[Part of a series of posts about musical sequences in old Hindi films. Earlier entries here and here]
As you can probably tell from the last post (where I got myself into a muddy rabbit-hole populated by termites, elephants and elephant-sized termites), my defensiveness about the artistic worth of popular cinema has been at an even-higher-than-usual ebb recently. I’ve been thinking a lot about the methods of mainstream Hindi films, and how vulnerable those methods are to critical snobbery of the sort that says either “This is rubbish and not worth my time and attention” or (in some cases even more damagingly) “Great fun, but that’s all – it doesn’t deserve serious engagement.” (This is of course a variant on Pauline Kael’s simplistic Trash-vs-Art distinction.)
Anyway, coming to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1966 Biwi aur Makaan, which has quickly become a personal favourite, and a reminder that a “frothy”, “fun” movie, apparently modest in ambition and not about Important Things, can achieve at a grand level by doing everything extremely well; by combining its many elements – including performance, writing and music – into a beautifully realised world.
Background: this is a comedy about five young men looking for accommodation in the city, being turned away by bachelor-unfriendly landlords, and eventually forced into a masquerade: two of them dress up as women and pretend to be the wives of two of the others. (This plot was reworked in the Marathi film Ashi hi Banwa Banwi and more recently in the tiresome Paying Guests.) Highlights include a masterful performance by Mehmood as the main orchestrator of events, the Yudhisthira figure in this group of modern “Pandavas” (who are exiled not in the forest but in the city). Biswajit and Keshto Mukherjee have a gala time too as the two cross-dressers who make reasonably convincing women, and come to inhabit their new personas better than they themselves might have expected.
But one of the most distinctive things about Biwi aur Makaan is its use of songs, which often take the place of dialogue – and this may be the time to mention that this was Mukherjee’s first collaboration with Gulzar. In itself, Hemant Kumar’s score is not extraordinary (not as good as the one he did for Mukherjee’s Anupama around the same time, anyway) but it is notable for incorporating conflicting musical notes and emotions in the same song, especially when the five friends sing together. The film is at its most fluid in these sequences.
My current favourite is “Bas Mujkho Mohabbat Ho Gayi Hai”. The situation here is that one of the friends, the seedha-saadha Shekhar, has unexpectedly fallen in love with a (real) girl and this threatens to compromise the charade that they have all worked so hard on. Thus, while Shekhar goes moony-eyed and sings sorrowful, unrequited-lover lyrics with the refrain “Mujhko mohabbat ho gayi hai”, the others try to bring him to his senses. They plead, they scold, they cajole, and their chorus “Ab kya hoga, yaaron kya hoga” provides the counterpoint to his song so that we have a symphony of clashing moods. Watch.
Some things I like:
The tragic love song is such a sacrosanct thing in our cinema, and here we have a soulful, straight-faced rendition of such a song (or part-song) by Mukesh, a master at the art. Yet his lines are not given the hushed respect one would expect: they are rudely countered by a very different register of music, and this sets up a pleasing duality. Though the genuineness of poor Shekhar’s feelings are never in question, we also know what his friends are going on about, and (if we’ve watched the film from the beginning) we share their bewilderment and annoyance: Shekhar used to be scared of girls; what a bad time to go and get smitten by one! The episodic structures of mainstream Hindi cinema are such that one is used to seeing “dramatic” tracks alternating with “comic” tracks, but here both modes operate in unison, as if to acknowledge that one man’s tragedy can be another man’s comedy, or at least that the two can go hand in hand; the effect is notably different.
Biwi aur Makaan is what some people might think of as a “lowbrow” comedy (the cross-dressing motif alone can create such associations among those who are inclined to judge films by their subject matter), and indeed some of the markers of slapstick can be found here: such as the single-note “funny” sound that plays after the line “Mujhko mohabbat ho gayi hai”. But even this is incorporated so well into the overall texture of the scene. The reaction shots of the friends, which accompany the sound, are exaggerated and theatrical, but they fit the growing hysteria (culminating in that superb moment where Mehmood drops all pretence to singing and simply hollers “chhup kar!” when Shekhar launches into his latest Devdas-ish whimper. His exasperation mirrors that of the viewer).
Around the 1.50 mark, Arun (Biswajit) – dressed in a sari – begins slipping into character as a woman even though he doesn’t have to (everyone in the scene knows who he is). He gently strokes Shekhar’s head in the manner of a sympathetic didi or bhabhi, rather than a yaar. This continues a while later, when the two “women” sit down with Shekhar, fussing over him, and the “badi bhabhi” (played by Keshto) offers the lovelorn Shekhar an alternative, pointing at Arun and saying “Marna hai toh ISS pe mar lo”. I love the sense that the Biswajit and Keshto characters, through the emotional power of music, have temporarily taken on these new roles to offset the masculine energies otherwise present in the song.
Other songs in Biwi aur Makaan work to similar effect, carrying the narrative forward and telling us important things about the main characters. See for instance “Nahin Hota”, in which two men complain about how difficult it is to be women. (This is also an early example of Gulzar’s use of seemingly discordant English words – in this case “petticoat” and “makeup” – to fine effect in a Hindi song.) And here is another of my favourite songs, “Jab Dosti Hoti Hai” (without the video, alas), which introduces the five friends and includes a short passage of “rap” that pre-dates “Rail Gaadi” by two years. But really, if you can get hold of a decent print, I’d recommend seeing the complete film so you can appreciate how integral the musical sequences are to the whole.
