Searching Hrishi Da
iView Author:Bhavesh Purohit
(Mumbai, India)
EMAIL:b_star87 [at] hotmail [dot] com
Title: Searching Hrishikesh…
About me, I have been a very silent reader of PFC but I liked it throughout and was just searching time to write in it.
I have seen all kinds of discussion here on PFC about world cinema where people praise directors like kurosawa, kielowski and tarantino, lynch. Of course they are brilliant and I love few of them too. But somewhere I also noticed that a lot of great Indian directors are ignored and discussed mostly in comments section. I thought about one of my favourite directors Late. Hrishikesh Mukherjee and even here where people are so passionate about films forget this passionate director. Maybe he have been discussed but I am sure not much.
Infact Hrishida, don’t know why is always ignored when great directors from Indian cinema are counted. He made so many actors and gave them image which is totally opposite to their true image in cinema. Amitabh-the angry young man of Hindi film industry was presented in a totally opposite way in anand, chupke chupke and I am sure even amitabh knows that these were his best performance and not zanjeer. The simplicity with with hrishida dealt with any subject can hardly be seen in any director’s movies.
I remember watching his films and admiring them when I could not even differentiate between a good and a bad film. I din understand cinema those times but hrishida was the only genre I admired. Yes for me hrishida is a genre. I could and can identify whether a film is by hrishida by checking out 1 scene and not knowing anything about the movie. I can say that I started recognizing directors because of hrishida.
All his characters were so down to earth and were so genuine in their acting that one could say it is hrishikesh talking not the actor. Whether it is ‘Jogi Thakur’ of Aashirwad or Dr Bhasker Bannerjee of Anand. All his character remained in your mind, dreams for months after watching his movies. I felt with all his movies he is trying to say something, trying to show his humor, trying to show his emotions and I feel some characters were drawn from his own personal experiences. Like the character anand was based on his good friend raj kapoor who was very ill those days.
Many current directors try to copy his style but never acknowledge hrishida behind their inspirations. I feel angry when they say I want to make a film like hrishida and make a trash with salman and few exposing actresses with a bunch of unnecessary songs and a Hollywood xeroxed plot. They don’t realize that they insult hrishida and his films.
He films usually dealt with very genuine situations in few people’s life and are a combination of these situations and a bit of subtle humor. In those days there was only hrishida who presented subtle and smart humor and other directors I feel din even know what was it. They usually played safe with slapstick and aggressive humor which will tickle our bone but wont stay with us for long. For example, a movie like anand, everyone atleast in India have an impression that anand is the saddest of all movies in and will make you cry for sure. Yes it is true and I bet you will but did anyone know the humor in anand is also one of the best presented. He was such a master that his films simultaneously dealt with two completely opposite emotions with such maturity and understanding.
Who can forget the ‘Murarilal’ from anand which is an imaginary character. I bet he is more effective than Rahul of all K movies. I bet this film industry have forgotten this hero who is a legend and for me the most respected director and also a person. I can never forget his movies, the joy I get, the emotions developed, the characters sketched after watching them. His favorite companion Gulzar is still alive and i think he is someone who can recreate hrishidas magic with his writing and direction. I am sure if Hrishida would have made Maachis it would not have been different from Gulzar’s version. For me Hrishida is always alive between us with his movies. I would like to hear what todays new generation filmmakers like anurag kashyap, farhan akhtar and many other brilliants think about him. Where can we find our hrishikesh now?
No one can make movies as simple as hrishida because “It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple”
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
I completely second you on this. Hrishida was an asset and is still an asset to Indian Cinema. He was also one of the best editors that Indian Cinema has seen. And his USP in every movie was his simplicity. One could relate to the characters so easily and Bhavesh has rightly said such a task cannot be done by all. To make it look simple one has to be simple in life and we see that in todays movie more than anything else it is this simplicity that is lacking.
yes there are movies which need to be made on large scale and larger than life character srae also nice and enjoyable but it is disgusting to see people trying make simple films and being succesful. An earnest effort could be appreciated but the movie doesnt turn out to be simple.
One of the best flms in recent times is Khosla ka Ghosla. The plot is good and simple and there are no stars singing songs or dancing with 100 other dancers and the movie is a class apart. I really wish Dibanker Banerjee could achieve atleast half of what Hrishda achieve if not full. I also wish the upcmoing directors all the best and to take a leaf out of Hrishida’s films.
Brilliant post Bhavesh…….
