Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Life8217;s lessons do not always come clearly segregated as right and wrong. The right is often closely interwoven with the wrong. Therefore, to achieve progress, we cannot totally discard a successful model just because it has some stench of the immoral. Nor can we emulate it uncritically, deluding ourselves that the immoral doesn8217;t exist or doesn8217;t matter.
Why am I saying this? Because, some readers, responding to my last week8217;s column 8216;Two movies, two Indias: On Guru and Pyaasa8217;, have criticised me for 8220;condoning8221; the questionable means that Gurukant Desai reel-life proxy for Dhirubhai Ambani employs to succeed in his ambition to become India8217;s top businessman.
As a movie, however, Guru doesn8217;t scale Pyaasa8217;s heights of greatness. Even after a half century, Guru Dutt8217;s black-and-white gem continues to dazzle and disturb viewers with a cathartic emotional, intellectual and aesthetic experience. Only a part of the reason for this lies in its accusatory portrayal of the inequities of Indian society. One of its dozen timeless Sahir Ludhianvi songs 8212; 8220;Jinhe naaz hai Hind par vo kahaan hain8221; 8212; sounds contemporary even today. Guru Dutt8217;s greatness as a director and lead actor, playing the role of an angst-ridden idealist poet, rests primarily on his poignant and rebellious indictment of an aspect of material wealth which Guru does not even acknowledge 8212; namely, how money sans values can corrode the most intimate of human relationships Mala Sinha spurns the poor poet, her college sweetheart, to marry Rehman, a rich publisher, and then gets trapped in an unhappy marriage with a suspicious husband; how jealousy and avarice can pauperise the inner selves of the wealthy Rehman refuses to publish Guru Dutt8217;s poetry, but after it gains immense 8216;posthumous8217; popularity, makes haste to buy the rights from the poet8217;s greedy brothers; and how, even in the absence of material wealth, a golden heart can throb in the body of a prostitute Waheeda Rehman, who quenches the pyaasa poet8217;s thirst for true love and spiritual solace.
There is a love song in the movie 8220;Jaane wo kaise, log the jinke, pyaar ko pyaar mila8221; whose wounding melody and meaning have few equals in Hindi cinema. It is sung by Guru Dutt in a mehfil scene which has been set up by Rehman to confirm his own suspicion about his wife8217;s old and continuing love for the poet. The deliberate psychological torture he inflicts on Mala Sinha seems as cruel as wife-beating. And herein lies a quality of great cinema 8212; the more subtly it shows the happiness and hurt of human emotions, which are more delicate than the frailest flower on earth, the more contemplative and longer-lasting is its impact on the viewer. This can also be seen in the contrasting ways in which Mani Ratnam and Guru Dutt picturise their song sequences involving the feminine mystique.
Mallika Sherawat8217;s dance in Guru is loud and only ephemerally linked to the protagonist8217;s Abhishek Bachchan8217;s life. Cut now to Geeta Dutt8217;s mellifluous rendering of the kirtan devotional dance-song 8212; 8220;Aaj sajan mohe ang lagaalo /janam safal ho jaaye / hriday ki peeda deh ki agni / sab sheetal ho jaaye.8221; It8217;s Guru Dutt8217;s revolutionary genius that a song that might appear as Mira8217;s sublimated love for her God becomes a life-transformative moment for a 8220;fallen8221; woman8217;s longing for her poet-lover. Frankly, I found the creative choreography of this bhakti song, with its multiple meanings rooted in India8217;s profound aesthetic-spiritual traditions, far more sensuous than Mallika Sherawat8217;s easily forgettable item number.
Both films end on powerful climactic notes. Abhishek Bachchan8217;s final oration is triumphalist. Guru Dutt8217;s is tragic but is by no means the tragedy of the weak and the meek. Stung by the money-inspired treacheries of the world, Dutt rejects this unjust world with a defiant song: 8220;Ye duniyaa jahaan aadmi kuchh nahin hai/ vafaa kuchh nahin, dosti kuchh nahin hai/ jahaan pyaar ki kadr hi kuchh nahin hai/ yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai?8221; Sung by Mohammed Rafi at his best, it begins on a slow note why have such slow-paced songs disappeared from today8217;s Bollywood?, but reaches its angry crescendo with the words 8220;Jalaa do, jalaa do, ise phuunk daalo ye duniyaa/ Mere saamne se hataalo ye duniya8221;. Guru Dutt8217;s message, however, is not destructive. For, before he walks out with Waheeda Rehman into the realm of the unknown he committed suicide in 1964 at 39, the song ends with an appeal that8217;s actually directed at the film8217;s viewers: 8220;Tumhaari hai tum hi sambhalo ye duniyaa This is your world, you save it.8221;
The only way we can save this world is by discovering, preserving and creating true wealth, which is much more than money.
