Oonche Log

When we watch a film, I think, what appeals to most of us is the manner in which the director narrates the story and how well the actors have interpreted their characters. Some directors are pretty skillful in their narration while others resort to straight forward story telling. Oonche Log directed by Phani Majumdar is more or less straight forward story telling, where the film scores is in the acting department. Please excuse me, I may sound a bit prejudiced but I do think this is one of my father’s best performances. Unfortunately nobody mentions this film for it sank without a trace, my brother says it ran for just 6 weeks. It is unfortunate really for almost everyone performed well but to me personally besides my father, it was Ashok Kumar who gave a mind-blowing performance as the visually challenged Major Chandrakant.


The film is based on a play, ‘Major Chandrakant’, written by K.Balachandar. After doing a bit of Google search, I learnt that this K.Balachandar is none other than the renowned filmmaker from the south who launched Tamil superstar Rajnikant.

The story in brief is about Major Chandrakant (Ashok Kumar), a widower, who has lost his eyesight during the war.

He lives with his two sons Sreekant (Raaj Kumar) a police inspector and ...

 Rajnikant (Feroz Khan) a student. Incidentally, just a thought, I wonder whether K. Balachander is particularly fond of this name Rajnikant, considering he gave his discovery the screen name of Rajnikant whose actual name is Shivajirao Gaikwad. There are two other characters whom you see in the film's first half, Juman (Kumud Tripathi) the family’s cook-cum-domestic help and Dhunichand ( Kanhaiyalal), a school teacher (see below), who is eager to get his daughter married to Rajnikant.

The film opens with the obvious happiness of the Major at having his beloved younger son home for the college holidays. However, elder brother Sreekant notices a change in his younger brother and expresses his concern to his father. The father brushes it aside, believing that everything will be alright, though he too notices certain things about his younger son which he doesn’t approve of and on and off corrects his son. Unknown to the father and the elder brother Rajni is having an affair with one of his claas mates Bimla Prabhu (K.R.Vijaya). He promises to marry her but drops her like a hot potato when he realizes she is pregnant.

  A quirk of fate leads to Sreekant reading Rajni’s letter. The letter was addressed to Sree  Kant with the Sree and Kant written separately, Rajni  assuming it was for his brother, hands it  over to him. The letter is from  Bimla who begs Rajni to marry her for she is afraid  her brother Mohan Prabhu (my father) will sooner or later learn about it. Incidentally she has no parents and has been brought up by her elder brother.
Sreekant insists that his brother marry Bimla and asks him to meet her and not avoid her. In the meanwhile as  the two brothers are talking the Major comes in. In order to cover up Sreekant talks about the confusion with the letter, the Major takes the letter from his son saying it could be for him. Later, sensing something is amiss the Major asks his elder son Sreekant to read out the letter to him.

 Sree in order to spare his father’s feelings and protect his younger brother makes up a letter of his own, giving an impression that the letter is written by Rajni's friend’s wife Bimla Prabhu who is seeking help from Rajni as her husband is suffering from cancer.

Meanwhile Rajnikant has no intention of marrying Bimla, he asks her to abort the child as he cannot face his father.

 A disgusted Bimla asks him to go away and commits suicide.

 Her brother Mohan Prabhu, Professor of chemistry and a research scholar is completely shattered

 and in a fit of rage sets out in search of Rajnikant and murders him.(below).

 Shocked at his own actions Mohan tries to evade the police and ends up in the Major’s house.

                                                                                                                        Initially the Major is determined to hand him over to the police but on hearing Mohan’s story he decides to give him shelter.                                                                  

 

He is completely ignorant of the fact that he is giving shelter to his son’s murderer. It is in this second half that you see some excellent performances .

I remember my father speaking admiringly of quite a few Hollywood actors, but amongst the Indian actors,  Ashok Kumar was my father’s idol.

