This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
|
Blog Day : |
5514 | Post No. : | 17960 | Movie Count : |
4804 |
As per Hindu mythology, the Sun god is travelling in the sky on a chariot pulled by seven horses. After pulling the chariot for a long time, the six horses are tired. It is the seventh horse who remains and continues to pull the chariot signifying it to be the horse of dreams and aspirations for the future. In 1952, Dr Dharamvir Bharati published his novella, ‘Suraj Ka Saatvan Ghoda’. I read the novella in full which is available online. The novella is written in narration style in which the protagonist, Manik Mulla narrates to his three friends, three separate romance stories relating to three girls. What is of interest is that Manik Mulla is not only the narrator of the stories, but he is also the characters in all the three stories who loves these three girls at different points of time in his life. As Agyeya said in his foreword to the novella, ‘Suraj Ka Saatvan Ghoda’ is not the one story comprising three stories, but three stories constituting one story. The author, in his introduction, has revealed that during his early period of writing, he was influenced by Marxist objectives rather than hardcore Marxism. In this novella, some indications of that objectives can be inferred. The full novella in Hindi can be read here.
After four decades since the novella was published, Shyam Benegal adapted its story in toto to make a film by the same name, ‘Suraj Ka Saatvan Ghoda’ (1993). When Shyam Benegal approached Dr Bharati for his permission to adapt his novella into a feature film, he gave permission without any hesitation. However, some well-wishers of Dharmvir Bharti cautioned him about some filmmakers deviating from the literature. But Dharmvir Bharti brushed aside their concern by telling them that he has entrusted his work to Shyam Benegal and not just any filmmaker and he has immense faith in him. He also did not go through the screenplay written by Shama Zaidi. [Source: The Hindu, 17/09/2017].
The film was produced by NDFC and Doordarshan and was directed by Shyam Benegal. The cast included Rajit Kapur, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Pallavi Joshi, Neena Gupta, Amrish Puri, Anang Desai, Riju Bajaj, Lalit Tiwari, Ila Arun, Raghuveer Yadav, Ravi Jhankal, Suresh Bhagwat, KK Raina, Virendra Saxena, Shashibala Sahay, Mohini Sharma etc.
The three stories pertain to three girls. First, Jamuna (Rajeshwari Sachdev) who has been brought up in a middle-class family. Second, Leela/Lily (Pallavi Joshi), who belongs to an upper-middle class family and is educated, strong and independent-minded. The third girl, Sati (Neena Gupta), a destitute brought up by an ex-army man since her childhood. Her origin is from a gypsy family. Manik Mulla (Rajit Kapur) loves all the three girls at different points of time but love does not fructify. The tragedy is that Manik Mulla witnesses the marriage ceremonies of Jamuna and Lily and becomes a moot spectator to Sati being dragged out of his house where she has come to him for shelter. Although the three stories are different, they get intertwined as some characters are common in all the three stories and they are based in the same village.
The gist of the film’s story is as under:
The film starts with Manik Mulla, a railway employee serving watermelons to his three friends, Shyam (Raghuveer Yadav), Omkar (Siraj Ahmed) and Prakash (Rakesh Dhar) who normally assemble in his house in a series of afternoons to hear love stories from him. After the conclusion of each story, his three friends critically evaluate the stories, and he responds to their queries pertaining to the story.
The first story is that of Jamuna who is a school dropout. She is in love with her neighbor, Tanna (Riju Bajaj). At the same time, she has friendly disposition towards another neighbor, Manik Mulla who has some sort of platonic love for her but cannot express explicitly. Jamuna could not marry Tanna because of his cowardliness as he had no guts to defy his father, Maheshwar Dalal (Amrish Puri) who is money minded (dowry) and also a womanizer. She tells her disappointment to Manik Mulla and meets him almost every day. Eventually, Jamuna’s mother gets her married to an old landlord (Suresh Bhagwat) who is a widower with lot of wealth. But he dies within a short time. Jamuna finds solace in having inherited a good financial security apart from having extra-marital relationship with a horse-cart man, Ramdhari (Ravi Jhankal).
The second story is that of Leela/Lily, the only daughter of a widowed mother (Ila Arun). She has a wealthy background. Manik Mulla loves Lily which she reciprocates. But her widow-mother gets Lily married to Tanna against her wish. Tanna’s father, Maheshwar Dalal sees a double opportunity in this marriage. He sees a chance to flirt with Lily’s widow-mother and also her wealth which Lily will eventually inherit. However, Lily is not happy with this marriage as she does not find her husband in the same intellectual level as she is. After Lily becomes pregnant, she leaves her husband permanently and shift to her mother’s house by saying that she has got everything, and she does not need a man.
