jyotika Virdi [3]:

“. . .  the momentous passing of this Act [The Hindu Marriage Act] in the middle of this century still resonates powerfully with the current stalemate in Indian politics over the issue of replacing community-based, religious, personal laws with a secular, uniform civil code.  Briefly, personal laws enshrine Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religious laws governing "family" matters (marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption etc.) in the Indian Constitution. The Uniform Civil Code, though ill-defined, is the unrealized ideal of secular laws meant to displace personal laws and transect all communities.”
. . .
“The struggle for a secular uniform civil code cutting across all religious communities to ensure gender justice remains an unrealized ideal.“

The romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 is set with these women’s lib issues clearly as a backdrop, and that is what helps make the film special.  Interestingly, though, the film doesn’t adopt a staunchly pro-women’s lib stance; nevertheless, the film has its charm.

There are four principal characters in the story:

• Anita Verma (played by Madhubala, the stage name for Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi) is a beautiful young woman from a well-to-do family.  She has just reached her 21st birthday, and it is now time for her to choose a husband.
   
• Sita Devi (Lalita Pawar) is Anita's middle-aged aunt and the girl’s guardian  (Anita lives in Sita’s home).  Sita is a committed advocate of women’s rights and a strong supporter of the Hindu Marriage Act.
   
• Preetam Kumar (Guru Dutt, the stage name for Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone) is an unemployed and virtually homeless cartoonist who falls in love with Anita.
   
• Johnny (Johnny Walker, the stage name for Badruddin Jamaluddin Kazi) is a photojournalist and Preetam’s close friend.  He is present here mostly for lightweight comic relief, but his acquaintanceships provide important connecting linkages in the story.

These characters all have their own principles that guide their actions in the story, which proceeds through four stages.

1.  Anita’s Situation 
The opening sequences show Anita’s aunt, Sita Devi, to be an energetic feminist activist and a strong opponent of the traditional way of treating women in Indian society.  In contrast, Anita’s nanny, representing a more traditional view, is seen mumbling under her breath that Sita is just aping the British.  Meanwhile Sita’s frivolous niece, Anita, is shown having a crush on a well-known tennis player, Ramesh.  One day while sneaking out of her house to watch one of Ramesh’s tennis matches, Anita stumbles into Preetam, who has been sleeping under the grandstand.  Although their encounter is only very brief, Preetam falls in love with Anita and later sings about her beauty to his friend Johnny.

Later Anita is shown attending her 21st birthday party, where her late father’s will is read to her.  She is informed that she will inherit all of her father’s vast fortune, but only if she is married within one month of her 21st birthday.  Now, Anita dreamily wants to quickly marry the indifferent-to-her Ramesh,  but her aunt Sita concocts a different plan.  Sita’s idea is to find some man who can be hired to agree to a sham marriage with Anita, which, by a prearranged contract, will be terminated by a quick divorce, thereby leaving the full inheritance to Anita (and Sita).

2.  Arranging a Marriage
Pursuing her own goal, Anita sends one of two reserved seats she had purchased at a cinema to Ramesh, at which event she hopes to meet Ramesh and cement a marriage agreement.  But Ramesh isn’t interested and gives the ticket to his friend Johnny, who in turn passes it on to Preetam.  This sets up a humorous surprise at the cinema when Anita is shocked to discover herself sitting next to the fellow she had briefly seen under the tennis grandstand.

Meanwhile, Sita pursues her own plan.  She calls up a newspaper editor she knows and asks him if he could recommend a young man who would agree to the sham marriage deal she wants to arrange.  The newspaper editor does know a good candidate who could use the extra money, Preetam, who has previously drawn cartoons for the newspaper but who is now out of work.  So Sita arranges to meet Preetam and proposes the deal.  Preetam initially rejects such a scam, but when he discovers that his attended bride will be the girl he loves, Anita, he accepts and signs the contract.

At the registrar, Preetam signs the marriage document and sees Anita there.  Although Anita seems to be attracted to Preetam, she rejects any man who would marry for money.  In any case, their contract stipulates that they are now not to have any contact.

3.  Married, But Apart
After some weeks, the newspaper editor offers Preetam a job as the paper’s cartoonist, and now Preetam has full-time employment.  But in this third act, although Preetam and Anita have some occasional accidental and pleasantly sociable encounters, they are still apart, much to Preetam’s dissatisfaction.  At one point Preetam draws a political cartoon that condemns Sita Devi’s dictatorial attitudes towards her underlings.  In response, the angered Sita comes over to Preetam and demands that the divorce that they had contracted be carried out immediately.  But Preetam refuses; he still wants a chance with Anita.

Eventually, Preetam masquerades as a taxi driver and kidnaps Anita, driving her out into the countryside.  It is Preetam’s hope that along the way the two of them can have the chance to get to know each other better and that he can warm up their relationship.  And this is what happens.  He drives her out to his brother’s traditional home, where his bhabhi (sister-in-law) greets them because her husband is away at the time.  This occasion gives Anita the chance to converse with  and see up close the life of a traditional Indian housewife.  As they talk, Preetam’s bhabhi, who after four years of marriage already has four children, sings the praises of the wife’s role to Anita.  And, for example, she even passionately tells Anita that “a housewife finds peace in housework”.

Anita seems moved by the bhabhi’s words, but at this point Sita Devi arrives on the scene, having tracked Anita and Preetam down.  Sita offers Preetam a cheque of 10,000 rupees to buy him off, and she shows him a telegram that Anita had sent to her asking her aunt to come rescue her and to proceed with the divorce.  Crestfallen, Preetam now finally gives up on his quest for Anita’s heart and orders Anita to return to her home with Sita.  Before she departs, though, Anita gets one last piece of advice from Preetam’s bhabhi – listen to your heart.

4.  Departure?
Anita is now confused and seems to have developed some feelings for Preetam.  But Preetam is now convinced from having read Anita’s telegram that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.  So he decides that the best thing he can do for her is to facilitate a speedy divorce.  He arranges for Johnny to take some phony photos of him carousing with several flirtatious young women.  Then he goes to Sita Devi and returns the money she had given him and gives her the damning photo of him, which are soon published in the newspaper.  When Anita sees the disturbing photo of Preetam and the girls, she is shocked. 

