There is a luminescence to the films of this time. You can see it with your eyes closed, hear it in the music. Some of India’s finest storytellers ever, were in their prime.
Two films were released in Bombay on Independence Day: Shehnai and Mera Geet. While the latter vanished from theatres and memory in no time, the PL Santoshi-directed Shehnai from Filmistan Studio became a huge success. The story of four spirited, independent young girls, it had racy, hummable songs (we still remember Aana Meri Jaan Meri Jaan Sunday Ke Sunday) and a happy energy that was in tune with the euphoria of that historic moment.
The number of films produced in India had been steadily rising since 1945, when World War 2-era restrictions were lifted. From 126 films in 1944, the number jumped to 283 in 1947, of which an estimated 114 were made in Bombay. The Partition of Bengal affected the film industry there adversely, given the large-scale migration of the population to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Most of the film talent in Calcutta moved to Bombay.
The studio system was in decline and independent filmmakers were in ascendance. While all kinds of films were made in those early years after Independence, filmmakers gave passionate voice to the ideals and aspirations of a newly free nation, while also shining a spotlight on all the painful problems that needed to be fixed.
In the films of this time, there was a sense of pride in the nation’s history and culture, both of which had been derided by the British. This strand found its zenith in K Asif’s monumental Mughal-e-Azam
Perhaps the film that is most emblematic of the nation-building mission was Mehboob Khan’s unforgettable epic Mother India (1957; see image at top), which opens and closes with the village matriarch (Nargis) inaugurating an irrigation canal, symbolic of new India’s first steps towards modernisation and progress.
Idealism was in the air. Bimal Roy’s Sujata (1959) recounts the love story of a Brahmin boy and a Dalit girl. V Shantaram’s Do Ankhen Barah Haath (1957) spoke of prison reform. Producer-director-actor Raj Kapoor made a clutch of memorable films in this period. In Shree 420 (1955), one of his finest offerings, innocent small-town boy Raj comes to Bombay from Allahabad, goes astray in the big city, but is brought back onto the righteous path by his virtuous beloved, the schoolteacher Vidya (Nargis). Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin (1953) is a moving chronicle of the plight of a poor farmer at the mercy of an exploitative zamindari system. The cinema of the time was defined by its pluralism, its strong sense of justice and compassion for the poor and marginalised.
There was also a sense of pride in the nation’s history and culture, both of which had been derided by the British. Though films on India’s past had been made earlier too, this strand found its zenith in K Asif’s monumental Mughal-e-Azam. It was the love story of Prince Salim and the slave girl Anarkali, with the towering, disapproving figure of the Mughal emperor Akbar casting a long shadow over their passion. It was also about the awe-inspiring grandeur of the Mughal court.
New changes and configurations in the national landscape were also reflected on the big screen. Urbanisation was rapid and cities burgeoned. Big cities, particularly Bombay, with their anonymity, opportunities, temptations and freedoms, not to mention their seamier side, became fixtures of the big screen – movies like Guru Dutt’s 1951 thriller Baazi, Zia Sarhadi’s 1953 film Footpath about a black marketeer who reforms in the end, Chetan Anand’s 1954 Taxi Driver, Aar Paar (1954), Pyaasa (1957), Howrah Bridge (1958), to mention just a few.
Modernisation also often meant more independent heroines and freer relationships between men and women. In Mehboob Khan’s Andaz (1949), rich young woman named Neeta (Nargis) wears smart Western clothes, goes horse-riding and sees nothing wrong in being friendly with another man even though she is betrothed.
Guru Dutt plays a struggling poet facing constant rejection in Pyaasa (1957). Hope comes from an unexpected quarter, Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman), a prostitute who falls in love with him and his work.
Kishore Sahu’s Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi (1960) has an independent single young working woman, a nurse named Karuna (Meena Kumari), as the leading lady and depicts her silent, mature romance with a doctor.
Mala Sinha in Dhool ka Phool (1959), part of this period’s humane cinema that stood against bigotry. In the movie, an unwed mother is abandoned by her lover, and is cared for by a Muslim man.
But how could filmmakers forget that India had just emerged from colonial rule after a sustained, heroic struggle for freedom, followed by the trauma of Partition? There were patriotic films such as Shaheed (1948), Samadhi (1950); and humane cinema that stood against bigotry, such as Yash Chopra’s Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and Dharmputra (1961).
But as the ’50s started winding down, India decided it also wanted to have fun. Director Nasir Husain’s entertaining 1957 romance Tumsa Nahin Dekha, with a hit music score, catapulted Shammi Kapoor to fame overnight. With his uninhibited “Yahoo! Chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe!” in Subodh Mukherjee’s Junglee (1961), Kapoor introduced a high-energy, youthful charm to Hindi movies, which became a signature in his later films. The trend of breezy romances would come to full flower in the 1960s.
Apart from the standout idealistic films of these years, there were all sorts of other memorable movies that spanned different genres, such as Kamal Amrohi’s Gothic thriller Mahal (1949), Bimal Roy’s reincarnation drama Madhumati (1958), Guru Dutt’s light-hearted Mr & Mrs 55 (1955), and his sombre Pyaasa (1957), Satyen Bose’s rollicking comedy Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958),and Nitin Bose’s classic “good brother-bad brother” saga Gunga Jumna (1961), a theme that was reiterated often in later films, most successfully in Deewar (1975), with Amitabh Bachchan.
The late 1940s and ’50s were also interesting because many of the mainstream films of the period (most became hits) were realistic in treatment and tone, while being highly entertaining -- one of the reasons why this period is referred to as the Golden Age of Hindi Cinema. Over and above the nobility of themes and their humanistic outlook, almost all the films had sublime music. Song writers of the time also happened to be poets of high caliber. The universality of themes and the emotional power of the films meant that they travelled beyond Indian shores and found critical acclaim and audiences in other parts of the world.
Mother India became the first Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar, in the International Feature Film category. Do Ankhen Barah Haath won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Raj Kapoor’s Awara (1951) became hugely popular in the Middle East, Iran, Turkey and particularly in the Soviet Union, where the actor became a rage and the title song, Awara Hoon, was a runaway hit.
Back home, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru recognised that the nation must develop in all spheres – it was not enough to set up steel mills, build dams, establish IITs and space research organisations. The government set up the Film Finance Corporation to encourage quality filmmaking. In 1960, the Film Institute came up in Pune, in what used to be Prabhat Studios. Four years later the National Film Archive was created.
These early years gave Hindi cinema some of its greatest auteurs, its most influential films, its best music. Most of all, they gave us films with great heart and generosity of spirit
