Memsaab’s excellent review of the Dev Anand-Waheeda Rehman starrer Solva Saal reminded me of this film. Also Dev Anand, also a suspense thriller, and also with great music. And, may I add, like Solva Saal, extremely entertaining.
So I rewatched this and enjoyed myself all over again, ogling Dev Anand, humming along with the songs, and wishing there were more films like this.
Like Sujata, Chhaya is the story of a girl brought up in the house of someone she’s not related to. Like Sujata, it stars Sunil Dutt (and looking gorgeous, too!), and like Sujata, it’s got great music. Also like Sujata, it was directed by a Bengali director: Hrishikesh Mukherjee in this case.
That’s where the resemblance ends, because Mukherjee makes Chhaya a less poignant, less socially relevant film than Bimal Roy made of Sujata. Where Sujata focussed on the understated emotion of a family and a `daughter who’s not quite one’, Chhaya focuses on a mother who’s forced by circumstances to yield up her child to another.
Someone once said that Nasir Hussain came to Bombay with one story in his briefcase, and created a series of blockbusters out of it. This is one of them, and a vastly entertaining film: total paisa vasool. You get your money’s worth.
The story’s similar to that of Dil Deke Dekho, Tumsa Nahin Dekha, and Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai: a couple separates, and one of them raises their only child, a son. He grows up, meets his `other’ parent (who’s wealthy), and they don’t quite hit it off—but he does fall for that parent’s adopted daughter. To complicate matters, there’s a villain who pretends to be the long-lost son, whom the parent has been yearning for all these years.
Dustedoff 