In the name of love...

The change in the state government in U.P. has brought new lingo in the environment.The latest is the name of a fictional character, very famous, revered by many as role model but unfortunately tagged with a negative connotation these day. I am referring to the eternal lover Romeo, on whose name,  squads have been formed, thereby equating the love and lust. Shakespeare must be turning in his grave, surely.

In all parts of the world, lovers (both fictional and real-life) have a special place. In India too,many love stories like Romeo & Juliet find place in the legends , on which hindi film industry has done extensive work.

 Let us look at the famous love stories, both fictional and otherwise to have caught the fancy of hindi films.

Telling a story on celluloid is done best when it is a love story. In the first 3 to 4 years of the talkies, there was a spate of films on legendary lovers. As many as 8 films were made on the life and times of half a dozen pairs, bringing literature and history to screen. This is indicative of the potential of love stories in Hindi films, right from their beginning.  However, none of sound tracks are available from that era.Here is a poster of an early film Sassi Punnu released in 1932.

In 1947, Romeo made his first appearance in Hindi films, on release of the film Romeo and Juliet, the only time a film has been made on the characters of the Bard. Sapru and Nargis played the legendary lovers.

 

The 16th century tale is set in Italy, about two star-crossed lovers, whose death ultimately reconcile their feuding families. The words of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the composition of Husnlal Bhagatram ( the first music director duo of hindi films:many others followed their footsteps) and the voice of Zohrabai Ambalewali, do full justice to the immortal love story of Romeo and Juliet

donon jahaan teri mohabbat mein haar ke

         wo jaa raha hai koi, shabe-gham guzaar ke

Like  Romeo, the character of Majnu is also having a negative connotation.    The society equates  'sadak-chhap' Majnu  and  the Roadside Romeo. For the more discerning people,  Majnu represents the epitome of obsessive  love.

Devdas is also another character ( by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya) which is equated with depressed lover. The love story of Devdas and Paro is not as old as the others and therefore does not find a mention in this compilation. Also, the story of  Krishna-Radha , being mythological, is left out.

 

In the 50s, the tragic tale of Laila Majnu was released as a Hindi/Urdu  film , with Shammi Kapoor playing Majnoon ( or Qais, as the character was named) to Nutan's Laila. The medieval tale written by poet Nizami of Ganje , was inspired by Arabian legends, Laila and Qias. Childhood friends-turned-lovers were prevented by the society, banishing Qais to desert  where he turns eccentric  and is called majnoon( madman--the one with junoon-obsession) . Warfare is resorted to make the two lovers meet , but in vain.

Laila Majnu was made as many as 5 times in Bollywood , apart from  a couple of failed attempts        ( Rajesh Khanna's Majnoon to Rakhi's Laila by Kamal Amrohi--shelved). The 70s version was the most popular one, as we will see later.

This is a song in which  Shammi Kapoor, much before his avatar as  Yahoo-screaming, rock-and-roll dancer , plays  Qais, languishing in a desert and Talat Mehmood sings the beautiful song. 

The Fifties also gave us the films based on Shirin Farhad ( 1965), Mirza Sahiban ( 1957) and Dhola Maru ( 1954), the lovers in the same class as Romeo-Juliet and Laila Majnoon.
Each story, however, has a twist !

The Shirin-Farhad saga is actually, a sub-plot of the story of Khusrau and Shirin, another tale by Nizami of Ganje. It is a highly elaborated fictional version of the story of the love of the Sasanian king Khusrau II for the  Armenian princess  Shirin , who becomes queen of   Persia.

Shirin being very beautiful, had lots of suitors and  those who were infatuated with her. Farhad, a sculptor was one of them. Khusrau sent Farhad to carve  stairs in the mountain , after which Shirin would marry him. Gullible as he was, Farhad set out on the mission, to be informed of Shirin's death ( false news) , upon which he kills himself. Shirin , hale and hearty, finally marries Khusrau.

The love story with a happy ending is that of Dhola- Maaru from oral folk traditions of Rajasthan. The story also has the mention of Maroo dying and Dhola wanting to become a male-Sati. Maroo is revived and after they flee on a "flying camel", they live happily ever after. The Chhattisgarh version of the story has a tragic ending, though.

Amongst the many love stories of Punjab ( Heer-Ranjha, Sohni Mahiwal, Sassi Punnu ) , Mirza Sahiban is one of the more complex one because the parents of the lovebirds were said to be milk-siblings, having been breast-fed by one mother. The tale is beautiful because it mentions that in the climax, Sahiban breaks the arrows of Mirza so that there is no blood-shed. However, her brothers kill Mirza and she dies alongwith him.

Mirza Sahiban had Shammi Kapoor as Mirza and Shyama as Sahiban. The music is by Sardul Kwatra and lyrics by Varma Malik .

                                  


The Sixties started with a bang , with Mughal-e-Azam, the story of Anarkali and Salim. Madhubala as Anarkali scored over Bina Rai's version, a few years back, as did Dilip Kumar's histrionics over Pradeep Kumar's performance in the earlier version.
The magnum opus stood tall over all other stories and "pyar kiya to darna kya" became the anthem of lovers throughout the country.

