Guru Dutt-1

It had been some time since I wrote anything that can be qualified as an article. It’s almost 2 months. All I wrote is snippets. May be that’s what my life is turning into; from large planned constructed grandeur dreams to small tiny snippets which just shine a moment and before you capture its gone. All one left with afterwards just vast dark sky.

What I did? I read lot some books, the books I enjoyed, the books I felt average and luckily nothing I dropped in the middle. But if I try to recollect names I couldn't. May be I will start to tell the story and before I know I might jump to an incident from other story, it might be from a movie I saw. Because that’s what I am doing when I am not reading book, watching DVD's from netflix. That brings me to what I want to write about- Guru Dutt movies.

I happened to watch 3 Guru Dutt movies and 2 of them back to back. It’s interesting how some movies leave an impact in us; even they are half a century old and tells a story that most films tell. They still impact us in spite of the length, the songs which comes every now and then (like the bus in rural areas which stop at every wink or for every man standing close to the road), the cardboard sets, the lighting and static cameras. Thinking about the new technology in camera, music, graphics or story telling they can catch a momentary attraction but surely they can't make a work survive against time. The only thing that can make one survive the test of time is the heart of the movie, what it says and how it says. The first movie to use cinema scope, to be multicolor, to use some xyz camera, the one hero does 10 roles or 100 roles, nothing matters. The person who forces himself to remember it might win some quiz, but they are mostly like the impression you make in the sands of beach. You can press as much as you want but eventually some tide might wipe it out. But a perfect movie is something like first kiss. Its impression not lies on the cheek where you got it but inside your heart. It stays there till you lose your heart.

In Pyassa, Vijay is a poet who is running into publishers to make his work as book. No one is ready to do. His brothers, who sell his work as waste paper, ill treats him and throw him out of house. He accidentally meets a prostitute, Gulab, who sings his song not knowing he is the writer of those songs. When Vijay follows her as he hears the song, she mistakes him for a customer and knowing he has no money she throws him out. Then she learns he is the writer, falling in love for his works she tries to help her. She falls in love for him. But his pride stops him from taking much help from her and he runs away from her. Vijay meets his college day lover Meena who is now married to a rich man, whom she chose over Vijay for economic reasons. She still likes him but she wants to have wealth too. Her husband, Ghosh, smelling something wrong about her wife's past offers Vijay a job. He is a publisher. His whole intention is to know about his wife’s past and so he brings Vijay home and humiliates him. Meena wants vijay's love as a hobby. Vijay gets out of job. He gets to know her mother is dead. He no longer wants to live.

He decides to end his life. But before that he gives his coat to a beggar who dies and Vijay escapes with some injury. Everyone things Vijay is dead. Gulab, with all her savings publish Vijay work. It becomes big hit. Everyone takes pride in his work, including his brothers and Ghosh except Gulab. When Vijay comes back every own denounce him saying not Vijay and puts him in asylum. He escapes from there and comes for his memorial service. Now everyone takes his side. Being fed up with the world he says he is not that Vijay, and leaves the world and goes somewhere with Gulab.

When the movie starts Vijay is singing about the beauty of world the nature and about a bee that enjoys the world and suddenly someone walking crushes it and walks away even without noticing. That’s what Vijay's life. A human soul's cry for love, for honesty, for dignity, it being beaten up on every corner of the world, which loses its hope in the dark alleys of life: that’s what Pyassa is all about.

Ma Bhoomi

Watched one more Telugu film- “Ma bhoomi”. The film is the debut film for Goutam gosh, after this he started to make movies in Hindi. This is a B&W film shot in 1980. It is a screen adaptation of Urdu novel by Kishanchander. The story is about the feudal structure and telungana struggle in 1940’s. The film is produced by Narsing rao. I landed up in this film, as I liked Dasi. The film tracks the story of a guy who is born to peasant in telungana. His great grandfather had some land, his grandfather had 2 acres and his father had nothing and he works in a land of zamindar. Actually the British government gave the tax collecting right to nizam which in term gave it to zamindars, who using it usurped the whole land from the peasants and made the poor people as their bonded labors. The boy is forced to do cattle rearing in his childhood and he grows up as a bonded labor. At one point, he runs away from village. After some errands he ends up in a factory as a labor. There he joins local union and learns to read. In some strike, he goes to jail. There he meets his village friend and learns that people in village tarted to revolt. So he returns to village and starts guerrilla fight. With help of entire village people, he drives away the zamindars and burn all pawn papers and distribute land to landless.

