Readers Write In #763: Rahengi Apni Nishaaniyan

By Aman Basha

Reflecting on the enduring relevance of a film titan as he completes a century

When I had first seen Awaara a long, long while still at the impressionable age of 13 (how I miss those days), left in me were really a residue of imagery, of Prithviraj Kapoor’s stately presence, the lighting in Raj’s cell during the climax, the ghar aaya mera pardesi sequence of course and the bust of a weeping child. 

As I rewatched the film again recently, celebrating the centenary of a cinematic genius in my own, simple way, it was surprising how the framing and lighting that left such a strong impression on me the first time, felt so pedestrian in the first 25 minutes. There was no surprise in the frame as I once encountered, in the softness of Rishi and Dimple in the snow while randomly watching Hum Tum on YouTube. Had Awaara become another of those classics that no longer wow a younger generation, I briefly wondered?

However the film went ahead in its 25th minute to prove me definitely wrong, just as it cast a cloud of suspicion over its central characters. I can even pinpoint the exact moment the film switched to the higher gear I so distinctly remember it to be, when the camera holds a closeup of Prithviraj Kapoor’s face, switching from beaming to suspicious, all triggered by one throwaway line from his wife, “Kya daaku ka beta daaku hi banta hai?”.

This dialogue and how it transforms the entire story took me to another film, one remembered for its words than its frames, Deewar where too the central trauma is wedded entirely to one phrase, “Mera baap chor hai”. 

Much is said of its Ganga Jamuna, I thought, and not how Salim Javed brilliantly combined Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and even aspects of Dev Anand in Deewar’s Vijay and his world, held by an Amitabh Bachchan who moves from Dilip Kumar’s pathos to Dev Anand’s charming ease to Raj Kapoor’s proletariat identity in the same performance. 

Rewatching Awaara gave me the opportunity to appreciate the film in greater detail, of the brilliant wordsmithery in the film that has the hero confess his real nature countless times to everyone who hears but no one actually listens, the famous beach conversation that is actually a throwback to the childhood classroom where Shashi Kapoor makes the tragedy of the judge’s son turning “awaara” all the more ironic by looking like a mini-Prithviraj Kapoor himself.

Awara – Raj Kapoor, Nargis

It’s rather fascinating that both Shashi and Rishi had one of their finest moments as actors playing younger versions of Raj Kapoor in films Raj Kapoor directed. Even in Mera Naam Joker, Raju has to juggle work and study, only to be thrown out of school. The Kapoor patriarch, Prithviraj, is equally impressive, and constantly reminded of a certain NT Rama Rao, not just in voice and presence, but even in body language at certain places, leaving me wondering if NTR took from Prithviraj beyond just that caricaturish performance in Akbar Saleem Anarkali.

Beyond all this conventional praise, this rewatch left me with a controversial opinion, that the Awaara music album was rather memorable more for the way the songs were integrated and picturized by Raj Kapoor unlike say, Shree 420 whose album is perhaps the best in all of Raj Kapoor’s filmography. 

It was great fun, though, to hear the tune of Na Maango Sona Chandi in the beach dive scene with Nargis, and one remembers Bobby once more in the terrific conversation between the Judge and the Tramp, negotiating a price for love as Raj’s father once offered Bobby’s father. To see the Judge’s visage next to a lamp amidst smoke is really something.

Another throwaway frame that isn’t really something, but becomes something more is a shot of blouseless women throwing the Awaara away from a truck. It isn’t much, but after reading some of Raj Kapoor’s more personal thoughts such as “I love little girls with large bosoms… I suckled my mummy’s bosom till I was 5, played with it … I am a bosom man.”  or just going through his thoughts about his mummy, one can’t help but wonder beyond his mammary obsession, Awaara contains some primordial oedipal passion from son to father.

LIVING LEGEND RAJ KAPOOR (Upgrade 2020)

Prithviraj Kapoor, beyond his reputation as a good and honest man, seemed to disapprove of his elder son’s ways, even warning the writers of Awara from working with Raj (My money’s on Shashi being the favorite). The Awaara’s pang of not having a family name, which resonates even in Pushpa today, may have to do with how Raj Kapoor was forced by his father to not use his nepotistic pedigree anywhere he went. The inter-family subtext is more fascinating with the presence of the Kapoor grandsire in a guest appearance as the arbiter in court.

This personal speculation is baseless, but it was real fun to see some other personal theories confirmed while reading through Rahul Rawail’s book on his mentor, Raj Kapoor. Before the theories, the stories Rawail has in his book are nothing short of insane. Raj Kapoor getting drunk and thrown out of his studio by his manager, rejecting a south indian for a job and that man going on to be LV Prasad, Raj Kapoor stealing sandwich fillings from others’ plates, spending a bomb on the Bobby birthday party even on the verge of bankruptcy, there’s lots more. 

My favorite though is the one time Raj Kapoor was drunk and annoyed with his driver, choosing to hail a taxi at midnight to go home. Rawail anxiously followed his boss on the way back home, seeing Raj Kapoor adjusted between the driver and another commuter, yapping away. When seeking out the driver to pay for the ride, the driver refused, saying it was an honor to have “the” Raj Kapoor in his cab, speaking and singing. 

This incident was in the early 1970s and the song Raj Kapoor sang in that cab to those co-passengers was “Sun Sahiba Sun”. Raj Kapoor composed some of his movie music too it seems, humming a tune while revising the script of Mera Naam Joker and making his daughter play it on the piano, the genesis of “Jeena Yahan Marna Yahan”. 

Shakespeare had once written of the lover, the lunatic and the poet; these three personae exist in each of us in some measure, but few could command of such work that reflected these three personae all at once as Raj Kapoor, India’s most successful auteur, did. He poured himself into his cinema so much that, to combine the lyrics of two of his most loved songs, “kal khel mein hum ho na ho, rahenge apni nishaniyan”. Thus lives on the legacy of Indian cinema’s great showman.