A history of Hindi cinema: The 1970s, part one

Welcome to a multi-part series on the History Of Hindi Cinema. Through individual films and the larger oeuvres of some Hindi filmmakers, we’ll explore the highlights of 70 years of cinema, starting with 1950, just three years after India won its independence from British rule, and ending in the 2010s.

(Due to the vast number of extraordinary Hindi cinema made in the 1970s, the decade is being covered in two parts to better explore different aspects of its films.)

In the 1950s, Hindi cinema, heavily inspired by European filmmakers and populated by actors, writers, and directors trained in classical Indian theatre, explored varying visions of a new country. In the 1960s, it took its audience on holiday. Films still explored complex themes and dabbled in experimentation, but also brought its viewers to the mountains and seas of a proud new nation. The 1970s, though, changed the course of Hindi cinema. 

The productivity of the 1970s was matched only by its quality, but no decade of Hindi films was impacted more by India’s politics. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi passed, with her majority in Congress, a host of popular legislation, including laws that nationalized banks, strengthened the nation’s agricultural sector, and improved livestock rearing. But the Bangladesh Liberation War, a catastrophic crisis that caused the deaths and displacement of millions, plus inflation caused by the 1973 oil crisis, laid the foundation for Gandhi’s declaration of a State of Emergency. This was accompanied by steep unemployment and general populist anger at the government. Indians were furious and wanted a savior. Films that argued for workers’ rights and criticized the caste system became more pointed in their delivery, but the invention of the Hindi “angry young man” trope, first proposed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, later finessed by the dynamite screenwriting duo Salim-Javed over the course of two dozen films, and embodied by Amitabh Bachchan, offered the audience a savior—a hero whose righteous anger provided deliverance. It was a difficult time to be a working or middle-class Indian, but it was a damn good time to be a moviegoer.

Shyam Benegal’s filmography, Part I: Ankur (The Seedling) (1974)

If ever there was a Hindi film director who understood that characters drive plot, and not the other way around, it was Shyam Benegal. Inspired by the neorealist filmmaking of Satyajit Ray and Bimal Roy, Benegal’s stories, centered on female characters, were marked by deep characterization and stinging rebukes of Indian customs. Ankur was his first film and one of the best, most important Hindi films ever made.

Lakshmi (Indian legend Shabana Azmi in her first film), an illiterate member of the Dalit class in rural India, is stuck in a childless marriage to Kishtaya (Sadhu Meher), a deaf-mute alcoholic. Surya (Anant Nag) is the wastrel son of a wealthy landowner; he’s stuck obeying his father, who knows his son only wants a higher education in the pursuit of spending time with his equally wastrel friends. After marrying his child bride, Surya is sent to oversee his father’s farmlands, instructed to wait for his new wife to reach puberty; his employees are Lakshmi and Kishtaya, who perform any and all manual labor.

At first blush, Surya seems like a better class of human than the casually classist and sexist members of his high-born caste. He is happy to eat and drink Lakshmi’s cooking, turning down offers of home-cooked food from the disapproving local Brahmin priest. He appears sympathetic to Lakshmi’s plight, having to communicate wordlessly with a drunk husband whose frustrating behavior tests her daily. But when Kishtaya runs away after being publicly punished for stealing toddy (moonshine), Lakshmi and Surya begin a sexual relationship. She knows the score though; this can’t last, his wife will one day arrive to live with him. He promises, despite warnings from his father that villagers have begun to talk, that he’ll always take care of her. 

Surya’s true nature unfolds when Saru (Priya Tendulkar), his now-of-age wife, arrives to live with him, just as Lakshmi begins showing symptoms of morning sickness. Saru fires Lakshmi and Surya hounds his mistress to get an abortion. To make matters worse, especially for the religious Lakshmi, Kishtaya returns, having rid himself of his addiction, his hand full of money he has earned for his wife. Mortified by her situation, Lakshmi weeps. The entanglements crescendo into a harrowing call-to-action finale. 

It would be one thing if this song-free Hindi film was a competent depiction of the inequities of the caste system, misogyny, infidelity, disability, addiction, and ignorance. But Ankur is a cinematic devastation. Every frame—ace cinematographer Govind Nihalani’s lighting and framing are an essential component of Benegal’s success as director—clarifies the power imbalance of its characters. Lakshmi is almost always either bent over, sweeping, cooking, dusting, or seated on the floor, or has her head bowed in front of Surya. The simple beauty of nature—flora and fauna, birdsong, the gentle drumming of rain—bear silent witness to the tessellations of emotional violence.

Benegal’s screenplay makes ample room for ambiguity: it’s unclear whether Kishtaya suspects his wife’s infidelity, or realizes it and forgives her, just as it is unclear whether he turned to alcohol because he could not give his wife a child. Swadesh Pal’s costumes add greater detail. At first, the impoverished Lakshmi only wears saris in primary colors. Her gold jewelry, likely given to her at her wedding, is simple. But as her life becomes more complicated, so do the colors of her attire. She transitions from red, yellow, and blue to purples and greens. And unlike the overwhelming majority of his fellow directors, Benegal lets conversations proceed without any background score. A director respecting their audience’s ability to understand emotional cues, without the strains of a mournful flute or a plucky, joyful sitar, remains an all-too-rare trait.

