I realized the other day that there are umpteen well-known old films that I have seen but have never got around to reviewing on this blog—invariably because I had watched them before I started Dustedoff, and because there were so many ‘new’ old films to watch and write about, I never got around to rewatching stuff. It’s time to amend that, and revisit some films that perhaps should be talked about.

To begin with, Himalaya ki God Mein. Directed by Vijay Bhatt, Himalaya ki God Mein beat Haqeeqat and Waqt to win the Filmfare Best Film Award, and was a superhit. I had watched this donkey’s years ago, when it was telecast on Doordarshan. I remembered almost nothing of it except the fact that Manoj Kumar played a city doctor who relocated to the mountains to treat villagers and ended up falling in love with a village girl played by Mala Sinha. That was it. Time for a rewatch, I decided.

The film begins at night, on an aeroplane where Dr Sunil (Manoj Kumar) and his fiancée, also a doctor, Neeta (Shashikala) are travelling. Another passenger on the plane suddenly clutches his chest; Sunil examines him, diagnoses a heart problem, and asks that the plane land immediately.

So it does, in the middle of nowhere, in what seems like a valley surrounded by wooded mountains. [This is the first time I’ve heard of a plane making an emergency landing like this for reasons other than that the plane is likely to crash if it doesn’t land; the more logical approach would be to head for the nearest air strip, wouldn’t it?]. Over the next few hours or so, lots happens. Sunil attends to the ailing man (who recovers surprisingly quickly) and then gets separated from the rest of the group…

And comes up against a gang of dacoits led by Laakhan Singh (Jayant), who beat up Sunil and leave him for dead.

Meanwhile, Neeta and the other passengers are wandering about on their own. They too run into Laakhan Singh & Co., and the dacoits loot them well and proper. Neeta is wearing a chunky gold necklace which Laakhan Singh takes from her.

The next morning, some of the women from a nearby village discover the unconscious Sunil. Phulwa (Mala Sinha) is very concerned and has her friends help her take Sunil to her home where she lives with her uncle Dayal (David), though Phulwa doesn’t know Dayal is her uncle, not her father. Dayal and Phulwa get the local jhaad-phoonkwaala, a charlatan named Ghogar Baba (Kanhaiyalal), to come and work his magic on Sunil.

Ghogar Baba and his assistant Buddhimaan (Mukri) are going about chanting mantras, throwing ash about and whatnot when Sunil comes to, a little bleary-eyed and disoriented. He recovers consciousness soon enough to get furious at all this superstitious nonsense; he flings the ash into the air, abuses Ghogar Baba and refuses to have him do anything more.

Ghogar Baba, mad as a wet hen [or an ash-covered hen?], curses Sunil: may he die within the next two hours. He stomps off, and a distraught Phulwa turns to her friend Bindiya (Jeevankala). If this stranger dies in their home, that will be very inauspicious. They have to do something. Buddhimaan, who is sweet on Bindiya, gives Phulwa some rigmarole about some woman whose ill husband had refused to take treatment from Ghogar Baba; the woman, desperate to have her husband healed, therefore took treatment by proxy—and her husband got absolutely okay!

So Phulwa [dimwit that she is] says that she will ask Ghogar Baba to treat her instead. Because after all everybody is connected to everybody else in this world, and if she is treated, the stranger in her home will get well. Of course, Sunil [who isn’t so badly hurt after all, and is young and probably strong enough to recover quickly on his own] gets well. When he learns what Phulwa’s been doing—taking Ghogar Baba’s medication, which can’t have been pleasant—he’s charmed. There’s no accounting for tastes.

Anyway, once Sunil gets well, he goes back to the city, to his parents and Neeta and his work at the hospital. Sunil’s father Shyamlal (DK Sapru) is a police officer, and his doting mother (Achla Sachdev, for once all glamorous) is eager to have Sunil and Neeta get married soon.

Neeta also wants to get married, or at least to spend time gallivanting with Sunil, but Sunil wants to focus on his work, on healing people. This causes angst; for Neeta—whose father is also a successful doctor—medicine is just another profession, a lucrative one at that.

Soon after, Sunil receives a new patient at the hospital: it’s Dayal, brought to the city by Phulwa. Some epidemic seems to have broken out in the village and several people have died. Things are pretty bad, it seems, and given that there are no hospitals or healers [other than King of Quacks Ghogar Baba] in the villages of the mountains, the only option is to come to the city.

This is brought home to Sunil again a little later: there’s a party at Neeta’s [and no songs, not even a single “please sing us a song” request]. Here, her father announces that he has set up a new hospital, and Neeta is going to be in charge.

Dayal, who is present [puzzlingly. Is he invited, or has he gatecrashed?] is impressed. Another hospital, within the same city? And back there, in the mountains, there aren’t even small clinics, let alone large hospitals.

