I remember feeling annoyed when, a few years ago, somebody to whom I was voicing my pleasure at recently discovered Bollywood movies, bluntly told me: “oh yes, but Indian movies now… you want to see those from the 60s and the 70s!” Whether he was right or not is probably more a question of taste, but certainly, if he’d had such films as Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963) in mind, I understand now why he would have said that. Having fallen for Nutan’s charm when watching Dilli ka thug, I wanted to see others of her films, and landed on this.

“This” is a rare little jewel. Like Teesri Kasam, like, like… hum, I’m finding it rather hard to liken it to many other films I’ve seen. Unless… there is a theme which brings it close to Deewar, in fact: that of voluntary punishment, or expiation. Kalyani (Nutan, who plays the role of the “bandini”, or imprisoned heroine) needs her punishment to compensate for what she knows is her guilt, just as Vijay (Amitabh, in Deewar) broods in the mine over a crime he can’t shake off. And both value their life at such a low price now that they are ready to endanger it if it can save that of others. This in turn draws the attention on the reason why such “generosity” is performed. There is a romantic (perhaps even soppy) side to such an attitude, with the theme of fighting against love because of a moral duty (“for his own sake, I cannot accept his love”, says Kalyani to her Jailor), but also the theme has a real power. It touches the question of sacrifice and redemption, which, when it is well dealt with, naturally is one of the most profound human motives.

Bandini pleases for many other reasons. The simplicity and originality of the story, first; the fact that 1. a woman is the heroine, and 2. she isn’t mistakenly, but really guilty (when so many other pastime movies would uncover a saving clause which clears the hero or the heroine); the realistically delicate balance of feelings which make her sway between the two men, neither of whom are caricatures; the wonderful encapsulation of the movie’s songs, that accompany the action in a masterful way (cf. the percussions springing from the repetitive movements of the women prisoners’ gestures); its rich and satisfying symbolism; its careful construction (cf. the famous flashback within the flashback), and of course the actors’ and actresses’ talent: Nutan of course, with her restraint and her vast emotional scale, but also a young and charming Dharmendra, and a sober Ashok Kumar (only once does he let himself go, and we hear his tinkling laugh), not forgetting the Prison Jailor and the woman inmates, filmed with a care and almost a tenderness which I loved.

 Here’s the story, as told by upperstall.com :

“Kalyani (Nutan), an inmate of a women's ward of a prison in pre-independent India, appears determined to serve out her full term, resisting the kind overtures of the prison doctor, Deven (Dharmendra), who wishes to marry her, fearing her past will catch up with her. Her past is told in flashback. In Bengal in the 1930s, the daughter of the postmaster (Raja Paranjpe) of the village, she had become involved with the anarchist Bikash Ghosh (Ashok Kumar). Bikash and Kalyani become close to one another and fall in love and in a difficult situation she is passed off as Bikash's wife in order to save his life. Bikash proposes to her and her father agrees to the marriage. Bikash leaves the village promising to come back. He never does and Kalyani learns he has married someone else. The family becomes the butt of ridicule in the village causing Kalyani to leave the village to avoid her father's dishonour. She starts working in a hospital taking care of a particular shrewish and obnoxious woman patient. Her father comes to the city in search of her but is killed in an accident. The same day she discovers the woman she is taking care of is Bikash's wife. Believing the woman to be the cause of all her troubles, Kalyani poisons her. Deven is still willing to marry her and after reading her story, his mother too accepts her. As she leaves for Deven's house where happiness awaits her, she runs into Bikash again. He is now terminally ill. She learns the real circumstances of Bikash's unhappy marriage, done for the freedom cause, and decides to go with him.”

Let me begin with one the movie’s most powerful symbol, which is of course in the title: that of the bars which separate people and shut them in their own world. Kalyani represents this prisoner even when she hasn’t yet committed the crime that will shut her behind real bars. When she first meets Bikash, it is through some bars:

In the hospital where she has found work away from the slanderous tongues of her village, she is already a sort of prisoner, as the bars through which she can see the welders at work:

This vision, by the way, is reminiscent of a blacksmith’s workshop, and we know that such an activity was the one performed by Hephaestus, the Greek god of metalwork who presided over the Inferno. The clever play with light and darkness during that powerful scene mirrors the hammering that goes on in Kalyani’s mind at that sombre moment. Then of course you have our heroine behind the woman’s prison bars, notably when she watches the freedom fighter go by her cell:

Imprisonment, for Bimal Roy, seems to be an existential reality, for even the spring is seen behind bars.

Now these bars first represent Kalyani’s pent-up seclusion in her guilt and self-humiliation. As Deven tells her rightly, she is fixed on her past, and cannot open her heart to live in the present. She does begin to love him (believing that Bikash, her husband, is dead or has disappeared), but refuses to let go of her cherished guilt. What’s moving in this fixation is that Kalyani knows what innocence means: she is the figure of purity, and it’s because she has, imprinted on her soul, the value of purity, that she weighs her guilt so heavily. She wishes for no extenuating circumstances. On the contrary, for her, punishment is the only way out of her sad distraught state. Without punishment, without this loss of freedom, she is lost. And she can only find herself if she loses who she would have been. Such is the frame of mind of the guilty pure: nothing can come in between their purity and their punishment: they are both their judges and their convicts. One can say that, as she is her own Judge, she is also her own redeemer.

