“Sitara” & “Palkon Ki Chhanv mein” : 2 films by an A.D of Gulzar
Meraj had been Asstt. Director in the team of Gulzar Saab since his very first film, Mere Apne(1971).
Palkon Kee Chhanv mein [PKCM] (1977) :
In 1975 Gulzar made “Khushboo” which was based on the story written by Sarat Chandra Chaterjee. He further explored the character of Kusum, played by Hema Malini and wrote a story revolving around a woman who waits for his lost lover. Now this factor is so common in folk songs, stories prevalent in several regions of India where woman waits for their husbands or lovers, who have gone on a war. They don’t know they would come back or not but they wait for them.
Gulzar took this thread and weaved his story around Mohini (Hema Malini). But this factor becomes clear somewhere in the middle of the film. PKCM is story of Ravi (Rajesh Khanna) also. Ravi, in spite of being a graduate, has taken the job of a postman because of dearth of employment. He is posted in a village. Jovial Ravi, does not suffer from inferiority complex that he has taken low paid job of a post man and he enjoys his life and job and slowly he becomes familiar with the people of village and starts taking interest in their life.
He enjoys his work and sings
Dakia dak laya (Postman has brought the letters). A beautiful song, sung by Kishor Kumar.
He sees Mohini and starts liking and eventually loving her but then he gets to know that she is waiting for an army officer, whose battalion had come here few years ago and Mohini and army officer felt in love and officer went away after saying lot of promises. He did not come back but Mohini still waits for him and she cant accept any other person in her life.
Ravi’s newly budding love is crushed before it could be flourished but no matter how much heart broken he is, like a true lover, he tries to help Mohini. But to his astonishment he finds that army officer has been killed in the war.
He has to say this shattering news to Mohini but there is danger that she may take him wrong because she knows he also loves her.
How this problem is solved? Does Mohini accept the reality and starts living life afresh?
Does Ravi get love of Mohini?
This all is depicted in the film.
Film has a drought kind of angle also, inspired by film Guide and all the villagers sing the song
Allah Megh de.(God! Please shower the rain on us).
Rajesh Khanna easily essays the role of a charming postman. Such roles have been cake walk for him and he pleases the audience with his performance. This is his kind of film and thus deal heart to heart matters. Audience don’t get such winsome characters in real life with ease and thus his charming manners please them.
Hema Malini, had played such role in Khushboo also under the apt direction of Gulzar saab so for her this was just extension of the previously played character and she does it beautifully. When she lip-syncs the song, Koi mere mathe ki bindia saja de re, (Somebody should decorate my forehead with red spot) then she displays the emotions very well. She is happy that she would get news of her lost lover and she feels that son she will be reunited with him. Long wait has made her vulnerable and sadness has entered in her deeply. She has done good job in films either directed or written by Gulzar.
Jeetendra plays the small role of Army Officer lover of Hema Malini, with usual charm.
Master Raju has also been a performer in Gulzar’s films. In 1977 he had done a nice job in Kitab and here also he makes his presence noticeable.
In small roles Farida Jalal, Kanhaiya Lal, Amjad Khan and Leela Mishra make their performances interesting and admirable.
Laxikant- PyareLal’s music adds attraction to the film and all the songs are very good.
* * * *
(2) Sitara (1980) : A predecessor of Rangeela!
Sitara is the story of two childhood lovers, Dhania(Zareena Waheb) and Kundan (Mithun Chakravorty), who are poor and their economic conditions bring them to Bombay and they start working in a cinema hall. Girl is fascinated by films and she has hidden desire to become an actress. She often imitates the dances shown on screen.
Once they go on rickshaw to advertise the new film to be screened in the cinema hall where they work. In a deserted place Dhania, plays the record of the songs of the film and start dancing by thinking that she is the heroine of that film. She pulls Kundan also and he also joins her. They both become so involved in the dance that they forget every other thing. One person watches them. He is related with films. He likes Dhania and her dance. He approaches her and soon she gets a chance to act in the films. Her name is changed from Dhania to Sarita. With the success of her films she becomes a big star. But Kundan does not enjoy now. He feels that in this glamour world, their love is lost somewhere. He loves her but she is lost in her dreams of making it big in filmdom.