So now Preetam has produced false, incriminating evidence which will not only expedite his upcoming device, but will also further alienate Anita from caring about him.  At this point there are now so many things separating Preetam and Anita – class, social expectations, conflicting perceptions of their true feelings for each other, and Sita’s enmity towards Preetam – that the chances of their getting together seem hopeless.  And Preetam, on his part, has given up all hope – he has booked an air ticket to permanently leave Bombay as soon as the divorce case is finished.  It seems that the only person who can save the day is the hitherto unsteady Anita.

You can watch the film, yourself, to see how things turn out in the dramatic finish.

Overall, there are many things to like about Mr. & Mrs. '55.  The production values, as are characteristic of mature Guru Dutt films, are excellent throughout.  I particularly liked the songs of OP Nayyar, which are pleasing on their own but are also very well integrated into the narrative.  Also, Madhubala has an appealing allure that seems to hearken back to an earlier era.  

And as I mentioned, the narrative itself is not just a frivolous pastry, but has some meaningful connections to a contemporary domestic issue.  In this connection, though, some critics have condemned what they see as the film’s ultimate support of a reactionary, antifeminist stance [1].  They seem to think that because of Sita Devi’s stubbornness, the film must have only accepted traditional, backward roles for women.  I don’t agree.  The film actually presents multiple perspectives on womanhood, and its ultimate endorsement is for that which can make one happy no matter what the circumstances – true love.

★★★½

Notes:

1. Karan Bali, “Mr and Mrs 55", Upperstall, (2004).   
2. Jai Arjun Singh, “FC Flashback: Why You Should Watch Guru Dutt’s Mr And Mrs 55", Film Companion, (27 March 2019).  
3. Jyotika Virdi, “Mr. and Mrs. 55, Comedy of gender, law, and nation”, Jump Cut, no. 43, July 2000, pp. 75-85.   
4. “The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955", Wikipedia, (30 June 2020).  
5. “Iran's Family Protection Law”, Wikipedia, (25 January 2020).   

"Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam” - Abrar Alvi (1962)

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962) was one of the most polished and successful of the Bollywood “Golden Age” films, back when Guru Dutt was a star actor, director, and producer.  This was the last of Dutt’s great works, which also include Mr. and Mrs. ‘55 (1955), Pyaasa (1957), Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), and Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960).  Actually, because Kaagaz Ke Phool was a commercial failure at the time of its release, Dutt was not listed as the director of any his subsequent films; but it is generally conceded that both Chaudhvin Ka Chand (directed by Mohammed Sadiq) and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (directed by Abrar Alvi) bear the stamp of Dutt’s signature production values [1,2]. Dutt’s expressionistic mise-en-scene, as implemented by Alvi and cinematographer V. K. Murthy (also cinematographer for Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool), included

• moody, shadow-laden set lighting
• multi-plane image compositions with fluid camera movements
• emotive closeups – often as unspoken reaction shots of the principal characters
• narratively embedded songs

It is all expressed in highly expressionistic and theatrical fashion with dramatic music by Hemant Kumar [3] and exaggerated characterizations (particular in the secondary roles). This is not realism but is instead an emotional, subjective narrative journey.

In the past some of my Indian colleagues have remarked that Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is India’s Gone With the Wind (1939).  I am not sure what they might have meant by this, and there could be several angles from which to view this comparison – for example, both films may be considered to be widely popular romantic “classics” and both films show the decline and fall of a decaying aristocracy. But perhaps the most interesting parallel is the degree to which both films view the world from the perspective of a determined young woman breaking out of her constricted social role [4].  In earlier Indian films I have seen from this period, the perspective is that of a man struggling to find his place.  Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’s departure from this trend lends it a special flavor.

The story of the film is based on the Bengali novel Sahib Bibi Golam (“Master Wife Slave”, 1953) by Bimal Mitra, which is set in Calcutta (Kolkata) at the end of the 19th century.  In the film, a young man from the provinces looking for work comes to Calcutta and finds residence at an aristocratic zamindar family’s haveli (villa mansion). Though he does get a job working in a sindoor (a cosmetic for married women) factory outside the haveli, the young man (the ghulam, or servant) develops an ambiguous platonic relationship with a zamindar’s wife (the bibi) living in the haveli.

Over the course of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’s winding narrative about the ghulam and the bibi, there are several themes explored:

• The decline of the decadent aristocracy and Indian modernization.   
  The zamindar families in this film are totally devoted to hedonistic pleasures and are ludicrously out of touch with reality. Because of the film’s expressionistic style, this characterization of decadence is more exaggerated than Satyajit Ray’s more nuanced (but still critical) representation in his The Music Room (Jalsaghar, 1958).  On the more progressive side of things, but essentially Indian-derived as opposed to being a Western import, was the Brahmo Samaj movement, which flourished in the 19th century.  This was a reform movement within Hinduism that, somewhat like Unitarianism and Sufism in other faiths, sought to be more inclusive and to free the religion from outworn practices such as idol worship and caste-restrictions; and it featured influential contributions from the ancestral families of Rabrindanath Tagore and Satyajit Ray [5].
   
• Women’s role.  This is always a major theme in Indian culture, inasmuch as even women from the aristocratic social sectors were highly restricted.
   
• Love.  Related to the role of women is the meaning of love and the expected forms that love will take.  I will comment more on this important theme below.

The story of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam covers many activities over the course of roughly six sectors.
  

1.  A Ruined Haveli   
An architect, whom we will know by his nickname “Bhootnath” (played by Guru Dutt), is overseeing the demotion of a decrepit haveli, which he recognizes as having been his home when he first came to Calcutta as an impoverished servant.  He sits down on a stone and lapses  into his memories.  The rest of the film is told in flashback.

2.  Bhootnath Arrives in Calcutta

On arrival Bhootnath joins his brother-in-law, who is a teacher working for and living with the wealthy Chaudhury zamindar family at their haveli, the same haveli that we have just seen later being dismantled in the opening scene.  The teacher arranges for Bhootnath to stay at the haveli and to begin working outside at a sindoor factory, whose proprietor, Suvinay, is a Brahmo Samaji.  

