RamNagri(1982)-Amol Palekar in a socially relevant Comedy film!
Marathi literature is quite rich in presenting Dalit sahitya. Mostly literature created by authors coming from depressed class present their problems, sorrows and exploitation etc in a tragic manner but Ram Nagri, Ram Nagarkar’s autobiography takes shelter in satire and sarcasm and exposes cast factor prevailing in Indian society. Ram Nagarkar came from the Barber cast and through his book he presented cast discrimination in a very interesting manner. Basically tone of the Ramnagri (book) is not bitter but it represents the plights of Ram Nagarkar in a very comical way. Book is a master piece.
Ram Nagarkar along with Nilu Phule and Dada Kondke represented famous trio of marathi cinema and theatre. Dada Kondke’s hindi films were termed as films with double meaning dialogues. Dada Kondke had given 9 golden jubilee hits in Marathi in continuation and being an admirer of the fact that cinema should entertain the audience, ManMohan Desai used to respect Dada a lot. Nilu Phule, a stalwart in marathi cinema, did some memorable roles in Hindi films like Wo Saat Din, Saaransh, zara si zindagi, Sau din saas ke, Sutradhar, Kabzaa, and Coolie etc.
Kantilal Rathod adapted this autobiography of Ram Nagarkar in to a film with same title i.e. “Ram Nagri”.
As film was off beat so many might not have seen the film but film is really good. Audiences feel full sympathy with Ram- the character, but situations are shown in such a comical way that audiences have to laugh also and often scenes present so much comedy that they may bring tears in eyes.
Amol Palekar plays the role of Ram Nagarkar. Nilu Phule plays the role of father of Ram (Amol Palekar) and in the beginning of the film Ram’s marriage is shown with Suhasini Mulay, and there also question of sub castes among barbers occurs.
After marriage, Baraat is coming back and it is quite early in morning, Ram feels nature’s call and he, as a shy person, expresses his desire before Nilu Phule,” Bapu, mere ko Disha jane ka”
Nilu Phule is quite busy in conversation with others and Ram repeats his condition and requests again and again but Nilu Phule ignores him. In reading it may look a cheap scene but Amol Palekar and Nilu Phule have made this scene such a good scene that it generates heavy laugh among audience.
Back home, there is a space problem in their house and Ram has to sleep outside of house at road side and when he tries to meet his wife in night then many laughable scenes happen.
In one scene in their saloon, Nilu Phule, boasts before a customer that now his son Ram can speak in English and he pressurizes Ram to read the newspaper who subsequently just recites ABCD etc with his eyes fixed on English newspaper and ignorant Nilu Phule shows his happiness about his son’s English knowledge.
After some time Ram goes to Pune along with his wife to open first air conditioned saloon. They don’t get any house there as nobody wants to give house to a lower cast person so they speak lie and take house on rent. Everything goes fine till their house owner is told by someone about Ram’s cast and they are asked to leave the house.
Film brings out the naked truth about cast discrimination but film is never preachy and everything runs undercurrent but one can feel the effect of film inside.
Film presents pains of Ram’s life in a very comical way and Amol Palekar truly lives the character and so does Nilu Phule. Suhasini Mulay, Sulbha Deshpande and her Husband Arvind Deshpande also do well in their respective roles. Such films are heavily based on characterization, events and performances and Ram Nagri is quite rich in all these areas.
Jaidev had composed the music for the film. Bhajan Main Toh Kab Se Teri Sharan Mein Hoon was quite good.
Film does not contain less comedy and satire than “Jane Bhee do yaron” and additionally it has a socially relevant theme which makes it a significant film.
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
is the cd of the movie readily available?if not please suggest from where in mumbai can i get one?
Kartik: You must search this film at Shemaroo entertainment Pvt.Ltd. They shd have it on their website also. Try to seach this film and you will get high degree entertainment from this film.
any idea where it will be available in pune? ur review has made me very excited, how can i lay my hands on this movie?
Kaafir,
as I told Kartik that pls check Shemaroo Viedos, if not CD then you can have VHS of the film. Or try at some old viedo shops which are still in operation and you may find it. Is there any library or museum in Pune which has section related to Dalit Chetana,(I think one is there which was attacked some years ago by political hooligans). FTII library may have it as its a rare film and Director had done many good works so his work should be discussed there in course.
Last you may try to contact Amol palekar, and Kantilal Rathod. They should have copy of the film.
But little search in Bombay and Pune will lead you towards success in getting this film.:)and perhaps if few people approach Shemaroo then they may think to reselase its CD or DVD again:d
Guys: those who are interested in Ram Nagri, may try to contact its director Kantilal Rathod, as he seems to be active in Children’s film society of India. Pls. check here http://www.cfsindia.org/animation/73.htm
Someone may arrange his contacts _ atleast email address or phone.
you are likely to find RamNagri (3-in-1 Amol Palekar vcds) in your local dvd/music store.
and like rk said shemaroo has a good collection of old classic dvds. also try indiatimes store.
anybody has ramnagri songs cd or dvd
amol palekar film