Does he get success in making her realise about his love towards her or he loses her and she forgets him because of glittering of film world? Depressed Kundon decide to go back to his village.
Will his absence make Dhania/Sarita realise what she has lost in the life under the excuse of getting success in the competitive world of cinema?
Sitara explores this side of life of actors coming from small towns and villages.
Mithun Chakravorty acts very well and this is his film. During those years of late 70s and early 80s, he displayed many good performances but sadly they did not make him super star, which every actor wants to become.
Zareena Waheb looks very genuine when she is Dhania and she tries hard to do full justice to the role of actress also. Is it power of two shades of same character or her own personality but she looks more genuine in the role of Dhania than Sarita’s? But on an average she gives good performance.
Biggest attraction in the film is music by RD Burman. Trio of RD Burman, Asha Bhonsle and Bhupinder do magic in the songs like
Yeh Saye hain (These are the shadows) – Asha Bhonsle
Thodhi si zameen ( Small piece of land) – Lata and Bhupinder
Sajana ka kangna (bracelet of lover) – Asha and Bhupinder
Sath Sath tum chalo (You walk along with me) – Asha and Bhupinder
And Gulzar Saab decorated the songs with his pearl like words.
Ram Gopal Verma’s successful film, Rangeela, is more than 80% copy of Sitara rather Rangeela can be said as remake of Sitara.
* * * *
Meraj made two nice films which provide good entertainment and pleasure of watching good cinema.
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
Thanks for the review of two films.. Meraj saab died a couple of years back.. Infact his first film was “Khwahish” in mid 70s which got shelved..
From Sitara, Ye saaye hain is a lyrical beauty… (ofcourse Asha ji’s rendering and Pancham da composition takes the to another heights), still I fall in love with this song due to its lyrics…
Ye saaye hain sketches the ugly face of bollywood film industry Sitara’s story and ambience was set on film industry. Story of a village girl (Zareena
Wahaab) who dreams to make it big in films and she makes it too). The song portrays the loneliness and pains of the stardom, when she realizes the truth behind glamourous world and the sacrifices she had to make to be there, specially her love interest (Mithun da) who is not with her when she becomes a star.
“Ye saaye hain, ye duniya hai parchhaiyon ki
bhari bheed me khaali tanhaaiyon ki”
She realizes the filmworld is not real (duniya hai parchhaiyon ki).. and even though she is big and famous actress with lots of fan following and producers-directors in queue, yet she finds herself alone, missing her own world…
my favourite stanza is
“yahaan saare chehare hain maange hue se
nigaahon main aansoo bhi taange hue se
badi neechi raahein hain, oonchaiyon ki”
in this showbiz world, the people and relations are naqli, even the emotions are false.
to reach the heights of stardom, one has to make a lot of compromises on moral values… shohrat ki oonchaiyon pe pahunchane ke liye aadami ko girna padta hai. isiliye ‘badi neechi raahein hain, oochaaiyon ki’
What a song!!!
I dont think any other song portrays such a true picture of bollywood industry..
Pavan
Hi Pavan:
I did not know about death of Meraj saab.
I had no clue abt his first film Khwahish which got shelved.
You also seem to be ardent fan of Gulzar saab.Its nice to have your comment here where you have so beautifully described the depth of the song.
Every song has a pinnacle point and the stanza you quoted shows that height of this song.
Only Gulzar saab like poet can bring such similies and contrary elements in his songs.
This is also true that song very ably describes the ephemeral stardom.
Thanks for this detailed comment.:)
Sad thing is that not much info. is available of the Director of these movies. What was his full name? Where was he born? Nothing.
@RK
Thanks for reminding me of the song.
Allah Megh de
Almost forgot about the films except when their songs are played at home. My fav from Sitara still is Thodi si zameen… it shows the simplicity of the two characters Mithun and Zareena. Thodi si zameen thoda aasman, tinko ka bas ek aashiyaan…
PKCM… was another nice movie thought I felt it was over sugary and the goals of the movie were put forth right before the viewer from the very first reel… the postman and the lady… still the songs just hold you in their embrace…
Thanks for digging up details about Meraj.
