Mausam (1975) Sanjeev Kumar, Sharmila Tagore. Gulzar director

[Darshana]

   I got hold of this movie in order to start seeing more of Sanjeev Kumar, whom I admired so much in Silsila, where he plays a husband who probably knows his wife  (Rekha) does not love him the way he loves her - the performance was so subtle and intelligent.   He is wonderful in this one too,  but probably it's the performance of Sharmila Tagore I'll remember more keenly.
 
   When I went looking around the Internet for comments on Mausam I came across a message board note from someone who said she knew she could feel all right if she could hear Dil Dhoondta Hai every day of her life.  I understand why someone could fall in love with this song, played at the very beginning of this movie and again in a scene of love from the past of Kumar's character, whom we first meet in his middle age.

  Listen to Dil Dhoondta Hai

  Translation on screen:
 
  The heart lies in search
  Once again for those days
  And nights of leisure . . . .

  We're right away in the world of the longing and search for long-gone sweet memories, recalled with melancholy.

  Dr Gill (Kumar), an unmarried gray-haired man who has become successful through discovering a useful medicine,  is spending a holiday at Darjeeling alone.  Over twenty years before he had visited the same place, and fallen in love with the daughter of a local ayurvedic doctor.  He did not keep a promise to return for her, and he has come back to see what he can find out about her.

  He learns that she never recovered emotionally from his abandonment of her; she had married subsequently, lived in poverty, and had a daughter, who is now a prostitute.  The movie is the story of his efforts to deal with all of this, including his "buying" several weeks of the girl's time from the brothel where she works.

  Sharmila Tagore (the mother of Saif Ali Khan, for fans who know present stars better than earlier ones) plays both the girl Kumar falls in love with and her daughter, the young prostitute.  She is a magical creature in both roles - as the brash mountain girl who helps her father get customers (she rounds Kumar up fast when he slips on some steps and gets him to her dad's herbal dispensary), and as the seen-it-all and still enchantingly innocent prostitute girl.  We also have a glimpse of her as a gray-haired "old" woman in a sad scene where her decline into madness is dramatized.

   She doesn't know what Kumar wants when he takes her to his house, and is emphatic about being paid for her services - he insists on getting her dressed up in a ladylike way, once he's dealt with her insistence that the cost not be taken from her wages.  My favorite scene in the movie possibly, besides the car and the song at the beginning, is the scene where she decides she knows what kind of customer he is: not the kind who wants to "have fun" with a girl, but the romantic kind who wants to "roam" and see dancing. 

  If I recall correctly, she insists on dancing for him, though with a warning that she is not good at it - and she isn't, instead she is entirely loveable.  She seems to  be about 14.

Sharmila, as a young prostitute who dances badly but enjoys herself

  It's the kind of story Bollywood excels at - there is such artistry involved (the movie is written and directed by Gulzar, so the script is basically perfect) in containing the powerful emotions of a man who abandoned the only person he ever loved, and has returned too late to do anything to benefit her directly. 

   He is a taciturn, grim-ish character when we meet him, tenderer but also somewhat self-involved in the flashbacks to his "days and nights of leisure."    The antic aspects of both the girl he loves and of her tough little daughter keep the movie far away from being a dreary guilt-and-sob-fest.   Kumar is a wonderful actor, as noted, but this movie is from the days when the hero didn't have to be in fit physical shape; he isn't, so when he is supposed to be young and handsome, his face is fine but the body detracts from my ability to experience the "young love" thing.  But Dil Dhoondta Hai just about makes up for it.

  I think the movie also allows some play to the question of whether there is a Lolita-like element to the relationship developing between Dr Gill and the girl - it lets us think about that, I'd say.  Anyhow, I love this movie and hope for other comments here.

[Darshana]

  I'll reply to myself with a few more screen captures from this beautiful movie.

