Tag Archives: Jeevankala

Chaar Darvesh (1964)

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YouTube suggested this film to me, and for a few days, I was torn. Should I watch it (Feroz Khan is not a favourite of mine, though I don’t find him as irritating as some others), or should I not? Sayeeda Khan, after all, is someone I’ve wanted to watch, mostly because I was intrigued—she was married to film director/producer Brij Sadanah, and was murdered by him on their son’s eleventh birthday party (Sadanah also shot and killed their daughter, before committing suicide). Yes, macabre (not to mention tragic), but that’s how it is.

Eventually, it was the music—by the very talented but vastly underrated GS Kohli—that tipped the scales in favour of my watching Chaar Darvesh. Kohli, who did a lot of work as assistant to OP Nayyar (and it shows, in the rhythms and styles of much of his work), composed music on his own for several B-grade films, of which among the best-known are Shikari (1963; easily his magnum opus, with one great song after another) and Chaar Darvesh. Even if just for the music, I wanted to watch this film.

The story is set in some fictitious fantasy kingdom somewhere in the Middle East. At a shrine, three bearded darveshes, clad in flowing robes, have gathered to pray for boons. One is seeking a treasure [that sounds a little shallow, for a darvesh]; another is searching for his sweetheart, who’s gone missing.

These three men have learnt, though, that their wishes will only be granted once they have been joined by a fourth darvesh… who, thank heavens, arrives soon after. This is Qamar (Feroz Khan in blackface), and he proceeds to tell them his tale of woe and to explain how he happens to have turned so black.

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Himalaya ki God Mein (1965)

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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.

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Reporter Raju (1962)

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A couple of months ago, I got a call from Seventymm (the video rental service I’d subscribed to), letting me know that they were shutting down rentals and becoming retail-only. Since I’d paid up in advance for a year’s subscription, I had Rs 800 worth of unused vouchers—which, they said, I could use to pick products from the store. I ordered seven DVDs. They (or, rather, the five Seventymm were able to deliver—the rest went out of stock) arrived last week. Reporter Raju was one of them.

Also, last week, I finished a writing assignment for which the research involved watching a diverse set of films. A lot of them, though, had one thing in common: a newspaper office and/or a reporter as an important character. This one was on the to-watch list, but didn’t arrive in time for me to see it before submitting my article. Just as well, actually, because despite the name, it doesn’t exactly show the reporter doing much any newspaper work. Unless beating up goons is part of the job description.

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