Sunil therefore decides to move to the mountains, to Phulwa’s village, where he will set up a clinic and work amidst the poor villagers.

This decision draws a lot of flak. Neeta, for one, thinks Sunil has taken leave of his senses. When he asks her to accompany him to the village and work alongside him, Neeta refuses outright. No thank you.

Sunil’s parents are equally disapproving. His mother, all quavery-voiced [and Achla Sachdev could do quavery voice and emotional blackmail as well as the queen of them all, Leela Chitnis] pleads with him to rethink this. His father mentions that those mountains are infested with dacoits: the fierce daaku Laakhan Singh is a much-wanted bandit, and he operates in that area. If Laakhan Singh comes to know who Sunil’s father is, Sunil could be in danger.

But Sunil brushes aside all of that and goes off to the village with Phulwa and Dayal. He is greeted with opposition from the superstitious villagers, who are all convinced that Ghogar Baba is their only hope [much brainwashing and egging on by Ghogar Baba being the primary reason for this attitude]. It takes much selfless slogging and enduring of brickbats on the part of Sunil before he’s accepted. But when he is, the villagers take him to their collective bosom and make much of him, much to the disgust of Ghogar Baba, who suddenly finds himself persona non grata.

In the meantime, Phulwa—who has been helping Sunil at the little hospital and whom he affectionately dubs ‘compounder’ has fallen in love with Sunil. Sunil sings a romantic song to her in public, places bangles on her wrists, and makes other somewhat oblique references to being just as kindly disposed towards Phulwa, but doesn’t come right out and wear his heart on his sleeve like Phulwa does.

What neither he nor Phulwa know is that [besides Neeta, who—as Sunil’s fiancée—is not going to be happy about Sunil and Phulwa being an item] there is someone else too who won’t take kindly to this relationship. That’s Daaku Laakhan Singh, who, believe it or not, turns out to be Phulwa’s father. Dayal has brought up Phulwa as his own daughter, but Laakhan Singh comes by surreptitiously now and then, just to gaze on his bitiya from afar, and to leave her a gift now and then [this particular gift is Neeta’s necklace].

Of course you can guess where this is going to go. Laakhan is a daaku; Sunil’s father is a cop. Neeta’s stolen necklace is in Dayal’s house, and Dayal’s niece is the woman whom Neeta’s fiancé has fallen in love with. Fireworks await.

Frankly, I cannot see why Himalaya ki God Mein won the Filmfare Award for Best Film—and that too beating Waqt (Haqeeqat might be considered a little offbeat, not quite so commercially a winner). The idea of a doctor doing selfless service and leaving a commercially successful practice to go and work in the villages was by no means, at this point, a novel idea. It had been done before, for instance in Doctor (1941) and in Anuradha (1960), and there is really very little about the film that strikes one as being award-worthy.

What I liked about this film:

What there is, though, is the music, composed by Kalyanji-Anandji, to lyrics written by Anand Bakshi, Indeevar and Qamar Jalalabadi. Himalaya ki God Mein gave Mukesh two of his most famous songs of the mid-1960s: Main toh ik khaab hoon and Chaand si mehbooba ho meri kab aisa maine socha thha [and am I the only one who thinks the lyrics of that, written by Anand Bakshi, are a little odd? He never thought he’d have a beautiful sweetheart, and she’s just as he’d imagined?] There are other good songs too, including the two-version happy/sad Ik tu jo mila saari duniya mili and Ik tu na mili saari duniya mile bhi toh kya hai, and O tu raat khadi thhi chhat pe.

And, the landscape, which is lovely.

What I didn’t like:

Besides the rather predictable plot, the one major irritant in Himalaya ki God Mein was Mala Sinha as Phulwa. Mala Sinha is an actress I generally like: I find her very pretty, and she is capable of some good acting, as I’ve indicated in reviews of films like Aankhen and Dillagi. Here, however, she is nothing short of painful. She looks lovely enough, but the faces she makes, the over-the-top quavery hamminess, I found unbearable. Phulwa, to me, doesn’t come across as a kind-hearted, simple village girl; to me, she’s extremely juvenile. Her antics—stealing Neeta’s clothes, dressing up in them and painting her face with Neeta’s makeup, for instance—aren’t just being Phulwa being light-hearted; it’s Phulwa being immeasurably childish.

Very irritating character, and I couldn’t for the life of me understand how anyone could fall in love with Phulwa: it would be akin to cradle-snatching.

Actually, come to think of it, a large portion of my dislike for Himalaya ki God Mein stems from my loathing of Phulwa. If she had been a more mature, level-headed, sensible character, I might have ended up liking this film more.