Note: The following post is taken from the archives of PassionForCinema.com, a much-loved platform for cinema enthusiasts. This is being republished here in the spirit of archiving, historical significance, and sharing important conversations with the readers who may not have had access to the original site. The author of the post is Oz, who published the post on August 29, 2006, at 12:46 pm.
Movie fanatics have been orphaned today… The man, whose stories many of us grew up listening to, has left us. Forever.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee, our dear Hrishi-da, is no more. I am shocked beyond words to say anything except put this news link from Rediff. (thanks VC, Sumeet, Punds)
Oh, what a sad, sad day for Hindi Cinema.
Here’s a trip down the nostalgic lane that I published on Desi Train, a few weeks ago, when he was first reported to be hospitalized…
Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Hrishida to his fans) is critical and was admitted to Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital with chronic renal failure. According to this Rediff report: “There has been no significant change in his condition. He remains critical and is in the ICU on ventilatory support. He is responding to treatment, but it is84-year-oldto take a positive or negative stand on his health.”
Let’s pray for the best for our dear 84-year-old Hrishida.
It’s time for this train to switch tracks and pass through nostalgic memories, those beautiful dreams brought to life by the master of sensitivity and artistry. This journey would enrich one and all. Those who knew Hrishida via his movies, those who have seen his movies, and those lovers of cinema who haven’t heard of him and don’t know what they are missing.
Ultra India wrote an interesting piece on Hrishida when he became the 31st recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke award recently. The article traces the earliest recorded life of Hrishida, where he “was in the august company of Mrinal Sen, Salil Choudhury besides a host of cinephiles who were engaged in heated discussions on various aspects of world cinema. An underlying, universal theme was how dismally Indian cinema in general and Bengali cinema in particular, compared to the classics emanating from Europe as well as Hollywood. De Sica, Cesare Zavattini (arguably the finest screenplay writer in the history of cinema to date), Rossellini, Renoir, Lean, Welles, Mamoulian, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Keaton, Cukor, were among those worshipped and their works analysed with clinical precision.”
After graduating in the field of science, Hrishida joined B.N. Sircar’s New Theatres as a film editor. And this period would have been any movie fanatic’s dream come true. Here, Hrishida came in contact and eventually worked with some of the most creative and artistic geniuses that Hollywood had ever seen. Bimal Roy, Salil Choudhury, Sudhendu Roy, Kamal Bose, Dilip Gupta, and Asit Sen.. According to UltraIndia, this team went ahead to make a superhit Bengali movie “Udayer Pathe”, later made in Hindi as “Hamrahi”.
The making of Hamrahi had the then-flying high Bombay Studios inviting Bimal Roy and his team to work for them.
Their first project? The talented team ended up making a masterpiece. Balraj Sahni’s best performance ever (besides Garam Hawa). The movie was Do Bigha Zameen (1953). Hrishida was the screenplay writer (story: Salil Choudhury) and the chief assistant director to Bimal Roy.
And four years later, in 1957, the journey began. Hrishida turned into a full-fledged director with his Musafir. Movie after movie. Each and every one of them has Hrishida’s stamp of sensitivity. It is impossible to even try to research the various and wide ranges of characters and their in-depth characterizations through such simple and effortless stories; it still leaves me dumb founded.
Here is a master of the art of cinema fighting for his life at the Leelavati Hospital. It is now our turn to stand up and pray. It is our turn to rewind the memory tape and play his works. Rewind and play some of the characters that the master created on film, characters – some of which have stayed within us consciously or subconsciously. Pause and check to see if you did not end up acquiring a trait or two of those Hrishida’s movie characters…
Here’s a look at some of his directorial ventures…
Musafir (1957)
Even when Bollywood struggles and has refrained from trying to bring in multiple episodes in one single movie, Hrishida did it and aced it way back in 1957. RGV and the company may still be struggling with their Darna series, and we hope Naseeruddin Shah’s directorial venture brings back the joys of episodes in movies. But in 1957, persuaded by Dilip Kumar, Hrishida went on to direct Musafir.