The film is poetic when it shows the poverty in which the child is brought up, his life style, his ignorance, his reactions when he sees mirror first time in his life. But in the middle it becomes preachy. When it speaks about communist ideology, it fails to use cinema language, and looks like our poorly shot documentaries. The villagers fighting without knowing what communist or Marxist means is a beautiful idea. It makes me to remember what nalla says in “anbe sivam”. Communism is a concept that exists for so long, its just Karl Marx named it. It will never die and will exist as long oppression exists in the world. But after the protagonist returns back to village the director is in a hurry to finish the movie. The film which starts so beautifully, becomes in the middle something like a school student essay: “if I become a CM” and maintains same tone till the end.

I know naxalites in a way fight for land. But I thought it came into existence after freedom, somewhere close to MISA. But after seeing this movie I got a doubt whether it existed even before independence. Then I searched Google. It looks like naxalites as an organisation was started after independence but we can say this event back in 1946 as a precursor for those organisations. There are few interesting things that popped in my mind associated with this. These naxal activities are so strong in Andhra, Bihar and in some northern states also, but it looks as not so big in Tamilnadu. What could be the reason ? I can try to read more on this. May be I am wrong and some existed in Tamilnadu too. We have to consider this in the light that most part of present Tamilnadu was not under control of Tamils and under the control of Telugu people before British took complete control.

My belief that arm based struggle can give immediate advantage but can never give final solution, gets re-in forced. The telungana struggle changed its masks but it still continues. All the arm struggles lost their path in the middle . The final solution remains always elusive and they end up at a stage where they have no other option other than to fight and die. History is full of examples and still continues to produce examples.

I saw this movie too in Google videos. Interestingly it has lot of Malayalam movies but not a single movie directed by people like adoor. But in Telugu I was able to find these two movies. Even in Tamil “terrorist” directed by santhosh sivan is there. Though I have seen it already in DD planning to see it one more time.

Dasi- Telungana in 1920

I watched a telugu film dasi, directed by B. Narsing Rao. The film came in 1988 and the story is about the feudal structure existed in telungana state in 1920. For person like me who never knew much about it, it looks more incongruous, especially the ignorance of people, their exploitation and the associated poignancy. But it all existed. Nehru in glimpses of world history said something like this: When we read about tajmahal or other lavish richness of the kings what we fail to notice is the blood and toil of common man behind it. While the kings were spending lavishly without bothering about the plight of common man, majority of people in India were in pathetic condition. This film nicely captures this paradox. The story is about a girl (played by archana) who is sold for twenty rupees ; from there she reaches a zamindar’s house as a part of dowry. The story unfolds at this point. She does house work, sleeps with zamindar and his friends , convince a new girl and brings to zamindar and finally gets aborted. The film nicely juxtaposes two different worlds that exist in same house. The food the zamindar family eats, the prayer and worships they perform the entertainment that they have is shown in contrast with what archana and her coterie have. The life style of that period is nicely shown. zamindarini applies fresh butter over her hair and hand before taking bath, buys bangles sitting in other side of screen , drinks kallu, and stays in a separate room and comes to zamidar room if they want to have sex. Zamindar drinks, haves sex, worships before eating Non veg, hears parayanam, talks with people from nizam, orders to assault a person and orders to throw someone who died because of assault, with an indifference. The film runs for more than 2 Hrs, with minimal dialogues. In retrospection I could not see even a single frame as unwanted. As I believe that the feudal system no longer exists, there is no purpose for this movie in current world, but it stands as an epitome for nice story telling and the power of cinema. The immense possibilities available in the art called as cinema. One example for it is the scene in which archana getting aborted. It is shown with the function that is happening in zamindar’s house for his sister becoming pregnant.

The movie is available in Google videos with English subtitles. The print is not so good and so subtitles are not clear at some places.