And for the mallus here – Chemeen was edited by Hrishida. The amount of Bengalis who have worked in that landmark malayalam film is amazing. We had Hrishida at the editing table, Salil Choudhary who composed music(which is still one of the best scores in malayalam considering that music was based on lives of fishermen folk in Kerala) and Manna Dey gave his vocals for the wonderful song “Maanase Maine Varoo”.
Bhavesh, please dont get me started on Hrishida and his genius. That man was one of the greatest movie makers India ever had. Anand itself is enough to place him in the league of immortals.
In fact Hrishida’s first movie Musafir itself was totally experimental in concept, involving 3 different stories of people in a chawl. It is said Hrishida got this idea, during the shooting of Madhumati, when he saw a huge house, and wondered how it would be if he could make a movie around the characters in it. But the movie was a bix office failure.
And so Hrishida made a more conventional Anari in 1959 with Raj Kapoor. And that movie also marked the friendship between Hrishida and RK, which was reflected in Anand.
I have not seen Anuradha, his much acclaimed work, but Anupama was a masterpiece. The story of a young girl, whom her father neglects blaming her for the death of his wife, and her love affair with a sensitive poet, was wonderfully dealt with by Hrishida here. Sharmila Tagore, Dharmendra, Tarun Bose all put in wonderful performances there. But the best performance was Shashikala as Sharmila’s free spirited friend.
In fact Hrishida had this knack of bringing out the best performances from artistes, away from their stereotypical images. It was he who gave Lalita Pawar a totally different role as the kind hearted Ms. D’Sa in Anari, totally at odds with her image as the nasty Saas or step mother. He did the same with Bindu presenting her with totally de glam roles in Chaitali, Abhimaan and Arjun Pandit, in sharp contrast to her vamp image. And of course the way he spoofed Shatru’s own Shotgun image in Naram Garam.
Actually Buddha Mil Gaya, remains one of Hrishida’s more underrated and underappreciated movies. A Comic Thriller, it has Navin Nischol and Deven Varma as unemployed guys. They see an ad for a missing Old Guy, who is worth millions. So they ask an old person( Om Prakash) to act as the person, but everytime they meet the person who put up the ad, he is found dead. Hrishida wonderfully maintains the suspense till the end about the identity of the old man.
Also i think contrary to what people say, Hrishida’s range is quite vast, if we take his filmography.
He has done hard hitting social dramas like Satyakam, Arjun Pandit and Namak Haram.
Comedies like Gol Maal, Chupke Chupke, Naram Garam, Khoobsorat and Rang Birangi.
Serious dramas like Anand, Aashirwaad, Mili,Abhimaan, Bemisaal, Anupama, Anuradha.
And standard mainstream fare like Chaaya, Anari, Asli Naqli.
Apart from his directorial and editing skills, he was also an excellent screenplay and script writer too.
He had done the scenario for Do Bigha Zamin, and also the script for Anokhee Raat was his.
@Bhavesh,
Hrishikesh Mukharjee will always be alive in mind of fans of hindi cinema who have seen hindi films of late 60s and 70s.
We dearly love some of the Hrishikesh Mukharjee films. But this is also true that creativity of everybody faces a downside decline and this looks more true in the case of film directors. Some decline fast and more and some remain capable to make slow the speed of this decline.
If we see Naram Garam onwards then we will find that Hrishida’s time as a director was coming to an end. Naram Garam was almost same food presented in new plates. Unlike Golmal, Amol Palekar had no challenge here to face.
Age do make an impact on creativity.
We want to recall the height of Hrishi Da.
Social set up has changed.
But one thing is sure that though stories of society have seen some changes ethics of direction can be taken from Hrishi Da’s films.
Now except Suraj Badjatya’s films we dont see domestic helps and even such characters in his films are not in the league of Hrishi Da’s films. Today we will not find a Ramu Kaka in modern days films and he was a good character in Hrishi Da’s films.
People rejoice when Dharmendra sends marriage proposal through the watchman of guest house and who goes as his elder to the Sharmila Tagore’s home.
Such things are lost from the naratives.
Hrishi Da and his simple narratives are successful with peaceful minds.
Now majority of minds need a striking stimulation to keep open their eyes. Music should be able to bring a movement in the body and mind and soft music appeals only to those who have musical ears and who know what music is.
I dont see Hrishikesh Mukharjee making a political film like Maachis. Yes Tapan Sinha could have made. If Hrishikesh Mukharjee had made Maachis then it would have been purely a relationship based film. Terrorism in panjab was spread in his last active years but naxal movement was very much active when he started his independent film journey and he did not make any film on any such area. His sensibilities were different and perhaps his interests were different. He handled area where he was comfortable and hence we got some memorable films.