The story was of a house owner (played by the ever-so-lovable David) who sees tenants come in, stay, and then leave. The episodes tracked the short stories of three tenants who arrive, stay, and then leave one after another. Each of the tenants arrives and stays, struggling with everyday life, but eventually things turn better for them, life gives them a fresh breath, and takes them on a new positive journey.
Dilip Kumar played the one common layer overlapping each of the three episodes, though he comes on screen only in the last episode. It was fun to watch those subtle ways Hrishida uses to make you laugh. For example, David’s marketing speech to all his incoming tenants and the way he uses his walking stick to turn the “To Let” board in front of his house. This is a textbook to be read by all movie fanatics. The art of stitching multiple unrelated episodes together was oh so seamless. Grab a copy if you haven’t seen this one so far.
The movie earned Hrishida a Gold Medal from the National Award jury.
Anari (1959)
The basic simplicity and innocence that Raj Kapoor could so well portray were brought out in full force in Anari. Hrishida’s second venture as a director turned out to be a big hit.
Again, under his sensitive baton and eye for the minutest details, Anari gives you a basket full of memorable pleasures. Gently shifting gears between bringing the humor out of the characters and then from the situations, Hrishida’s Anari was sharp, precise, and to the point. There was no room for sloppiness or breaking away from the story. Here is a fantastic example of the importance each and every character has with respect to the storyline.
Be it the tough as nails yet with a heart of gold – Lalita Pawar (oh Boy what a performance, Bollywood has been churning out clones of this character but HA!!! they don’t even come close), or the ever so suave and sophisticated Motilal (why isn’t there a retrospective on this – one of the most natural actors in Bollywood – is beyond me) who has skeletons in his cupboard, or the so cute and lovable Nutan who hides her reality so she can be accepted by the man she loves and ofcourse above all – Raj Kapoor as the simpleton for whom the ways of the city are way above his head.
I still crack up when, somehow, I slip back into memory lane while having a meal at one of the Indian restaurants in California. The memory leads me many times to the scene in Anari where a down-and-out Raj Kapoor is given a job to work in a cheap restaurant. He walks into the kitchen and starts checking the food. He opens a huge vessel that contains dal and sees a cockroach floating in it. Without giving it a second thought, he rushes into the dining area to make the announcement, oh so innocently, “Don’t eat the dal, don’t eat the dal, it has a cockroach in it!” No wonder he was kicked out of the job the very next minute!
Aashirwad (1968)
If there is ever a golden list created on the best movies that show the hero sacrificing everything for the sake of goodness and humanity, then Aashirwad will find its way in that list.
Ashok Kumar fit into the role like a glove in portraying the character of a happy-go-lucky husband of a wealthy lady who rules over the villagers with an iron fist. Ashok Kumar loves the villagers and spends most of his time with them, but his life takes a turn when his wife, along with her evil munim (do we even use this word these days?), plans to set the village on fire.
The role traverses the entire life of the character and the sacrifices he makes all along. The movie also had my favorite Sanjeev Kumar and the oh-so-lovable Harindranath Chattopadhyay. (Sarojni Naidu’s brother!)
An out-and-out tear-jerker, the movie displays Hrishida’s grip on style and technique at a time when it was still in its infancy in Bollywood. Watch when, during the dialogue between Ashok Kumar’s rich wife and her munium, the camera focuses on a box of matches, when they discuss how they can destroy the village. If I remember correctly, the next shot moves from the close-up of the matches to a long shot of the village on fire.
Making an Aashirwaad today is next to impossible unless the writer and director possess even 1% of the uprightness, honesty and take it on the chin personality as that of the character played by Ashok Kumar. Hrishida succeeded… because he was one.
Satyakam (1969)
Dharmendra entered movie production with this one. And he chose the man he completely believed in. Hrishida. Satyakam also saw the partnership of two greats – Hrishida as the director and Rajinder Bedi as the dialogue writer. Bedi went on to direct movies later on, and some of them are on my all-time favorite list. I could not have given the synopsis of Satyakam any better than Odera, who writes about it on IMDB.
