Maya Memsaab (’93) : A film inspired by Novel “Madam Bovari” of Flaubert
A beautiful young woman, who thinks she is intelligent and has aristocratic hobbies lives with her ailing father in a big, palace like house in a small hill station kind of city in India. She is in to reading, music, painting and other kinds of arts. Her father gets heart attack and a local doctor comes to see him. Simple and humble doctor continues his visits and soon Maya- the young woman feels attraction towards the Doctor and she marries him. She is migrated to his small house where his quite conservative mother also lives and naturally Maya can not set up a good equation with her. Mother goes away.
Time passes and Doctor is living his life as a normal doctor busy in his profession. He thinks he has a good career and a beautiful wife at home. He is a satisfied man but Maya, she feels her wings are chopped off and she is restriced to?suffacting life in this small house. She feels to fly higher in sky and she wishes to run towards Horizon to see how earth touches the sky at that point.
Her boredom is eating her personality and she is wriggling inside. She lives with her husband but soon he becomes non-existent for her. One day an owner of a small estate comes to their house to seek medical help as he has got wounded while enjoying hunting. He is attractive, rich and womaniser and his experienced eyes sees boredom of Maya and his lust for this attractive woman raises its head and he extends his hands towards Maya. As if Maya was also waiting for such moments in life and soon she start flying in love with Raja Saab. They explore long banks of river and lose their senses in lust. ?
Once man eater always man eater. Maya has tasted the taste of adultery and she is not satisfied with two men in his life. Her sleeveless small blouses and Chiffon sarees and carefree youthfulness generate attraction in a boy who is younger than Maya. He sees her daily and unable to control his emotions. Initially Maya does not take his notice but he forcibly seeks her attention and even sings song,
?Ek Haseen Nigha ka Dil pe saya hai
Jadu hai junoon hai, ye kaisee maya hai?.
He follows Maya where ever she goes and she fuels the desire burning inside him and one day while she is travelling in a train he enters her compartment where she is travelling alone and she surrenders and later at the house of that boy comes a topless nude scene during their sexual encounter. Boy is mad with happiness that he has got his dream woman, the woman of his deep desire. He destroys the pillow and throws cotton everywhere. His energy and his trials to remove his clothes are interesting to see.
Boy brings energy whenever he comes on screen. Their love affair continues and one day Maya?s husband, Doctor comes to house of the boy to search Maya and after their energetic physical encounter Boy is standing at his window when Doctor asks him if he has seen Maya. Boy becomes fearful but Maya lying in bed says calmly to boy,? say him I am not here?.
But Maya?s thirst is not only physical love. She falls in sex to get a love which she sees in her dreams and which she feels will satiate her, will provide her fulfilment but her lovers show their love to have sex with her. They are physically attracted towards her.
There is a shopkeeper living near Maya?s house and he convinces Maya to buy expensive things from his shop. She says she does not have money so she says, she can have on things now and she can pay money later. Even he desires to have her body rather he has plans to use her body to earn money so he tries to trap her by burdening her with heavy loan. Even his younger servant, a boy of less than 1 4 years also dreams about having Maya as his woman.
Maya is medium for male attention there and inspite of her adventures outside of her marriage she does not feel satisfied and guilt start capturing her. She is becoming depressive when shopkeeper thinks this is the right time to strike and he demands his money back. She is taken aback by his mean behaviour and he gives her ultimatum to return money in few days else she has to face consequences. Disturbed Maya goes to Raja Saab but he shows his limitations to give her this much big amount and her younger lover is not that capable to bring her that big amount of money. She is depressed and shopkeeper has threatened her with legal notice.
A person gives a magical bottle, having some solution, to shop keeper and says that after drinking this solution he will get whatever he wishes. His younger servant witnesses this and steals the bottle.
Maya?comes at home?in evening and finds young servant of shopkeeper is holding a bottle having some liquid and with closed eyes he is reciting ?Mujhe Maya chahiye?. She is astonished by listening his desire and feels that she is mere object for males. He tells her that this magic solution may grant any wish.
She sends him away and in the night drinks that solution. She dies and when investigations are under progress except her husband everybody try to show that they don?t know Maya. Maya?s diary reveals her secrets and thus finishes the story of a woman desiring everything in life and who hankers after mirage. She did not get anything except early death.
Ketan Mehta directed this artsy toned film. Maya?s role is played by Deepa Sahi (then) Mehta. Though she does hard and if Ketan Mehta did not use double then even gives topless scene but through out the film there remains a feeling that such role should be played by more attractive and competent actress, someone like Dimple Kapadia. But not many actresses might have become ready to play this bold role whether they were needed to do bold bedroom scenes.
Farookh Shekh ably plays the role of Doctor husband of Maya. He befits such roles very well. ?
Raj Babbar plays the role of Raja Saab and does justice.
But scene stealer is actor who plays younger lover of Maya. This role was played by Shah Rukh Khan who was new then and was not SRK. He shows raw appeal and his energies are boundless in this roles. He tries his best to bring vitality to this role. Whenever he comes on screen is electrified with his energies. He was not good looking but the kind of character was given to him he did it perfectly well. He has short role but he leaves his impression. It looks strange now that he became ready to do those bedroom scenes because he never even kissed on screen before KANK (does he do it here?).