Perhaps the most staggering aspect of Ankur’s success is that the film was Benegal’s debut. Nag, Tendulkar, and Meher all deliver piercingly realistic performances, with Nag in particular embodying an Indian version of the American conservative who claims not to see race. What the spineless Surya means by saying, repeatedly, that he doesn’t believe in caste, is that it has never affected him, so he doesn’t have to think about it. But the true champion of this film is Azmi. Though she’d acted in other projects, this was her first released film, and she promptly won a National Film Award (India’s Oscars), the first of five she would win including a hat trick in 1983, 1984, and 1985. She is India’s Meryl Streep, able to do just about anything. Without her blistering performance, Ankur might not be the cultural touchstone it is today. Like Benegal, Azmi will appear over and over in this series, and the history of Hindi cinema is forever enriched by their contributions.

Manoj Kumar, auteur

There is precious little to admire about actor, writer, editor, and director Manoj Kumar’s ideology. At best, he was a patriot, deeply proud of India for finally kicking the British to the curb. At worst, his films espoused a nascent religious conservatism that seems almost quaint in comparison to, but has almost certainly contributed to, present-day right-wing Hindu fundamentalist rhetoric about marginalized groups. Granted, Kumar’s films never mentioned hate or bigotry, but simply focused on centering Hinduism as the sole moral mode of life (rather than on Hindu-Muslim solidarity).

Nonetheless, the way Kumar achieved this particular mission does, bizarrely, deserve some credit. He relayed his conservative message using just about every European New Wave technique he could find. Purab Aur Paschim (East And West) (1970), which Kumar produced, co-wrote, and directed, often feels as though Kumar dropped vast quantities of acid while watching French cinema. Freeze frames, jump cuts, revolving sets, kitschy multicolored landscapes, 1970s costumes on steroids, European hippies among the cast swaying and dancing to Hindu prayers—it’s an absolutely mad film that, despite its parochial views, is a treat for the eyes and ears.

The plot is nothing special: On a rainy night prior to Indian independence, a freedom fighter is killed while visiting his pregnant wife Ganga (Kamini Kaushal). The British police were tipped off about his presence by Harnam (Pran), whose family disowns his traitorous actions. Harnam kidnaps his toddler son from Kaushalya’s custody and flees to England. The slain revolutionary’s son, Bharat (played by Kumar himself), grows up to be a devout Hindu who has all the usual opinions about how Hindu culture is the best culture, that women should be properly covered up and stick to tending the home, that a parent-child relationship is all one needs to get by, etc. Bharat gets the shock of his life when he travels to London to study, not only by its societal norms—the film very much believes and shouts “East good, West bad!”—but by the behavior of Indian immigrants who have taken up residence in England and assimilated into its culture. 

Purab Aur Paschim explores several themes that were new to Indian audiences in the early 1970s, namely the experiences of Indians who leave and settle in the West. Kumar explicitly refers to this brain drain to criticize Indians abandoning their nation in order to enrich a colonial power. Bharat’s late father’s friend Sharma (Madan Puri) has two kids in England with an Indian wife who rarely speaks in Hindi; like their fully Westernized mother, Preeti (Saira Banu) and Shankar (Prem Nath doing his best Ringo Starr impression) and any Indians in their acquaintance use Anglicized versions of their names, and are rarely spotted without alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs. Yet Sharma longs to go back. He misses his culture and family, and accesses memories of his former life by listening to records of classical Indian vocalists—records his family despises and begs him to turn off. 

It’s through Preeti, Shankar, and their friends that Kumar does most of his propagandizing. His camera is trained on the exposed midriffs and thighs of young Englishwomen, the pint glasses of ale and tumblers of Scotch in the hands of partying hippies, the lurid electronic lights of Piccadilly Circus and nighttime London roads, the cold haughtiness of department store windows. Purab Aur Paschim boasts terrific costume work: splashy 1970s textiles making up miniskirts, plaid shirts, and broad-lapel blazers; large pendants, swinging earrings, and cocktail rings—all of which are treated as disrespectful to India. Judith Butler would have a field day with Kumar’s male gaze. He features imagery he knows runs contrary to Hindu values but accepts no responsibility for the lecherous angles of his camera, which lingers on décolletage and asses covered in translucent fabric. 

Bharat leads a reluctant little exodus back to India, quietly betting that if they just spend enough time in India, they’ll see it as the superior land. This is a crowdpleaser, so he is successful, and the twists the story takes to get there are completely unhinged. But the film’s visual style is already so bonkers that the story bends jive well with the execution, a feat quite rare in Hindi films that borrow heavily from non-Indian schools of cinema. The chasm between the frenetic and hallucinogenic stylization of the film (even when the setting returns to India) and its overall message could not be greater, but even if a modern audience would not abide by his message, Kumar finds a way to make it all work. 