In his own words: Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Satyakam was a veritable lesson on how to pull the viewer’s emotional strings. Dharmendra was gifted his career’s finest role (those of you who scoff at “Garam Dharam”, visit his past with movies like Anupama, Chupke Chupke, Ankhen, and innumerable others). He plays Satyapriya, an individual who values lofty ideals of truth above all else, his career, family, and life itself. This movie could so easily have degenerated into a soppy melodrama, but Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s skills are at the forefront. Satyapriya and his friend Naren (the inimitable Sanjeev Kumar) finish engineering college and set out on different career paths. Sanjeev Kumar remains honest, but practical, and works hard to become successful. Dharmendra remains in his world of idealism and resolute resistance to compromise, and struggles through every step. Yet, not for a moment does he waver from adherence to truth.
In his very first job, he works for a debauched prince (this was set in the pre-independence/ early independence era). The prince desires to “own” Sharmila Tagore (the illegitimate daughter of his manager, David). Through chance occurrences, Dharmendra lands in a situation to protect Sharmila, but in a moment of weakness, wavers. The prince rapes Sharmila, and the idealistic Dharmendra then marries Sharmila.
How is this different from any other sixties flick, you ask? It is here that Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s talent in portraying human nature and developing characters shines through. Dharmendra, though the supreme idealist, is unable to accept Sharmila or her child completely, and even through his idealism, his completely human nature shines through.
Later, Naren (Sanjeev Kumar) reappears and beautifully personifies the everyday man, one of us, who would compromise (but only so slightly) to move ahead in one’s career. Yet the compromise would be “practical”, never something that would weigh on one’s conscience. The contrast between the two characters is one of the movie's highlights. Dharmendra is unable to accept these compromises, and the conflict is beautifully wrought out. Dharmendra eventually dies of cancer, and the film leads to its incredibly moving climax.
Ashok Kumar (Dharmendra’s father) wants Sharmila Tagore’s son to light Dharmendra’s pyre. Sharmila (who is not accepted by Ashok Kumar), in a moment of stark honesty, says that the child is not Dharmendra’s son, but is illegitimate. Satyapriya’s honesty lives on. It is one of those touching climaxes where it is far easier to let tears flow than hold them back.
Satyakam is another Hrishikesh Mukherjee classic. Dharmendra is the main protagonist who gives the performance of his career in this film. We see no shades of the action man we get to see in later blockbusters like Sholay or Dharmveer. Here, Dharmendra underplays a soft, righteous man treading on the path of truth at every step despite conflict and hardship. Sanjeev Kumar plays the supporting lead extremely well; he had only done 17 odd films before this one.
Great performances and worth a watch!
Anand (1970)
What can you say about a movie that had Hrishida, Bimal Dutta, and Gulzar coming together?. A classic? A masterpiece? Or something way beyond that? I leave it up to you to stamp your title on this great work.
IndiaInfo provides some interesting snippets on the making of Anand: Raj Kapoor was another very dear friend of Hrishida. He had worked with him in his second film, Anari, and had been penciled in to play the lead in Anand too. Till Hrishida realized that he couldn’t bear to see his friend die even in reel life. So, it was Rajesh Khanna who got to play the cancer patient. Interestingly, this was his only film that Rajesh Khanna stopped his mother from seeing. When she had earlier seen a trial of Safar, another film in which he died, his mother had been so affected by his “death” that she had fallen seriously ill and had to be hospitalized. So, she was never allowed to see Anand.
By the time shooting for Anand started, Rajesh Khanna was a superstar and so busy hopping from one set to the next that there were times when he got confused with names. It happened once during the shoot of Anand. Rajesh Khanna repeatedly addressed the heroine of the film as Madhu when her name was Renu. After half a dozen retakes, Hrishida exasperatedly asked Rajesh why he was calling the girl Madhu. “Because Madhu is the name of my heroine in Aan Milo Sajna,” he sighed. “Not Aan Milo Sajna, Kati Patang,” his secretary reminded him.