Paresh Rawal plays the role of cunning shopkeeper. And as usual he is good in his performance.
Raghuveer Yadav plays role of a mad bagger and he plays it very well.
Hridayanath Mangeshkar had composed the music for the film and he gifted us few nice songs in Lata Mangeshkar?s voice. If Gulzaar Saab writes song lyrics and Hridayanath mangeshkart has composed music then it has to be a special album.
Khud se batein karte rehna (Keep Talking with self)
Ek Haseen Nigah ka dil pe saya hai, Jadu hai junon hai ye kaise maya hai (That beautiful sight has impact over my heart, Is it magic, passion or what kind of illusion is this?)
Mere sarhane jalao sapne, mujhe thoree see to neend aa jaye ( Burn the dreams on the side of my head, so that I can sleep a little)
O dil banjare, Khol doriyan sab khol de (O gypsi heart, break all the bonds)
Is Dil mein bas kar dekho to, Ye shahar bada purana hai. (Try to reside in my heart, You will find a familiar old city)
Music has everything which makes it a collector?s item. Only song in male voice (Kumar Sanu) “Ek Hasen Nigah ka” is weak and has least repeating value and few may not like classical toned?song, Jaagee Maya, in Hridayanath Mangeshkar?s voice.
This is strange that this erotic drama was actually tax free.
Film is slow in pace but surely one can enjoy this film not only once but many times. A very underrated film but very nice one.
Tags: Acting, Deepa Mehta, Dimple Kapadia, Direction, Farookh Sheikh, Hridyanath Mangeshkar, ketan mehta, Lata Mangeshkar, Paresh Rawal, Raghuveer Yadav, Raj Babbar, Shahrukh Khan, Songwriting
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
:d/
Hi,
This is one of my fav films, in fact this is a film which clearly shows the desires and dreams of all the women..In a way every woman is like Maya, searching for that one man who will live for her and die for her..I know this expectation itself is a Maya.. I really like the strating shot of this film,jisme Maya ka saya use apne peeche peeche chalene ka ishara karta hai.. it tells a lot.. “Hamare khwab, hamare sapne, hamari khwahishe (never ending desires) sab hamare saaye ki tarah hai,hamesha hamare saath rahti hai, inse pichha chhoodana mushkil hai, aur kabhi gaur se dekho to pata chalta hai ki hamara saaya bhi sirf Maya hai, haqeeqat nahi..”
Neha: nice comment. Thanks
Surely Maya Memsaab, is a wonderful film but very underrated film. Film’s presentation is so good, Performances are good, Camera work is so good, Chracterisation is very good. Scenes where two detectives (Satyadev Dube and Virendra Saxena?) walk in the starting of the film and when at the end they go down the lane, bring good brackets to contain the film in between. They both look intersting in their black glasses and serios face expressions.
Maya Memsaab deals with philosophy and certainly its a must watch film, it has many things which are not found in other films.
Could any body know who sing song and where to find it on net, few line in Maya Memsaab movie which was picturised on street beggar Raghvir yadav at the throught out the movie the song lyrics where like khain gaye ra sonyan chidiya?
@Rahul,
Those lines were sung by Raghuveer Yadav himself.
This is the Best Movie I had ever seen. Very close to my heart. Maya cheez hi aaisee hai jo harek ke dil men Rehete hai…
I love this movie.I wish it was released now.The audience is more mature now.Also Maya was miscast.Though Deepa tried but the character demands that Maya should be beatiful.I think Rekha in her prime would have done justice to the role.At the time the film was released Manisha Koirala would have fitted the bill.If it is made today Sushmita Sen would be my choice for the role.It is sad that the film got attention for all the wrong reasons.It should be remade.But then no one can recreate the music.It was simply “divide”.
Sorry for the spelling mistake.It is “divine”.
@Anindya,
Madam Bovari provides such a good plot and solid character that any good actress will be thankful if she ever gets a chance to play this character in her life time at a suitable age.
Rekha, Dimple both could have done better justice to the deamnd of the role. It is doubtful though if Ketan Mehta could have convinced them to do those scenes for which film got some fame for wrong reasons. Its strange that I recall film was actually tax free.
—
Adulterous affair has been covered by literature to the depth and great literature has been generated around such an adventurous traits of a woman and from Madam Bovary to Anna Karenina, to Lady Chaterlee’s lover to the relatively new book The Piano. and some of them have been fuelling the imagination of filmmakers also.
Madam Bovary/Maya’s character demands a very good actress who is standing on a solid ground of acting skills where she can go deeper in to the emotions of the woman. Her feminine power, lonliness, desires, explorations, outcomes of her craefree adventures, pathos and destiny have to be shown by the actress.
An actress has to imbibe the phiolosophy woven around such a woman by different writers in the past. She has to pass through The Second Sex also. She has to generate a woman inside her.
If a good actress is not given such a role of depth then this remains a stylish where emotions take a back seat.
Tabu comes in the mind at present. Any good actress will be feeling elated if she gets such a powerful screen incarnation. Tabu has proved so many times her worth as an actress and for her it will be just another reward though a very good one but if such a role is given to budding talent like Chitrangda Singh (if she still has that spark in her which she had shown in HKA) then this can be good for all the parties. For her, for director and for cinema as such as all the sides will get a growth which will take them further towards more quality in their respective areas.