Shor (Noise) (1972) is a very different type of Kumar film. He wrote, directed, edited, and starred as Shankar, a machine worker mourning the loss of his wife Geeta (Nanda, who appears in deeply emotional flashbacks), who pushed their son Deepak (Satyajeet) out of the path of an oncoming train, but could not save herself in time. Since the accident, Deepak has not spoken due to an injury to his vocal cords; the surgery to restore his speech costs the astronomical sum of 2,000 rupees (adjusted for inflation, that’s over 94,000 rupees). Shankar vows to raise the money somehow.

Just as Purab Aur Paschim raised new themes, so does Shor; the first being the nature of grieving single parenthood. Despite his sorrow and loneliness, Shankar is attentive and emotionally present in his son’s life. They share in each other’s loss, sing a song of Geeta’s (one of the loveliest Hindi film songs in history) when they miss her, and visit a beach the trio attended.

Two aspects of Shor set it apart from Kumar’s oeuvre. The first is its opening sequence, a naturalistic meditation on sound which weighs heavily on Shankar. His commute to work takes place on a clattering train, where passengers jostle and scream and shout. Jet planes roar in the clear blue sky as a man tunes a transistor radio, nonchalantly flipping through screaming static, loud songs, the local news. Cocks fight, scratching and shrieking, as onlookers do the same. It’s a striking cacophony, conveying the burden of noise pollution on a modernizing India, and on a man who longs to hear just one sound: his son’s voice. The second is its avowed left-wing politics. Though this was a common theme in films from the ’50s and ’60s, it was starting to die out, at least in commercial cinema, by the late 1970s. Shankar is a member of his factory’s union, and when the owner (Madan Puri) declines to raise wages in accordance with inflation, the workers go on strike. Though this loss of wages hinders Shankar’s ability to pay for his son’s surgery, he does not cross the picket line, and joins his fellow workers on a hunger strike. Their strike song, as they line the street outside the boss’s home, is catchy, filled with resolve and gratitude.

Shor veers into Hindi melodrama when it comes to sourcing the funds for Deepak’s surgery. After a moralizing detour into the lives of Shankar’s foolish sister and her greedy brother-in-law, the committed father decides to ride a bicycle for eight days straight in order to win 2,000 rupees. This would likely kill anyone who tried it, but Shankar is the hero fighting for the quality of his son’s life, so he is successful. His neighbors gather to cheer him on, and the surgery is successful. But the ending of the film is a surprise, an O. Henry twist best left for the viewer to experience. It’s a moving tribute to the near-supernatural instincts of parenthood.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s “middle cinema”

As we mentioned during our look at 1960s Hindi cinema, the commercial failure of Satyakam led Hrishikesh Mukherjee to develop “middle cinema,” a school of filmmaking that focused on ordinary, decent, middle-class Indians and the joys and tribulations of their daily lives. That’s not to say he sold out. Of the films Mukherjee made in the first half of the 1970s, both Anand (1971) and Namak Haraam (The Traitor) (1973) interrogate modernization, class differences, and friendship. Bawarchi (1972) and Parichay are comedies with dark undertones about kindness and grief, respectively, and Abhimaan (Pride) (1973) explores how envy and insecurity destroys a marriage between two singers. These aren’t even all the films Mukherjee directed in the early 1970s, but they are the best.

Anand, though, is one of the finest Hindi films ever made. Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan, in a key early role) embodied the first iteration of what screenwriters Salim-Javed would later refine into the “angry young man” trope. A scrupulous and accomplished doctor, Bhaskar is filled with rage: rage at the predicament of the slum residents to whom he prescribes medication they cannot afford, rage at the wealthy hypochondriacs who wander into his clinic searching for colorful pills to treat their imaginary illnesses, rage that he can find a medical solution to everything except poverty. His friend Dr. Prakash Kulkarni (Ramesh Deo) takes a different approach, explained beautifully in an exchange that takes place just after he asks a rich woman with no illnesses to speak of to return for a blood test. When she leaves, Bhaskar scolds his friend for his corruption:

Banerjee: “Do you think what you’re doing is good?”

Kulkarni: “It’s not so bad either. You sent a young man to me in the morning for an x-ray.”

Banerjee: “Yes. What did you find?”

Kulkarni: “There’s a patch of tuberculosis on his left lung. I told him to come by and get an injection every day. Do you think he can afford that? For his treatment, I take money from Mrs. Sanyal. And she doesn’t pay me for free. Yes, alright, she’s not ill. But she suspects she’s ill. And I treat her suspicion.”

Kulkarni mentions that his clinic is about to host a patient from New Delhi. Diagnosed with lymphosarcoma of the intestine, Anand (Rajesh Khanna) has three to six months left. Banerjee scoffs at the idea that Kulkarni’s clinic can provide alternative treatment. Just then, Anand bursts into the room. Everything about him shocks Banerjee. He expected a glum, somber man, staring down the barrel at his own impending death. But Anand is cheerful, spitting jokes a mile a minute, immediately endearing himself to everyone he meets. Taking a liking to the grumpy Banerjee, Anand moves into his house.