Wow! That was something! Anand featured as the first movie in my article – Gems: Movies that will never age. Here’s what I wrote on Anand in the article…
“Babu moshai” – who can forget that loving call of Rajesh Khanna to strangers and especially to Dr. Bhasker Banerjee, a young Amitabh Bachchan. Directed by one of the best storytellers in Hindi cinema, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Anand is one of the most sensitive stories ever told to us by Bollywood. Mukherjee makes it evident right from the beginning that Khanna is terminally ill and will die before the movie ends, but does that in any way set a depressing tone to the movie? Until the scene where Khanna and Bachchan realize this could be the end of Khanna’s life – until that scene, not once does Mukherjee let the viewer slip from his grasp, not once do you have this feeling of depression (that Khanna will die) – on the contrary Mukherjee engages you into the life of Khanna and Bachchan, his friends (Ramesh and Seema Deo), his love interest (Sumita Sanyal) and all those lovable characters who fall in and out of their lives. Anand impresses upon the viewer the joys of life that one can experience even while standing on the platform of death.
Mukherjee had his hand on your pulse. He most often has. You felt overjoyed when Anand escaped from the hospital right from under the nose of the strict but loving Nurse D’Souza (Lalita Pawar), and as if Mukherjee read your heart’s wish, Anand ended up at Bachchan’s house begging Bachchan to let him stay at his house instead of the hospital. How you feel the pain when Anand looks at the sunset from the porch of Bachchan’s house and sings the oh so beautiful Kahin door jab din dhil jaye.., and when he succeeds to bring Bachchan and his girlfriend together, they walk on the beach and Anand with those balloons in his hands, letting them go and fly towards the sky, while singing – Zindagi, kaisi hai paheli…hai… – Anand was one complete movie which was written with your and my heart in mind. It’s an ageless movie. Try watching it even today (for the 67th time) and you will not feel bored for one second. Try watching an average hit movie from the 80s, 90s, and in all probability, you may get tired in 10 minutes flat. Not Anand or similar gems. Anand is a gem that even our great-grandchildren may most likely enjoy watching.
Guddi (1971)
The Master’s take on a schoolgirl crazy about movies and in love with Dharmendra, the actor. Guddi was Jaya Bhaduri. Jaya Bhaduri was Guddi. The one thing so crystal clear in Hrishida’s movies was the innocence of the characters that you would so identify with and get attached to. Guddi also brought forth the warm, funny, and fuzzy middle-class life of the seventies. Jaya Bhaduri’s first, and what a performance.
You fell in love with all the characters. They exuded such warmth and affection that you wanted to get up and hug them. Be it Sumita Sanyal or Utpal Dutt. Guddi follows the story of Bhaduri, who’s in love with screen actor Dharmendr, and how Guddi’s family (Utpal Dutt et al.) joins hands with Dharmendra to open Guddi’s eyes to the real world and show her that her true love is someone else.
Any woman, young or old, from the seventies, most probably has Guddi as their all-time favourite. I know. Cause talk of Guddi in front of my mom, and her eyes roll in as she so excitedly and sweetly starts talking about the movie. Guddi was them. Guddi gave them the brief opportunity to step into the land of fairies and princesses.
Did you know that Amitabh Bachchan was supposed to play the original role as Guddi’s fiancé, one which was eventually played by Samit Bhanjo? Bachchan even shot for the film for a few days!
Buddha Mil Gaya (1971)
If you thought Hrishida belonged to the “family” genre… HA!!! Think again. With this one, Hrishida attempted a crime thriller and HOW!!!
Again, this movie features on my Never Age List, and here’s the piece of Buddha Mil Gaya that I wrote in the original article…
What’s missing in suspense thrillers of today? Come to think of it, there are hardly any suspense thrillers made now. The few that were made in the last few years have the movies concentrating hard on misleading the audience on who actually is the real killer is, shocking the audience with a sudden attack from behind on the hero or heroine, loud music, loud creaking doors…Again, the story and art of telling the story to us – these factors have been completely ignored in these movies, like all others.