Another conflicting element compounds this one: if Kalyani suffers from her purity, she also is the victim of her beauty (which is another form of purity, by the way). From the start, her good looks are constantly part of what happens to her. During her wood-bound love-songs, for example, she laments the fact that she’s fair and that she would rather exchange this fairness of skin with Bikash’s darker one.

In the prison, her beauty is the target of the sub-jailor’s interest and scheming, as well as the cause of her fellow’s inmates’ jeers. And naturally the two “official” suitors notice it straightaway. Her destiny is thus tied up with men’s desire of her outward appearance. 

There is a moral aspect to this conundrum: Kalyani, the bright angel, the lovely bird-like creature whose wings have been wasted, and who’s attracted to dark creatures to the point that she will voluntarily deny, darken and debase herself, is a feminine Christ-like figure: her vocation is to suffer, and to redeem, to befriend fellow-prisoners, and become a prisoner herself, out of devotion for them. It doesn’t matter here that she’s guilty, whereas Christ wasn’t. Her saintliness is both admired and derided, like all imitators of Christ. And this Christ-motif is given additional strength in the movie, by the way, thanks to that strangely stressed (and hauntingly evocative) Via Dolorosa walk performed by the condemned freedom fighter.

One might wonder why has Bimal Roy chosen to include this long scene, which doesn’t connect to the rest of the story. Let us not forget the film contains other examples of selflessness, such as that of Kalyani’s brother, who dies trying to save a girl in a flood. And of course Bikash sacrifices his love for Kalyani on the altar of the higher imperative of his country’s freedom.  Right at the end, too, whereas one might expect him to try and get her back, he accepts once more to sacrifice himself and leave her to her destiny without his unworthy self, and probably it is precisely this noble and disinterested attitude which convinces Kalyani to choose him, ill and aged, over the younger but blander doctor.

Sacrifice belongs to love stories, of course; it is also part of the purification process which all moral stories exemplify. The theme runs deep in the Hindu religion, with famous woman-figures seen positively when and if sacrificing themselves; yet Kalyani is also modern, in so far as she leaves her house, her father, works for a salary and decides alone which partner she will live with. So the sacrifices she performs are her own, they’re not imposed by society or traditions: they’re authentic acts of selflessness and purification; in fact she is as much a freedom fighter as the ones she watches pass her cell towards the gallows. One realises that, doing so, she understands something in her own destiny.

Bandini indeed tells us that destiny and time shape our lives – a banal statement of course, but whose moving and truthful strength is very convincing. The lyrical tone given to Kalyani’s life before her prison time, the poetic evocations of her intimacy at home (her sad and strict father, the little nephew who’s frightened of Bikash’s “bombs”), and perhaps most of all the beautifully empty (almost purified) views of the riversides where she used to live: all this points to a life, with its promises and potential which has not been hers, and yet she owns all of its beauty. Her person carries all this rich simplicity, this truthfulness, with her. Kalyani’s yearning for justice is the soul of this landscape and of this life. Broken as it might seem, her destiny shares with all that beauty and truth a harmony which she cannot lose, and which flows from her.

Chance in life.

Kalyani’s life had potential for another life, for many other lives, perhaps. But our life is shaped by events and chance happenings which come from far back before our birth, and direct it where we know not. We think sometimes we can change that: “I’m not interested in your past, but in your present” says the doctor, in an apparently more human, more respectful way of not wanting to shut someone in his or her failures, and opening the person to the newness of the future. But Kalyani knows that the past must be reckoned with, that it is sometimes wiser to settle for the reality of has happened to us in the past, even if it’s alienating, than want to erase it and pretend to start with a fresh slate. Humanity is never a fresh slate. There will always be past sins to be reckoned with, and atonement to be carried out. Joy and happiness depend on that realism, harsh as it may seem. Children are born into a world where crime and suffering have raged since the beginning, and it will take all their innocence, all their purity, and all their love to come to grips with it. And if they don’t, if they leave it to others to do it, then they will deepen the indifference which allows evil to continue to wreak its ageless havoc. The problem is that life doesn’t deal its missions fairly; some young have more to do than others; the weight on their shoulders is heavier. Some have a dirge to sing, some a hymn of joy. But even if the dirge is heavy, the joy must be sung in this earthly prison: some of us have this mission, while the others have a heavier task. The suffering has to be borne, and fighting against suffering or working towards its eradication will never exonerate those whose mission it is to shoulder the weight of sin and crime from performing their sacred mission.