The zamindar familiy is headed by two debauched brothers, the younger of whom, Chhote Sarkar (played by Guru Dutt regular, Rehman), is totally dissolute.  At night Bhootnath hears the mournful singing (Song #1) of the man’s neglected wife, Bahu (Meena Kumari, in a memorable and award-winning performance). Bhootnath soon learns from his fellow servant Bansi that Chhote Sarkar comes home drunk in the early hours of every morning from a night of depravity at an upscale brothel featuring Nautch girls as courtesans (Song #2). 

At the sindoor factory owner’s residence, Suvinay expresses great curiosity when he hears Bhoonath mention the town that he comes from.  This is an early clue about something that will be revealed later. Bhootnath also meets Suvinay’s perky daughter, Jabba (Waheeda Rehman), who immediately makes fun of Bhootnath’s provincial manners.  But the independent-minded Jabba also takes an immediate fancy to Bhoothath and tries to charm him, too.

At this early stage, the narrative seems to be about Bhootnath and his development.  But as the story progresses, we will see that the focus will shift primarily to the two women – Chhoti Bahu and Jabba – as seen from Bhootnath’s point of view. Unlike other Guru Dutt-starring films, where his agency is critical to the narrative, Bhootnath in this film will remain essentially a male ingenue, a witness to the unfolding drama around him.  Throughout the  film, the story switches its focus back and forth between Chhoti Bahu and Jabba, and we are exposed to a profound difference not only between the two women but also between the kind of love that they offer.

3.  Chhoti Bahu’s Loneliness

Bansi comes to tell Bhootnath that Chhoti Bahu, whom we still haven’t seen, has arranged for him to come to her private quarters in the evening. Having learned that he works at a sindoor factory, she wants him to bring him some special sindoor that she feels may have some magical attractive power to keep her husband from wandering to the nautch girls at night.

That afternoon Bhootnath runs into Jabba again, who has been composing delightful lyrics about a naive and flighty bee (Song #3).  In the evening he visits Chhoti Bahu and agrees to fetch her some sindoor that she seeks.  This is the first time, about fifty minutes into the film, that we actually see Chhoti Bahu, who is the most important character in the story. Although nothing untoward happens between the two, it is clear that Chhoti Bahu is charmed by Bhootnath, and in turn seeks to charm him.  So at this point there appear to be two women interested, to some degree, in Bhootnath: Chhoti Bahu and Jabba.

On the way out of those quarters, he happens to come across another courtesan performing a dance in front of the older zamindar brother, Majhaley Babu, and his entourage (Song #4).

When Bhootnath secretly comes to Chhoti Bahu the next night to give her the requested sindoor, she explains to him that she has been brought up as a proper Hindu wife to worship her husband as a god. Bhootnath is now her confidant and the only person she can explain herself to. 

While Bhootnath and his brother-in-law are later outside on the street, they stumble into a disturbance involving some wantonly violent British soldiers, and in the ruckus Bhootnath winds up getting shot  in his legs.

Later back at the haveli, Chhoti Bahu is prepared with jewelry and the sindoor makeup by her servants to meet her husband.  In anticipation of that hope-for joyous event, she sings a beautiful song (Song #5). When Chhote Sarkar does come, though, he is totally unresponsive to his wife’s charms and rejects her seductive entreaties.

Jabba comes to the haveli to attend to the wounded Bhootnath and has difficulty concealing her jealousy over Bhootnath’s continued attachment to Chhoti Bahu. She suspects that her lower caste separates herself from Bhootnath.

So by this point we see that both of the two women principals are deeply frustrated.

4.  Desperation and Decline

Chhoti Bahu’s husband explains to her that the reason he won’t spend time with her is that she doesn’t sing, dance, and dink wine.  So she decides to succumb further, and she beckons Bhootnath to bring her wine.  Reluctantly, he agrees.  Later, in a disturbing scene, we see the inebriated Chhote Sarkar brutishly forcing wine down his tearful wife’s throat.

Meanwhile Bhootnath learns that Suvinay is critically ill and is closing his sindoor factory, but he is told that Suvinay has secured a position for Bhootnath as an apprentice architect and has also arranged for his daughter, Jabba, to marry a fellow Brahmo Samaji. Bhootnath is surprised but accepts these arrangements.   As he departs, Jabba sadly watches him go and sings a song of regret (Song #6).

Bhootnath comes to visit Chhoti Bahu and sees that she has become a hopeless alcoholic.  When he tries to snatch a bottle from her hand and accidentally touches her skin, a forbidden act, it causes her to banish him from her quarters.  As he leaves, she drunkenly tells him that she is proud to have reclaimed her husband, even if she is now a drunkard.

Bhootnath is now assigned by his architect boss to go supervise a project in Munger, another town up the Ganges.  He first goes to visit the ill Suvinay, but he is too late: Suvinay has died.  His daughter Jabba glumly informs him the news and tells him that she has spurned the planned marriage with the fellow Brahmo Samaji, in part because she has just learned that long ago her grandfather had had her married to someone, now unknown, when she was just one year old.

Meanwhile the Chaudhury brothers continue their decadent lifestyle, engaging in elaborate homing-pigeon contests with the detested Cheni Dutt zamindar family and foolishly selling their land and investing the money in a bogus coal mine.  Chhoti Bahu is still drunkenly worshiping her husband, but he has become bored with his pushover spouse and decides to go back to his courtesans.  She fruitlessly beseeches him to stay at home with another poignant song (Song #7).

When Chhote Sarkar arrives at the brothel and sees Cheni Dutt cavorting with his favorite mistress, a fight breaks out, and Chhote Sarkar is severely beaten by Dutt’s henchmen.  

5.  Return to Calcutta

Some time has passed, perhaps more than a year, and Bhootnath returns from Munger to Calcutta to see that the Chaudhury family is almost penniless and their haveli is rundown and shabby.  He learns that Chhote Sarkar is now paralyzed from the beating he had earlier received.  The still tipsy Chhoti Bahu vows to give up alcohol at her husband’s belated request, and she asks Bhootnath when she sees him to take her to a Hindu “saint”, who she believes can miraculously cure her husband.  But proper Hindu wives are not supposed to go outside with another man, and when Majhaley Babu sees Chhoti leave in a carriage with Bhootnath, he order his few remaining retainers to assault their carriage.  Bhootnath is severely beaten and Chhoti Bahu disappears.  When he wakes up in the hospital, Bhootnath learns from Bansi of Chhoti Bahu’s disappearance and that Chhote Sarkar has died and Majhaley Babu has abandoned the family haveli.  So the flashback sequence ends in desolation.

