Awaara

Can Awara be called  a cult movie? In many ways yes.

The movie was at a time when India was waking up to values shown in black and white,love in many shades and relationships in transparency. Its an amalgamation of every known emotion to human or rather Indians. Also depicted by actors who were stars because they could enact those emotions so brilliantly.

Its a simple formulaic film about a fatherless son who becomes a tramp and a thief but has a loyal childhood sweetheart. But sometimes formulaic films becomes popular or  a ult movie when the actors know how to emote and how to make the audience feel with them or become empathetic when the actors fall ,cry or die.

Awara was a hit in Russia and and MiddleEast. It was nominated for GrandPrize in Cannes 1953. It was so popular in Turkey that it was remade as Avare in 1964.

And thats how its with Awara. You dont just dissect a cult movie.

Lajwanti

Nargis was one of those actresses to me who resembled my strict aunt Sally. Always decently dressed unlike the other actresses. Did roles which showed her as an upright women preaching and advising. And since I am still a woman-child I usually go for chilled out movies like Golmaal and Choti si baat where no one preaches but everyone just do mad stuff and laugh let others laugh. Ok...before I go on saying why I love more of Basu Chatterjee's movies so much let me just speak about Lajwanti.

I was reading about Leela Mishra's interview which was decades old. One fiery yet funny woman of her times.

 I was reading on when I discovered that Lajwanti ,one of her movies, was entered for 1959 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Palme d'Or best film. That piqued my interest and as trivia gets me , I had to see the film.

I did and thus starts my awe for Nargis. and for actors like Balraj Sahni. I mean, now I'm thinking ,so many movies,so many brilliant movies and will I be able to see all before I die? well....

Lajwanti is a story about a happy family which comes under a dark cloud of doubt and misunderstanding and results in temporary separation for a couple of years. Nargis' character is shown ,as expected, a pious , husband oriented wife with a baby girl. Sahni's role is the good husband but a busy lawyer who has no time for family. This results is mild complaints and later results in the wife wanting for some company to just talk and spent time with. Which happens to be with their common friend ,a guy. Taboo in those days ( sometimes even now) and which results in the afore mentioned misunderstanding. Separation happens and the baby girl grows up to a teenager and they rediscover her mother. But all is not well because the story is not just about husband and wife relation but also about mother and child relationship,how a child perceives the world through her eyes and how it is very important to say the right thing to children.

The movie would have been very predictable if not for the child - mother angle. I shall rather say the child
(Kumari Naaz,if this info is right) has given a performance worth pondering on. She actually steals the movie with her innocence and yet occasional glimpses of maturity.

Pics courtesy - bollywood mantra