Namak Haram-Friends and Class Conflict
In 1965, Hollywood had come out with a movie Becket, starring Richard Burton as Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury and Peter O Toole as King Henry II. Both of them play close friends, but later fall out, due to their ideologies and the eternal clash between the clergy and royalty. Hrishida, adapted the same story, to Indian context, setting against the backdrop of trade unionism and class struggle. Namak Haram in 1974 was the only other movie to feature both Amitabh Bachan and Rajesh Khanna apart from Anand in lead roles, it was billed as the clash of titans. Amitabh was a star in the making with hits like Zanjeer and Abhimaan, while Rajesh Khanna had already established himself as the superstar by then.
Namak Haram is about Vicky( Amitabh Bachan), the son of a rich mill owner, Damodar( Om Shivpuri) and Somu( Rajesh Khanna), who lives in a Delhi basti with his mother and sister. Both of them studying in the same law school, are thick as friends, inspite of the class differences, and Vicky quite often keeps helping Somu’s family financially. Also Vicky being a motherless child, looks upon Somu’s mother and sister as his own. In the meanwhile, with Vicky’s father having a heart attack, he has to take over the management of the mill. Unfortunately Vicky’s arrogant and hot headed attitude, gets him into a tangle with the union leade
r Bipinlal(A.K.Hangal), which results in a strike being called.
On his father’s insistence, Vicky is forced to apologize to Bipinlal, in front of every one, which hurts his ego. Somu decides to avenge his friend’s humiliation, and joins as a worker, naming himself Chander. He begins to live in the worker’s basti, and slowly wins over every one’s confidence. His plan is to topple Bipinlal as union leader. Somu negotiates a bonus for the workers, and defeats Bipinlal in the union elections. However by now Somu having seen the worker’s plight first hand, begins to genuinely care for them.
Vicky sees this as a betrayal by his friend, and both of them fall out. Drawn into this rivalry between Somu and Vicky are other characters like Nisha( Simi Garewal), Vicky’s fiancee , and some one who has a socialist bent of mind, though born with a silver spoon, Shyama(Rekha), the basti girl and Chandu( Asrani), another worker and the cynical, drunken poet Alam( Raza Murad).
Namak Haraam, is one of Hrishi Da’ s memorable movies, and one of the better movies of the 70’s. The friendship between Vicky and Somu, and their subsequent fall out is well depicted. Some scenes are well directed.
Somu getting beaten up by the basti dwellers when they suspect him of being Vicky’s stooge.
Vicky comming to know of the incident, and storming the basti.
Vicky warning his father, against any one else comming into the dispute between him and Somu.
Somu explaining to Vicky the reason for his change of heart, and the dialogues between them.
Gulzar’s dialogues are sharp, hard hitting and witty without becomming too melodramatic.
Also in a movie in class struggle, it would have been easy to make it a caricature, turning into a black and white story. To Hrishida’s credit, he does not demonize the rich nor does he glorify the poor, unlike his other movies Anari and Asli Naqli. Vicky’s character is grey, he is hot headed and arrogant, at the same time, he is prepared to take the rap for his friend’s murder. Nor is Somu, totally white, for quite some time he lives on Vicky’s benevolence, and he enters the basti not so much as to help the people, but exploit their plight, just to extract revenge for his friend’s humiliation. Again contrary to what some critics claim, the strike between the mazdoor and the management was not a socialist wet dream, it was a daily part of life in 70’s India, where trade unions had a strong presence.
Vicky automatically heading the company after his father, was quite a prevalent feature of the business environment of those eras. Professionally run companies started to come into India, only during the 80’s and 90’s, but till then most of the Indian private companies, were family run affairs, where the top job went to the next of kin. And Hrishida, actually shows, how dangerous that could be, when Vicky’s boorish attitude, towards the union leader, causes a strike.
However Namak Haraam, for all its good points, just falls short of being a classic. Its not in the league of an Anand or Aashirwaad or Satyakam. In Anand, we had the cynical brooding Babu Moshai vs the ever optimistic Anand. Now the contention was in their opposing view points, Babu Moshai, is surprised that Anand, is taking things easily, while Anand feels that life is short, so enjoy it to fullest when you are there. The strong point here is that the difference in the way Anand and Babu Moshai think is clear cut, both of them have their differences, and yet are strong about what they think. For me the weakness in Namak Haraam was Somu’s character, for some time he is a friend of Vicky, and living with the basti people, he begins to share their sorrows. But fact is even after he has had a change of heart, he seems strangely defensive about his feelings. During the conflict scenes with Vicky, he does not seem to project his views as strongly.