Over time, Anand breaks down Banerjee’s defenses, urging him to call on a patient he’d fallen in love with, to be more expressive with those he holds dear. Banerjee observes as Anand befriends people of all backgrounds, including a Muslim theater producer (Johnny Walker, in one of his finest performances) and a strict Christian nurse (Lalita Pawar, ditto); Prakash’s wife Suman (Ramesh Deo’s real-life wife Seema) becomes especially fond of him, and the scenes in which she learns of his prognosis, and prays for his life, are crushingly pure. The screenplay is not only efficient, but steeped in poetry. At every turn, the dialogue debates the nature of life, that it should be big, not long, that there’s no difference between a lifespan of six months and 70 years. In modern terms, there’s something of Robin Williams to Khanna’s performance, which dances between pure joy and subtle melancholy. Salil Chowdhury’s music gives life to both his interior worlds.

Anand’s philosophy is not without darkness either; he conceals deep within himself the pain of a former relationship, of being an orphan and a burden to an aunt and uncle who took him in, and he does, in fact, fear dying. But not for himself. He knows the pain of his death will destroy Banerjee, and that terrifies him. The writing of the film is nuanced enough that at no point is Anand suggesting that Banerjee rid himself of his frustration; all he wants is for joy to be more readily accessible, for each day to matter equally. Anand ends in a devastating sequence, one immortal in Hindi cinema, providing a shard of hope before that shatters too. And yet, Mukherjee is determined that his film ends with possibility: the final shot is of colorful balloons, floating into the heavens.

Talk to any middle-class Indian about how they run their household and dollars to donuts, they’ll complain about the difficulty in getting decent servants. Bawarchi, a Hindi remake of a Bengali film, explores the pettiness of a family that disrespects each other so much, they’ve no appreciation left for their lord and savior: the bawarchi (cook). In the opening scene, the Sharma family’s cook quits right before his shift begins, unable to tolerate the squabbles and happy to take a pay cut for a more peaceful workplace. As the reality of his absence sets in, we meet the bereaved: grandfather Shivnath (Harindranath Chattopadhyay), who just wants a morning cup of tea while he keeps an eye on the chest of family jewelry chained under his bed; and his sons Ramnath (A.K. Hangal), a perpetually late alcoholic clerk; Kashinath (Kali Banerjee), a moralizing schoolteacher; and Vishwanath (Asrani), a snarky assistant music director in the film industry. (There’s some hysterical self-reflexive dialogue about the “difficulty” of composing Hindi film music: having to buy an English pop record, listen to it, record it, steal the melody, and so on.) Ramnath and Kashinath are married to Seeta (Durga Khote) and Shobha (Usha Kiran), respectively; at the thought of domestic labor Seeta plays up muscle pain, and Shobha spends her day sniping at her relatives. The only decent person in the house, aside from the grandfather, is Krishna (Jaya Bhaduri), daughter of Shivnath’s deceased son and daughter-in-law—and someone treated as the family’s de facto servant.

After a morning of violent arguing about who is to blame for their servant running away, the family is shocked when Raghu (a career-best Rajesh Khanna) turns up, asking if there’s a need for a servant. The family is ecstatic, and impressed with Raghu’s resume: he says he’s worked for Chief Ministers, famed poets, tea estate barons, and musicians, and backs it all up with evidence of his prowess. He’s skilled, but insists on taking a lower wage than usual. The family is immediately suspicious. But so consumed are the Sharmas with the need for a competent domestic they agree to put their fears aside, not noticing that within moments of his arrival, Raghu has already united the family.

Raghu transforms the Sharma home. He sings beautifully (much to Vishwanath’s delight, as he has to copy one less melody from a Western song), prepares delicious food with tossed-aside ingredients, and provides domestic psychotherapy. Mukherjee didn’t give too many parameters to Khanna for his performance, so what flows out is organic, improvised, and utterly original. Anyone who has ever lived in an intergenerational household, in or outside of India, can find something to relate to. Gulzar’s dialogue is reliably whip-smart, by turns moving and hilarious. Chattopadhyay in particular spits out trenchant one-liners that are now considered a core part of Hindi film history. When Krishna sprints into his room to tell him about Raghu’s arrival, he says, his voice dripping in sarcasm, “Go, call everyone. For them god himself has arrived.”

Though it often boasts an outdated, patriarchal ideology, Bawarchi manages to sustain a surprising element of suspense and—without giving anything away, for the ending is quite a surprise—is really about knowledge: mathematical, musical, educational, linguistic, culinary, even spiritual. Who gets to use it? To what end is knowledge used? And is there any point to knowledge if it is not shared with the intent of improving a family unit, a neighborhood, a town, a country? Narrated by Amitabh Bachchan, Bawarchi is a timeless comedy, ostensibly about the petty headaches of domestic life, but concealed within it is a magnificent treatise about family, grace, and love.