This is only partially true that PFC does not cover Hrishikesh Mukharjee like directors. Leaving few people who either have not seen much of the old hindi films or who are more in to hollywood and other kind of world cinema, majority of PFCians are always dicussing hindi cinema and Hrishi Da, Gulzaar Saab, Bimal Roy, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt etc remain the favourite topics here.
And i firmly believe that while Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai, might have made Amitabh Bachan, commercialy succesful, it was Hrishida, who bought out the acting talent in him.
For me Hrishida- Big B combo remains one of the best. Not just the movies, but even the roles.
Apart from Anand, if we look at other Big B- Hrishida movies, just see the range
Abhimaan- An egoistic singer, who cant accept his wife’s success.
Namak Haram- A ruthless capitalist torn between his business interests and his friendship.
Mili- A cynical loner, who discovers life and love in the free spirited charms of the heroine.
Chupke, Chupke- An absent minded botany professor.
Jurmana- A rich playboy
Bemisal- One of AB’s best roles, as a mentally retarded patient and his younger doctor brother.
Not many directors have been really able to exploit AB’s talent as well as Hrishida did.
and this takes an effort do a Zanzeer with high level of competency. To do Zanzeer is not easy either else Amol Palekar could have done any such film in his supreme days.
Or later Farooq Shekh could have made fortune in such films.
Actors have their limitations and they are most comfortable in few category of roles only.
Very few actors can transcend the boundaries of different genres and Amitabh Bachchan is Amitabh Bachchan thats why he could do films falling in so many different sections.
Dharmendra is Dharmendra because he could do an Anupama along with Phhool aur Patthar and a Chupke Chupke with Krodhi.
Vinod Khanna is Vinod Khanna because he could do Mere Apne, Mera Gaon Mera Desh and later Meera,Chandni, Lekin etc.
These actors have got range which was not possible with Amol Palekar and Farookh Sheikh. and this is not an effort to say that they were not good actors. they were very good but their working area had limited range.
It needs guts and good talent to do Zanzeer in a way as Amitabh had done. You perhaps missed to recall Namak Haram, Amitabh is no less than an angry young man there, rather his best scene filled with anger is lying in this film only and he has not been able to bring out such an anger again on screen and not even in films where action and violence was present.
@Ratnakar,
Madhumati was made after Musafir. Though I am not sure if Madhumati’s making took so much time that in between Musafir was made. Its also possible because DK’s films used to take time in completion.
But as I can guess that during the making of Devdas, Dilip Kumar had met and seen the working of Hrishikesh Mukharjee as a team member of Bimal Roy and there the idea of Musafir might have developed and later he motivated and helped him to make this film.
Anuradha is a wonderful film.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee is my favourite indian director so I’m very glad that at least this point has been made on PFC. I also second the post that compares Khosla Ka Ghosla with H M’s work, it definately had all the hallmarks of his style.
@ RK
Sorry for that, actually the idea came during shooting of Do Bigha Zamin.
Got this from a website
During the making of ‘Do Bigha Zamin’ Hrishida used to spend long hours at Mohan Studios and there was a building nearby which began capturing his imagination by and by. The seeds of ‘Musafir’ were sown and they fell on highly fertile soil.
Actually both Musafir and Anuradha were commercial failures, and in both the cases, Hrishida had to go in for a more conventional Anari and Asli Naqli to make up the losses.
Even in his later years two movies i did like were Bemisal, which remains his more underrated ones, and also one of AB’s best performances.
Another one was Kisise Na Kehna, where Deepti Naval, a qualified doctor, has to act as a conservative, tradition bound, daughter in law to Utpal Dutt, who strongly believes in orthodox values. Good performances by Deepti Naval, Faroque Shaikh and Utpal Dutt in it.
Accha Bura, his reworking of his own movie Mem Didi, was however quite disappointment. While Amjad Khan and Ranjeet as the crooks, were good enough, the lead pair of Raj Babbar and Anita Raaj, were totally bland.
definetely hrishikesh mukherjee was a genre in himself.Chupke Chupke is a eternal fav..
RK – I am very sure that Musafir and Madhumati were filmed at the same time. In fact Salilda caught DK humming to himself on the sets of Madhumati. Hrishikesh Mukherji agreed to Salilda’s idea of letting DK sing. Musafir was a small budget film , only sot indoors and so HM could complete it fast.
It was Suchitra Sen who had influenced HM to do a film ( while making Devdas ). Hence Musafir. Musafir’s shooting was done in a studio which was opposite to the studio of Devdas.
@KCP,
Lagi nahi chhute Rama song.
