Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Freeze Frame #28, #29: Deewar

Deewar is, in my opinion, the movie that features the best Amitabh Bachchan performance of all time. It is not that he did not do a better job in any movie before or since - a number of movies come to mind where his performance has been fantastic. But the sort of raw intensity he brought to Deewar was just something I've never seen him replicate. Even today, when I see that movie, there are moments that give me the goosebumps.

This is a movie with a number of great scenes, but my pick for the standout scene is pretty much the same as most others' - the one in the temple, where he goes to pray for his mother's life for the first time. The arrogance of his posture, the anger with which he starts speaking, and the way it breaks down when he eventually begs for her life... it still moves me to tears.

The other scene I really loved was when he goes to a garage where a bunch of goons who have been looking for him all day are gathered, and beats them up. It's a standard action scene, and the dialogue that begins it is straightforward. He just says, "You've been looking for me all day and here I am, waiting for you." But what really struck me was how much the lazy drawl in his voice conveyed the kind of man he was.

Most of Amitabh's blockbusters have been remade in Tamil with Rajnikanth. Deewar became Thee, with Suman in the Shashi Kapoor role. The movie probably did good business, but I found it to be a colossal disappointment. It lacked precisely what its title claimed: Thee (Fire).

Incidentally, I was watching K. Bhagyaraj's Thavani Kanavugal on TV yesterday and there's a scene in which Sivaji Ganesan, who plays his crusty old landlord and an army man who has never set foot in a temple, goes to the nearby Ganesha temple to pray for the well-being of his (Bhagyaraj's) family. And what do you know, the speech is basically a precise translation of Amitabh's speech in Deewar!

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Ardh Satya

There's an utterly captivating poem that gets recited in Ardh Satya. I think the poem has the same title as the movie, and is by this guy named Deepak Chitre. I watched the movie once a long time ago and loved it, but it was that poem that became my shortcut to reliving the experience.

I'd been searching for it for a long time, and found it recently here. The rendition by the blogger Neha Viswanathan is decent. Not Om Puri, as she says, but worth a listen. Using Blogger's new transliteration tool, I've keyed it in here:

चक्रव्युह में घुसने से पहले
कौन था मैं और कैसा था
यह मुझे याद ही ना रहेगा ।

चक्रव्यूह में घुसने के बाद
मेरे और चक्रव्यूह के बीच
सिर्फ एक जानलेवा निकटथा थी
इसका मुझे पता ही ना चलेगा ।

चक्रव्यूह से निकलने के बाद
मैं मुक्त हो जाऊं भले ही
फिर भी चक्रव्यूह कि रचना में
फर्क ही ना पड़ेगा ।

मरूं या मारूं
मारा जाऊं या जान से मार दूं
इसका फैसला कभी ना हो पायेगा ।

सोया हुआ आदमी जब
नींद से उठकर चलना शुरू कर्ता है
तब सपनों का संसार उसे
दोबारा दिख ही ना पायेगा ।

उस रौशनी में जो निर्णय कि रौशनी है
सब कुछ समान हो जाएगा क्या ?

एक पल्दे में नपुंसकता
एक पल्दे में पौरुष
और ठीक तराजू के कांटे पर
अर्ध सत्य ।

Neha, whoever and wherever you are, thank you from the bottom of my heart.