Abhimaan is a riveting exploration of ego, loss, and insecurity. Its inspiration is the story of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and his first wife, Annapurna Devi; she was said to be an even more talented musician than her husband, but he could not stand it when she received more applause than he, so she quit performing. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan and his new wife Jaya Bhaduri (they’d been married a month when the film was released) as singers whose relationship falters when her fame exceeds his. Though its story is simple, Abhimaan possesses a uniquely modern visual flair (Mukherjee’s style was otherwise quite straightforward) and a sensational soundtrack, composed by master music director S.D. Burman, that sources its beautiful melodies from classical Indian music and Western jazz, while also imbuing seemingly happy songs with uneasiness.

Singer Subir (Bachchan) falls in love with and marries Uma (Bhaduri), the daughter of the village music teacher. Upon their return to the city, he encourages her career, but begins to drink heavily and withdraw as she attains fame. Uma is hurt by his abusive behavior and returns to her village upon realizing she’s pregnant. As their manager Chandar (Asrani) tries to mediate between them, Uma miscarries and becomes numb, refusing to express emotion or sing. Subir is tasked with getting her to either laugh or weep again.

Mukherjee came to film through the world of editing. His storyboards were said to be so precise that he rarely bothered looking through the lens during a take; instead, he preferred to play chess as the camera rolled. There is a stark minimalism of camera angles and movement in Abhimaan that helps amplify the themes of loneliness and sorrow. A particularly powerful sequence contrasts a sincere love song, sung by Uma in a recording studio as a dedication to her husband, while a handheld camera hovers over Subir’s increasingly distressed face; Burman’s music also heightens the rising tension with a consistently low strumming guitar.

Abhimaan has the added advantage of featuring comic actors playing against type. Asrani is beloved for his snarky or goofy comedic roles in many of Hindi cinema’s best films. Here, he plays a man made helpless by the pain of the two people he’s stuck between. There is little he can do or say to make anything better, but he refuses to stop trying. Character actor Bindu, known for playing jealous, petty vamps, plays Chitra, a close friend of Subir. It’s unclear whether he and Chitra dated, but they are close friends and she has never let him know she carries a torch for him. When Uma leaves Subir, he attempts to find solace in Chitra’s company, but she redirects him to his wife, urging him to reconcile. By the time the climax rolls around, everyone is uncontrollably sobbing.

Three components of Namak Haraam make it an unmissable part of Hindi film history. The first is the idea that friendship can transcend class: Somu (Rajesh Khanna), a lower-middle-class man whose home does not have a telephone, is best friends with Vicky (Bachchan), the son of a wealthy industrialist. The latter’s mother died when he was young, so he has adopted Somu’s sister Sarla (Manisha) and mother (Durga Khote) as his own family. They love him too, but do not approve of Vicky occasionally subsidizing the expenses of Somu’s household. Still, their friendship is rock-solid.

This friendship is tested by the film’s second virtue: What happens when class transcends a friendship? After Vicky is insulted by Bipinlal Pandey (A.K. Hangal at his empathetic best), his father’s union leader, Somu vows to avenge him by infiltrating the factory and running to replace Pandey. He is wildly successful, but transformed in the process. All around him are workers whose wages are not enough to buy grain, rice, or oil. Members of their families die of preventable illnesses because they cannot afford medical treatment. Inadequate medical and financial compensation is provided to those who are injured. Somu begins to side with the workers over his friend. For his part, Vicky is not unmoved by what Somu reports to him, but when he advocates for the workers’ wages to be increased to his father Damodar (Om Shivpuri), he is met with this blistering response, delivered in a chillingly nonchalant voice:

“Divide and rule. It’s a great old lesson that the British gave us as they left. If you want labor from your workers, it’s necessary to prevent their solidarity. Never let them feel that they are Indian, of one nation. Instead, tell them ‘you’re Madrasi,’ ‘you’re Bengali,’ ‘you’re Punjabi,’ ‘you’re Bihari.’ The goal is to get them to work. Once upon a time, we used to break up worker solidarity by pitting Muslims against Hindus, but kept extracting their labor. But what can we do? Slowly people understood that tactic. Now we’ve found a new method: fighting about the border [of India and Pakistan]. Tell people here that the people across the border are eating the fruits of their land. That’s enough. They’ll fight amongst themselves, even give their lives. They think ownership of even the smallest piece of land will turn them into kings. But we’ll be the ones who rule.”

Vicky is horrified, not necessarily because he has developed class consciousness, but because he trusts his friend. And Damodar knows that he will have to take action not only to disrupt his workers’ solidarity, but that of Somu and Vicky’s.

The third and perhaps most arresting aspect of Namak Haraam’s success is that it was the beginning of the end of Rajesh Khanna’s reign in Hindi cinema. When he and Bachchan had worked together in Anand, the latter was a relative unknown, still only getting supporting parts, while Khanna had delivered 17 consecutive box office smashes between 1969 and 1971. By the time Namak Haraam was released, however, Bachchan’s superstar status was taking shape, especially after the success of Zanjeer. There was a glimmer of Bachchan’s powerhouse abilities in Anand, but it was in Namak Haraam that he solidified his chops as someone capable of harnessing grief and righteous anger that the entire audience identified with. Khanna was a romantic hero, a swashbuckling champion, known for his trademark delivery and his madcap energy. But Bachchan was the answer to a different time, a darker, more politically fragile reality, and his time in the limelight was fast approaching, while Khanna’s had begun to recede in the rearview mirror. The pair never worked together again.

