Sujata – A beautiful movie that talked about a societal problem; A lovely love story too….

Sujata was made in 1959 and has a strong storyline – about an untouchable girl, who is adopted by a Brahmin family, though very reluctantly. 

All the characters are very real and sketched very lovingly. There are really no bad people or villains in the movie. The villain is the custom of treating people as untouchables – the custom which had become such a strong belief that even good people find it extremely difficult to move away from it.

Sujata comes to the Brahmin couple, Upendra & Charu on the first birthday of their daughter Rama, as an orphan, when both her parents die in an epidemic. Upendra & Charu keep her reluctantly and decide to find someone from her cast as soon as possible to hand her over to. When a person of her cast is found, they refuse to hand Sujata over to him because he is a drunkard and a useless slob. So Sujata stays with the family. They take her along with them, when XYZ gets transferred. The maid in the house is the one taking care of Sujata, not Charu. But slowly, both Upendra and Charu get more and more attached to Sujata. Once again, when she is a child of about 6-7, they try to send her to an orphanage. But both of them find it difficult to send her, and in the end she grows up at their place.

Sujata and Rama are close. They are like sisters, with Sujata treating Rama as her younger sister. But there are differences – Rama goes to college to study, Sujata does not. Rama plays badminton and piano while Sujata is busy in housework and gardening. Sujata is aware that she is not Upendra & Charu’s daughter because she has heard them say “She is like our daughter” many times, but she does not know that she is an untouchable.

For Charu the biggest blow is delivered by Adhir, the person she hopes would like Rama and marry her. He instead falls in love with Sujata, and wants to marry her, even after he finds out that she is actually an untouchable. His grandmother too finds it almost impossible that her grandson is willing to leave her to marry an untouchable. In the end, she accepts her defeat and quite gracefully.

The movie is directed so well – but then it’s a Bimal Roy movie. Even when you don’t agree with the character’s point of view, like Adhir’s grandmother when she is trying to stop him from marrying Sujata, you can actually feel her pain too. All her beliefs that she lived by all her life are being turned upside down by the one person she loves the most.

The movie has a good pace throughout. It does get rather melodramatic in the end, but its for a short while only.

Music is melodious. Two most famous songs from this movie are – “Ore Manjhi” sung by S.D. Burman himself and “Jalte Hai jis ke liye” sung by Talat Mehmood. In the movie Adhir sings this to Sujata on phone.

Everyone has acted  well – Tarun Bose & Sulochana as Sujata’s adoptive parents are very good. Their growing attachment for the untouchable girl and their turmoil is well presented. Lalita Pawar as Adhir’s grandmother is wonderful! Shashikala as Rama is really lovely and charming. Rama’s character itself is lovely – she is not jealous about the fact that Adhir is interested in Sujata instead of her. Sunil Dutt as Adhir is just right for the role! He looks very handsome and sensitive. His role too is very good - a strong character - someone who knows what he wants to do and is willing to go against the customs and traditions of the society.

But the movie belongs to Nutan. She is tremendous as Sujata. Sujata, who is playful with Rama, respectful with her parents and very shy with Adhir, is portrayed skillfully by Nutan. You can feem her happiness when she realizes that Adhir likes her as well as her pain when she finds out that she is untouchable. No one else could have done this role, but Nutan.

So watch this movie for –

• A beautiful presentation of a societal problem, and yet a lovely love story that it is
• Wonderful acting by everyone, but most specifically Nutan
• Great direction
• Melodious music

Sacchai – Completely avoidable – that’s the Sacchai…

Sacchai is a movie from 1968-69, starring Shammi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar and Sadhana. I like Sanjeev Kumar a lot, I like Sadhana too. And Shammi Kapoor is my all-time favorite actor!! The movie also stars Pran and Helen, two other people I always liked. But Sacchai is a REAL bad movie.

Long back, before all these Star & Z and Sony channels changed India, when we had only Door Darshan, Sacchai was shown on a Sunday in the weekly slot reserved for Hindi movies. But I didn’t remember anything except for 2 songs – “E dost mere maine Duniya dekhi Hai” and “Sau Baras Ki Jindagi se acche hai”. I remembered the tunes and words, but not the visuals – well I had an impression that in “Sau baras ki Jindagi” Sadhana and Shammi Kapoor are on an elephant!! But I wasn’t sure if I was remembering it quite right.
Being a Shammi Kapoor fan, I have been looking for whichever of his movies are available – in stores and on the net. I got this one after a lot of search on the web. With Shammi Kapoor and Sanjeev Kumar, I guess I expected the movie to be interesting. And then last weekend I watched this movie.

Sanjeev Kumar was a good actor, but not in Sacchai – in Sacchai he over acts!! I wouldn’t have believed it possible, if I had not seen this movie. Sadhana has very little scope to be good. She is drowned in the melodrama of the film. And Shammi Kapoor has no way to be Shammi Kapoor – he has couple of scenes where he has to be “fun” but these scenes seem forced, they do not go with the whole movie and these scenes by themselves are not good enough to make the movie anything more than what it is – a REALLY bad movie!!

As for the story, Shammi Kapoor and Sanjeev Kumar are two friends who start their lives in opposite directions – Sanjeev Kumar being an honest person and Shammi Kapoor being a crook. They part ways after college with different ideologies and decide to meet in three years and find out what has become of each other. As the story progresses, Shammi Kapoor falls in love with a girl (Sadhana, who happens to be Sanjeev Kumar’s sister but he does not this, she does not know that Shammi Kapoor is her brother’s friend and Sanjeev Kumar does not know that Shammi Kapoor and his sister are in love – this is because Sanjeev Kumar has left home and gone away because his father was a dishonest person) and then Shammi Kapoor becomes an honest person after seeing Sadhana’s mother suffer. Then he becomes a police inspector. Just like that. On the other hand, Sanjeev Kumar gets into bad company and becomes a don.
In three years when the two friends go to meet each other, Sanjeev Kumar is the biggest criminal and Shammi Kapoor is the inspector who is after the don. Both of them have vouched to kill each other. Oh did I not mention, that each of them don’t know who the other is? The name of the don is different from Sanjeev Kumar’s real name. And though he hears about an inspector “Ashok” he does not think it’s his friend with same name since his person was not honest, see? Anyway, so in true Hindi movie style, each of them goes to meet the friend singing the same song they had sung last time, when they parted ways.
And though you think the story has been happening in Mumbai all this while, suddenly they are singing in the Himalayas and running miles and miles to meet each other.  They meet and find out what the other person has become and after a real convoluted climax in which first Helen and then Pran die, Sanjeev Kumar manages to get Shammi Kapoor to kill him – and of course he dies in arms of his friend!!

There is a lot of melodrama in the film that just does not touch you. And there is no logic!! Even Hindi film logic is missing!! Songs are nothing to talk about either.

I have seen many bad movies, but this one was very painful to sit through – maybe because its really terrible to watch your favorite actor in a bad role in a bad movie.

So DON’T watch this movie. Even if you are a diehard Shammi Kapoor fan, like me, do not watch this movie. Actually, I would say especially if you are a Shammi Kapoor fan, do not watch this movie!