Sanjeev as a young medical student, in love with the rural doctor's daughter, played by Sharmila

Sharmila as Chanda, the young woman in love

Sanjeev as Doctor Gill, many years later, back in Darjeeling with his memories and sorrow

The mood of the long-ago romantic time, Gill and Chanda together before he left her forever

[crazyone]

Darshana, I really enjoy watching Sanjeev Kumar--he's an excellent actor, and I'm convinced that if he had lost the excess weight and taken a bit more care of his appearance (cutting his hair properly, for example), he would have been one of the handsomest actors of his time.  I haven't seen Mausam, but if you want to see some more great movies with him and very strong female roles as well, I suggest Anamika and Koshish (with Jaya Bhadhuri) and Aandhi (with Suchitra Sen).

[Darshana]

Thanks for the recommendations!  I agree with you about his handsomeness - I discovered it (I had just liked him as a wonderful actor, to start with) when I was replaying the movie slowly, looking for screencaps of him and Sharmila that showed them together - in the closeup I ended up with I think his handsomeness shines out.

Before I did that, though, I hadn't quite seen it, as there is so much footage of him trying to scamper along with Sharmila, and his bulk interferes.  In one scene, he reaches over to caress her face with a hand on her shoulder, and sadly he looks as if he is an out-of-breath older guy leaning on his young companion--doesn't work romantically.  But apart from that problem, the story does work romantically, more important it works as a story about love and regret.

And it is such a matter of changing times, isn't it - people unquestionably adored Shammi Kapoor and whenever I've seen him in a movie, he's had a bulky body.  Though in the US in the 70s most male actors didn't necessarily look as if they worked out, they were slimmer and fitter-looking. 

[crazyone]

Right, but Sanjeev Kumar's bulk was problematic even to Bollywood directors.  He was only 50 or so (perhaps not even) when he died of a heart attack--which is the primary reason I wish he had watched his weight--but he was consistently being into 'old man' roles for a long time due to his size, and also I guess his willingness to take on a variety of roles.  He started out by being Jaya Bachchan's romantic interest, but in a few years he was playing her father-in-law in Sholay.

[Darshana]

  I looked him up, he was born in 1938 and died in 1985, at 47.  So sad.  He would not even be 70 if he were alive, he's the age of Shashi Kapoor (oh he's another one, but he did give us some years of a slim-enough handsome hero.  Raj died young too, Shashi seems to have better luck genetically).  Amitabh was born in 1942 or 1943, he's the example of the modern person that age, I wish the rest of them had had his philsophy and metabolism and were still here.

   So he was 37 in Mausam, and Sharmila was 29, born in 1946.

   On imdb I wonder if his career is mixed up with someone else's, they list him being in more than 10 movies after 1985 - a few I could see, that he'd completed but were not released yet when he died, but this seems like too many.  Somebody from here should straighten them out, I don't know who else would.  If they're wrong.

[stimpy]

I think they are all his films, just released sometime way after he'd died. You remember that they often did many films at the same time, so it's not really very unusual, and some films in particular took years to make anyway, I think Love and God was one of those. Yeah poor chubby Sanjeev, he's wonderful, one of my favorites. He loved his food (and drink) and could have done with someone to look after him. From the mid 70s films and onwards you have to concentrate on his performance, his face, and eyes, rather than his waist.

I finally got Mausam, so I'll watch it and come back.

[Darshana]

Stimpy I will look forward to hearing you've seen it.  I'll probably watch it again.

A thing I'd like to discuss, or check out when I see it again, is whether I am right in thinking the movie lets you wonder a little bit where he's going with his keeping the daughter - who looks just like her mother - in his house.  I'll leave it at that.

[stimpy]

Don't you just love Gulzar. "Oh! We change hearts also, but by instilling good thoughts."