6.  Return to the Present

Returning from his lengthy flashback, Bhootnath is informed by workers dismantling the Chaudhury haveli that they have discovered a hidden grave.  When he goes to examine it, he sees a skeleton with the same bracelet Chhoti Bahu was wearing on their last day, thereby revealing that she was murdered by Majhaley Babu’s men and secretly buried there.  

Then he leaves the haveli and goes out to his carriage, where his now-wife Jabba is waiting for him.  It is at this last closing shot that we get the confirmation of what had been hinted earlier –  that Jabba was married to Bhootnath when they were both tiny children and had only discovered the truth of their marriage much later.

At the end of the film, we are left to reflect on the natures of the two women and how their love relationships were affected by social restrictions. Now usually societal restrictions block options for love, so it is ironic in this story that Chhote Sarkar’s freedom from social restrictions allowed him to be unfaithful to his wife, thereby thwarting her love efforts, and the restrictiveness of an arranged child-marriage enabled Jabba to attain her true love. This seems more like serendipity than any lesson to be learned, so it is more interesting to look at things from the more personal perspective concerning the respective ways the two women loved.

• Chhoti Bahu was a woman steeped in Hindu tradition and desperately wanted to live fully the role to which she believed she was assigned – that of a loving and devoted wife. But did she truly love her husband as a soulmate, or was she simply fanatically devoted to her culturally-assigned role?  She seemed more naturally attracted to Bhootnath, but she was bound to treat him as nothing more than a friend.  Her love for her husband seemed more like an abstract religious devotion than the kind of love we usually see between a man and a woman.
   
• Jabba, who was from a progressive, Brahmo Samaj family, was essentially a modern woman who felt free to express herself.  She was the one more likely to be a truly equal marriage partner in the kind of marital relationship we seek today.  

And yet Bhootnath was more attracted to Chhoti Bahu than to Jabba.  One might attribute this preferential attraction to the glamorous status of the zamindar family, but apart from that angle, I think that most viewers also find something especially magical about Chhoti Bahu, too, Waheeda Rehman’s evident beauty and vitality in the role of Jabba notwithstanding.  Chhoti’s love was total thralldom, a manifestation of what it means to fall in love.  And Meena Kumari’s heartrending portrayal of Chhoti Bahu gave life to a kind of burning passion that lurks somewhere in the hearts of all of us, I think. We see it, and we feel it. Even if Chhoti was only in love with a dream rather than a person, Meena Kumari’s performance makes us feel for her and want to reach out to her.

I mentioned in my earlier review of Kaagaz Ke Phool [6] that one of the enduring fascinations of that film is the degree to which it mirrored Guru Dutt’s own tragic downfall.  He died of a drug overdose in 1964 at the age of 39. In an eerily similar fashion, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam mirrors the tragic life of its soulful star, Meena Kumari. Like the role she played in the film, she also had a tempestuous private life, became an alcoholic, and also died (here, cirrhosis of the liver) at the age of 39.   

But that’s only interesting background stuff and not intrinsic to the film as shown.  Overall, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is a well-realized and fascinating love story – an evocative and expressionistic presentation to fire the imagination.  

★★★½

Notes:

1. Karan Bali, "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam", Upperstall, (31 March 2001).  
2. Gitanjali Roy, “Indian cinema@100: Five facts about Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam“, NDTV Movies, (25  April 2013).   
3. Dutt’s usual musical composer, S. D. Burman, was unavailable due to illness, but the songs in this film, which are entirely voiced by women, are excellent.
4. Philip Lutgendorf, “Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam”,  Indian Cinema (philip'sfil-ums), University of Iowa, (n.d.).   
5. Marie Seton, Portrait of a Director: Satyajit Ray,  (1971), Indiana University Press 
6. The Film Sufi, "'Kaagaz Ke Phool’ – Guru Dutt (1959)”, The Film Sufi, (22 January 2015).   

“Chaudhvin Ka Chand” - Mohammed Sadiq (1960)

Chaudhvin Ka Chand (English meaning: “Full Moon”, 1960) was one of a string of great films produced by renowned Indian producer/director/actor Guru Dutt (Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone).  It was released less than nine months after Dutt’s now-famous Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), which at the time was such a commercial and critical disaster that it ended Dutt’s career as a film director. With Chaudhvin Ka Chand, however, Dutt, still in the roles of producer and lead actor, came back with a big hit that reestablished his reputation. From today’s perspective, I would say that this film does not contain the searing expressionism characteristic of Dutt’s greatest films, like Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool – it is much lighter in weight, which perhaps accounts for why it went down better with the public at the time. Nevertheless, there are some virtues and interesting characteristics of Chaudhvin Ka Chand that make it still worth watching today.

One of the interesting aspects of the film is its socially contextual subject matter.  Set in Lucknow, in the midst of its substantial and cultured Muslim sector of society, the film can be considered what in Indian genre parlance is termed a “Muslim social”.  In this case it rather deftly takes on some social matters with generally light-hearted brush strokes.  In particular, a primary theme of the film concerns purdah, the South Asian Muslim practice of restricting women from interacting with any men apart from their own close family members. In this tradition, when women go out of their homes, they must wear burqas and face veils that keep them completely covered from view. Of course in such circumstances, young men are often interested in getting glimpses of women’s faces behind those veils, but they often wind up with very limited information.  This problem lies as the heart of Chaudhvin Ka Chand and eventually reaches farcical proportions. 
           
Another positive feature is Dutt’s justly famous mise-en-scene, which encompasses

• moody, expressionistic scene lighting
• in-depth compositions
• dramatic camera movements
• reactive, emotive closeups
• songs embedded in and complementing the narrative

To achieve this in Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Dutt had much of his production partners again.  This included cinematographer V. K. Murthy and screenwriter Abrar Alvi.  Partly in consideration of the “Muslim social” subject matter, Dutt recruited veteran Mohammed Sadiq to direct the film, although Dutt presumably had a strong influence in the film’s direction, as well.  And, again, Dutt’s cast included two of his favorites, Waheeda Rehman and Johnny Walker (Badruddin Jamaluddin Kazi). Whether just from built-up experience or for some other reasons, I think their performances in this film were more natural and narratively engaged than in Dutt’s earlier films.