Also where Anand stuck to the core theme of friendship between the two protagonists and did not deviate much, Hrishida piles on a lot of cliches in Namak Haraam. The romance between Somu and Shyama, is very poorly sketched, and just proves an unnecessary roadblock in the movie. Also the cliched characters of Somu’s mother and sister, who just don’t seem to serve any purpose later in the story. One of the strong points of Anand, was that every character, even the minor ones like Johnny Walker’s, fitted perfectly into the movie, every one of them had a role in scheme of things. In Namak Haraam however there are quite some characters, who are there, because they were there, but otherwise just do not fit into the overall scheme. I think Hrishida, opted for most of the compromises, keeping in view the star image of both Amitabh Bachan and Rajesh Khanna.
The movie has two great performances from Amitabh Bachan and Rajesh Khanna. Amitabh gives one of his best performances, as an arrogant hot headed Vicky. He is just brilliant in the scene when he walks into the basti, and demands to know who lynched his friend. Rajesh Khanna is more subdued, in a role that required a lot of underplaying and restraint. But while he is good in some scenes, his trademark mannerisms jar in some of the other scenes. Om Shivpuri, Simi Garewal and A.K. Hangal all offer good support.
R.D. Burman in collaboration with Anand Bakshi, gives a good score, as he always did for most of Hrishida’s movies.
Main Shaayar Badnaam- Great song by Kishore, expressing Somu’s frustration over his inability to save his friend. Lyrics by Anand Bakshi wonderfully sum up the hero’s helplessness.
Rastaa rok rahi hain,
Thodi jaan hai baaki
Jaane Toote Dil Mein, Kya Armaan Hai Baaki
* Diye Jalte Hain- One of the best songs by Kishore-RD collaboration, and picturized on AB-Rajesh Khanna in their happier days. This is the best song you could dedicate to your friend. Again great lyrics from Anand Bakshi
Daulat aur Jawaani
Ek Din Kho Jaate Hai
Sach Kehte Hoon
Saari Duniya, dushma Ho Jaati Hai
Umar bar, dost lekin saat chalte hai
* Nadiya se Dariya, Dariya se Saagar- Again by Kishore, pretty masti kinda song.
Though not a great classic, still worth a watch, to see some good performances from Amitabh Bachan, Rajesh Khanna, and some great scenes.
Tags: Beckett, hrishikesh mukherjee, Rajesh Khanna
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
My Father told me the story of Becket long back before I see Namak Haram,
I like Namak Haram movie, Hrishida is Great!!!
very well adapted film ,.(‘Angoor’ is other one well adapted)
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Nadiya se Dariya, Dariya se Saagar ,..I love this song
Shekar, well Becket was one of my Dad’s favorite movies too, saw it on video some time later, and its a great movie. Of course my father loved Namak Haraam also.
Angoor for sure is a classic, one of the best comedies in Indian cinema.
Jeene ki aarzoo main mare jaa rahe hain log
Marne ki aarzoo main jiya jaa raha hoon main
the ending of the movie was brilliant and something tat had not been done before, it was poetic justice that a son pays for the crimes of the father. the anger in amitabh’s eyes and how much he conveys with the smouldering look is just fantastic. by going to jail he avenges somu’s death as well as punishes his father.
the song ‘diye jalte hain’ brought out the meaning of friendship so well:
“is rang roop pe dekho hargiz naaz na karna,
jaan bhi mange yaar to dede na naraz na karna,
rang ud jate hain, roop dhalte hain
daulat aur jawani ek din kho jaati hai
sach kehta hoon saari duniya dushman ho jaati hai
umr bhar dost lekin saath chalte hain”
even the ‘mai shayar badnaam’ song had some great lyrics:
“sholon pe chalna tha, kaanto pe sona tha
aur abhi ji bharke, kismat pe rona tha
jaane aise kitne.. baki chhodke kaam…
mai chala”
i wouldn’t compare this with ‘anand’ becuase the theme of the 2 movies was totally different. while anand dwelt with the friendship between babu moshai and anand during his last days, this movie was based on socialism which was the relevant topic then. it showed how friends drift apart based on idealogy.
i still think that this movie is a classic and whenever people talk of trade unionism or socio-economic barriers they will quote this movie as a great example.
