Do Bhiga Zamin (1953)

It was with great expectations that I sat down to watch this Bimal Roy classic from the early 1950s. It is was an award winning movie at that time and had received a lot of acclaim, not only in India, but around the world. Also, having recently watched the 1964 war movie Haqeeqat that boasted of a stellar performance from Balraj Sahni, I was completely looking forward to watching another superb performance from him.  But contrary to expectations, ‘Do Bhiga Zamin’ ended as a truly underwhelming experience for me.

The movie is about the struggles of a helpless farmer Shambhu (Balraj Sahni in an author backed role) and his family, who have to return a sum of Rs. 250 to the village Zamindar, and have just three months to arrange for it (The actual debt is around Rs.65 but the Zamindar gets the account fudged as revenge for Shambhu refusing to sell his ‘Do Bhiga Zameen’ to him.) Unable to generate funds in the village, poor Shambhu decided to move to the city in hope of getting some work there. Unknown to him his son Kanhaiya too gets on the train by which he is making the journey; and they both reach Calcutta. Once in the city they struggle to find even shelter, and just when you think things can’t go any worse for them, their belongings get stolen (including the bit of money they had).

They end up getting shelter in a basti thanks to a good hearted land lady. Their neighbor, a hand-rickshaw puller, helps Shambhu to get a rickshaw license and soon Shambhu starts toiling hard to earn 2-3 rupees a day. His son too joins him in his struggle by taking up boot polish with the help of a street smart friend Laloo ustad.  Just when it looks like things are going all right for them, disaster happens and Shambhu gets severely injured after meeting with a freak accident. And just when you think that all the misery in the world was not enough for the poor family, Shambhu’s father turns ill, his wife is forced to leave the village and visit the injured Shambhu in the city-where she is fooled into a trap by a thug. In the effort to escape from him she meets with an accident.  For helping her recover, Shambhu is forced to part with all the money he and his son had earned by the efforts of their sweat and blood- resulting in the auction of their land according to the court order and his father going insane.

The film was a disappointment for me because of a number of reasons. First- it was highly melodramatic. The director was attempting a realistic subject but overdid it by including too many clichés (which might not have been clichés at that time- but even then it is hard to believe that all the problems in the world managed to find the address of the poor farmer Shambhu). Second- the entire tone of the film was theatrical- and the acting looked too in your face and sometimes even amateurish. Balraj Sahni really gave another spectacular performance but the effect gets diluted due to the less than adept supporting cast (Nirupa Roy being an exception). Third- the director took the extreme view as far as industrialization is concerned. The subject offered him the opportunity to propagate a new wave of thinking and break the shackles of illogical traditions and facets of our society, but he failed to capitalize on it. For instance even in an abject state the hero refuses his wife to work and earn some money (while the other women in the village are shown to fine with working for their bread). Similarly he rejoiced when his young kid starts to earn a living by doing boot polish (his spirit is celebratory while it should have been otherwise). The influential people are all depicted as monsters, apathetic to the woes of the poor- and this again is a very generalist view that the director takes.

And lastly, the film did not work for me because the way it culminated. After all the hard work, all the efforts that Shambhu and his kid put in, they are not able to save their land. This goes against the very thing that makes our movies so endearing- the spirit of hope and optimism. It looks ghastly the way they have ended the movie- just to make a point that the rich will keep treading on the hopes and aspirations of the poor to make their palaces of wealth.

However irrespective of the above there are a few sequences which are worth mentioning as individual pieces of brilliant art-

• When Shambhu loses the daily earning from a middle class household for which he used to drop two girls to their school, he still drops them without taking any wages- forgoing other customers from whom he could have made some earning.
• The Shambhu accident scene- A man and lady, who have had a fight, are indulging in a race of their hand-rickshaws (one of them being pulled by Shambhu). When the man offers a big amount to Shambhu to go faster, he puts in his all and unfortunately his rickety rickshaw is not able to handle the thrust- in the process causing a freak accident and an injury to Shambhu.
• The scene when Kanhaiya resorts to stealing in an effort to get some good food for his injured father. And later when Shambhu breaks down after discovering this misdoing on the part of his ‘bachhua’.

