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Deewar: Nishant:
Yash Chopra and Shyam Benegal followed
Salim-Javed at their his clutter-breaking first
peak collaborated on feature Ankur, with
this powerful drama an even more powerful
that reflected the new critique of the feudal
India, with its crime, system in rural Telangana.
corruption and unbridled It had a veritable who’s
capitalism. Poverty forces one of two who of parallel cinema stars – Amrish
brothers (Amitabh Bachchan) to adopt a Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad,
life of crime, while the other becomes a cop Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Kulbhushan
(Shashi Kapoor). Inevitably, there is a clash Kharbanda, Mohan Agashe, Anant Nag.
of values and cynicism. The film has two Susheela (Azmi), the wife of schoolmaster
of the most quoted lines of all time: Mere (Karnad) is abducted by the brothers of the
paas maa hai, and Aaj khush to bahut hoge zamindar (Puri) of the village, because they
tum. It escaped the stringent Emergency- believe it is their right to pick any woman
era censorship somehow, maybe because they want. The schoolmaster’s pleas to the
the violence in it was not too gory, even as law go unheeded. But the incident and
other films were mangled. the schoolmaster’s persistence mobilise
the villagers fed-up of the atrocities of the
Aandhi: zamindar’s family. The resulting carnage
Gulzar’s story about an does not even spare the innocent. The
ambitious daughter of a film won many awards and was critically
politician, Aarti (Bengali acclaimed for its portrayal of the shocking
legend Suchitra Sen in one truths about feudal oppression.
of her few Hindi films),
who is encouraged by Chupke Chupke:
her father into entering Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s
the murky world of power, was a thinly- comedy of manners,
disguised comment on the life of Indira enhanced with Gulzar’s
Gandhi. Like her, Aarti puts her political writing and the high-
career over her marriage to the placid powered cast playing
hotel manager (Sanjeev Kumar), and faces against type, Dharmendra
the same troubles from the opposition playing a botany professor
parties—including the famous stone- Parimal Tripathi, who is annoyed by
throwing incident, that Indira Gandhi his wife Sulekha’s (Sharmila Tagore)
turned to her electoral advantage. The film admiration for her brother-in-law
with its haunting RD Burman-composed Raghavendra (Om Prakash). So when
music was on its way to becoming a they go to meet Raghavendra and his wife
hit, when it was banned during the (Usha Kiron) after their marriage, Parimal
Emergency, for obvious reasons. By the pretends to be the driver Pyare Mohan,
time it returned to the cinemas, it was too and makes their friend Sukumar (Amitabh
late to recapture lost glory. Bachchan) pretend to be Parimal. Sulekha
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #67 | JANUARY 2025 59
