Mausam

The best thing about being home alone is having the TV all for myself. This I say after completing nine years of marriage. The Idiot box is mostly dominated by my three year old and her Chota Bheem, Krishna & Balram; Ceebeebies, Tom & Jerry, The Pink Panther, Takeshi's Castle & the very uncanny Mr. Bean - in both forms - animated and regular.  

And when the living room is not filled with nosies made by Mr. Bean or Tom & Jerry running helter-skleter, I hear sounds of mean machines, scientists experimenting with food, air crash investigation. And if these were not enough to drive me up the wall there's the commentary of cricket.

At times I set reminders for a movie or a show on the TV but both my daughter and hubby never passes on that message to me. So mostly I am only listening to what is going on like a radio while I am doing some other work - be it busy social networking, blogging, cooking.

A few weeks ago, like I mentioned in my first line I was home alone and I was happy to have the remote at my disposal. Once Nior finished her dinner and was in her bed, I had all the time for myself. As I was surfing channels, you see I was quite at loss and confused for choices - what to watch and what could be given a miss. 

Zee Classics is the channel where my surfing activity stopped. Mausam  was the movie being screened. As I pressed the info, button the story seemed interesting and I realized the movie had just begun. 

I don't know how I gave such a nice movie a miss. It's not the regular Bollywood film full of spices and predictable twists and turns. Starring Sanjeev Kumar as Dr. Amarnath Gill and the very pretty and petite Sharmila Tagore (in a double role) as Chanda and Kajli, its all about relationships. 

Dr. Gill falls in love with Chanda when he goes to Darjeeling for his medical exams. Chanda's father a local naturopath assures Dr. Gill that he'd allow him to marry his daughter once he becomes a doctor. 

In the mean time a patient dies int he hands of Dr. Gill on the operating table and he has to serve  a few years behind the bars, (This is shown much later in the film though) and he never comes back to Darjeeling. Meanwhile Chanda is married to a crippled man and has a daughter. But Chanda soon loses her sanity and subsequently her husband. Taking advantage of her insanity, her brother-in-law sexually assaults Kaji and she ends up in a brothel. 

Years later Dr. Gill goes to Darjeeling (this is the opening scene of the movie). We get to see an old Dr. Gill with strands of grey and maturity in his walk and speech. He tries to track Chanda and to his surprise he realizes that she is no more and makes up his mind to find Kajli to make amends for his own misdeeds. He feels he is partly responsible for Chanda's loss of sanity and death. 

Dr. Amarnath tracks a foul mouthed, beedi smoking Kajli in a brothel. He is shocked to see she resembles Chanda. He approaches her and talk to her and she almost shoos him away. He tries one more time and yet fails again. With a never give up attitude, he approaches her as a client and asks the "hench-woman" if he could keep Kajli at his home.

Dr. Gill tries to make Kajli get rid of her smoking habits, buys her proper clothes and also asks her not to use foul language. Kajli at first resents but soon she realizes that he is not that "type" but belongs to that category of men who loves being with women for more romantic causes - like poetry, music and finer things. 

Dr. Gill also tires to sort the relation between Kajli and her beau but that never sees the light of the day. As Kajli changes from within she starts falling in love with the Doctor not realizing that he is the one she feels is responsible for her mother's death. 

The best thing about the film is that here we have a hero who does not possess a six pack abs. yet he is so captivating. The humor is subtle and the pace of the movie keeps you hooked wondering what would  happen next. 

As I finished watching this classic I did a search on the web and found out the movie was made in the year 1975. Directed by Gulzar, I am sure this movie must have raised many eyebrows. A remarkable love story ... worth a watch... more than once ...

Until next time...!