One of my favourite activities is channel surfing. Anthropologists tell me that this comes from the time when men constantly scanned their surroundings for suitable prey. My wife tells me that I am crazy. Obviously she doesnt have anthropologists as close friends: anyway.. back to surfing.
One evening, while surfing, I chanced upon the dying moments of the old bollywood film Waqt (Balraj Sahni, Rajkumar, Sunil Dutt and Shashi Kapoor). It is a courtroom scene. Sunil Dutt , playing a lawyer is hamming it like hamming was going out of fashion. His piece-de-resistance has been conceived by the script-writer with an expectation of winning several awards. It consists of demonstrating that if u drag a dead man you are not likely to get your shoes soaked in blood. Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes , Miss Marple and their ilk are turning over in their collective and fictional graves. The scene is delivered with all the finesse of a wrestling match and (assumed) brilliance which only Punjabi directors (in this case Yash Chopra) in bollywood can manage without feeling guilty. (did I hear someone gnashing their teeth ?).
The atmosphere is thick with urdu-persian dialog (is case ke’ saare’ gawahon aur bayanaat ko madde’ nazar rakhte huey ..Etc etc) . I think they used to secretly keep ready-made dialogue in bollywood so that anyone who wanted court-room dialogue would not have to take too much trouble in writing it all over again. A good example of community working.
The point is I have seen the movie in a theatre, and twice again on TV and I know the whodunit , the denouement. And yet I keep watching. Sunil Dutt (looking young). Shashi kapoor almost adolescent, grinning like a toothpaste advert. Sharmila Tagore looks barely out of her teens, complete with her trademark hairdo. This is not a movie that I am seeing. It is a slice of my own life that is replaying. In spite of the cliché’d lines and melodrama, there is , an innocence in the scenes. I keep watching as the drama unfolds in the last few scenes. It is revealed to the audience AND the actors that Sunil Duttt, Rajkumar and Shashi are long lost brothers. The moment is full of poignancy. I have lived though it thrice before, but my eyes are still wet.
Rating: Two and a and a half stars for direction/ story / acting. Four for nostalgia.
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