While I was watching the film today, the thing that didn't came to my mind was middle aged perverts lol.
I loved the film. It was like reading a good book in the sense how things unfolded gradually like turning a new page into the next part of the story. Gentle humour, strong currents under the smooth flow of the narrative, the flash backs worked well, yummy acting. Everything worked nicely together, songs, great script. I love the discourse that went on in the expressions alone. It's the best of Sharmila I've seen, even though I've always liked her in the dozen odd films I've seen her in prior to Mausam. She was really charming and made all the different characters work so poignantly. I can see why some people think Sanjeev is just constipated, but I disagree. He's just a bit...fat  You'd have to be blind not to hear the conversation in the expressions of his face. Fine, it's subjective, I thought they were both really really good. I like all the songs, the sad Dil Dhoonhta Hai, the walking stick song, the seductively innocent bad dancing song, Dr Gill spying to his past from behind a tree. Yeps, this is a keeper for me, straight into shelf, after I watch it again that is.

youtube had few of the songs:
 
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9sQZeqN62zs&search=mausam 'Chhadi Re Chhadi'

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xhrtEWKlShs&search=mausam 'Dil Dhoondhta Hai'

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9Cd6CEUmbuE&search=mausam 'Ruke Ruke Se Qadam'


But afterwards, I thought about your Lolita LOL. Ofcourse you could draw parallels until the cows come home, middle aged man looking for the lost love of his youth, a girl/woman young enough to be his daughter, a whore/teen age temptress traipsing around the country side etc. But atleast on the surface, it seems more a comparison of the total opposites. Amarnath doesn't fantasize about his pre-pubescent step-daughter. He eventually comes across the girl that might of been his daughter if things had been different. The guilt of not having been there when it mattered, the startling similarity of mother and daughter, being the cause for the ruination of both, clearly does have his head spinning not just a little. He'd loved the mother, why not the daughter. I think you can easily leave it open to interpretation wether stronger desires arise in his heart, other than the fatherly care for he shows to Kajli that is. He certainly reacts so violently to her passes that you might think that it's a reaction to his own feelings just aswell as any disgust at any ho' like behaviour or misunderstanding to his truthful intentions. Amarnath helps Kajli to recover her worth as a person, to something closer to what she was before being forced into prostitution, all the time behaving like a father might. Humbert turned Lolita into his play thing. The terrible rapist uncle might be the Humbert in Mausam on that score. Most often Dr Gill calls Kajli beti and refuses to be drawn into the flirtation. Cracked me up when Sanjeev says 'Oh No' in the middle of the can't dance naach girl song. To me it looks like Amarnath would roughly push any "wrongful" feelings aside. It's Kajli I wonder about, would she be content to stay just a daughter? Her feelings as a woman, maybe even a mother one day, had been roused. Would she marry someone else one day, or did she give her life to him already? When he drives off in the end, I thought they were more father and daughter than sugar daddy and future mistress/wife. But does really matter which way it goes, they aren't blood relatives, so all possibilities can still be applied.    True, there's the manager who'll recognize Ms loud and cheap in new clothing with nicer manners, will that make the whole driving off just a fancy left unrealiazed when faced with the reality in the far off Calcutta?
In 'Lolita' both old pervy aswell as Lol are pretty much doomed at the outset, while in 'Mausam' both Amarnath and Kajli become more whole than they had been, a rich lonely older man reclaiming something lost and making reconpense and an abused young woman regaining a life, they've forged a bond that is beyond blood. Theirs is a happier excistense which ever path they might choose take together, atleast it gives hope of that.
Maybe he'll buy her a separate house, or become a notorious wealthy old lecher in the eyes of society, or he'll die, leave all his money to her and she'll become the hottest madam in town. I haven't decided yet 

For now I'll just go play my Mausam CD before I go to bed.

[Darshana]

Nice to have somebody to talk to about this movie, it deepens my appreciation for it.   And I really appreciate your analysis in response to my question, Stimpy, thanks!!

I hadn't noticed his always caling her beti and I don't think they probably used "daughter' in the subtitles, maybe "child," I'll watch it again soon and look.   When I was watching it I remember thinking, she looks just like her mother (of course), I hope this movie doesn't make the two of them into a couple, I'll hate it so much if they do.

And then I posed the question because I thought the movie was allowing that thought to float around - is her going to start responding to her that way?  I didn't think the movie ever indicated that he actually was thinking about her that way, but that it let us wonder about that.  So my shorthand reference to Lolita wasn't really accurate, as you say Humbert Humbert was unambiguously into Lolita sexually - and also married to mother, as I recall. 