Let’s finish with the evocation of Nutan. One marvels at her humanity and grace, her charm and strength, her seriousness, her sobriety, her truthfulness. She’s got that rare gift of never pandering to the camera, almost. The fact of being in front of it means that you’re accepting some of the conventions of the cinema, among which the identification process and, with it, the hero-worship and the offering of an image of yourself in lieu of a real person made of flesh and blood. But, even if no actress is immune to such impalpable calculations, where some degree of vanity can always find its satisfaction, Nutan’s performance here is really stunning. Even in passages where her beauty is clearly the main reason for the shot, something of Heaven is present, and one almost forgets the lust, the possessiveness, and one is plunged into her truth. The clarity of her typical (not universal) beauty echoes that of the tranquil river banks of her youth, where fishing boats wait for the tide to take them back to their work.

(Apart from upperstall.com’s review, I would also like to mention the one on rediff.com well worth reading. Bollywood blogs don’t seem to be very interested by such ageless treasures!)

PS/ I've corrected this last line in the answer to Shweta's comment. (check it in the "commentaires"!) And there's a very interesting debate about the ending of the film here (Bollywhat)

You can also go check Shweta's blog: link

Aakrosh (1980) by Govind Nihalani (whose first film it was, and who had won acclaim as Shyam Benegal’s photographer) is a sparsely told parable about the foundation of justice: should men follow the law at the expense of truth, or should they seek truth at the expense of the law? Here’s the story, told by rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com) at IMDB (many thanks to him!):

“After working with his mentor and Public Prosecutor Dushane (Amrish Puri) for many years, Advocate Bhaskar Kulkarni (Nasseruddin Shah) is assigned a legal aid case of Bhiku Lahanya (Om Puri), who is accused of brutally killing his wife, Nagi (Smita Patil) (1). Bhiku remains silent when asked to plead guilty or otherwise. Bhaskar's efforts to get him to subsequently confide in him prove in vain. Even when Bhaskar goes to talk to Lahanya's dad and sister, he is shunned. When he persists his window panes are broken, then one night he is attacked and knifed. He gets Police protection through the courts and persists with his questions - only to run into nothing but a wall of silence. Then he is contacted by a Social Worker who tells him what really happened. Before Bhaskar could do anything, the Social Worker goes missing, & Bhiku's dad passes away. When Bhiku is permitted to attend his funeral - this is where Bhiku will break his silence - a silence that will see him face another charge of cold-blooded murder!!” 

We have to add to this summary the essential fact that Bhaskar is a brahmin, whereas Dushane is a “tribal” (or adivasi, believed to be the aboriginal ethnic minority of India), like Lahanya, whom he is commissioned to prosecute. Adivasis are not normally considered as a caste, but their inferiority is clear. Attorney Bhaskar too is assigned, but contrary to his mentor, he is at the beginning of his career, and has still ideals and his generosity equals his sense of justice. Another thing: the “social worker” mentioned above (played by Mahesh Elkunchwar) must be identified as belonging to the maoist Naxalites, activists who, during the 1960s and 1970s, were intent on educating and leading to revolt the illiterate adivasi.

Then we shouldn’t omit from this background information the social circle to whom Prosecutor Dushane belongs, and with whom he plays cards of afternoons. This is the elite of the little neighbourhood: Ganpat Rao, local member of the legislative assembly; Bhonsle, President of the District Committee; the well-established Dr Patil, and the Deputy Superintendant of Police. This enumeration is nice to do because Nihalani’s movie is a bandook targeted mainly at such social façades of respectability: these bridge-playing and cigar-smoking sarkari karmchari are in fact nothing more than corrupt and hypocritical criminals, who take advantage of their position to exploit their fellow human beings and earn witness-buying money to protect their comfort and divert the course of justice.

The prosecutor, brilliantly played by Amrish Puri, is a rather different case. He hobnobs with the cultivated circle, true, but as a tribal who has managed to rise to the level of the local landed gentry, he is blinded by his status, and refuses to admit that down deep, he is still an underdog. This is the meaning of his silence when he gets repetitive and anonymous insult phone calls. Whoever it is at the other end sees him, not as a respectable officer of justice, but as a member of this detestable tribe of adivasis, who cannot be trusted to “work properly, and are born useless”, as one dignified official declares. During one bridge game, the way Dusshane is mocked by his peers for failing to use the right strategy is a good sign of his efforts to reach (and remain at) their level, but is in fact subtly kept where he belongs. The subtext of the conversation which takes place after the game is revealing, too, because the losing Dusshane, rationalist as always, is arguing over his partner’s management of the tricks, but this one (the Doctor) points out to him “Don’t you need a support to continue your call?”, and Dusshane says: “At least I wouldn’t have lost in a vulnerable position then.” A clear comment of the balance of power played out in real life. 

