Movie Pick: Parakh (1960) - Bimal Roy
I thought of writing about some of my favorite movies from now on:
The best I feel among the ones I have watched by far is ‘Parakh’.
Parakh is a 1960 movie made by Bimal roy. You know that person, don’t you?
It is a satire on democracy and money minded higher ups of the society.
You won’t believe this to be a movie by the same person who made Devdas. Now this won’t sound as exciting as the person who made DevD made Return of Hanuman too.
That’s not just the only strange and exciting thing about this movie. Yester years’ glam doll Sadhana is here in a deglamorized role; that too not wearing the hairstyle named after her. That is Sadhana Cut if you are still guessing.
You can even find a sober Keshto Mukherjee here!
Story “Spoiler Alert”:
The movie is setup in a typical Indian village. The higher ups of the village are a Zamindar (landlord) , a Priest, a Doctor and a lecherous rich man. There is a talented school techer who is in love with the daughter (Sadhana) of the postmaster (Nazir Hussain).
One day the village Postmaster gets a cheque of Rs500,000 from the millionaire Sir JC Roy. This comes in a mail asking him to give this cheque to the most eligible person in the village, who shall use the money for the good of the village. The simple Postmaster informs about this to the higher-ups in the village. As can be expected, each of them starts to praise themselves to prove they are the best and they deserve that cheque to be awarded to them. Immediately the obvious resolution comes up i.e. to go for an election in the village and let the villagers decide who the best one for them is.
At once strange things happen in the village. The doctor who won’t see a patient without fees, treats all patients for free (makes the clinic a ‘खौराती दवाखाना’). The Zamindar waves all taxes and the Priest allows the lower caste people to enter the temple. The Richman starts constructing a well for the villagers and announces a road to be constructed. Rings a bell, huh?
Anyhow villagers tend to prefer the school teacher more than the higher ups. Hence they try to murder the school teacher. Alliances and all such election time political gimmicks are very well portrayed.
Finally a post man of the same village who is amused to see these changes is found to be the millionaire Sir JC Roy, who sent the cheque. Then he awards the real leader.
The famous song ‘O Sajna… Barkha Baahaar Aayi’ is from this movie.
Adjectives: I count this as one of my favorite movies. Say the ‘Bestestest<infinite loop est>’ movie I watched.
I like this movie for many reasons. It shows all types of characters here. Let it be the mean and greedy guys or the simple Postmaster who is truthful and sincere. Even there is the portrayal of the idealistic school teacher. The hardship of common man, the social problems, ‘the Indian mentality’ all are portrayed well and you feel, you see all this today too. Still you laugh at it!! Seems like life!
The satire on democracy is very convincing and makes you feel that the situation hasn’t changed at all. This makes it an evergreen movie.
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