प्यासा
This 1957 film, which I selected on the recommendation of some of my friends at the BollyWHAT? discussion forums, has a very unusual hero – a starving, unrecognized poet Vijay (Guru Dutt).
Early in the film, Vijay is driven out of his mother’s home by his brothers, who think he’s a good-for-nothing layabout; they sell his life’s work, all of his poems, to a junk dealer as scrap paper. Left with nothing, Vijay wanders the streets, encountering a prostitute, Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman, stunningly gorgeous and probably not more than 19 years old) and his old college flame Meena (Mala Sinha), now married to a big-time publisher. As (through a twisting series of events) Vijay’s poems become known to the world, he is disillusioned by the constant jockeying of everyone around him to benefit from the success of his work.
Pyaasa ("Thirst") is a beautiful film, shot with breathtaking cinematography, and the songs – whch are meant to be Vijay’s poems – are uniquely lovely. (Unfortunately not all DVD editions subtitle the songs.) Among my favorites is "Jaane kya tune kahin," which shows how breathtaking the young Waheeda was. And "Ham aap ki aankhon mein" is one of the classic genre of ballroom fantasy sequences parodied in Dil chahta hai's "Woh ladki hai kahaan."
In one of its most interesting aspects, Pyaasa was sensitive to the plight of prostitutes and nautch-girls, while at the same treating society women (represented by Meena) much less kindly. The downtrodden women were shown just trying to make a living and care for their children, all the while demeaned and abused by the very men they serviced. The society woman, in contrast, was exposed as a manipulative, selfish fraud. This is the kind of message I expect in a Deepa Mehta or Shyam Benegal film - but I was (perhaps naively) surprised and pleased to see it in a mainstream film from 1957.