During the trial, Bhaskar comes to him several times, trying to sort out the muddle he’s in. There is a genuine affection between the two men, and a clear distinction between professional and personal levels. Dusshane encourages his pupil to fight him fairly in the courtroom, for example. He won’t begrudge him if he wins the case, but for him, there’s no doubt about Lahanya’s guilt. On the other hand, he too will fight for what he believes is the law: Bhaskar knows he will receive no encouragement based on humane considerations. Dusshane will be his opponent in court. Outside India, such staunch service of the truth and of the law, independent of personal ties, would be rare and commendable. But, as Bhaskar will realize, Dusshane is a victim of the very system he tries to uphold thanks to his strict loyalty to justice. And the worst is that he doesn’t see he is manipulated by those who know he is prejudiced. Until the end, he remains a tragically faithful soldier of a civil army that is corrupt and criminal.

For Dusshane, there can be nothing outside the rules of the law, and too bad for those who, innocent, cannot be proven so. Proving the case works for him as it should do for a scientist performing an experiment: a hypothesis cannot be accepted unless it has indisputable proof that must convince all observers. A sort of totalitarian rationalism is at work here. Because even if indeed for a scientist, proving is part of the truth-forming process, all real scientists know that the first rule of the validity of a theory is the acceptance by the community of specialists, who regard the proof as valid within the theoretical frame. The same scientists know (and the history of sciences shows only too well, alas) that certain so-called proofs are nothing but subjective or party-built constructions put forward to maintain a class interest or partisan stronghold.

Bhaskar learns that he must submit to this oppressive rule of proving his defence arguments, something that nobody but he (and Dusshane) care about. He knows that in human affairs, there are other realities than tangible proof which can influence a jury, and say the law. The law is in human hands, vulnerable to interpretation and power. But he is confronted to the likes of Ganpat Rao, who is above the laws, and Dusshane, who is under them. He also knows that even if he produced proper proof (which everybody makes sure he will not lay his hands on: even Lahanya is silenced), he would not necessarily win the day: the case could be won, but then he knows his life would be in danger. So we have the classic situation where the proof is not any longer a convincing chain of demonstrative arguments, but rests on the sacrifice of someone’s life, as far more precious than words. And yet, the honour of civilised humanity lies on the accepted use of reason and language, as opposed to that of force and intimidation

It is interesting to notice that the voice of the oppressed, the Naxalite “social worker”, who comes by night to tell him the truth about Lahanya, refuses to testify at the trial, but also tells Bhaskar it’s his job to find proof to defend Lahanya. He knows very well that Bhaskar, inexperienced as he is, has no access to any proof whatsoever: that’s why he comes to tell him what he knows. Yet he leaves Bhaskar alone with his proof-searching. Being alone is already daunting, but Bhaskar will also have to pay for being obstinate, and then proving Lahanya’s defence will be complicated by proving that he is harassed and attacked himself! (I don’t know if Nihalani was consciously referring to the Gospel: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”!)

What Bhaskar would have needed is less language as opposed to the sickening silence that he confronts everywhere (and which forms one of Aakrosh’s main narrative assets), but a language in which people would trust and believe in (for Christians, Jesus-Christ, precisely, is such a “Word” to believe in – cf. John 1). In fact, what people believe in, in the movie, is action and silence. Or rather, not silence, but hushing. Indeed, silence is a language, the language beyond words (cf. SL Bhansali’s Khamoshi).
What we have in Aakrosh – translated as “the cry of the wounded” – is a muteness, a disbelief in the powers of language to perform its tasks of truth setter and community builder. Crying (in the sense of screaming) is not properly human, but half beastly still. Hushing goes beyond lying: those in power do more than lie. They have understood that language is their enemy, that potentially it transmits the truth that could lead to their fall from power and self-satisfaction. And they have successfully instilled in other users of language the distrust that will help them reach their aim. Whereas in normal humanity, language means life, community and transmission, they have established a jungle of silence and death.

   
(There is one soothing fact about Lahanya’s silence: it is the one he displays with his wife, during their love-making. It’s swift, it’s only a memory, but it’s there, and it softens this otherwise dour movie. Note how, nevertheless, there is a sort of painful quality to that moment, perhaps, because of Lahanya’s present pain. We can add here, too, the tremendous use of Om Puri’s facial skin texture: to me it seemed like a silent scream of horror).

The end of the movie brings a twofold conclusion to this appalling situation: Lahanya’s reaction to his doomed fate is first dictated by what his tormentors have dictated: he kills for real this time. But by killing he somehow frees himself from the trap he was in: depriving the lustful landowners of their probable future prey, he hopes to punish them and protect her. In doing what he does, of course, he in fact punishes no one but himself his unfortunate tribe, because even Dusshane has his version ready: it is only an accident; but nevertheless, it is acting rather than submitting. Even if the curse repeats dramatically itself.