Of particular note is the film’s music.  Although Dutt's usual musical composer S. D. Burman had disconnected from Dutt after Kaagaz Ke Phool, Dutt hooked up with another outstanding  composer in Ravi (Ravi Shankar Sharma, not the famous sitar player Ravi Shankar).  To convey the Sufi-oriented qawwali music associated with Lucknow, Dutt used Urdu poet and lyricist Shakeel Badayuni.  Together with the playback singers (Mohammad Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Geeta Dutt, and Asha Bhosle), they produced music that greatly enhanced the story and fit perfectly with it.  In particular, I found the lip-syncing to be outstanding – the best I have seen (and heard) in connection with Indian playback songs.

The story of Chaudhvin Ka Chand concerns how the practice of purdah obscures and entangles two men friends who fall in love with the same woman.  These things happen all the time in many contexts, and I find them invariably excruciatingly painful, because there is no possibility of a mutually satisfying resolution.  Such anguish was only intensified in the honor-bound circumstances of upper-level Lucknow society. 

Beyond the specifics of the purdah practice, there are two more general and contrasting social forces that exert influence over what takes place:

• Male (or manly) Bonding (MB) and loyalty among close male friends.  This is regarded in some quarters as a special virtue that defines a man’s character and sense of self.  In this context women are viewed not as soul mates but as possessions that can even by traded in order to cement male bonding.
• Selfless Love (SL).  This is the dissolution of self and the immersion in the beloved.

At various points in the film, MB and SL are shown in high relief.  With these elements in the background, the story progresses through six phases.

1.  Three Friends

The first section of the film introduces the viewer to three close friends,

• Pyare Mohan (played by Rehman) is a wealthy young aristocrat and generally referred to with the honorific “Nawab” (I will use that reference in the following).
• Shaida (Johnny Walker) is the wayward son of a prominent police inspector.  As usual with Johnny Walker roles, this outrageously effeminate character’s presence is primarily for comic relief.
• Aslam (Guru Dutt) is a young businessman whose parents have passed away.  He was financially rescued by the Nawab and almost adopted into his privileged family.

They are so closely tied by male bonding (MB) that Shaida at one point in the story refers to the three of them as one life in three bodies.

Early on, Shaida and the Nawab are at a bazaar/fair, where women in attendance are completely covered in their burqas.  By chance, however, the Nawab catches a brief glimpse of a momentarily uncovered young woman, Jamila (Waheeda Rehman) and becomes instantly infatuated.  Later at an all-woman birthday party at the Nawab’s house for his sister, he spies on the young ladies from an adjacent room and notices with delight that his new beloved is in attendance.  

At the party the girls sing an engaging and meaningful song about how hejab-clad women are perpetually readjusting their veils, while interested men stealthily look on and yearn for more.

“Tell those in love not to provoke moon-faced beauties. . . . Tell them to keep away from beautiful women.     Should they be pleased, they will give you love. . . Should they be cross, there could be carnage.“

An underlying theme to the song is that were it not for those onlookers, beauty itself would have no meaning. 

The Nawab’s friends (under MB pressure to help), as well as one of his maids, seek to find the identity of the girl he loves, but the first of a series of misidentifications in the film takes place.  Since noone but the Nawab has caught a glimpse of her, the only evidence they have is a torn piece from the girl’s veil that the Nawab had picked up. The wrong girl is identified, and because of purdah, the Nawab’s only option is to send his emissaries (Aslam and Shaida) to the family to issue a marriage proposal.

2.   A Misarranged Wedding

Up to this point the film has basically been a light-hearted farce. But now things get complicated.  The Nawab’s mother has arranged for him to get married to a young woman that neither she nor the Nawab has seen.  But, of course, the Nawab wants to marry the woman he saw in the bazaar, so he wants to get out of this arrangement.  So he exerts his male-bonding (MB) pressure on Aslam to marry this yet-unseen girl that his mother has arranged for him. The viewer is probably not surprised that this woman turns out to be Jamila, the very girl that the Nawab pines for.

At the wedding of Aslam and Jamila, the bride is completely covered, so one, including the Nawab, can identify as the girl the Nawab wants.  Aslam is delighted with his bride, whom he only sees face-to-face after the ceremony.  There is a memorable performance of the title song when the newly married couple are finally alone in the bedroom, and this is the highlight of the film.  Meanwhile the Nawab learns that the girl Aslam and Shaida had earlier identified for him is the wrong one.

3.  Another Woman Identified

Now there are more shenanigans in attempts to locate the right girl for the Nawab (even though we know that the one he wants is at home with Aslam). Shaida dresses up as a bearded beggar and goes to the bazaar to find the woman, but again a mistake is made.  This time they wind up thinking that Aslam’s sister is the girl the Nawab wants.

Meanwhile we see that the naughty Shaida is in love with a nautch girl, Tameezan (Minoo Mumtaz) who sings, dances, and gives favors for a price. 

4.  A Chance Encounter
The Nawab is now convinced that Aslam’s sister is the one he is after.  He goes to their house to deliver some ceremonial gifts, and by chance, sees Jamila.  There is a shock of recognition on the Nawab’s part and further confusing events, but eventually it dawns on Aslam that his new wife, whom he now loves passionately, is the girl that the Nawab has been seeking.  He confirms this by showing a picture of his wife (and not telling who it is) to the Nawab, who immediately grabs it and, to Aslam’s horror, kisses it passionately.  Aslam rushes out of the house and sings a song of despair, moaning

“What was true for me is now a story.”

5.  Aslam’s Decision
Aslam is now faced with a horrible (and for me, incredible) dilemma.  He loves and is devoted to his wife, but he feels his loyalties to the Nawab require that he give his wife to the Nawab.  This is MB at its extreme. 

The only solution Aslam can come up with is to feign being an unfaithful and derelict husband by going to brothels.  This will force his wife to divorce him, and make her available to the Nawab.  Naturally, when Aslam goes to a brothel, it turns out, by chance, to be Tameezan’s quarters.  Although Aslam is only faking it and is not actually doing anything with Tameezan, everyone else is fooled.  When Shaida learns of Aslam’s activities, he is disturbed, but then his MB instincts take hold, and he says,

"If he likes Tameezan, she's his. I think if a friend can't make this little sacrifice, he's no good."