@ Rals
yes Anand and this are different movies, but i wud still rate Anand as a far better movie than Namak Haraam. While it is one of the better movies about trade unionism and social idelogy, it was nowhere as hard hitting as Satyakam. For me though the movie just falls short, or maybe its because i expect more from Hrishida.
The ending was fantastic, and Amitabh’s dialogue when he says “Dad, aap apna khayal rakhiyega.” Quite of ironical.
Another great piece of dialogue when AB confronts his dad, about attack on Rajesh Khanna, and then says “Jo kuch bhi hua, woh mere aure uske beech mein hai, koi teesra beech main aaya toh”, he does not end it, but his expressions, his anger clearly convey his feelings.
Give credit to Gulzar saab, who wrote those dialogues, and made sure they dont go into cliche territory.
Both Diye Jalte Hain and Main Shaayar Badnaam rank among my Kishore-RD favorites.
Credit to Hrishi da for casting grey protagonists in th film in an era when characters were either white or black in films.
I feel Amitabh overshadowed Rajesh Khanna in the movie.
Is is true that according to the original story Amitabh was supposed to die in the movie.But Rajesh khanna insisted on dying. As he was a bigger star story had to be changed.
@Ratnakar- I belive the romance angle between amitabh and the other actress in “Anand” was also not developed properly .
Bharat well actually, the funda was that in whichever movie Rajesh Khanna died, that wud be a superhit- Aaradhana, Anand, Safar being some examples, so he got the ending changed in his favor.
BTW this post has come up 6th in the Google search for the movie.
Quality wise PFC is the best bollywood site in India.No doubt abt that.
I am loking forward to the day when you put a search for a bollywood movie in Google, PFC will come before Wikipedia/IMDB in the list!!
@ Bharat, well that wud be great, but quite hard. Fact is Wiki has the first priority on Google search, followed by IMDB, and in case of Wiki its more than just movies. But PFC does give the best perspective on Indian movies, and i am hoping in future this wud be a one stop reference point for anything related to Indian movies.
@Bharat & ratnakar: i am not sure about the ending being changed in somebody’s favour bcos of box-office result. moreover, hrishi da is not the kind of director who would play into stars’ hands. i am quite sure that the movie was shot the way it was written and the ending was befitting.
also, romance was never a strong point in hrishi da’s movies. it was always about testing the strength of relationship and making the characters in love go through really tough times, as in abhiman, mili, ashirwad, satyakam etc…
Rals, lemme clarify on this, Hrishida did not change the ending to accomodate either RK or AB, but he actually kept it a secret from both of them. In those days, it was great to have the hero die, so both AB and RK were looking at it that way. This is what Hrishida himself said
This was Amitabh’s first angry man role when he didn’t pick up an AK-47 and fire at the villains. He cares deeply for his friend who is not equal in his status. Namak Haram is about their attachment and quarrel. There are innumerable stories about quarrelling friends floating around, but critics insisted that mine was inspired from Beckett. Beckett is the story of a king who wants to turn his servant into an Archbishop. My film is about an affluent who cannot live without his middle-class friend. I cast Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh again, but this time in reversed roles. I wanted Amitabh to play the extrovert, while Kaka, an introvert. I didn’t reveal the end to either of them because I wanted it to be a secret. The only one to have a slight inkling was my dialogue-writer Gulzar. In Hindi films, the one who dies is considered a hero, so both were keen on being heroic. It was only on the day of shooting, that Amitabh finally learnt the truth. He was crestfallen! He was so hurt that he didn’t speak to me for several days. He felt I had betrayed him.
Hi All,
Namak Haram has always been among my favorite movies along with Anand. Great to see view of you all on these movies. I had first watched this movie in 95 on cable TV. Believe me, I was stunned by the climax of movie when Amitabh decides to pay for the crime by his father. It is now that I have come to know that there was any second thought on this ending.For me this unusual but fantastic ending is the identity of this movie.