With Aakrosh Govind Nihalani has created a powerful weapon of denunciation, directed not only at the petty and despicable profiteers, but at a system which, under the name of democracy and freedom, satisfies itself with organising injustice. What is better? Following the Naxalites’ call for total revolution? Or like Bhaskar, try and do at least justice to one man? The first option needs historical circumstances that are rarely united: all revolutionary efforts have not succeeded, by a long shot. And their justification comes only after their success, anyhow. But sticking to the law, in the hope of righting individual situations, even if it seems futile at the scale of such a huge country, is that better? Focussing on individuals or small groups claims the advantage of realism, as opposed to the flimsy idealism of changing all of society. Yet, one can hear the criticism immediately: such action won’t reform a sick democracy, where the strength of parties can conspire with money interests to help maintain a system of injustice. It is clear that both actions are indispensable. The question as to whether violence is needed to achieve that goal is also part of the history of India.
 
 (1) Our summarizer adds here “for disobeying him and refusing to have sex with other men”, but this is a misunderstanding of the film’s story. It is the opposite: Nagi is abused and killed by powerful landowners, and Lahanya is blackmailed into accepting guilt of her death on pain of having his family (father, sister and nephew) undergoing the same fate if he speaks. If he doesn’t, they are allowed work for his exploiters. Hence the Naxalite revolutionary attempts. 

Mother India…That title resonates like everything a Bollywood-lover should pine for: aren’t we all somehow in love with Bharat mata? Aren’t we all her children up to some extent? As for me, I’d say that ever since I’ve been writing this blog (more than 2 years now), it’s been winding up to Mother India. First Nargis is one of my great heroines, and if I’ve come across Mehboob Khan’s movies only once so far, it’s enough to say he’s one of the greatest. This epic movie is like his final tribute to the Cinema: after a long career of about 100 films, and mastering his art to the full (we’ll detail this later), the master gives us his grandiose masterpiece.

Where do I start? Perhaps with this line: “How can a mother sacrifice her children?” wails Radha, at one point driven almost to insanity through poverty and humiliation, and almost forced to sell herself to feed them (we are spared that extreme, but the scene in the usurer’s house is tantalizing enough). And yet she will do it, she will kill her son, whose murderous frenzy obliges her at the end of the movie to choose social order over maternal love. The intensity and tragedy inherent to Mother India is contained in this contradiction. The Mother who has fought like only Life itself could struggle to survive and provide for its very existence, this mother will be the agent of Death, death of her own life, death of her own child. This Arch-Mother will become the mother Land, the Mother of Society, the mother of Culture. She will not flinch when her own blood, her own Nature has become corrupted by hate and craziness: she will choose order, the community, and the honour of the village. And out of her sacrifice a new Life will flow (the red tincture of the irrigation waters which she inaugurates at the end), a better life, a life where her children by the thousands can live in peace and prosperity.

But, what have we got here? Doesn’t that sound like a political platform? Or some naïve reformist propaganda? Is this 1957 film nothing but that? The movie’s opening tribute presents us with the communist Hammer and Sickle symbol… Well, we shall see that indeed, the political stance is overwhelming. But, but… so is the artist’s creativity, thank goodness, and so are its symbolic and allegorical values. So let the drums roll, here we go! Mother India!!

We start with the Brave New World of agrarian Progressism. Wow, now that’s what I call a message. That opening scene with Radha sitting on the clods, absurdly close to passing caterpillars and tractors and road-making engines, where dead serious Indian citizens are standing straight and looking towards their destiny! And then as the story unfolds, Radha’s family epic where she is no less than a Stakhanovist farmwoman (“we shall slog”, she tells Birju in the end, trying to make him understand – too late alas – the value of the socialist creed of redeeming Labour). Throughout this first part, she rises to Bolshevik statue-like proportions, a monument to the faith and courage of the People in the face of Adversity and Capitalist profiteers (well, Sakhilal the money-lender is hardly a fierce symbol of America, but I wanted to carry on with the rhetoric). We see her stride through the sun-drenched fields, sickle in hand, hair blowing and preceding her man, as in the best paintings of the collectivist era. At one stage (during the flood), she’s a modern Samson, a Pillar of Strength holding up the two sons of the Nation on her broad shoulders and unflinching character; later she’s a Christ-like Martyr of the people’s Revolution, as, eyes shut, tied to her Plough-Cross, she plods along the Calvary fields with her two boys behind looking up in awe…

These socialist icons in the film turn it into an amazing testimony of Communist propaganda, at a time when India was young and hopes were high after Independence. Strange to notice, perhaps, given the status of Mother India as a major work of art: one would have perhaps expected it to rise above allegiance, and influence, rather than be influenced… that much! Still, I think it transcends politics thanks to its sheer artistry. Not only does Mother India establish the defining epic of early Indian cinema, not only does it visualize the universality of the mother figure as a symbol of Life and Land: but it contains cinematography at its most creative, its most evocative. It doesn’t always avoid clichés (those flaming sunsets, the horizon shots), but what it does have – that’s visible from the start, it’s one of the movie’s great assets – is a masterful sense of framing and colouring. Mehboob Khan is a Painter.

