Before Dev. D : The Young India

Santa Singh

This is not only for those who have seen the movie Dev. D.
This is not a review.

Yes, Dev D is a very good movie. I wonder why it is being appreciated by many people; seems odd when other light-weight feather-type films make so much money in India. But as the popular saying goes in Hindi.

“time time ki baat hai pyaare”
(it’s all a play of time)

In time, we will know more about good films that were ignored by movie lovers.

Dev. D fans are talking about the movie breaking taboos and bringing a ‘new wave’ in Hindi cinema. Well, there have been movies that have done that before with respect to women liberation. I guess most fans have not been tuned to films of Amol Palekar. Of course, he is a low budget, art film-walla. So many people won’t go to theatres to see his movies. But they will recognise the liberated woman when they see her on screen, embellished with music and songs. Women liberation is not to be searched. It is to be waited for and then when given, it is to be applauded. Till the next time.

I remember watching Palekar’s ‘Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaayen’, which I recently learnt (through imdb) is an adaptation of ‘The Rainmaker’. Read what the film is about.

“Set in the background of a small town in India, against the harsh weather conditions and lack of rain, the story revolves around a girl who is unconventional in her ways and appearance, in-feminine in the conventional sense of the word, and therefore subjugated to much negative public opinions and advices on what she should be…”
[source]

“Stranger comes inside and he starts alluring all the people with his unusual charming but mysterious talks. Only Father and younger son take interest in his talks. Woman and her elder brother dislike stranger and they oppose everything he says…”

“Barishkar then address woman and convinces her to have faith in her beautiful existence. He says every woman is beautiful in her own way. You just have to keep faith in your beauty. He pushes her to repeat that she is beautiful with full conviction. First time she feels that she still has some self respect and self confidence and a hope to live a good life.”
[source]

Now I didn’t have so much brain then to recognise what women liberation is and how women are represented in Indian cinema. But now when I read these lines, I wonder if good ‘fair to women’ cinema has been brushed aside because it is (yawn) artistic.
As if being artistic is not what we all want in life.

But why will people want to see such a film?
First of all, the film is set in a “small town in India, against the harsh weather conditions and lack of rain”. Serious yawn.

Small town, harsh weather and lack of rain are not exactly crowd pulling elements. Right?
Already, you are assured that this movie does not promise sex; a major no-no for our post-modern, extra-sensible artistic audience.

So you might say that there are people who would have seen this movie and recognised its merits. Sure. Check out imdb [here]. 48 votes in 18-19 years.

Sure. I will have to see this movie again to be assured of its merits and to write more on it. But I trust the sensibilities of people who have seen it and they swear that when I read the lines: “Barishkar then address woman and convinces her to have faith in her beautiful existence. He says every woman is beautiful in her own way”, I am right in feeling that this movie is evocative and modern for its times.

I wonder if this movie also says that women should work and not sit at home. But not every movie is supposed to contain all women related themes. At a time when movie-making in Hindi cinema was about sexy and big-busted heroines making stupid sacrifices, this movie must have been a challenge to the producer and Amol Palekar.

By the way, Amol is the same man who directed ‘Paheli’, where a woman is happy to leave her husband and fall in love with a ghost because, well, he fulfils her sexual and emotional requirements.

And also read in the imdb chart about Daayra and Anaahat. This man has been making low-budget but high-class movies since quite some time.

I hope we continue producing challenging movies like Dev. D and also exploit the charms of low-budget movies.

thoda-sa-roomani-ho-jayen