Among these men, women are little more than prized possessions. Meanwhile Jamila’s brothers, having heard of Aslam’s supposedly dissolute ways, threaten to kill him in order to uphold family “honor”.  When Jamila learns of their plans, she confronts them with almost an ode to selfless love (SL) :

“If he comes home late at night, I’ll wait all night for him. . . .Then I’ll feed him like a slave. . . .Press his legs till he sleeps.  That’s how I’ll attain heaven. . . . “
. . .

“I’m his servant, not his wife.  .  .  I can lay down my life for one smile from him.“

6.  The Denouement

The film’s final section is highly melodramatic. Aslam feels that if all else fails, his MB duty requires him to commit suicide. And eventually the Nawab learns, just before his wedding is to take place (to Aslam’s sister), that Aslam’s wife is the woman he wants. To heighten the dramatic tension, the presentation moves into parallel action, with scene switches back and forth between the preparations for the wedding ceremony and anguished activities elsewhere. 

I’ll leave it to you to watch the film and see how it all ends up.


Despite the outlandish and improbable nature of Chaudhvin Ka Chand’s plot, there are a number of things I like about the film.  In particular, I liked how the film took on the problematic nature of the purdah practice and demonstrated how keeping the visibility of women hidden from their potential fiances is a fully dysfunctional practice, even when everyone is trying to play the  game according to its crazy rules.

Another appealing aspect was the music, which complemented the story.  There were several songs – all sung with playback singers, but realistically presented – that I particularly liked:

• The party song (mentioned above) about why and how women wear veils.
• The song at Aslam’s wedding featuring Johnny Walker’s (Shaida’s) extravagant dancing and horn-tooting.
• Two songs at separate points in the film by the nautch girl, Tameezan.
• Aslam’s song of despair.
• Jamila’s sad song when Aslam starts coming home late – “my master seems to have changed”.
• The titular “Full Moon” song, which was the best of all of them [1].

In addition some of the performances were memorable. Guru Dutt and Johnny Walker present engaging characters who are good-hearted and well-intentioned, despite being hamstrung by social conventions of male-bonding. However, the Nawab character, as played by Rehman, was hard to take throughout.  When he is satisfied, he comes across as a person mostly devoted to striking self-satisfied poses (happening upon a picture of the Nawab early in the film, Jamila observes, "he probably thinks no end of himself"). Otherwise he is overbearingly selfish and presumptuous. 

Though Waheeda Rehman doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver in this story, I thought her performance was particularly moving. Her sensitive expressiveness demonstrates, more effectively than a doctrinal tract on the subject, that women should not be hidden behind a veil.
★★★

Notes:

1. With color films starting to become popular in mainstream Indian cinema during the late 1950s, Dutt had the title song and one of the nautch girl dance songs reshot in color.  The version of Chaudhvin Ka Chand that I saw, however, was entirely in black-and-white.

“Pyaasa” - Guru Dutt (1957)

Pyaasa (English meaning: “Thirsty”, 1957) is probably the most famous work of celebrated Indian filmmaker Guru Dutt.  Dutt, whose real name was Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone, was a spectacularly successful actor-director-producer of Hindi-language films during the 1950s and early 1960s; and over the course of his all-too-short career, he more or less established the style for popular Indian filmmaking that was to flourish in the succeeding decades.  Among all his successes, Pyaasa stands out for many Indian viewers as Dutt’s monument, because it was a box-office smash as well as a hit with the critics, both domestically and internationally  [1,2].

Despite these accolades, as well as Pyaasa’s undeniable charms, however, I believe that Dutt’s subsequent, and somewhat thematically comparable, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) was a superior film.  I will comment further on how those two films compare, below. 

One key point of commonality between the two films is that their respective main characters (both played by Dutt) are both self-destructive and feel powerless to overcome their doomed fates.  In fact the two films fall in line with a popular narrative theme that goes back to the famous novella, Devdas, by Bengali writer Sharat Chandra Chattopadhya published in 1917.  This story about a self-destructive main character who bemoans his fate has been filmed many times, most famously the 1955 film Devdas directed by Bimal Roy [3]; but its story was also an underlying current in Kaagaz Ke Phool. In all three films (Devdas, Pyaasa, and Kaagaz Ke Phool [4]) the main character feels blocked by circumstances and consequently withdraws from the world around him and descends into tragedy.  Of those three, however, Pyaasa does conclude with a decisive action, of sorts, on the part of the protagonist, which perhaps account for its greater popularity with mass audiences.

Another point of commonality between Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool is Dutt’s singularly expressionistic mise en scene, which set a standard for upscale Bollywood filmmaking.  This often featured

• multi-plane compositions in depth, accompanied by winding camera movement
• moody, expressionistic lighting – often featuring shadowy, partially-obscured settings
• emotive closeups – these often capture reactive, unspoken expressions on the part of principal characters
• narratively-embedded songs.  This was a particularly significant aspect of Pyaasa, since a major thematic element of the film is poetry and its expression of social protest.  Many of the major songs in the film are presented as poem recitals in musical form.

The story of Pyaasa is about a destitute but talented poet who feels out of step with the world around him. We could say that his poetic sensibilities make him too sensitive to the petty cruelties that we constantly encounter in everyday dealings.  The narrative dwells persistently on the poet’s dissatisfaction, but it does pass through four stages in its relentless descent.

1.  The Poet Outcast
The poet Vijay (played by Guru Dutt) is introduced in the beginning waking up in the forest and reflecting miserably on nature’s wonders and his own inadequacies.  This is presented on the soundtrack as a poetic song (presumably one of Vijay’s poems) sung by renowned playback singer Mohammad Rafi – “What little have I to add to this splendor, save a few tears, a few sighs.” 

It is soon evident that Vijay is a penniless poet who cannot get anyone to publish his work.  When he tries to sell his poems to a newspaper editor, he is told,

“Call that gibberish poetry?  It’s a crusade against unemployment. . . .
You must write poems about love”

And this is a key element to the film.  We often expect poetry to be about love or nature, but evidently Vijay’s poetry often takes the form of social protest.  This element of social commentary distinguishes Pyaasa from the usual Devdas line of personal suffering and perhaps helps account for some of Pyaasa’s persistent popularity.  Vijay is not just complaining about his own problems; he is protesting about the injustice in this world.