Meena Kumari’s swan song: Pakeezah (The Pure One) (1972)

Pakeezah is very much a fantasy. Courtesans throughout Indian history, especially those who performed before wealthy, powerful men, did not usually want to marry them. Being someone’s wife was a far more limiting prospect than commanding respect via the artistry of song and dance. Still, Meena Kumari’s final performance as Sahibjaan, a courtesan who falls in love with a nobleman and longs for the comfort of marriage, is exquisite. 

Pakeezah—written, produced, and directed by Kumari’s ex-husband Kamal Amrohi—sees Kumari play two women. As the famed courtesan Nargis, she falls in love with and tries to join the household of Shahbuddin (Ashok Kumar), but is rejected by his wealthy family. Ravaged by sorrow, Nargis takes refuge in a cemetery, where she dies after delivering an infant girl. The baby is adopted by Nargis’ sister Nawabjaan (Veena), who runs a brothel. When she comes of age, Sahibjaan (Kumari) becomes a talented and in-demand courtesan. One of Pakeezah’s many gorgeous artistic flourishes is the dual nature of its song lyrics. In “Inhi Logon Ne” (“These People”), Sahibjaan sings that these people—her patrons—have taken her dupatta (head scarf). This is a playful turn of phrase, but possesses a larger meaning: her clients, and men in general, have robbed her of respect. She names those responsible: a cloth merchant, a fabric dyer, and a soldier are all part of the system that steals her dignity.

Sahibjaan’s life takes a turn when an admirer (Raaj Kumar) spies her sleeping on a first-class train carriage. As she sleeps, he admires her bare feet, long considered a symbol of beauty and purity in Indian culture. He leaves her an anonymous note, praising her delicate feet. After various unlikely events, she finally meets her mystery man, and begins to wonder what life would be like outside of her profession.

If the story seems weak, that’s because it is. Amrohi was so besotted by his ex-wife, whom he married when she was 18 and he was 34, that he was determined to make and finish the long-plagued film, even though Kumari and he had separated. Production of Pakeezah was also held up by Kumari’s alcoholism and the advent of Eastmancolor. Plans to make the film in black and white were abandoned, and German cinematographer Josef Wirsching, a figurehead of the Hindi film industry, was brought on board. Filming began in 1956, and continued off and on until 1969. By the time Pakeezah was completed, Kumari was 40, and critics doubted that she’d be able to convincingly play a woman in her late teens-early 20s.

She proved them wrong. The very frame seems to bend to Kumari’s will, molding itself around her dancing form. Every facial expression is both immediately accessible and deeply considered. Her serene voice imbues each scene with a prayer-like longing. Add to this the sumptuous production design—pastel-hued brothel walls, velvet and silk drapes, bold pinks and greens and yellows in the costumes, luxurious rugs and chandeliers—and Wirsching’s elegant, romantic lighting create a surreal visual feast. There’s no shortage of motifs either: a train’s lonely whistle in the distance signals Sahibjaan’s pining for freedom, while a bird with clipped wings references Kumari’s private struggles in a difficult marriage. 

Pakeezah is an imperfect film. Though it is beautiful and the performances don’t miss a beat, its messaging is so blatant there’s literal signage in the film explaining it. The train station at which Sahibjaan discovers her anonymous lover’s note is called “Suhag Pur,” (literally, the town of a happy state of marriage). Amrohi’s writing also ignores the fact that courtesans were educated, accomplished women, with thriving careers, healthy personal fortunes—they even owned land. The film was released to negative reviews on February 4, 1972, but Kumari’s death a month later prompted a reassessment, and in more recent years, Pakeezah has been reevaluated as a classic. 

Screenwriters Salim-Javed begin their reign: Seeta Aur Geeta (Seeta And Geeta) (1972), Zanjeer (Shackles) (1973)

It is the understatement of the century to say that screenwriter duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar changed the face of Hindi cinema forever. Of the 25 films they wrote together, 22 were record-smashing blockbusters. Their screenplays are studied in film schools across India for their insistence that characters should drive the plot instead of vice versa, for their relatable heroes and heroines, for their lightning-rod one-liners that have slipped into the daily lexicon of Hindi-speaking audiences. They refined the trope of the “angry young man,” putting a gun in his hand and a chip on his shoulder.

But Salim-Javed began their illustrious career with a film about twin sisters, separated at birth. In Seeta Aur Geeta, Geeta (Hema Malini) has poor parents and lives in a slum. She makes a living by singing and dancing in front of street crowds with her sidekick Raka (Dharmendra). Geeta is plainspoken, quick with insults, fiercely protective of her work and mother, and nobody’s fool. Her poor sister Seeta (also Malini) has wealthy parents who died when she was a child. Her abusive aunt Kaushalya (Manorama) and hen-pecked uncle Badrinath (Satyen Kappu) are paid money from Seeta’s late parents’ estate in exchange for serving as her wards; this arrangement is due to expire when Seeta marries, something her aunt is determined to prevent. The lawyer who dispenses the monthly funds has no idea that Seeta is regularly being abused. Within the first 20 minutes, she is, at the hands of her aunt, her cousin Sheela (Honey Irani), and her aunt’s brother Ranjeet (Roopesh Kumar), beaten with a belt, sexually harassed, verbally abused, and almost raped. And if that wasn’t enough, Seeta’s grandmother, an ailing lady in a wheelchair and technically the head of the household, is deprived of her medication, verbally abused, and made to live in a small, uncomfortable room. 