As you can probably tell from the last post (where I got myself into a muddy rabbit-hole populated by termites, elephants and elephant-sized termites), my defensiveness about the artistic worth of popular cinema has been at an even-higher-than-usual ebb recently. I’ve been thinking a lot about the methods of mainstream Hindi films, and how vulnerable those methods are to critical snobbery of the sort that says either “This is rubbish and not worth my time and attention” or (in some cases even more damagingly) “Great fun, but that’s all – it doesn’t deserve serious engagement.” (This is of course a variant on Pauline Kael’s simplistic Trash-vs-Art distinction.)
Anyway, coming to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1966 Biwi aur Makaan, which has quickly become a personal favourite, and a reminder that a “frothy”, “fun” movie, apparently modest in ambition and not about Important Things, can achieve at a grand level by doing everything extremely well; by combining its many elements – including performance, writing and music – into a beautifully realised world.Background: this is a comedy about five young men looking for accommodation in the city, being turned away by bachelor-unfriendly landlords, and eventually forced into a masquerade: two of them dress up as women and pretend to be the wives of two of the others. (This plot was reworked in the Marathi film Ashi hi Banwa Banwi and more recently in the tiresome Paying Guests.) Highlights include a masterful performance by Mehmood as the main orchestrator of events, the Yudhisthira figure in this group of modern “Pandavas” (who are exiled not in the forest but in the city). Biswajit and Keshto Mukherjee have a gala time too as the two cross-dressers who make reasonably convincing women, and come to inhabit their new personas better than they themselves might have expected.
But one of the most distinctive things about Biwi aur Makaan is its use of songs, which often take the place of dialogue – and this may be the time to mention that this was Mukherjee’s first collaboration with Gulzar. In itself, Hemant Kumar’s score is not extraordinary (not as good as the one he did for Mukherjee’s Anupama around the same time, anyway) but it is notable for incorporating conflicting musical notes and emotions in the same song, especially when the five friends sing together. The film is at its most fluid in these sequences.
My current favourite is “Bas Mujkho Mohabbat Ho Gayi Hai”. The situation here is that one of the friends, the seedha-saadha Shekhar, has unexpectedly fallen in love with a (real) girl and this threatens to compromise the charade that they have all worked so hard on. Thus, while Shekhar goes moony-eyed and sings sorrowful, unrequited-lover lyrics with the refrain “Mujhko mohabbat ho gayi hai”, the others try to bring him to his senses. They plead, they scold, they cajole, and their chorus “Ab kya hoga, yaaron kya hoga” provides the counterpoint to his song so that we have a symphony of clashing moods. Watch.
Some things I like:
The tragic love song is such a sacrosanct thing in our cinema, and here we have a soulful, straight-faced rendition of such a song (or part-song) by Mukesh, a master at the art. Yet his lines are not given the hushed respect one would expect: they are rudely countered by a very different register of music, and this sets up a pleasing duality. Though the genuineness of poor Shekhar’s feelings are never in question, we also know what his friends are going on about, and (if we’ve watched the film from the beginning) we share their bewilderment and annoyance: Shekhar used to be scared of girls; what a bad time to go and get smitten by one! The episodic structures of mainstream Hindi cinema are such that one is used to seeing “dramatic” tracks alternating with “comic” tracks, but here both modes operate in unison, as if to acknowledge that one man’s tragedy can be another man’s comedy, or at least that the two can go hand in hand; the effect is notably different.
Biwi aur Makaan is what some people might think of as a “lowbrow” comedy (the cross-dressing motif alone can create such associations among those who are inclined to judge films by their subject matter), and indeed some of the markers of slapstick can be found here: such as the single-note “funny” sound that plays after the line “Mujhko mohabbat ho gayi hai”. But even this is incorporated so well into the overall texture of the scene. The reaction shots of the friends, which accompany the sound, are exaggerated and theatrical, but they fit the growing hysteria (culminating in that superb moment where Mehmood drops all pretence to singing and simply hollers “chhup kar!” when Shekhar launches into his latest Devdas-ish whimper. His exasperation mirrors that of the viewer).
Around the 1.50 mark, Arun (Biswajit) – dressed in a sari – begins slipping into character as a woman even though he doesn’t have to (everyone in the scene knows who he is). He gently strokes Shekhar’s head in the manner of a sympathetic didi or bhabhi, rather than a yaar. This continues a while later, when the two “women” sit down with Shekhar, fussing over him, and the “badi bhabhi” (played by Keshto) offers the lovelorn Shekhar an alternative, pointing at Arun and saying “Marna hai toh ISS pe mar lo”. I love the sense that the Biswajit and Keshto characters, through the emotional power of music, have temporarily taken on these new roles to offset the masculine energies otherwise present in the song.
Other songs in Biwi aur Makaan work to similar effect, carrying the narrative forward and telling us important things about the main characters. See for instance “Nahin Hota”, in which two men complain about how difficult it is to be women. (This is also an early example of Gulzar’s use of seemingly discordant English words – in this case “petticoat” and “makeup” – to fine effect in a Hindi song.) And here is another of my favourite songs, “Jab Dosti Hoti Hai” (without the video, alas), which introduces the five friends and includes a short passage of “rap” that pre-dates “Rail Gaadi” by two years. But really, if you can get hold of a decent print, I’d recommend seeing the complete film so you can appreciate how integral the musical sequences are to the whole.
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