His singing justified the use of voice of Talat Mehmood for most of his early films till Rafi took the place
@Ratnakar
Yet to see Musafir. Dunno how i find a copy of that film. Tried a lot but no success. I guess DD used to show these films earlier. I can catch any other hrishida film on set max( feel the setmax people also are big fan of him). Agree with everything you say.
@Rk
You are true when u say that decline in a directors creativity is possible but not in the case of hrishida. I mean his treatment was always consistent but the settings changed which is why his films were not up to the mark later. I am not against zanjeer, i love it and it is difficult to act in that kind of movie also but somethere i felt amitabh’s true image was explored by Hrishida.
As he once said “Amitabh is used mere as a Stuntman in hindi films”. and yes it was true. No one would have dared to cast amitabh as ‘Professor Sukumar Sinha’ in chupke chupke when he was already tagged as angry hero. The way hrishida played with versatility of actors, i felt what genious and daring director he would. And he dealt it with panache.
No one could have imagined dharmendra playing a character like Dr. Parimal Tripathi in chupke chupke and also like in Guddi but hrishida always another angle in every actor and he always proved it.
Even when i talk to my friends about Hrishida, they seem to not knowing about him but his movies.His movies have always left great impact on their viewers.
I din like JHOOTH BOLE KAUWA KAATE though. Dialogues were cliched to a lot extent. Vintage hrishida touch was present but something was missing. A lot say he was very ill while making the movie. He could not concentrate in the entire making. I really hoped once that hrishida and gulzar come together and make a movie.
I have read somewhere hrishida was about to make a movie after Jhooth bole… The story was written by salil chowdhary and it was with hrishida. It was about a letter if i can remember. People said that the story was very emotional and hrishida was really interested in it but sadly he could not make due to his illness. Hope someone takes up that story and make it.
Bhavesh,
Great Timing!.. I have a post ready on Musafir:) could not publish last week but here it comes on this weekend…
one of the most underrated Amitabh-Hrishi da film is Aalaap… simply one of my favs of the two.. would call it just short of classic.. to me it is an excellent cinematic piece..
@ RK
Mostly why i feel he would have made maachis the same way bcuz i feel gulzar and hrishida had similar sensibilities. I felt that after watching Angoor and Parichay. I mean i really could not differentiate whether it was a gulzar’s or hrishida’s movie. Both treated movie same way. I mean they never concentrated on cliched dialogues or key scenes or larger than life characters. For them all scenes are key scenes. Their representation of emotions was more down to earth than melodramatic.
as said by hrishida “It’s more difficult to portray simple emotions on screen than complex ones”.
Maybe hrishida would not have made Maachis but i want to say that if he wud have made it wud not have been different.
@Pavan
Wow, you know i am dying to see Musafir. Would love read about it in your post. Will i get a DVD/VCD at any store?
Yeah forgot to mention alaap, guess was too much into writing for hrishida. but yeah alaap is one of my favs too. I have all those DVD/VCDs except musafir.
@Bhavesh,
IMHO, there can not be any such thing as true image for a versatile actor.
This is for sure that team of a good actor and a good director always brings very good films.
Chupke Chupke is 1975 film and that makes its making atleast in 1974 seeing business of Dharmendra in those years. Those were the times of making of Sholay also.
Surely Zanzeer was a hit film in 1973 but after that Amitabh was doing different kind of films and they were not all Hrishikesh Mukharjee films. Saudagar, Ek Najar, Bansi Birju, Kasuati, Benam, Majboor, are films released Sholay and Deewar also came around same time. and then even after giving series of super hits, he was doing Manzil in 1979 and except Deewar and Sholay, none of the above mentioned film is action film and they explored different facets of his acting capabilities.
This is just one side of coin when we say that who would cast Dharmendra and Amitabh in Chupke Chupke, we can see opposite side also that after seeing Satyakam, Guddi, Chupke Chupke etc who would cast Dharmendra in Sholay and Dharam Veer or Amitabh in Deewar?
These are highly capable actors and different directors keep different senisbilities and they can see something suitable in the actors and utilize them for their purpose.
This is quite sure that if Amitabh Bachchan had remained limited to Hrishiukesh Mukharjee’s films only then today we would have complained that he did films where he displayed limited range of acting only. as I mentioned with the examples of Amol Palekar and Farookh Sheikh.
Because we have not witnessed that era so we extrapolate back the present images in the past time. we think that Amitabh was such a big star and how a director used in such a different role and though reality is those were his formative years of super stardom and he was doing many differeent films at same time because new stars have to make their places. This super stardom is matter of 1978-80 phase and still he was doing Bemisal with Hrishi DA (1982).