As disturbing as this all is in what is ostensibly a family-friendly blockbuster, Javed Akhtar explained the film’s narrative thrust: “Agar Seeta ke saath anyaye nahi hoga, toh phir Geeta ke saat maza kaise ayega?” (“If Seeta is not treated unjustly, then how will we have fun with Geeta?”) He said this because it’s when the two girls accidentally switch places that the film truly takes off. Seeta’s meek, obedient behavior shocks Geeta’s mom, who is delighted her itinerant, headstrong daughter is finally taking an interest in cooking and cleaning. This isn’t nearly as delightful as the party at Seeta’s house, where Geeta, shocked by the way she’s treated, twists her aunt’s arm, almost breaking it, kicks her cousin, and orders them both to do the housework.

Seeta Aur Geeta is hilarious, filled with repartee and slapstick. But what is most compelling about the way the girls naturally adapt to their newfound surroundings—for Geeta, a mansion and nice clothes; for Seeta, a slum home filled with love and peace—is what it says about their psyches. Seeta runs away from home to attempt suicide; she’s rescued and, because she looks just like Geeta, is taken to Geeta’s slum home. It has been years since Seeta has felt the love and concern of a mother, so when Geeta’s mother weeps and asks her daughter why she tried to kill herself, Seeta is overwhelmed, and assumes god has sent her a mother. She accepts living in the slum though she knows no one there. Similarly, Geeta is horrified at the treatment of the disabled grandmother, and becomes a part of the family without questioning how she wound up there. Her eagerness for justice is stronger than her desire to ask why everyone seems to know her.

This is an important aspect of Salim-Javed’s writing. The duo were known for fully fleshing out their characters’ psychological motivations, and using that information to develop their plots. Seeta and Geeta are both essentially good women, so they do the right thing and become part of a new family. How they untangle the knot of their complex past and present is a wild ride, but add that to Hema Malini’s natural comedic instincts, Ramesh Sippy’s confident direction, and you’ve got a blockbuster on your hands.

Imagine the life of a working-class Indian in the early 1970s. Wages are low. A ration card has to be obtained in order to purchase rice, pulses, sugar, and oil; the line to get the ration card can take an entire work day. Getting the city to hook up a gas line to your home could take six years. If someone commits a crime against you, you report it, but the police are likely to do absolutely nothing. You pray to your god, but nothing changes. Disheartened, you go to the movies and buy a ticket for something called Zanjeer. And you realize that someone is on your side.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Gulzar likely weren’t intending to propose the idea that an “angry young man” could provide hope to millions. But screenwriters Salim-Javed turned that young man into a cop. Vijay Khanna (Amitabh Bachchan, in the role that would set the stage for the rest of his life) is a child when he witnesses the murder of his parents. For years afterward, he is tormented by dreams of a white horse. His trauma causes him to push his anger inward, and in order to protect children like himself, he becomes a policeman in a small town ruled by a gangster named Sher Khan (Pran, as an unusually nuanced bad guy). Vijay’s path also crosses with wealthy crime boss Teja (Ajit Khan, in one of his most memorable roles), who harbors a dark secret that will alter the course of Vijay’s life.

Like some of the best films of the 1970s, Zanjeer interrogates power dynamics and friendship. Vijay’s refusal to back down from shutting down Sher Khan’s gambling dens earns him not the latter’s enmity, but his respect. The film is also unusual because of its emphasis on PTSD, something other movies about trauma mentioned but elided in efforts to heighten drama. But it’s Bachchan’s acting that creates a veritable storm onscreen. His reddened eyes, unable to rest even when they are closed, haunted by the screams of his parents and the inequities of the world, convey an emotional density that hardly requires dialogue.

The dialogue, of course, is what Salim-Javed are known best for. The two met while struggling to make ends meet in Mumbai; both were surprised by how similar their lives had been. They lost their mothers at an early age (mothers are central forces of benevolence and courage in the films they wrote), they had difficult relationships with their fathers (fathers, in their films, are either absent or torturous obstacles), and they were both furious. Salim-Javed knew hunger, poverty, and sleep deprivation. Both were confident in their skills. Revisiting the extraordinary structure and dialogue of their films makes it clear that by writing about an angry young man named Vijay (usually played by Amitabh Bachchan), Salim-Javed were writing about themselves.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Zanjeer’s success is that it destroyed two central ideas to which the Hindi film industry, at the time, held fast. The first: you had to be a romantic hero to be successful. Bachchan’s character does have a love interest, played by his future wife Jaya Bhaduri, but it’s a subplot that further investigates the limits of his emotional availability, and he certainly doesn’t sing any happy songs about having a girlfriend. All the actors who turned the film down—Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Dev Anand, among others—complained about the lack of songs. But the writers played to a different audience, a crowd that needed righteousness, moral clarity, someone to root for who would make it all okay no matter what—and if he provided justice by doling out kicks and punches, all the better.