When I saw Rangeela I knew I had seen a movie with the same story. Could not remember it. It must be Sitara. I must have watched it when I was a kid. But still I think there is another film with the same story.
RK:
Thodhi si zameen is by Lata and Bhupinder, beautiful song it is !
Meraj’s first two films introduced us to an interesting team… Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Gulzar coming together as MD-Lyricist.. Khwahish was the first time when this team worked together unfortunately the film never got completed but one of the songs “Ankh me kyun nami nami si rehti hai” has a unique blend of gulzar’s poetry and LP’s composition.. then came PKCM, which has another beauty in the form of “Koi mere maathe ki bindiya sajaa de re”.. Laxmikant-Pyarelal have given a different and unusual treatment to this song and Lataji has complemented the composition very well. The desires, and the sadness with an ample tinge of innocence of the heroine is conveyed very effectively in gulzar saab’s lyrics and makes
it a wonderful listening experience..
“aankhon mein raat kaa kaajal lagaake
mai.n aangan mein ThanDe savere bichhaa doo.n”
a beautiful song by an unusual team..
Later the team pf LP-Gulzar worked for two more films “Gehrai” (Kishore da singing a beautiful poem “rishte bas rishte hote hain”) and ofc “Ghulami” (who can forget zihale-miskin)..
Vinayak: Thanks for that detailed info. abt bengali folk song. Its very much possible given bengali background of Late SDBurman. It may be based on that bengali folk song but SD surely made this song immortally popular along with other song of Guide, Jayega kahan Musafir. That song may also have some connection to the Vaishnav devotion cult or may be directly from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s songs. Both are precious songs and enhance the quality of music in hindi films. His own voice perfectly fit in to such songs and all those majhi songs.
Oz: surely songs add value to the film PKCM but film itself brings good entertainment even now.
Justin:There can be other film also on which Rangeela is based. But either I have not seen any such film ort my memory is not helping me.
But surprisngly neither during the release of Rangeela nor after also, nobody from the RGV’s factory and noone from the cast of film-journalists said that Rangeela is a remake. Though may be with bit more dose of comedy through Aamir’s chacater.:-?
Nitin: sorry due to continuous mentioning of names of Asha and Bhupinder I made that mistake. Thanks for correction. I have made correction.
Pavan: Thanks for detailed comment abt LP and Gulzar saab’s association through Late Meraj saab’s films.
Lata Mangeshkar’s skill of changing her voice slightly to express the different moods of the character is so visible through in this song, Ghunghta gira hai, ghunghta utha de re, koi mere mathe ki bindiya…
She is hapy with hope and then becomes sad because of the reality and then complains also
Na Chithi hi aayee na sandesha aya
har ahat pe ane ka amdesha aya
and then again becomes happy when sings
koi jhuthi muthi kivarhaiya hila de re
Thats the advantage of whenever a team of geniuses like LP, Gulzar Saab and Lata ji, meet.
high quality product is guaranteed.
thanks for reminding that rare song of Kishor Kumar, and one of the most beautiful song picturised on Mithun, Zihale-miskim.
Though never could understand the meaning of those words in first line but song never failed in binding me.:)
Pavan:
have written on your latest comment. seems its stuck in loop, hope its released later.
But I wish you could write a post on Gulzar Saab’s lyrical magic.
That will be a treat for us his fans:)
There is an interesting bit of info related to this that I got today.. LP is doing one more film (song to be precise) with Gulzar saab. Farah Khan’s next directional venture “Om Shanti Om” is going to have a special song (tribute to 70s) composed by Pyarelal Ji and penned by Gulzar saab.. Looking forward to it..
Hi All,
Does anyone know the exact date of Meraj Saab’s Death. If you do, please let me know. Meraj Saab made only 2 films but both the films are beautiful and Heart Touching. Sitara is actually not yet available on DVD or VCD yet. Thanks again.
main madhuri dixit banna chahti hoon is more inspired by sitara…and not rangeela!!
@ricky,
Thanks for the informative comment.