Nargis in Deedar (1951)

Adapting much of the K.L. Saigal type of melodrama, the tale opens with adolescents Shamu (Dilip Kumar) and childhood sweetheart Mala (Nargis). Mala’s rich father (Sapru) disapproves and when the children have an accident while horse-riding (a portent of the tragedy to come), he has Shamu and his mother evicted. The trauma kills the mother and turns Shamu blind. He is rescued and brought up by Champa (Nimmi) and her canny guardian, Choudhury (Yakub). Champa loves Shamu but he cannot forget Mala. Dr Kishore (Ashok Kumar), an eye surgeon moved by the music Shamu sings on the streets, restores the hero’s eyesight. Shamu then sees that Mala, to whom he has dedicated his life, is engaged to his benefactor, Dr Kishore, and he puts his eyes out again.

Dilip Kumar’s best-known tragic performance clearly evokes the Oedipus legend with blindness signifying an escape from the unbearable present and mourning for a lost innocence. The film, however, splits its 1ead protagonists, e.g. through turn-wipes repeatedly juxtaposing Dilip against Ashok Kumar and Nargis against Nimmi, a technique that evokes the Bengali literary melodrama (as does the cliche of the eye operation). In spite of the many unimaginative and maudlin sequences, some attempts at realism resemble aspects of Satyajit Ray’s approach, e.g. the long track along the kitchen floor in Champa’s hovel or the changing light patterns on the ceiling behind Shamu when he sings Naseeb dar pe tere azmaane aya boon. The film was edited by Bimal Roy and contains some of the best songs composed by Naushad and sung by Mohd. Rafi, Lata, Shamshad Begum and G.M. Durrani including Bachpan kai din bhula na dena, Chaman mein reh kai veerana, Dekh liya maine and Meri kahani bhoolne waley.

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 1951, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Filmkar, Director – Nitin Bose, Music Director – Naushad, Cast - Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Nargis, Nimmi, Yakub, Tabassum, Rattan Kumar and Sapru.

Balraj Sahini in Do bigha zamin (1953)

Bimal Roy, one of India’s foremost film-makers, made many great films including Do bigha zamin, which is one of Roy’s best works and is a remarkable film by any standards. It brings together Roy’s neo-realist form of Hindi cinema’s melodrama with his deeply felt political concerns, to form a great study of human values and dignity among the poor.

Do bigha zamin explores the real impact of money-lending on the peasant farmer, as he becomes enslaved by his debts. Driven to try to raise money to pay off his loan, Shambu (Balraj Sahni) leaves his pregnant wife (Nirupa Roy) and elderly father to head for Calcutta. His young son smuggles himself onto the train and helps his father as a shoe-shiner. Robbed on their first day, the couple soon remake their village ties by finding surrogate families in the city: Dadi as their mother and Rani as an elder sister to the boy. Shambu’s experience of helping a sick man leads him into rickshaw-pulling. While terrible accidents befall the family, the film avoids easy answers to the serious problems facing the urban migrant. Roy’s melodrama is restrained, and he uses few devices of the Hindi film, with songs kept to a minimum, placing the emphasis instead on the black-and-white photography of realistic sets and wonderful footage of contemporary Calcutta.

The main strength of this film lies in the performance of Balraj Sahni as Shambhu. Sahni is regarded as one of the greatest actors of Indian cinema, both during his lifetime and with hindsight. He rarely appeared as the Hindi film hero but usually, as he said, as ‘all those fathers and uncles’, often taking roles in films dominated by the outstanding female stars such as Nargis and Meena Kumari. While Sahni’s younger brother, Bhisham, became one of the great figures of modern Hindi literature, Balraj had a variable career in theatre and cinema, as well as working for the BBC in London before independence. Despite his own elite and educated background, Sahni is totally plausible as the desperate but determined peasant, his physical movement accurately reproducing that of a labourer, while his facial expressions are restrained and powerful.

One scene in this film is particularly resonant, its images condensing the narrative of the invisibility of the poor and the way the rickshaw- pullers are seen as little more than draught animals. A middle-class woman, arguing with her lover, leaps into a rickshaw. The man follows her and they egg the pullers into a chase, where the pullers seem to be running after the extra money itself with no other sight in mind. The rapid editing by Hrishikesh Mukherjee adds to the speed of the chase and the desperate pursuit of a few extra coins. During the race, Shambu’s rickshaw overturns and he is severely injured, but the couple pay no attention.

The setting of this film in the Bengali village and Calcutta of the 1950s inevitably invites comparison with Ray, and the differing merits of the Hindi film and the ‘art’ film.

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 1953, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Bimal Roy, Director –Bimal Roy, Music Director – Salil Chaudhary, Cast - Murad, Ratan Kumar, Tiwari, Balraj Sahni, Nirupa Roy, Nana Palsikar, Nazir Hussain, Noor, Kusum, Hiralal, Misra, Rajlaxmi, Dilip, Nand Kishore, Jagdeep, Mehmood, Paul Mahendra, Navendu Ghose, Sunil Das Gupta, Ashit Sen, Shelly Banerjee

Rattan Kumar

Rattan Kumar, along with Baby Tabassum and Baby Naaz, was the most sought-after child-star of Bombay Cinema. Rattan would inevitably bag the coveted role whenever the demands of the script called for the hero’s childhood to be shown on screen. As such, Rattan played the childhood roles for quite a few important actors of India, including Nasir Khan in Aangarey (1954) and Bharat Bhushan in Baiju Bawra (1952). Raj Kapoor’s Boot Polish (1954), a film on the street kids of Bombay, brought international accolades for Rattan and his child co-star, Baby Naaz. In the mid-fifties he came to Pakistan with his family and settled in Lahore. His first appearance was in Sharif Nayar’s Masoom (1957), a family melodrama which attracted a large female audience. The song Lelo Choorian, picturized on Rattan, became a favorite of children of all ages.

Bedari (1957), his second movie in Pakistan, was a carbon copy of India’s Jagriti (1954). It dealt with national sentiments and was a colossal success mainly because of the songs that the music director Fateh Ali Khan adapted (read plagiarized) from the original. Almost all the songs were the same except for some changes in the lyrics to suit our locale. Mahatma Gandhi or Bapu of Jagriti (1954) was changed to Quaid-e-Azam or Baba-e-Qaum. Rattan was launched as the leading man in Khalil Qaiser’s Nagin (1959). The film did great business, but just like many popular child stars of his time Rattan never became successful film hero.