In the wake of period films reviving after K.Asif's mind-boggling effort, the story of Shahjahan and Mumtaz Mahal also found favour with the film makers, with films like Taj Mahal and  Jahan Ara being made with big stars.

The royal love stories had great music in them, which emphasizes the emotions of love. The composers of these films were stalwarts like Naushad ( Mughal-e-Azam), C.Ramchandra (Anarkali) , Roshan (Taj Mahal)and Madan Mohan( Jahan Ara ).
The quality of lyrics, composition and singing made these scores all-time great . 

The next decade had a lyrical gem of a film called Heer Ranjha, based on the Punjab love story written by Waris Shah. Some historians say that the story was the original work of Shah, written after he had fallen in love with a girl named Bhag Bhari. 
Another view is  that Heer and Ranjha were real personalities who lived under the Lodhi Dynasty and that Waris Shah later utilised these personalities for his story. Shah states that the story has a deeper meaning, referring to the unrelenting quest that man has towards God. The lovers are separated in the story and Ranjha, wandering with ascetics,  is on the verge of renunciation when he learns of the marriage of Heer. As he rushes to her but can not prevent her from consuming poison and he also eats the poisoned laddooo to kill himself.
Chetan Anand made the film as a poetry on screen. Each and every dialogue was a poem in itself. The picturisation and art direction were thoughtfully done and the music by Madan Mohan was out of the world. In fact, for a large part after starting of the film, it did not have any yellow-coloured object on the screen. When the yellow mustard fields do appear on the screen , it is a pleasant experience, underlining the competence of the director.

On the acting front, however Priya Rajvansh as Heer was not as good as the Heer played by Nutan in Heer( 1956). Raaj Kumar played Ranjha to perfection, however.

The Laila -Majnu saga got a makeover in the 70s with Rishi Kapoor playing Qais and  Ranjeeta playing Laila. it is said that during the making of the film, the two stars were on non-speaking terms, being hostile towards each other. Still, their performances do not reflect the ego-related animosity. The music of the film was by Madan Mohan and the lyrics were by Sahir Ludhianvi. The songs of the film became a rage in 1976.
Incidentally, another film called Daastaan-e-Laila Majnu was released in 1974, with a lesser-known cast of Kanwaljeet and Anamika, which sank without a trace.

Without doubt, star power sells in Bollywood.

  
                                

The type of films liked  in the 80s  did not require a serious love story, let alone a period epic. K.Asif's long-delayed project Love and God could be released in 1986 with Sanjeev Kumar playing Qais and Nimmi as Laila. Predictably, the film was anachronistic and could not muster any audience.

The film which, however, hit the right chord was the Sunny Deol-Poonam Dhillon portrayal of the Sohni Mahiwal story,in 1984. The heroine Sohni, unhappily married to a man she despises, swims every night across the river using an earthenware pot to keep afloat in the water, to meet her beloved Mahiwal ( rich trader-turned buffalo herder-turned hermit)  . One night her sister-in-law replaces the earthenware pot with a vessel of unbaked clay, which dissolves in water and she dies in the whirling waves of the river. Mahiwal saw Sohni drowning and jumped into the river to save her and drowned as well. Thus, the lovers were reunited in death.

Sohni Mahiwal was well-received, surprisingly and songs were also very popular.This was the fourth version of the tale, the earlier ones made in 1933, 1946 and 1958. 

The next two decades were even more disconnected from old-world charm and whatever love stories were being made from the earlier eras were on the strength of lavish sets and high production values rather than emotional content. Harmesh Malhotra's Heer Ranjha made in 1992 had Anil Kapoor and Sridevi as the main lead.  Sanjay Khan made Taj Mahal in 2005 in which Naushad composed music. These films could neither  attract the audience, nor were they talked about as classics.

The recent period film Bajirao Mastani,  took up a historical tale of  Maratha Peshwa Bajirao (1700-1740) and his second wife Mastani, in which Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone essayed the lovers and the film had a lot of highlights ( songs and dances and fights) , some of them controversial , which is bound to happen  with a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film. Interestingly, on this subject the last film made was a silent one in 1925 !

Ending a blog on the topic of love has to be on a profound note. According to ancient Arabic literature, there are Seven Stages of Love.
These are :
1 हब - Hub - Attraction, 
2. उन्स -  Uns - Infatuation,
3. इश्क़ - Ishq - Love, 
4. अक़ीदत - Aqeedat - Reverence,
5. इबादत - Ibaadat - Worship,
6. जूनून - Junoon - Obsession and
7. मौत - Maut - Death-
This seven fold evolution of love is beautifully expressed by Gulzar  and picturised by Mani Ratnam in this A.R.Rahman song from the movie Dil Se. This song is played at all the major turning points of the film where the characters cross each of these 7 check points leading ultimately to their death..

 Inexorably drawn towards each other, the crescendo of love goes on increasing unchecked....

The song is extremely figurative and artistic and the symbolism is not easily understood in first viewing. Each of the above-mentioned love stories have gone through these stages , if you have a closer look.
तू ही तू, तू ही तू, सतरंगी रे