The second tenet Salim-Javed destroyed is the idea that the writer could not be king. At the time, the writer’s name wasn’t mentioned on movie posters. Few people had televisions, so posters were the industry’s main form of advertisement. The night that posters of Zanjeer were being plastered all over Mumbai, Salim-Javed—indignant that their labor, which they were certain would make the film a hit, was being ignored—gave a man paint, a stencil, and some money. By the next morning, every Zanjeer poster in the city had “Written by: Salim-Javed” stenciled all over it. (The hired hand was drinking while he did this so some of the posters had the writers’ name written over the heroine’s nose, or the title of the film.) And so began their spectacular reign as the writer kings of Hindi cinema.

Late Raj Kapoor: Bobby (1973)

Raj Kapoor once made passionate films about socialism, inequality, and the dangers of urbanization. These films did not lack romance or action or emotional heft, but they simultaneously provided great meaning and entertainment. Yet Kapoor was altogether different by 1973. He’d bet every last penny on his magnum opus Mera Naam Joker (My Name Is Joker), which failed miserably at the box office. In order to rescue his studio, Kapoor cast his son in a film about puppy love. Bobby was a box office success, kickstarted fashion trends, altered the history of the Hindi-language romantic drama, and launched the careers of two teenage actors: Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia. The pair’s fate differed significantly. Rishi began his journey to superstardom, but a few months before Bobby premiered, Rajesh Khanna, then 31, met a then-15-year-old Dimple Kapadia, married her, and forbade her from acting. They later separated and Dimple made a triumphant return to acting, which will feature heavily in our look at the 1980s.

The plot of Bobby is miserably meager. Raj Nath (Rishi Kapoor) is the neglected son of rich parents (Sonia Sahni and Pran) who pack him off to boarding school when his developmentally appropriate behavior irks their non-existent parenting skills. Strangely, Raj grows up not to be rebellious or resentful, but introspective and polite. The set design of the film sometimes feels like a prank: What kind of 18-year-old would have framed photos of Gandhi hanging on his dorm walls, as opposed to, say, pictures of actresses or at least a few fast cars? Upon his return to his neglectful parents’ home, Raj is shocked that his mother’s friend Nima (Aruna Irani) openly propositions him. She even walks in on him when he’s naked. If Raj Kapoor’s goal was to shift the Overton Window of Hindi cinema with regard to romantic norms, he succeeded.

At a party, Raj meets Bobby Braganza (Kapadia), the beautiful Goanese Christian daughter of his old nanny (Durga Khote). Instantly smitten, he pursues her, and they fall in love, much to the chagrin of Bobby’s drunken fisherman father Jack (Prem Nath) and Raj’s drunken businessman father Ram. There’s standard-issue dialogue about gold diggers, eternal love, and fighting the man, but while it may seem quite fluffy and silly, this was uncharted territory for a Hindi film. Sure, the industry was no stranger to stories about lovers from different backgrounds, but it felt new and fresh when the lovers in question were teens, dressed like they were characters in an Archie comic, and openly confessed their love for one another while telling their parents the Hindi equivalent of “you just don’t understand” and “I don’t need your approval.”

Kapoor also seems to have gone full David O. Selznick on Kapadia. He altered her hairline and gave her a painful widow’s peak. The Archie resemblances aren’t a coincidence; apparently Kapoor was a fan of the comics and personally selected Kapadia’s tight, skin-exposing Western wardrobe. Generous cleavage is practically a supporting character in the film, visible on female actors of all ages, far more than is necessary to make a point about changing norms of women’s attire and relaxed sexual mores. There’s no other way to put it: 1970s Raj Kapoor was one horny dude.

Like Waqt, Bobby gets more preposterous as its runtime drags on. Bobby’s characterization is frustrating too; she’s posited as a modern, 21st-century girl who speaks her mind and sticks up for herself, but ultimately winds up in the same distress as any damsel before her. It’s not a good film, but cannot be ignored because of its impact. Much of its star-crossed lovers’ imagery was replicated in dozens of 1970s and 1980s films, and without Bobby, far darker romantic dramas, like the ’90s hit Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, probably wouldn’t exist. It was the first Hindi film that allowed the imaginations of teenagers to wander, visibly, into sexual fantasies, especially via a song titled “You and I / are trapped in a room / and the key is lost.”

But the far better song (although it features some casual mentions of domestic violence), sung at a festival near Bobby’s humble fishing village home and modeled on classic Marathi folk tunes, was indicative of Kapadia’s natural talent, while Kapoor is still a bit stilted. (He’d eventually come into his own by the late 1970s, and even re-teamed with Kapadia in her first post-hiatus film.) Ultimately, that’s the best thing anyone can hope for from any ridiculous but deeply influential Hindi film: at least we got a few good songs out of it.