Many things like this can be written about the composition. Every line could be shown as having a meaning beyond the obvious.
But the truth is that this sort of thing is intellectually hedonistic. The writer thought of putting out only prettified lines. They don’t really represent anything. The poem may be fun to read but it is ultimately meaningless, because it wasn’t written for depth.
I should know — I wrote it and perhaps spent two minutes on it. But this sort of writing has become quite fashionable in literature.
In Europe, literature had become very heavy. This is why such light poetry was introduced, as a sort of reaction. The reader had had enough of the dense stuff, and so this filled the need.
India has always imitated and is now actually dependent on the west. And so it accepted this sort of poetry and copied it.
Today, I saw New Theatres’ Zindagi, an example of such light literature. When I came out, I wondered what it was that I had seen.
The famous Pandit Inder says this film is about psychology. Meaning something that is outside of perception. A delicate thing swimming in the ether perhaps.
Khwaja Abbas and Jamil Ansari say it’s a very good film. And so I also say it’s a very good film. However, I went to see Zindagi, meaning life. I’m sure Jamil Ansari understands quite well what the word means.
When the lights went down and the film began to unfold, I had a strange feeling. The sort one might have in a bar when, instead of a stiff whisky, one has been handed for some reason, a sweet and sour soft drink. It cannot be returned or thrown away, because that’s not in our culture. And so for two-and-a-half hours, I slowly sipped from this drink. Of course, if lots of ice is added to a soft drink it isn’t without its charms.
Zindagi is a good film. It had everything in it, except perhaps life. It had a counterfeit two-anna coin, which only director Barua could have used. It had songs which only Saigal could have sung. It had lines only Jamuna could have delivered. It had philosophy which Jamil Ansari explained. And it had the touch of an extinguished candle, a moment Khwaja Abbas appreciated.
On top of all this it had scenes of telepathy that Miyan Kardar loved and which produced magic at the box office. Zindagi is a good film because P C Barua made it and New Theatres produced it. And because it stars Saigal and Jamuna.
How shall I describe the film? Let me try. Many trains come from Peshawar to Bombay. Some of them are express, and some very slow. If you are fine with going to Peshawar from Bombay by the latter, even if it takes you ten or fifteen days, you will like Zindagi. Think of it as still waters in which there is movement only when a leaf should fall. It’s a road on which no car is ever seen. It goes straight, on and on, till death.
The screenplay is written as if the author is walking slowly along a straight line that he has drawn himself. And in the end, with a thud, he falls over a cliff.
And so — Zindagi. In my view, life’s problem is with, and its objection is to, death. But it seems here in this movie that life is on its knees before death. This film is the funeral of life, borne on Barua’s shoulders. It should be said here that the dead are very heavy.
Many times in the film one notices that Barua has tired of his burden. He’s out of breath and sitting in the shade of a tree to recuperate.
Me, I like action. I like seeing things that are fast. Things which excite me, like cars driven at full speed, trains hurtling along. I like these. I think they are the essential part of what I think of as life and living.
This is why may be, on seeing Zindagi, I felt no excitement. In fact, I felt nothing. I came out of the hall feeling what I had felt on entering it.
I had gone to see life — what I saw instead was death.
Now I accept that death is the destination of life. But isn’t even death full of life? Death isn’t always dead. Death which slowly crushes life in its hands, which stills the bubbling of life’s blood — that death cannot be lifeless.
In my opinion, death is more powerful than life. Even more full of life than life. But the death I saw in Zindagi was dull, lifeless.
The film’s story is about an unemployed graduate and an oppressed woman, whose husband is a drunk. As it unfolds, it seems as if the writer is trying to construct a building on quicksand. Every moment it faces the danger of collapsing.
The girl is a melancholic, because she’s been married off to the wrong man. He gets drunk and thrashes her. He throws her out of his house. But Ms Heroine is seen as claiming that she left him.
I haven’t figured out what made her claim that. She was battered first and then flung away. He had no use for her. What sense does it make for her to say that she left him? She didn’t have the courage to do this of her own will.
And after she’s out and meets Ratan Lal, the vagabond, why on earth is she in hiding? And why is he so angry? And why, while we are at it, is he unemployed?
I heard him sing so exquisitely. He could have made more than a bit of money peddling this talent. Why, if Zindagi is meant to be a story of our times, he could have walked into New Theatres and found a job immediately. Every film company is short of singers.
So why is he never doing anything?
I was convinced, after seeing the whole film, that he wanted it this way. This may be why the canvas of the film is so limited.
Life isn’t a little puddle, it’s an ocean on which both great yachts and little boats sail. But in this film, Ratan Lal and Ms Heroine keep making holes in the bottom of their vessel. In so far as I got it, Zindagi is a whine against society for not letting Ratan Lal and the girl be together.Their love remained unconsummated. Is this bedding of a person the primary aspect of someone’s Zindagi? Are bodily relations everything?
Ms Heroine is married. There’s no divorce among Hindus so she cannot marry her unemployed lover. And he apparently can’t get his act together because he can’t bed her. Is this what life is about?
I know that love is a powerful thing. The question is: what sort of love did these two actually share? So far as I understood it, it was sexual as such love tends to be.
If it had been something more than sexual desire, something more meaningful, something deeper, Ratan Lal would have moved his ass and done something about it.
And what does Ms Heroine do? She’s a literate, educated girl. She knows the problem and the situation confronting her. She is confident enough to spend the night in the same room with a stranger rather than go to her father. She then roams the streets with this man. Could she not have fought for her rights, a woman such as her? She could have found a job and, truth be told, taken in her lover and supported him. She does nothing. She is afraid, we are told. Of what?
Barua has given the answer right at the end, when Ratan Lal begins to abuse society. Now I think it right that society should be abused, if not manhandled.
The question is — what and who is society? Are not these two people part of it? If society is a donkey, Ratan Lal is its tail, trying to whisk the flies off.
I’m told Zindagi is a film about society. No doubt it is, because the word “society” appears in it. And perhaps because it addresses the aspect that a woman who has been married off to the wrong fellow should be allowed to romance another man.
I’m in favour of this, but I want to see a war being fought for such rights. Some stuff should be broken in anger. A hammer taken to hand and smashed on the problem: right, we’re rid of this now.