By the end of the movie, I think that we have been told that he is staying straight with the girl, looking after her in a parental way only.

[stimpy]

Yeah I agree with you. At the end I think Kajli too thinks of him as more of a father than just any man or even a potential lover/husband/sugardaddy/something after she finally finds out that he was the  doctor that his mother was waiting for all that time. It's like the flirtation has gone out of her face.
I suppose beti is more a generic term any elderly relative or person might use like "how are you my child" without it meaning that there is an actual relation. And that makes his intentions more clear I think. On the other hand Kajli had had plenty of old fuggies calling her beti and wanting just the one thing, so her reaction is hardly suprising.

... I hope this movie doesn't make the two of them into a couple, I'll hate it so much if they do.

  yeah enough of old buddus with young girls already. Maybe they had a chance for romance in other films.

[sulymon]

hmmm... this movie looks interesting- I should watch it!

i was looking through songs on youtube when I walked into the haunting melody of dil dhoondhta hai- wow. On my first listen, i fell in love with the song. I'm going to rent the movie just because of that song. I've seen daag- another sharmila tagore movie and I really liked it...
good thing bollywood has such good classics to fall back on because most of the new movies are quite bad...

[Darshana]

I'll look forward to your comments, Sulymon - though this comment here makes me wonder, have you really found that a larger percentage of movies of the current era are "bad" compared with the movies of some earlier time? 

I myself would say I've found a lot of movies good this year, and then as to earlier times I definitely only watch probably the best one percent, as those are the ones one tends to hear discussed.

If there were ten good ones this year, that's about 5% of the HIndi popular movie total (I counted 200 on the film Fare list last year, assume that's typical).

[sulymon]

haha- i tend to exaggerate

its just that some of the new movies aren't as appealing...


oooo i am in love with dil dhoondhta hai...wow...does anyone know of similar songs? I know one- Mere Dil Mein Aaj (Daag) they sound similar- I was wondering if anyone knows of songs that sound similar to this- theres a haunting quality to it...

[Darshana]

The old movie song that plays in the background in Fanaa has, for me, a similar appeal to Dil Doondha Hai.  Lag Jhale _____, something like that (I have no idea of the title, and I am just writing syllables without knwoing if they mean anything either, in case somebody can come up with it).

It also has a  mood and words of sad nostalgia. 

I put a link to Dil Doondha Hai in my post at the beginning of this thread, in case anybody wants to hear it.

[amit]

This is an awesome movie. Methinks the ending was ambiguous on purpose and it is left to the viewer to decide what kind of relationship they would have. I saw this movie a long time ago, so will have to refresh my memory before I write more.

One possible reason for Sanjeev's early demise could be that he had his heart broken. He had asked Hema Malini to marry him and she said no. He was probably a very sensitive man and that rejection may have led him to not care about his health/well being.

I remember my dad mentioning that when he heard the news about Sanjeev Kumar's death, he lost his appetite for the day.

[Darshana]

I'd be depressed too if I heard Sanjeev Kumar had died, he is somebody I feel for and can identify with.  He was so young, too.  If he was a sad, depressive sort of guy - and I think people like that often are able to really gain an audience's emotional connections - I can further understand his having trouble keeping weight off, it is soo hard for someone who's so sad to undertake the deprivation involved in losing weight, they're really just involved in surviving day to day.

I hadn't known he was in love with Hema.  That's sad too, that they didn't get together.

[amit]

Yeah, it's sad. I was too young when he died, otherwise I'd have lost my appetite too.

From what I've read, SK wasn't the only one who was floored by Hema. Jeetendra also wanted to marry her.

[Darshana]

haha- i tend to exaggerate

its just that some of the new movies aren't as appealing...


oooo i am in love with dil dhoondhta hai...wow...does anyone know of similar songs? I know one- Mere Dil Mein Aaj (Daag) they sound similar- I was wondering if anyone knows of songs that sound similar to this- theres a haunting quality to it...