Its subjective thing but to keep Naram Garam and Rang Birangi and his 80s films in the category of Hrish Da’s films like Golmal and Chupke Chupke is not justified.
Naram Garam is half borrowed from Golmal and its quite arepetitive film and that freshness is not there which was present in Bawarchi, Golmal and Chupke Chupke.
Comparing a directors own films with each other does not bring that director down. Like every other creative director Hrishi Da also has different levels in his filmography. We can not say that if he made 40 films then all 40 films can be placed on level 1.
It can not happen because film making is a team effort and its a lengthy process and humanbeing can not maintain same class of standard always for such a long time. Other parameters do affect.
Its not only with Man Mohan Desai or Prakash Mehra but Hrishikesh Mukharjees also face stagnation after sometime and they start giving similar kind of films.
Rest in this discussion later.
here’s Hrishida in PFC’s archives
http://passionforcinema.com/hrishikesh-mukherjee-forever/
oz interestingly i read that article of urs yesterday..and i thank u whole-heartedly for that wonderful write up…
Hrishida is one of the most under-rated directors ,whenever we discuss great directors ,his name features later ,I somehow feel that it has got to do with the themes he chose rather than the quality of his work ,comedy and entertaining films have always been looked down upon when it comes to critics.
i dont think hrishida is underrated ….i mean yeah the more u praise him the lesser it is but….i havent encountered anyone who doesnt like his movies ….be it people our grandfather’s age or our father’s age and our own generation.
ask anyone their favourite comedy films it has to include golmaal and chupke chupke…
and i dont think his films are looked down by critics…i dont abt then but im sure not now…
@Oz
Took a printout of your article on Hrishida. Especially the film biopic section ,it’s going in my collector’s handbook.
One movie of Hrishi da which i really enjoyed was Rang Birangi.It was truly a laugh riot,especially when Farooque Shaikh goes into Amol Palekar’s office pretending to be Dhurandhar Bhatavdekar who incidentally turns out to be Utpal Dutt in a howlarious cameo
Hrishida’s achievement was in keeping things short, sweet and simple. I just started watching Chupke Chupke right now, and am at the scene where Kaka (the caretaker of the lodge) needs to visit his grandson with ill health. Dharmendra gives Kaka some money, and that’s it. The scene doesn’t go overboard with dialogues like Beta Tumhara Ehsaan….Arrey iss mein ehsaan ki kya baat hai..yeh to mera farz hai..ek insaan hi to insaan ke kaam aata hai…nothing at all. Dharam praaji gave money, and kaka took it. No further exchange of dialogues and it just looks so natural and simple.
I vaguely remember watching a movie with Vinod Khanna, Jeenat Amaan and Vinod Mehra in lead role, set in some foreign country. I think it was made by Hrishi Da. Anyone knows the name?
@ Amit
I think that movie was Namumkin. And if i remember, it was Raj Babbar, Zeenat and Vinod Mehra in it. Have no clue about the movie. I only came to know of the movie name, because it has a lovely song from Kishore-RD
“Bahut door hoke, bahut paas hoke
Meri Zindagi mera pehchaan ho tum”.
Amit, that is Namumkin.. Vinod Mehra was there with Raj Babbar (not Vinod Khanna) and Sanjeev Kumar.. an unusual murder mystery with chief protagonists include Om Shivpuri and Dr. Sreeram Lagoo..
Although the film was slow paced and you miss Hrishida’s mark (it was an NRI venture and based entirely in US).. but the music was outstanding.. RD Burman gave two brilliant songs with Kishore da.. Ae Zindagi huee kahaan bhool and Bahut door hoke bahut paas ho tum.. Both of them can rank in the best of two artists..
Bhavesh, Hrishida is amongst the top 5 Indian directors in my book..and one of the most simple storytellers ever to grace Indian cinema. Period.
His cinema did not have high drama, great acting or high technique but his cinema prevailed on the emotions. True Indian taste!
I have seen all of his movies. Personal favs – Mili, Abhimaan, Anuradha, Alaap, Bawarchi, Golmaal and Chupke Chupke.
Best scene – Amitabh and Jaya finish their song in Abhimaan after their marriage, all clapping and David comes out with that prophetic line! Simple yet so classy!
Best edit – Bawarchi – early morning chai scene where Jaya is running to each room serving Tea..one long sequence..note the quick edits to achieve this glory..the soundtrack that keeps changing culminating in Asrani’s taan!!Awesome!!
Best Music – Salil Chowdhury in Anand..hands down..brilliant..totally in sync with the movie’s flow.
Best dialogues – dont know who wrote but it is Golmaal!!! Hrishida’s stamp all over!!!