Buddha Mil Gaya shows the wide range of skillful storytelling by our dear old Hrishida. How can someone who gave us “Anand” a year before and will give us “Chupke Chupke” 4 years from now, make a suspense thriller, you ask? But Hrishida did it and did it so well that it should be a template for suspense movie makers. We should catch these craftsmen of today by the neck and make them watch Buddha Mil Gaya – “This is how a suspense thriller is made, you idiots!”
BMG starts with two unemployed out-of-luck guys (Navin Nischol and Deven Verma), living as paying guests in the house of a strict old lady who wants to kick them out for not paying rent. Their only saving grace is the lady’s niece (Archana), who is dating Nischol. One day, though, the landlady can’t take it anymore and asks the two guys to pack up their bags and leave. Well, they are on their way until Verma hits on an idea after seeing a newspaper classified ad, which mentions looking for a lost old man who is worth millions.
Making this old man their “uncle”, the guy acts as if they will be rich, prompting the landlady to let them stay. Well, they soon meet their “uncle” (Omprakash) and bring them to their house. Who is uncle? Where does he come from? How does he know all these big shots in the city? Questions – the answers to which the guy’s least about. All they want is to return Uncle to the guys who put that ad out in the paper. And their problems begin.
Every time they go to one of the big shots who they think put the ad… the guys make up an appointment and go to meet the person…to find him dead. And this keeps happening each time they approach a new person. And each time they run back home, they find Omprakash providing singing lessons to the girls, always singing “Aayo kahan se Ghanshyam..” (Where did you come from, Ghanshy?? – hilarious to see the look on both Nischol and Verma with their scared looks, panting from all that running to come back to the house and see Omprakash singing the song. Hrishida was not afraid to build a suspense drama upon a comic undertone throughout the movie.
Different shades of moods and emotions all throughout the movie overlapping each other – you are biting your nails when the two poor guys see another dead guy, but are laughing out loud AT THE VERY SAME TIME on how the scene is played and how they return to the same song back at their house. How many directors today are comfortable doing that?
BMG proves one thing. That you can make a comedy and then a crime caper followed by a suspense drama…it is possible to make any movie – a good movie which is successful, provided you have a strong foundation of telling a good story. Hrishida, to put it simply, is one of the best storytellers Bollywood has ever given us.
Sabse Bada Sukh (1972)
One of the most admirable qualities of Hrishida is that he takes the most basic of human nature and weaves it into a warm story, which any other writer would never see or observe, and even if he did, it would be impossible for that writer to think about creating an interesting story around it. Sabse Bada Sukh had Vijay Arora, a wealthy villager searching for happiness, which he thought was available in the cities. Along with his friend, he travels to Bombay in search of happiness. What follows is a series of incidents that give you a smile and open your eyes and Arora’s eyes to the emptiness that which we attach our happiness.
Again, a warm, fuzzy feeling delivered right to your heart by a story told so tenderly by the Master.
Bawarchi (1972)
Maybe this one was a bit over sugary, or the scenes showing Rajesh Khanna devilishly smiling at the locked iron trunk containing jewels, maybe they were a bit over the top.
But there is no denying the fact that Bawarchi was and still is a very good entertainer. You are in for a treat when a large family with all its ongoing inner fights and tussles opens its doors to a stranger who steps into their house to work as a cook. Again, it was so easy for Hrishida to bring about the complexities in family relationships. But he was going to show this aspect in a more powerful and smashing way with his next…
Abhimaan (1973)
If there is one movie, I have to choose that handles complex human relationships in a very mature way and makes it easy for even the dumbest of viewers to understand what the story is trying to convey, then I would choose Abhimaan.
This is what Bollywood has lost. Maturity. The basic understanding of complex relationships and the ability to bring them out so effortlessly on the big screen (last successful attempt: Mahesh Bhatt in the eighties)
Abhimaan is about a couple where the wife tries to protect her husband’s pride, and each time she does that, it makes her husband feel shallower and, in turn, hurts his ego further, thereby leading to a push and pull in their marriage. Tremendous performances by Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri, who played two-star singers who fall in love and get married.
The movie also brought to the fore the acting capabilities of Bindu, who, so far, was portrayed as a vamp in most of her movies. A must-see, in case you don’t have this in your personal movie collection.