Shambhu is shown as such a good and self-less person that it seems like sacrilege when he does not achieve his goal in the end. And as I said that’s where I lost whatever little connect I had with this movie.

Haqeeqat (1964)

We had been always told as kids that India defeated Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 wars, but lost to China in 1962 conflict. But I, for one, had little clue about the scale of the clash and the enormity of the loss that India suffered at the hands of China. Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat is an EPIC on the Indo-Sino war, and a telling account of how poor we were as a nation strategically while dealing with the war. Starring Balraj Sahni, Dharmendra, Vijay Anand and a number of other faces that were willing to trade the last drop of blood in their body for the life of an enemy soldier, Haqeeqat was shot in the virgin locales of Ladakh, in black and white.

The film opens with the deployment of officers at various potentially dangerous locations across Ladakh. Brigadier Singh (Essayed by Jayant- a veteran actor who starred in many epic movies through the 1950s and 60s) travels to Srinagar to visit his son, Captain Bahadur Singh (Dharmendra in one of the early roles of his career). The situation they are faced with is tense, with India and China engaged in a dialogue regarding the territorial uncertainties in Ladakh, and China’s claims for a large piece of India’s territory in the area. Lack of a concrete border line only complicates the issue further. The initial few minutes of the film are spent establishing this fact while the soldiers reminisce about their romantic endeavors and families. The narrative is deliberately kept fractured, and no one actor is given an absolute prominence above others, though it does take some time to develop the relationship between Captain Bahadur and a Ladhaki girl. The relationship between her kid brother and Captain Bahadur too is very labouredly developed, but it is completely justified as this bond ultimately gains supreme importance in the larger scheme of things during the culmination of the film.

The key statement that this movie makes is that wars are won and lost on the table. And India suffered not just at the hands of an unexpectedly determined and savage Chinese aggression, but also because of its own tactical inadequacy and lack of preparedness. We refused to open fire till the Chinese forces were literally staring us in our faces, from twenty meters across, on the pretext of being a peace loving nation that picks that resorts to aggression only when some other nation starts violating our territories. We refused to understand the vested Chinese tactics that were directed towards catching us napping when we were the least prepared.

There are many memorable scenes that the movie leaves you with, and Major Ranjit Singh (Balraj Sahni in a stellar role) features in most of them. The instance when he lashes out on a junior officer who was undermining the importance of the imminent clash, and further bursting into a monologue on the Chinese intentions, is clap worthy.  Another, when he displays his inability to prevent a retreat of his men from the front, is a poignant sequence that asks a lot of questions on the stance that the Indian Government took during the whole combat. His cry of “I need men, I need guns, and I need bullets”- while almost breaking down, is truly heartwarming and makes you boil in rage at the futility of the whole exercise.

The climax sequence involves Captain Bahadur Singh and a colleague of his, who together are given an almost impossible task of stopping a whole platoon of Chinese soldiers (read Bastards). They, together with the Ladhaki girl and her brother almost achieve the impossible, laying down their lives in the process. What follows is one of the most memorable songs ever to have graced the Indian silver screen- ‘Kar Chale Hum Fida, Jaanon Tan Saathiyon- Ab Tumhare hawale Watan Saathiyon’- The song is sure to leave you with a lump in the throat- Chetan Anand uses some actual footage from the post war era to accentuate the effect.

What makes this saga truly unmatchable is the realism with which it is shot, and the grand scale of the war scenes. The performances from each member of the cast are top-notch, with Balraj Sahni leading the way. Jayant also gives an award winning performance as the helpless leader of the whole operation who himself has a son fighting the more than formidable enemy. Vijay Anand, the director’s brother, gets preferential treatment in a way that he gets a solo song, and the girl who was the love of Major Ranjit Singh’s life. Dharmendra plays the role of the charmer initially and then intense soldier with much aplomb. His love interest and her brother too pitch in with natural performances.

Haqeeqat truly is a landmark film in Indian cinema’s journey over the years. And it certainly acted as a reference point for later films like Border and LOC. It is one of the absolutely must watch movies- a film that every Indian should watch, feel, and absorb. Stunning. JAI HIND.