Sulymon, you asked about "other songs like this" -- this one reaches the same part of my brain -- see if it does it for you.  It is the song I mentioned before, La Ja Gale, which plays in Fanaa at the most important romantic places - it's old too.  I don't speak Hindi.  It amazed me at first how deeply these songs affected me from the first I heard them. 

Lag Jaa Gale

[carla]

I just began my vacation with this movie, and I'll have to collect my thoughts for a while but - what a film.  I wept at the end as I rarely do.  I think that reflects the outstanding work of Sanjeev and Sharmila.   It really was some of the finest pure acting I've seen in a film.  "Delicate" is the word that kept coming to mind - it's a delicate story, about delicate characters, delicately told. 

Sanjeev Kumar has been one of my favorite actors for a long time; he's extremely sensitive and controlled.  Upthread there was some discussion of how his poor fitness masked his handsomeness - I think that's true, but I also think there is an everyman quality to him that makes his outstanding portrayal of human pain that much more effective.  I think of his awkwardness in Sita aur Geeta; he was so completely not cut from romantic-hero cloth, and yet he was so adorably appealing with Hema's spunky, streetwise character that they seem fully meant for one another.  There's something similar here; even though he's not a slick good-looking romantic you can still see him lodging his curmudgeonly self in Chanda's heart as a young man, and Kajli's when he's older.  He's very real. 

But I don't want to neglect Sharmila - she was fabulous in her double-role; Chanda's flouncy innocence on the one hand (I will try to get a screencap of her sticking her tongue out at Gil), and Kajli on the other, always exhausted and broken, until she is refreshed by her bond with him.

I do have a small discomfort with rich-man-saving-poor-prostitute-from-degradation stories; here, Gil molds Kajli's behavior in ways that maybe shouldn't matter so much, making her conform to a social expectation that good women don't smoke, cuss, &c.  She interprets this as him treating her with respect, and in the context of the story I just buy that and it's not such a problem.  But when I step outside of it I have to wonder if that superficial makeover is really equal to treating her with respect.  Perhaps it's just a way to kind of trick her into treating herself with respect.  I'll have to ruminate on that some more.   

[Darshana]

I'm glad you liked Mausam as it's definitely one of my favorites -- such an exceptionally excellent script, pitch-perfect acting, wonderful music and, I think, a beautiful atmosphere too.  And the Bollywood pleasure of having one of our stars in more than one role. 

[corbie]

I just saw this one and it is quite good except one thing has me confused. Was she his biological daughter? The reviews say so, but then it seems it was a bit incestuous if she was.

[Darshana]

No, I really do not believe she was his daughter.  If someone who knows Hindi and knows the movie well thinks she was, I hope s/he will tell us. 

As I understand it, the young woman waited for him for a long time, and finally -- maybe when her father died -- married a disabled man and lived a poor life.  She had a daughter in that marriage.  As I remember, the daughter looked after her mother, who became more and more out of touch with reality.  Then when mother died the daughter had to go and work as a bar girl.

Also, though, he definitely does not engage in a "romantic" or sexual relationship with the girl - he wants to save her from her circumstances.  As I commented on the regular thread, I think the movie delicately allows the viewer to wonder if he will have a romantic attraction to the daughter who looks just like the woman he loved - but by the end we are reassured that this has never been in his mind, and he's at pains to make the girl aware that that's not what he's got in mind when he takes her away from her home and place of work.

Where were you reading that? 

[Deewani_Aurat]

Who is in Mausam? What year was it made that we are referring to?

[carla]

corbie, are you talking about the 1975 Mausam with Sanjeev Kumar and Sharmila Tagore?  It sounds like you might be - we have an interesting thread on it already in Golden Oldies.  I trust the mods will merge.

I agree with Darshana, the younger character of Sharmila (Kajli) was not Dr. Gil's daughter - the older character of Sharmila (Chanda) was made to marry some years after Gil left, and the daughter is the product of that marriage.