The third story is of Sati who belongs to the lower strata of the society. She earns a living by making soap. She genuinely loves Manik Mulla. His elder brother (KK Raina) does not like Manik’s liaison with her and threatens him to stop his college studies and get him employed. Maheshwar Dalal has an eye on Sati with bad intentions. He showers monetary benefit on her guardian, Chaman Thakur and makes him drunk to kidnap Sati. She runs away to Manik Mulla’s house to take shelter to save herself from the clutches of Maheshwar Dalal and Chaman Thakur. Afraid of his elder brother, Manik Mulla remains a moot spectator when Sati is being dragged out of his house by Maheshwar Dalal and Chaman Thakur. Sati is raped and probably killed by Maheshwar Dalal.
After the third story, Manik Mulla becomes emotional, and he tells his friends that he would not narrate any more stories. Somewhere in his conscious he felt that had he not betrayed Sati, she could have been saved. At the end of the film, the protagonist says that ‘the love which does not contribute to social progress and personal development is not love’.
This is one of those few films where watching the film will give more satisfaction than reading the story and reviews. For, the story switches between the protagonist narrations depicted on the screen and the scenes where protagonist and his friends discuss among themselves, the pros and cons of each story. Each main characters in the story have more than one layer of their personality which is hard to bring out in the reviews.
I have watched almost all the feature films directed by Shyam Benegal but, in my view, the film under discussion is his cult classic masterpiece though the film flopped miserably at the box office. I never thought that storytelling aspects in the novella could be cinematically presented so effectively as if I was refreshing the novella on the screen. The film keeps the viewers engrossed because at the end of the film, one gets confused whether the stories narrated by the protagonist is fiction or real or partly fiction and partly real. Perhaps, Dharmvir Bharati has left the conclusion to the readers of his novella and so also Shyam Benegal to the viewers of the film.
This was Rajit Kapur’s debut film as an actor and he has given an excellent performance as Manik Mulla where he has different layers of characters in each story. All the three ‘heroines’, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Pallavi Joshi and Neena Gupta have maintained their reputation as the great actors of mid/parallel cinema. I liked the non-maniac and soft villainous role of Amrish Puri in this film. The film won the National Film Award for the best feature film in Hindi in 1993.
The film has only two songs, one of which I am presenting here today. The song is “Ye Shaamen Sab Ki Sab Shaamen” which is the first song from the film to appear on the Blog. The song written by Vasant Dev is rendered by Udit Narayan and Kavita Krishnamurthy and is set to music by Vanraj Bhatia. The song is picturised on Rajit Kapur and Pallavi Joshi. The second part of the first stanza of the song gets played again in the background when Manik Mulla (Rajit Kapur) witnesses his beloved, Lily (Pallavi Joshi) getting married to Tanna (Riju Bajaj). The video clip contains both the parts.
Song – Ye Shaamen, Sab Ki Sab Shaamen (Suraj Ka Saatwan Ghoda) (1993) Singer – Udit Narayan, Kavitha Krishnamurthy, Lyrics – Vasant Dev, MD – Vanraj Bhatia
Udit Narayan + Kavitha Krishnamurthy
Lyrics
ye shaamen
sab ki sab shaamen
kya inka koi arth nahin
ghabra ke tumhe jab yaad kiya
kya un shaamon ka arth nahin
kya un shaamon ka arth nahin
aa aa aa
ye shaamen
sab ki sab shaamen
kya inka koi arth nahin
ghabra ke tumhen jab yaad kiya
kya un shaamon ka arth nahin
kya un shaamon ka arth nahin
o o o
ye shaamen
sab ki sab shaamen
soonepan ke in lamhon mein
apni chhaaya se baaten ki
jin mein koi bhi swar na rahe
wo tooti veenaayen phenki
ye bheege panchhi the lamhe
ye bheege panchhi the lamhe
kya inka koi arth nahin
kya inka koi arth nahin
ye shaamen
sab ki sab shaamen
————————————————
Hindi script lyrics (Provided by Sudhir)
————————————————
ये शामें
सब की सब शामें
क्या इनका कोई अर्थ नहीं
घबरा के तुम्हें जब याद किया
क्या उन शामों का अर्थ नहीं
क्या उन शामों का अर्थ नहीं
आ आ आ
ये शामें
सब की सब शामें
क्या इनका कोई अर्थ नहीं
घबरा के तुम्हें जब याद किया
क्या उन शामों का अर्थ नहीं
क्या उन शामों का अर्थ नहीं
ओ ओ ओ
ये शामें
सब की सब शामें
सूनेपैन के इन लम्हों में
अपनी छाया से बातें की
जिन में कोई भी स्वर ना रहे
तो टूटी वीनाएँ फैंकीं
ये भीगे पंछी थे लम्हे
ये भीगे पंछी थे लम्हे
क्या इनका कोई अर्थ नहीं
क्या इनका कोई अर्थ नहीं
ये शामें
सब की सब शामें