At home, although his mother still loves him, his two brothers reject him as a useless scrounger. They throw him out of their family home and sell his accumulated poetry for scrap paper.  When Vijay rushes to the scrap dealer to try and retrieve his papers, he learns that they were purchased by an unknown woman who was fascinated by the poetry.

Later when Vijay is sleeping on a park bench, he overhears a streetwalker named Gulab (Waheeda Rehman in her first starring role) singing his poetry, and  he follows her.  She tries to lure him for “business” to her apartment, but she kicks him out when she learns he is penniless.  After Vijay is gone, Gulab notices a paper dropped from his pocket containing some poetic lines, and she realizes that he is the poet whose papers she had purchased from the scrap dealer.

2.  Sad Memories Rekindled

Sitting on another park bench, Vijay happens to see from a distance his old flame, Meena (Mala Sinha).  Although much of his poetry complains about the world’s injustice, it was apparently inspired by a failed love affair with Meena.  Vijay lapses into a flashback about his old days at college with Meena, but the flashback is poorly cued. This poor signification of scene transitions, particularly time transitions, is in fact a general weakness of the film, and I will comment more on that below.

At a small café, Vijay doesn’t have enough to pay for a bite to eat, and he is about to be thrown out when Gulab suddenly shows up and pays off the cashier for him.  She says warmly that she knows him from his poems.  But another major weakness of Vijay (and all the other Devdas characters, for that matter) is his pride.  Feeling threats to his dignity, he rejects her act of “pity” for him.  I have commented elsewhere on the pseudo-concept of “dignity” [5], and I won’t belabor the point much here.

At this point comic relief enters in the form of cinematic buffoon Johnny Walker  (Badruddin Jamaluddin Kazi), who plays the role of pimp and massage oil salesman Abdul Sattar. Walker, who was a friend of Dutt’s and appears in many of his movies, usually plays the role of an utterly inebriated (even though in real life Walker was a teetotaler) cartoonish and effeminate character, and I found his appearances irksome in Devdas and Kaagaz Ke Phool.  Here, however, he is much more tolerable, since his role in the film fits in with the narrative a little better.  Walker here sings (of course in playback by Mohammad Rafi) about his massage-oil’s virtues, and, ridiculous though it was, it was my favorite song in the film [6].

Later Vijay is induced to attend a college class reunion, where he runs into Meena.  He is invited to recite one of his poems, and he sings a sad lament about his broken heart, which evokes silent tears from Meena who is looking on.  Meena’s husband, Mr. Ghosh, is also present as a former classmate; and upon seeing Meena’s tears, he becomes suspicious about her relationship with Vijay.  To find out more, he offers Vijay a job.  Vijay, aware that Ghosh is a wealthy publisher and not knowing that he is Meena's husband, willingly accepts the job offer, even though it is only to be as a servant.

Eventually, Vijay finds out that Meena is married to Ghosh and that she married him for his money.  When he confronts her alone at their home, she tells him,

“Besides love, a sensible woman needs security and the comfort of a home.”

These words only inflame Vijay’s attitudes about how selfish and corrupt everyone is, and whatever tenderness he may have felt for her now appears to be gone.  Ghosh breaks in on them and accuses his wife of being a tramp and fires Vijay from his job.

3.  The Poet’s Departure

Things only get worse for Vijay.  Homeless and jobless, when he learns from his scornful brothers that his mother has passed away, he sinks further into depression. He goes to visit his jovial, but cynically selfish, friend Shyam, where he sometimes bunks out, and immediately drowns himself in alcohol.  Then he runs out into the street and sings another famous poem lamenting the corruption of this world as it is manifested in urban prostitution areas. But the emphasis of concern is on dignity.

Where are they the guardians of dignity?
Where are those who claim to be proud of this land?
These insidious streets where infamy is traded
Where men conceal their names, where money talks
...
Summon all the leaders of this land.
Show them the treachery,
Show them these devious streets.

Gulab finds Vijay in a drunken state and takes him back to her apartment, where he passes out.  The shadow-laden cinematography in these scenes is particularly effective here.  Vijay wakes up while Gulab is sleeping, composes a brief suicide note, and then departs. 

Vijay then goes out to the railroad yard tracks and gives his coat to a beggar in preparation for his departure from this world.  A train comes down the tracks, and it appears that both Vijay and the beggar are killed.  The suicide note is apparently discovered, and a news item appears the next day reporting Vijay’s death. 

4.  Final Farewell

Gulab decides to collect all of Vijay’s poetry and goes to Ghosh publishers to get it published. There she encounters Meena for the first time, and their contrasting personae are now in the same frame. The respectable and wealthy Meena is disdainful of the streetwalker Gulab, but Meena’s gold-digging marriage is not so remote from what Gulab does for a living.  And while Gulab selflessly offers her life savings to get the poems published and honor the man she secretly loved, Meena selfishly attempts to prevent their publication.  In the end, Ghosh accepts Gulab’s offer and publishes the poems.   The book  immediately becomes a runaway bestseller with the public, and the dead poet is lionized as a cultural hero. 

For about eight minutes of the film, there has been an assumption that Vijay is dead, but then there is a cut to a hospital ward showing Vijay prostrate and mute, but alive, in a bed.  The hospital attendants do not know who their patient is, and when Vijay eventually revives (by hearing a nurse recite his own poetry) and says he is the poet, they all think he is mad.  They immediately have him locked up in an asylum.

Meanwhile Ghosh, Shyam, and Vijay’s loathsome brothers are quarreling among themselves concerning how to share the loot from Vijay’s publishing sales.  They are summoned to the mental hospital to verify Vijay’s identity, but they all look at Vijay and say he is an imposter.  They prefer to keep Vijay out of the picture and keep the money for themselves.

Eventually with Abdul Sattar’s help, Vijay does escape from the asylum and anonymously manages to get to an auditorium commemorating the first anniversary of Vijay’s death.  Ghosh is there giving a hypocritical oration, but he is interrupted by Vijay from the balcony, who recites his most bitter condemnation of a soulless world.

This world of palaces, of kingdoms, this world of power
The enemies of humanity; this world of rituals
These men who crave wealth as their way of life
For what will it profit a man if he gain the world?

