Doosra Aadmi explores love in its various facets – love, passion, infatuation before and after marriage and the desperate attempt to cling on to memories of love.
It’s an elegantly simple plot.
Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh are college sweethearts who are so in love they can’t be apart. Their parents reluctantly agree to let them get married very very young.
They exude their passion for each other and very much in love.
Meanwhile, Raakhee is a beautiful older woman who has been living in self-imposed celibacy and seclusion since the tragic death of her boyfriend Shashi Kapoor. She is hired by Rishi Kapoor and Raakhee is taken by his resemblance to Shashi ( Excellent casting scenario) and begins almost unconsciously gets attracted to him, Rishi is now seeing monotony with Neetu and intrigued by Raakhee, and Neetu is trapped in a one sided love and one sided marriage with Rishi.
Even more simply, Neetu wants Rishi, Rishi wants Raakhee, and Raakhee wants dead Shashi ( in the form of Rishi Kapoor). It’s 3 people trapped in one way love stories.
Neetu (Timsi) is to obsessed over her husband (Karan) and want to spend more time with him, Rishi’s is to look outward to new challenges and, eventually, a new woman ( Nisha) (Typically urbane male)
Raakhee is trapped too. After Shashi’s death, she isolated herself from the world. She killed her natural desires and need for human contact. Rishi breaks through that and it comes out in such a powerful flood that Raakhee is almost unaware of what she is doing. She is lost in a dreamworld, torn between believing Rishi to be Shashi, and believing that she is having a “harmless” fantasy that does no damage to this nice young married man ( which she is unaware of). Both of these things are of course not true.
Now there is a forth angle too..
Her friend and well-wisher Parikshit Sahni, who silently loves her too, warns her of the consequences of a relationship with a married man.
Nisha realizes her mistake and to get a grip on her life, she deliberately avoids Karan to create a distance between them which Karan is not able to endure. He is not aware that Nisha’s intimacy with him is purely on account of his resemblance with Shashi. Caught in this dilemma and on the verge of losing his wife, Karan loses his peace of mind. To make amends, Nisha brings the Karan and Timsi together and clears their misunderstanding.
For the discerning though, there is a hint in Majrooh’s words in the song, “Chal kahin door nikal jayen”. The song ends with Raakhee’s character singing, “Achcha hai sambhal jayen”.
Now coming to the music ..
Other Melodies by Rajesh Roshan are still fresh.
For this Yash Chopra production, music director Rajesh Roshan, in a departure from his image, came up with a score that was peppy, cheery and throbbed with life. Not replete with his trademark melodious compositions, this one was a teaser with Lata Mangeshkar letting herself go in songs like “Nazron se keh do pyar mein milne ka mausam aa gaya” and “Chal kahin door nikal jayen”. When a super hit song like “Ankhon mein…kaajal hai” is relegated to the third slot and “Aao manaye jashn-e-mohabbat” not even talked about, it says all that needs to be said about Roshan’s music. As indeed it does about Majrooh Sultanpuri,
Jaan Meri Rooth Gayi is another fun song.
Ramesh Talwar shows competence and to an extent justifies the faith Yash Chopra had reposed in him..
I think this movie was about forgiveness (of both self and others), or maybe temptation, or recognizing the flaws in one's sense of reality, but I'm not sure.
I was not allowed to see it in 1977 but saw it in a rerun two years later.
Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh chemistry is superb.
Rakhee is restrained and lives her role.
The film was far ahead of its times.
No comments:
Post a Comment