Very often the scenes are intuitively balanced between volumes, lights, colours, movements; the composition of the action is great to watch, if you decide to do so. A keen sense of human bodies is also at work; Khan knows how to take advantage of them. The faces are a special subject which the director knows precisely how to use. He places an expressive face next to a half-hidden one, so that the “lit-up” one seems to comment on the shaded one (see above pic); sometimes close-ups of two or even three faces are filmed with an attention to their respective powers – we feel in the calculated distance separating them, or the closeness, something of the story happening on the screen.
And when Mehboob cuts a face so that it’s partly outside the screen, he does it with a precise purpose: the symbolism of the character is thus shown to exceed the narrowness of the movie itself (Radha carrying her Cross),
or its violence, expressed in such a way that it is only half suggested, giving it additional power because we must imagine the unseen part (Birju in the flames).

I would like to touch the question of feminism which some bloggers have already discussed (see on Carla’s). Is the film feminist? Is Radha the single mother a model of the liberation of women, or is she manipulated, and used as a figure of oppression, sacrificed to the gruelling chores that only women will do? Not to mention the use of her sex-appeal, surprisingly present in the movie at key moments.

 
Mehboob Khan doesn’t always shy from the escapist pleasures of representing his actress as a goddess with all her earthly charms. Radha is thus made into a satisfyingly complex character, she’s certainly virtuous, she’s loving, courageous, resistant, she has a sense of humour, a beautiful dignity. But she’s also shown to be a woman with her feelings and needs, her limits also.

This is what I’d say: certainly for its time, Mother India is feminist. Imagine, Radha actually waits for her husband for the whole film! It would have so easy and so satisfying (from an escapist point of view) to have Shamu (Raj Kumar) come back, the desired male, the idol of the family, the focus of society. But he just doesn’t, and that’s one of the movie’s strengths: it doesn’t pander to the spectator’s desire in this respect. Radha remains alone, with her desire, her pain, her frustration, as the story says she should. Then there’s her denunciation of the religious support offered to women by “the goddess who carries the burden of the world”: Radha sneers at that fable, and taunts whatever goddess there is. She is indeed carrying everything, there is no goddess somewhere helping out. And finally, who knows whether the director’s tribute to Nargis’ wonderful features and figure (positively sultry at times) shouldn’t also be looked upon as a vindication of women? I don’t feel she is manipulated too much, and even if this last point is subjective, imagine what a modern-day director would have done…

There is another theme worth speaking about in Mother India, that of education and knowledge. I suppose you remember the scene when little Birju goes to the teacher’s class in the beginning; he’s sent by his mother in the hope that he can one day read the usurer’s books and perhaps reduce the injustice that his family has been subjected to. But what does he do? He fools around, and is sent back, and tied up to a post at home, without anything to eat. It looks like he doesn’t go back to school, because later, when he falls in love with the teacher’s daughter (whom as a dacoit, he sees married at the end), and tries to learn the alphabet in front of her, he cannot but criticise knowledge as cruel, since it has wreaked such misery on his mother and her sons. For Birju, knowledge enslaves; and deprived of it, he will have no choice but to resort to violence, which also enslaves. Clearly the film condemns usury and such immoral dealings, but rather ambiguously it makes no great effort to uphold Birju’s rebellion against this injustice. Instead, the rebel is killed to maintain peace and justice, a justice based on legal theft!

So what is upheld in Mother India? “Honour”, and the courageous acceptance of one’s destiny. That’s what Radha stands for, that’s what she is crowned for. That's also what her eldest son, Ramu (Rajendra Kumar) represents. So I’d say that’s where the film’s revolutionary stance stops. And where tradition steps in. According to the Russian/marxist model of revolution, women like men can take part in the overthrow of the feudal society; their motherhood doesn’t come into play. It seems the Indian model favours another role: a woman cannot change everything, a woman is praised first and foremost as a mother and defendant of social values, and only then can she, as a worker and element of economic and social change, improve society and the individual (you might check what Shweta has to say about the “Bhartiya naari”, in relation to this vision of the Indian woman). I wonder if that conservatism is why the film was so successful when it was made… and why it is perhaps less so now. Indeed, almost nobody, from what I’ve seen at least on the net, has taken the time to deal seriously with it. There are very few reviews, apart from Upperstall (short and doesn’t contain much except praise for Nargis’ performance) and Carla’s (good, but short). On Bollywhat, they’re busy figuring out why Birju’s face is so red. 

 Above, the greek goddess's profile                       And here, the socialist composition, with the red flag!
                                                            He's married... to his land.

The critical fame of Teesri Kasam, the 1966 film by Basu Bhattacharya, starring Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman, is absolutely justified; it’s a tale of love and sadness, of beauty and melancholy; it enchants you, it pulls you along, it arrests you: in short it’s a little jewel. The blend of simplicity, poignancy and musicality is unparalleled, I think. It has a charm only equalled by the best Indian movies, such as Shri 420.