Also this was the movie where Amitabh clear cut overshadowed Mr. Rajesh Khanna. He already had a very strong presence against Mr. Khanna in Anand and I guess this time he made it very clear that he had better resources as far as acting talent is concerned. Though Somu is among finest performance of Mr. Khanna sometimes I feel he should not have done this movie. I think this movie cost him reduction of at least a couple of year of his glory.
Of course the best seen of movie was when Vicky comes to basti and challenge that who has attacked his friend come forward and face him. I think that the seen it self was a masterpiece.
I think where it looses to Anand is the memorable characters and dialogues. Babu Moshay the word itself is still very popular. And of course the dialogue of Anand,”Zindagi Aur maut upar wale ke haath hai jahapanah……” is still very popular.
Main shayar badnaam is my most favorite song of this film. Anand Bakshi was a greater lysrics writer than a poet. His songs were great content wise but were strictly stuck to story line. Was was very unusual about him was that he was very spontaneous in writing. He has written many great songs in 15-20 minutes only.
Mere ghar se tumko kuch saaman milega
Deewane shayar ka ek deewan milega
(Deewan=book of poetry)
Aur ek cheez milegi
Toota khali jam
Last words of these line symbolize to unfulfilled desires of a dying man. And if you notice how Kishore has sung these three words. He has given the exact hollowness to his voice as was there in these words. For me this is the best Kishore Kumar son…. at least a best sad song by him.
Music was again commendable by RD.
For me Namak Haram has been a classic.
Atul, thanks for that comment of urs. Well i guess the movie really had one of the best climax to date. And AB’s ironic parting dialogue “Dad, aap apna khyal rakeyiga”.
I agree with u on AB vis a vis Rajesh Khanna, he clearly overshadowed him here. Well problem was Rajesh also got carried away with his superstardom, and signed on every movie that came his way, making some utterly disastrous choices. And Namak Haraam, just accentuated that. RK gave some great performances in early part like Anand, Safar, Bawarchi, Aavishkar, but second half of 70’s, not many of his movies were really memorable, and some were just plain crap. I only liked Thodisi Bewafai and Avtaar among his later performances.
Main Shayaar badnaam, is one of the best tragic songs i heard, lyrics are just excellent, and i rate it as one of the best songs in RD-KK combo.
Yes, I am also a big fan of Namak Haram. Barring Golmaal, this is my most favourite Hrishida movie.
I just realized that Gulzar, inspite of being the dialogue writer for the movie, didn’t write the lyrics for the songs. And RDB was the composer!! How often has that happened?!
@Pratik: there are quite a few movies where gulzar has written dialogues but not the lyrics:
shagird – majrooh
anand – a few songs of this movie were not penned by him, like ‘kahin door jab’ & ‘zindagi kaise ye paheli’
haar jeet – anand bakshi
bawarchi – kaifi azmi
chupke chupke – anand bakshi
gulzar dialogue but no lyrics and rdb music – never happened
Namak Haram could not get its due b’cos it was always compared with Anand.
now lets imagine…
What would have been the ending if Amitabh had died in the movie!! ;)
“For me the weakness in Namak Haraam was Somu’s character, for some time he is a friend of Vicky, and living with the basti people, he begins to share their sorrows. But fact is even after he has had a change of heart, he seems strangely defensive about his feelings. During the conflict scenes with Vicky, he does not seem to project his views as strongly.”
Sir, what you perceive as the weakness of this plot is the strongest point of this movie…..the character of Somu torn between friendship and new found idealism….subtly underplayes by Rajesh Khanna remains one of the best in the anals of Indian film history…..
Also, media of those times interpreted a louder and angry portrayal of a character as better acting than a subtle and deliberate underplay by another….
See the movie again……..you will see what i mean……regards……
I also feel that RK’s performance was much superior to AB’s. To underplay is more difficult than to overplay when you are real superstar. This tells it all.
Namak Haram no doubt my all time favourite Movie and will certainly rate it above Anand. Although both Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachhan acted superbly but I will certainly rate performance of Rajesh Khanna above that of Amitabh Bachhan. To underplay is certainly more difficult than Overplay when you are a real superstar.