People with parched souls, with wounded spirits   
With troubled gaze and sad hearts
This world which is distraught and full of trouble
For what will it profit a man if he gain the world?

The world where life is considered trivial.
A world where the dead are worshiped
A world where death is cheaper than life
For what will it profit a man if he gain the world?

A world where youth is driven to crime
A world where the young are groomed for the marketplace.
A world where love is another name for trade
For what will it profit a man if he gain the world?

A world where man is worth nothing
A world where friendship and loyalty mean nothing
A world where love is regarded with disdain
For what will it profit a man if he gain the world?

Burn this world, blow it asunder!
Take this world away from my sight!
This world belongs to you, you keep it.
For what will it profit a man if he gain the world?

Since almost everyone that Vijay sees is out for his or her own selfish pursuits, his thoughts have now moved from frustration with his own personal circumstances (romance, family, joblessness) to a condemnation of the entire world [7]. A mass riot of destruction now breaks out at the auditorium, but Vijay escapes. 

With Vijay’s existence now publicly known, there is another public meeting held to which Vijay is invited in order for him to recite his poetry and verify his identity.  But at the event, he rejects them all and tells the people who now worship the poet Vijay that he is not that Vijay. 

In the final scene he goes to Gulab’s apartment to tell her that he is going far away – and to her rapturous joy, he invites her to accompany him.

There are undoubtedly great strengths in Pyaasa.  The moody, in-depth compositions and shadow-laden photography are evocative and memorable. Guru Dutt’s existentially intense performance, as well as Waleeda Rehman’s soulful characterization are also irreplaceable [8].  And the way the song lyrics are integrated into the narrative as poetic manifestations makes the musical element that much more meaningful. 

But there are weaknesses, too.  Here are a few of them:

• The outlandish ham acting on the part of many of the characters, particularly Vijay’s odious brothers, is disturbing.  This gross overacting goes well beyond expressionism and becomes off-putting for the viewer.
• There are absurdly improbable coincidental meetups that have no narrative motivation.  Vijay and Gulab keep running into each other at unlikely moments.
• Despite the employment of in-depth compositions, there are not enough establishing shots to signal scene transitions.  This is particularly a problem when it comes to time displacements, such as flashbacks. 
• Surprisingly, there are numerous jarring jump-cuts that interrupt the narrative flow.  These are visually disturbing and pull the viewer out of deep involvement with the story.

Many of these problems were less in evidence with Dutt’s subsequent film, Kaagaz Ke Phool.  Although the production teams for the two films were largely identical – with the same cinematographer (V. K. Murthy), editor (Y.G. Chawhan), and musical composer (S. D. Burman) – it is my understanding that the production budget for Kaagaz Ke Phool was two-and-a-half times that of Pyaasa.  So perhaps with the latter film there were more resources and time available to reshoot scenes and work out problems in the editing room. 

One significant production staff difference, though, was the lyricist.  For Pyaasa, the lyrics were composed by Sahir Ludhianvi, who I understand was an established poet.  Because of some differences with musical composer Sachin Dev Burman, this was their last collaboration, and the lyrics for Burman’s music in Kaagaz Ke Phool were composed by Kaifi Azmi.  All in all, I preferred what seemed to me was Burman’s more soulful music in that latter film.  Nevertheless, perhaps Ludhianvi’s lyrics in their original language are very special and account by themselves for Pyaasa’s greater domestic popularity – I only react to the subtitled lyrics, which of course cannot remotely capture poetic expressions in their original form. 

Another difference between the two films is their endings.  Kaagaz Ke Phool ends with defeat and death, truly expressing existential despair. Pyaasa, on the other hand has a more upbeat ending.  It is my understanding that Dutt originally wanted Vijay to wind up alone – the more positive ending, with Vijay and Gulab together, was imposed on Dutt by the distributors [9].  Perhaps it was this commercially-imposed ending that helped made Pyaasa the more financially successful film.

On a thematic level, as I mentioned above, Pyaasa incorporates a social justice theme that goes beyond the existential themes of love and personal ambition underlying Kaagaz Ke Phool.  But, to me, pride and ego dominate the Vijay character in Pyaasa more than justice does.  For example, his poetic complaint about city prostitution districts in Act 3 seems to be more a concern about something that besmirches India’s reputation than it is about injustice towards women.

In fact Vijay doesn’t really love.  At least Devdas, even with all his self-pitying, loved Paro (and similarly in Kaagaz Ke Phool Suresh loved Shanti).  But fans of Pyaasa perhaps believe that Vijay is more principled than Devdas, and hence more worthy than those other characters.  It is actually Gulab who truly embodies love, not Vijay.  Even though she only first came to know him through his written words, those words resonated with her, and she came to love the man who wrote them.   So Gulab’s final embrace of Vijay in that last scene really was crucial.  It identified love as their salvation, and, by implication, the world’s salvation, too.

★★★

 
Notes:

1. Pyaasa is ranked 45th on Murtaza Ali Khan’s 2013 list of all-time greatest films at A Potpouurri of Vestiges.  See his review of Pyaasa here: http://www.apotpourriofvestiges.com/2012/04/pyaasa-1957-legendary-indian-auteur.html.
2. In 2005, Richard Corliss of Time magazine ranked Pyaasa as one of the 100 best films of all time, http://entertainment.time.com/2005/02/12/all-time-100-movies/slide/all/.
3. In fact the financial backers of Pyaasa originally wanted to enlist the star of Devdas, Dilip Kumar, to play the lead role, but they could not come to terms.
4. Note also that the music for all three films, which in each case is a major strength of the production, was composed by S. D. Burman.
5. See for example my reviews of The Last Command (1928) and Bicycle Thieves (1948).
6. S. D. Burman admitted that he adapted the tune from a British movie that he had seen.
7. The English lyrics may appear to reference the Christian Bible, Mark 8:36:
   

   “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

   But the allusion seems to be different.  In the Bible it is suggested that the great material riches of the world are less than the greater value of one’s own soul.  Vijay’s poem here, on the other hand, omits the reference to soul and merely suggests that in its present state the world, itself, is worthless.
8. Guru Dutt and Waleeda Rehman reportedly had a love affair during this period.  Viewers may look for their affective chemistry on the screen in this film. 
9. “Pyaasa”, Wikipedia, (20 April 2015).