The story is rather simple: Hiraman, a cart-driver who is involved in black-marketing is almost caught by the police, and, upon escaping, vows he’ll never trade smuggled goods any more. He then reverts to bamboo trafficking, but that’s also a failure, and similarly he vows not to deal with it: what will be his third vow (teesri kasam)? We learn about it as he sets off on a journey, loaded this time with a rightful cargo, even if the lawfulness of this consignment will have to be reconsidered along the way, and will in effect lead to that fateful third vow.

But for the moment, he leaves his village, and we are left to wonder who it is exactly that he is transporting (we have been granted nothing but a calf climbing in the carriage, whose curtains are drawn). The slight suspense enables us to follow the driver (an already middling Raj Kapoor, very convincing nevertheless) through villages and woods, as night sets on and serves to highlight his rusticity. It isn’t until the morning that we catch a glimpse of his charge, the “fairy” Hirabai (as he calls her) who immediately casts a spell on him. They exchange names, and are surprised to see them similar-sounding (Hira means diamond, as Philip points out, and indeed they are both gems in their own way). So they become meetas, dear friends, as a result. She discovers his straightforward nature, his joyfulness (he’s always singing), and he is fascinated by her accomplishments: not only can she sing too, but she knows scriptures, and her face “looks absolutely…”

At the fair, she would have liked to stay with him, but they soon have to go separate ways, he with his fellow carting friends, and she with the troupe who has arrived in town, ready for the next day’s “nautanki”, or traditional show, in which she is the main dancer. Hiraman is filled with the importance of having had her attention and more perhaps, and brags about it among his pals. There’s lots of nicely felt companionship here. Soon she calls him in her tent, and asks him to stay for the few days of the fair, in spite of his strict sister-in-law’s advice. “Just be quiet, says Hirabai, she won’t know of it”: and he buys his fellow admirers’ silence with the passes she gives him to attend the shows.

Soon nevertheless, trouble is at hand: Hiraman has to face a first disillusionment; his beloved Hirabai is slandered in public, called a prostitute, and he causes a scandal by fighting with the impudent slanderer during a show. We understand she has trapped herself, by hiding her identity. She’s stuck in a “goddess” persona: he just thinks too high of her! The second problem is even more serious: the local thakur (zamindar) comes to the show and decides to buy her for one night. But she refuses, filled as she is with her new love for her “guru”. This will be her downfall, alas, because the lustful landowner has far more power than Hiraman: if she says no to him, the worst consequences will fall on her clan. The scene where she is surrounded by all her family, young and old, is really terrible, for she is given all the zamindar’s reasons through their mouths. She has to give in, and relinquish her poet and friend. Love is not for her in this world.

The songs of the movie perfectly match the action, in a way that only movies of that era knew how to, it seems to me. They is always a profound justification for them, they always comment upon the action in a true and meaningful way. More about this in a minute. Here is an excellent paragraph written by Upperstall about the musical dimension of Teesri Kasam:

Rarely does one see a film where music is so well integrated into the film. Shankar-Jaikishen have given an outstanding musical score in the film - simple melodies rooted in folk music. The music is much enhanced with the use of flutes, traditional string and percussion instruments. Sajanre Jhoot Mat Bolo, Sajanwa Bairi Ho Gaye Hamar, Duniya Bananewale all rendered by Mukesh and Pan Khaye Saiyan Humaro sung by Asha Bhosle stand out. It is interesting to see that in keeping with the realistic and human look of the film, Hiraman is just one of the revellers in the song Chalat Musafir and not the lead singer as is the case normally in our films.

Also delicate and bristling with life is the realistic filming: the lake water lapping the grass-studded banks, the undercover of branches as the cart moves away in the distance, the dusty roads filled with peasants of – it seemed – age-old Indian countryside, and the feeling of community shared by everyone. The photography is a treat too, viz those tricks with the lighting, which have been put to the best of their symbolical value: the oil-lamp inside the night confinement of the cart, lending its shadows to Hirabai’s thoughts; the backlighting when Hiraman crosses the village with the drunkard on the roof; and most magical of all, the sun-specked canvas behind Hirabai’s lovely head, imbedding it with sparkling diamonds as she smiles and listens to her friend the cart-driver.

But let’s now come to the core of the movie: why does Hirabai fall in love with Hiraman? Everything derives from there. Falling in love with her isn’t an issue, it must happen every minute, one would say. But the action of the movie is determined by her falling in love. The reasons usually given for Hirabai’s attraction towards Hiraman are “his innocence and simplicity” (Upperstall's review), or that “she is charmed by her driver’s blend of shyness, humility, and impassioned opinions” (Philip's fil-ums). PPCC declares that “Hiraman's naïveté and good nature charms Hira Bai”. All this is true, up to a certain extent, but I would like to indicate a more important reason, which has something to do with the meaning of the film, and will introduce its interpretation. Because the movie is not just a charmingly sad fable: it contains a message on attraction and destiny, even if it is perhaps banal, but the way it is blended with the story certainly isn’t.

