Movie recall

For some years now I have maintained an offline list of the movies that would eventually go into a "collection" of sorts. See, with books, I have a variety. There are those "perennials"(I guess this word's stuck in my mind from the previous post) which are books that will stay with me all my life, those great books that I could and would read and re-read any time. Then there are the "flight" books that I buy on impulse for want of "some" book to read on a flight. And then there are the books I buy on my shoppers pass at a book store chain regularly, read and review if they need to go in the "collection" pile. If not these and the "flight" books eventually get donated to the library.

Now with movies, I never buy DVD's unless its a "collection" movie which would then exist in the "must-have" list. So I've been maintaining this list and just last week I decided to invest in growing the "collection". Now the other problem is I never watch any movies on DVD, especially the "collection" ones. They just sit cutely behind the glass doors of the entertainment set, get dusted regularly and never fail to produce oohs and aahs from visitors who gleam with the "we are impressed" look in their eyes.

I will stop the rambling here and get on with the actual story. So I managed to glue myself to the chair and watch two oldies "Kora Kagaz" and "Piya ka Ghar". For those that jumped in the seats and proclaimed "She is a Jaya Bhaduri fan" victoriously, you'd be partly right. I also have Guddi and Abhimaan and enjoy and her movies immensely. The other commonality in the two movies is the simplistic sets and the "girl-next-door" vibe that they emanate. The costumes of the characters are very believable, the dialogues and storyline chant the "this could happen to anybody, anywhere" mantra all throughout. And an additional point to note is that the characters in both are never painted stark black and white. At an age(70s) when mils were always as depicted by the Bindus and Lalitha Pawars, villains wore garish costumes and sounded menacing like Prem Chhopra and Pran, these movies managed to hold their forte, convey powerful social messages and still was never typecast as artsy. Kudos for all that and more.

Now to the specifics. "Kora Kagaz" is about an educated and literate Archana Gupta, a professor's daughter who happens to choose another professor as her soulmate and gets married to him much against her mother's wishes. Her mother continues to drive a wedge between the couple in a myriad ways predominantly by establishing monetary supremacy. This continues to make dents to the professor's ego and after many such instances, he decides to walk out of the relationship. One of the very good scenes in the movie is when her dad explains to her why her marriage fell apart and why she should not have let her mother ru(i)n her life. Her mother and brother pursue to get her divorced and remarried. She grants the divorce but continues to study and obtain a lecturer position in another town and leave. I will refrain from rattling the ending, but all in all I felt the movie had a very powerful storyline. Granted the setting is quite outdated for today's scenario, but for that time and age, I am sure it conveyed a relevant and powerful message. Also at the end of it, it is still very hard to conclude whose fault it was, all it conveys is its unfortunate and one needs to find strength to let bygones be bygones. Most memorable song is of course "Mera Jeevan kora kaagaz, kora hi reh gaya".

Now coming to "Piya ka Ghar", the movie features the wonderful song "yeh jeevan hai, is jeevan ka, yahi hai yahi hai yahi hai rang roop". This movie of Basu Chaterji is all about Malthi, brought up with great love and affection by her doting parents and uncle and gets married into a family settled in Bombay. After moving to "Amchi Mumbai" she is shocked to face the bitter truth of having to live in a one-bedroom chawl with her inlaws, her older bil and his wife and a younger bil. Their bed is set up in the kitchen where the whole family congregates at odd hours in the am to gather water whenever the water supply dept deigns to release. Again the simple love and camarederie amongst the family members despite the hurdles and chaos is touching and superbly portrayed. Another masterpiece by Basu Chaterji, something one can never tire of.

Footnote : Love Jaya Bhaduri's simple style. Again, forever the "girl-next-door" feel.