Namak Haraam (1973)
Diye Jalte Hain, Phool Khilte Hain… Aww man!!! And what about… Nadiya se dariya, dariya se saagar, saagar se gehra jaam… Jo na piye woh kya jaane peete hain kyon hum diwane yaaar… aha. Kaise humne jeena sikha, marna sikhaa… yaaar..
Hrishida just had it in him. A natural, inborn quality. To reach out in your heart and play with its strings… easily and effortlessly.
Namak Haraam had the two superstars acting for the second and the last time together. Amitabh Bachchan plays the rich, while his best friend Rajesh Khanna is the down-and-out poor guy. The rich and bubbling scenes that bring out the friendship between them had the ingredients mixed in exact proportion to bring out the right flavor.
The story takes a twist when Amitabh’s ego is hurt, and he ends up crying at Khanna’s house, all due to a union leader working at Bachchan’s father’s factory. Khanna makes it his goal to get back at the union leader and, in the process, ends up sympathizing with him. Things still go well until Bachchan’s father (Om Shivpuri) steps into the picture, which has the two closest of friends splitting up and turning their backs on each other until a tragedy brings them back together.
Critically speaking, Bachchan aced this one, whereas in the last venture, Khanna was the numero uno. Even Jaya Bachchan and close friends feel Bachchan went over the top in portraying Vicky. I think so too. But he made Vicky so likableyou just have to forgive him for doing that!!!
And yes, even though this one was nowhere near Anand, it was still a well-made film, graded A in my books.
Mili (1975)
Mili could so easily have fallen into the trap of being labelled as a female-Anand, but thanks to Hrishida’s vision, it didn’t. Mili has her own identity, and except for the case of terminal illnesses, there was nothing common between the two.
Mili had Amitabh carrying a tragic past and looking for seclusion from the world when he bumps into Mili (Jaya Bhaduri). The initial confrontations turn into love, and when it’s time to propose, Amitabh is told that Mili has a few months left to live.
How an average person laughs and cries and carries on with his/her life is what Mili is about. The look on Ashok Kumar’s face when he waves to the airplane is all it took for Hrishida to etch out the summary of the average middle-class guy’s life.
And one of the last of S.D. Burman’s gems… Badi sooni sooni hain, zindagi yeh zindagi… main khud se hoon yahan… ajnabi ae ajnabi…
Chupke Chupke (1975)
Ha Ha!!! If the eighties gave us a Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, courtesy Kundan Shah, then the credit for the comedy of the decade goes to Hrishikesh Mukherjee. And one of his gems – Chupke Chupke.
Included in the Oz Hall of Fame, here’s what I originally had to say about this gem…
If there is one movie in which every scene can make all – granpa, granma, mom, pop, sis, brother, you, dog, cat, bird, neighbours – all of them – laugh at the same time, then that movie has to be Chupke Chupke. Mukherjee again gives us a laugh riot of a movie. Following his tried and tested principle of building a story and characters, a common man can identify with, and then adding crazy events and moments, twists and subplots to completely knock the viewer off their seat, Mukherjee created a gem of a movie with Chupke Chupke. The seventies were the time that saw Mukherjee and other directors in his league (Basu Chatterjee, Gulzar, Sai Paranjpe, and others) in full force. What happened after that? What happened in the 80s and 90s, which impacted Bollywood so much that we are dished out crap after crap after the seventies right up to the present.
One reason could be – and this is my opinion – the directors and especially the writers of the nostalgic 1970s – all of them came from the Indian countryside, the villages and small towns. They had lived and absorbed in their experiences a range of human emotions, a wide span of small-town life joined together in numerous stories which they saw or personally lived, and above all, had a deep insight into human life and human emotions with a strong affinity to works of Tagore, Premchand, and Tolstoy, among others. Hence, by the time they came to Bombay, they had so much to show, tell, and give to the movie-goer that it would take a lifetime.