What, indeed, happens during that cart-trip? True, the two discover the other one’s personality: Hiraman is refreshingly direct and simple; and the lady is a marvel of attention and delicacy. But the important is elsewhere: During the ride, Hirabai is reading her role for the next day, and the way she is shown pausing at the words indicates they have a special significance for her:

“There’s no one my own in this whole world; when separation is written in my destiny, why should I blame you?

There’s no one my own in this whole world, neither in my garden nor outside it…”

These words trigger a song on Hiraman’s lips, which she comes out to listen, musing deeply:

“My lover has become a foe, my deeds have become my enemies

If it is a letter, one can read it easily, but no one can read destiny.”

The way the young woman listens to these words indicates that she is listening to something else than just a song: she sees meaning in them, a meaning which clearly refers to herself.

A little later, they stop near the river, and Hiraman, singing, tells her Mahua Ghatwaran’s story, a beautiful virgin “who looked just like a fairy” (like Hirabai had appeared to him at first), and who had an unhappy life - “no one to call her own in the whole world” says the story-teller. She had fallen in love with a thirsty traveller, but her step-mother refused that union, and sold her to a trader: the pair was broken. The melancholy song is built along these questions:

“O maker of this world, what came into your mind, that you made this world?

Why have you made this play called life?”

You created love, and told us to live,

You made us to meet friends on the path of life

And awakened dreams…

After awakening dreams, why did you give us separation?”

After this song, Hirabai announces to her fellow-traveller that he’s her teacher, her guru. From him she has learnt a secret, and this secret is contained in the song she’s just heard. We understand Hiraman is now a sort of prophet for her, a sort of visionary; he has sung about her and her sad destiny, and has transmuted her intimate drama and longing into a song, a thing of beauty. He has taught her the words to express her interrogations and her desires. He has perhaps even lifted the guilt she was feeling about her profession, and turned it into an existential Question asked to the Creator. So there is the reason for the feeling of gratitude and wonder that overcomes her, as she sits next to her meeta: he’s worded her pain and desire, he’s reordered it within the wider perspective of the cosmos; he’s deflected that suffering thanks to his story, and included himself in it: because naturally, he has become the traveller, and she is now that young virgin girl who was prevented from living with her true love. Her new love is a passionate desire to start anew life’s journey, to protect and cherish the awakener of her dreams, and live next to him far from the defiling brutality of her profession’s beastly side.

In Teesri Kasam, there is a belief in the power of poetry and music to transform life and purify it: Hirabai’s bath or cleansing (at the riverside scene) is symbolical of her desire to be renewed and reborn thanks to love and purity. Yet as she sings Hiraman’s song, we cannot but wander at the words too: they speak of a separation, of a destiny that cannot be changed. Even if it might be a consolation to know that God is the one answerable for our fate, and not us, still fate is fate, and the freedom to change it will not be granted. Hiraman has been singing to her like the Greek Chorus, foreseeing things which have not yet happened, but which in their unchangeable logic belong to the necessity of fatality. The transformation which Hirabai dreams of is doomed to remain a dream, and that wistful reality is one of the film’s magical charms.

Waheeda Rehman’s beauty has never been more stupendous and breathtaking than it is here. Her striking softness, her incredible grace and tenderness, the perfect mould of her face makes watching her a sort of ecstasy. The way her caressing eyes look at Raj Kapoor, how she smiles at him, and searches his face for a confirmation of her love is like a baptism: she has been purified and awakened, as the song says, and her face radiates the morning sun, its warmth, its security. It’s almost embarrassing to watch her so much in love, so attentive and happy. The smiles the smiles, the eyes she shuts, the chin she lifts: all reveal so much more than what an ordinary actress might do, it’s amazing. I think she and Guru Dutt had been life companions (he committed suicide in 1964): well it’s a good thing he didn’t see her in this film: jealousy would have killed him again! I cannot thank enough Indian cinema for stopping actors and actresses from throwing themselves into one another’s arms. The kind of distilled eroticism that exudes from the couple’s calculated closeness is worth a hundred embraces. And B&W suits her perfectly too, it brings out the contrast of her dark hair and eyebrows in a way colour movies have forgotten all about (e.g. in Guide, a year before).

Raj Kapoor as has been said pleases the eyes, even if his latter-year chubbiness is showing a lot. Somebody has suggested on Bollywhat (link) that he was a miscast, being that old already. But he isn’t supposed to be a young man; and what we have said about the importance of Hirabai’s recognition of him as her guru makes him on the contrary a very good choice. We still enjoy that highly expressive face, his wide range of emotions, joyfulness, shame, fear, anger, as well as his pensive moments when he is beaten by events too great for him. His perpetual “Iss” is a great invention; I don’t know if it is a local word (probably for “come on!”), but it touches our hearts with its sincere-sounding simplicity.

All in all, Teesri Kasam is a delightful tale, full of many little and big treasures. It charms thanks to its original sadness, thus going against the facile shift of happy endings, and remains in the memory all the more.