But once this generation moved on – retired or passed away – the new breed of writers and directors of the 1980s to the present were people who had lived in the big cities – Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta etc. lived the same cookie cutter life, heard the same news, experienced the same stuff and when they started making movies – what did they have to offer – the same repetitive stuff they all had experienced which was common to each of them. Most directors and writers growing up in the seventies and early eighties saw the same news in newspapers – corruption, gangs, mafia, bang bang…and they dished that stuff out to us.
The vital element of experiencing a wide range of lifestyles, different views of life and the people, the stories and lives of people living in places which were NOT A BIG INDIAN CITY – all these elements were missing. Plus, I don’t think many went beyond reading comics and pulp fiction paperbacks. That led to the demise of gems being made anymore in Bombay. Bombay Talkies was now Bollywood.
Chupke Chupke is an extremely funny slapstick family comedy which starts with the meeting and eventual marriage of a biology student (Sharmila Tagore) with a famous Biology professor (Dharmendra), who then has to deal with the GREAT tales of the GREAT brother-in-law (Omprakash) of Sharmila. Determined to prove he is one better than Omprakash (they have never met each other), Dharmendra disguises himself as a pure Hindi-speaking driver and lands at Omprakash’s doorstep.
What follows is a minute of incidents that get further complicated when Dharmendra gets his English Professor friend, Amitab, to act as Sharmila’s husband and come to Omprakash’s family. But no, Mukherjee was not yet satisfied with the complications and adds another twist and a further headache for Omprakash by making Sharmila and Dharmendra run away before Amitabh arrives (part of Dharmendra’s plan to harass Omprakash). Now, from Omprakash’s point of view, his sister in law’s husband is coming to town, and his sister in law has run away with his…ahem.. Hindi-speaking driver.
Is this comedy of situations or what? Who needs actors who, in the name of comedy, make faces, fall on the floor, and render crude jokes to make us laugh?
This was a simple, full-of-life comedy – a comedy which comes out of the story and not anything else. Watch the scene where Omprakash interviews Dharmendra before making him his driver. Dharmendra talking such classic pure Hindi and Omprakash’s face going “Huh? What language is he fucking speaking in…” and Omprakash’s wife (Usha Kiron – correction provided by Ardra Vamshi) cutting in to explain a pure rarely used Hindi word to Omprakash – and Omprakash snapping back “Maloom hain” (I know)…the comic timing of that scene is unbelievable. How all three characters actually played the scene to perfection – to not just get their own timing right but the comic timing of the entire group exactly as required… kudos to Mukherjee.
Chupke Chupke was shown umpteen times on DD and other channels while I was in India. I suspect it is still shown on TV today. This movie will always have a special place in every movie lover’s heart. It brought out the warmth of love and family life and the mischievous joys of playing pranks on members of the family. The comedy came from the story, the situations, and the complications. Sadly, with the family culture becoming more and more atomized, this movie always reminds me that living together could also be so much fun.
Arjun Pandit (1976)
This is Hrishida’s most criminally ignored movie, and I have yet to figure out the reason behind it. Hrishida joined hands with one of the finest actors in Bollywood, Sanjeev Kumar, to direct this brilliant masterpiece.
Sanjeev Kumar was Arjun, who, as a dacoit, is transformed into giving up his old ways and assisting the village doctor (Ashok Kumar). Again, the virtual transformation of a character from being someone to becoming something else is so transparently portrayed by Sanjeev Kumar that it leaves you begging for more.
The movie starts with Vinod Mehra rushing in to see a very old Sanjeev Kumar on his deathbed bed and while sitting next to Kumar, Mehra swims into a flashback to tell us the story of Arjun Pandit. No one could beat the chemistry between Sanjeev Kumar and Ashok Kumar in this one.
Gol Maal (1979)
You really are from Mars if you have a DVD/Video player, watch Bollywood movies, and have not watched Gol Maal as yet. Do not talk to me until you have seen Gol Maal :( As I am upset that you, a DT reader, have yet to watch this gem of gems.
Perhaps the master’s best comedy. Golmaal also brought Utpal Dutt’s comedy skills to the fore. Here was one great actor whom Bollywood failed to use to his full potential, instead giving him caricatured roles that could be done by any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Except for Golmaal and a few other movies, Dutt was never given a chance to flex his acting muscles.
There is nothing much to say about Golmaal, which hasn’t been said before. Golmaal has Amol Palekar, who removes his moustache, changes his clothing style, and changes his personality to please his boss, Dutt. But then, when he is caught watching a hockey game by Dutt, Amol pretends Dutt saw his non-existent twin. And then start the complications in his life where he has to switch between being one twin and the next, depending on situations. And in the process, he invents a mom (who is no more), brings in an actress (Dina Pathak) to play the mom, and Pathak, too, when caught by Dutt in a different avatar (drinking, partying), invents a twin mom. But the complications all arise when Dutt’s daughter (Bindiya Goswami) is in love with Amol and not with his other invented twin, and Daddy dear wants Goswami to marry that invented twin and not Amol…. Think comedy in confusion could get any better? Let me know…
Khusboorat (1980)
I think I was in the fourth grade/standard. It was around 4pm and still an hour or so to go before we could run home. In walks my mom and tells the teacher that she’s come to get me, as there is an emergency situation in the family. I pack my bags and leave with her. We get in a bus that is driving in the opposite direction from our house. I ask my mom where we are going, but she simply keeps smiling mischievously. A half hour later, we are at this theatre where I remember I had watched Star Wars. Dad’s standing there with 3 bottles of soda in one hand and a bunch of hot samosas in his other.
We enter the theatre to watch Hrishida’s Khusboo. When close friends ask me how I have so much passion and such a huge memory of Bollywood when I can’t even remember my cell phone number, I just have one reply. Genetics. Bollywood is encoded in my genes, courtesy of my parents. And thanks to the masters of the art like Hrishida, who have kept the passion for the medium alive in us.
How does he do it? How does he take a plain, simple story and plucks out the comedy in it… How can he do it time and again and again and again… Have we even realized this great achievement the Master has repeated so frequently in his long career? Have we even given the Master his due?
Khusboo is a classic clash of principles told in the most funny-tug-your-heart manner. One of Rekha’s most loved performances, right next to Umrao Jaan, the story has Rekha visiting her sisters in laws, where the house is ruled by a stern and strict lady of the house – Mother-in-Law (Dina Pathak). This doesn’t go well with the I am a tomboy, Rekha, and thus starts the comedy and funny episodes, which have the members of the family running around between the strict Momma and the cool Rekha.
Some of those aw-so-cute scenes include Ashok Kumar and Rekha calling each other girlfriend and boyfriend. Don’t things like such exist in our lives, in our families, and amongst are friends? Sure, they do. How many of such delicacies are now seen on screen? Khusboo… a not-to-be-missed movie.
. . . . . .
So is that all… no, it isn’t. But after 14 hours of researching and writing about Hrishikesh Mukherjee, you realize that you haven’t even started. It would be foolish of me to think I can encompass Hrishida’s contribution to Bollywood in a mere post, article, or blog.
Hrishida’s other famous works include Anuradha (1960), Anupama (1966), Jurmana (1979), Naram Garam (1981), Bemisal (1982), Rang Birangi (1983), and Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate (1998), among others.
On one hand, we have Bollywood writers who try the conjure up the greatest of plots to hook the moviegoer (me included – trying to scratch my brain to build up a huge, massive plot for my fiction)… when all Hrishida would have done is open the doors and windows of his house and look at the passerbys. That was enough material for a genius like him to make another classic… another masterpiece.
Towards the eighties, one may feel that his movies lacked the punch or the sharp edge they carried in the seventies. Perhaps. Or maybe we weren’t that innocent, that genuine, or did not carry that patience in us anymore to enjoy the simplicity brought out in a Hrishida movie.
We had moved, putting on layer upon layer of the materialistic madness and driving on a never-ending journey towards that pot of gold which Hrishida time and again showed us as it looked like an illusion.
The real pot of gold is in our very own hearts, a place we would never look into until brought to our notice… by good-hearted souls such as… Hrishikesh Mukherjee, a genius forever.