Ashok Kumar was one of those actors who was pretty secure, he was not afraid of his co-actors stealing the show. There were and still are several actors both male and female, who get the their scenes re-written so that they dominate the scene. Ashok kumar was different, for him what was important  was that the scene should be good and not just his performance. He often went beyond the script and improvised, encouraging his co-actors to do the same and this is what my father enjoyed. There is one scene in Oonche Log where Ashok Kumar is searching for a set of keys, his performance of a helpless blind man searching for the keys, slipping and falling down in the bargain, is excellent.

What I liked about his performance is? It is understated. It is not one of those performances where the actor with some over-the top acting and mannerisms almost screams”Look how great my acting is” (see the clip below).

As for my father, well I find it just difficult to pick out one scene but if I have to choose, then it will be the murder scene. It is so realistic,  it is almost as if he is really confronting his sister’s lover, in real life he didn’t even have a sister, and after the murder the expression of shock and realization at the enormity of his action, is heart-breaking (see the clip below).

While watching this scene again, I realized that he and Feroze Khan are obviously on the set, the scenery which you see in the background is a back projection, giving an impression that the train is chugging along through the countryside. As my father accuses Feroze Khan, you notice Khan moving out of the frame and is out of the set, then my father starts beating him, I thought he is obviously whacking some inanimate object, there was such conviction in his performance that I almost forgot that he is there acting all alone on that set.

   

There is another scene where having entered the Major’s house, Mohan Prabhu assuming that the Major being blind is not aware of his presence, silently  goes into one of the rooms and thirstily drinks water from a jug. I love this scene (see clip below) because you can see the helplessness of a man, a research scholar who suddenly finds himself on the wrong side of the law.

Feroze Khan and Raaj Kumar have also acted quite well. There is one scene where Raaj Kumar really performs well and that is the scene where he reads the letter out to the Major (see clip below).

Incidentally there is something quite interesting in the above mentioned scene, at least I for one found it interesting, considering the fact that we just bid a fond farewell to the telegram here in India. Ashok Kumar says, "Oh phonogram.......", I felt a little nostalgic while watching this scene, I call the phonogram which was telegram dictated over the phone, the SMS of our childhood.

Good acting, a good story and some excellent songs could not save the film from box-office doom. What most people did not like was that, the heroine K.R.Vijaya was hardly seen in the film. Her role was brief and most of the time she was shown back to the camera, in contrast in the film’s Tamil version (Major Chandrakanth)  the heroine played by Jayalalitha had a longer role and of course she faces the camera. From what I have heard, the reason for not showing her is that the play had no female character, I guess there was just a reference to Bimla in the play, that is why in the Hindi version of the film too, it was decided to reduce the length of Bimla's character. Personally, I agree with the audience, after all when you see a character on screen you definitely want to see his or her face particularly in the crucial scenes. Most people did not like the film’s first half and found the scenes with Juman and Dhunichand a bit tedious. According to me however, what went against the film was that it was made at a time when the Hindi film audience was used to formula films- a hero, heroine, a villain, maybe a vamp, a separate comedy track with a comedian and comedienne. The hero with the help of the comedian bashing up the villain and then the hero and heroine living happily ever after. In case of Oonche Log, the audience had to walk out of the cinema hall with a heavy heart.

Trivia.

I was little when this film was being made, but I do have some memories about those days. I remember accompanying my father to a photographer’s studio. Now why was I accompanying him I do not remember, I think we were on our way to some other place and dropped in at this studio on the way. I saw the photographer hand over the robe and hat which graduates wear at the convocation ceremony, after my father put on the robe and hat, the photographer looked around, found a piece of paper and rolled it up and handed it to my father. My father posed with that piece of paper and the photographer clicked. I did not understand anything as I was small, when I grew up a little and saw the photo again (we had it at home, but it has been misplaced,  I have therefore posted the screen cap of the same below). I realized that piece of paper which was just some paper lying around, was supposed to be a degree, I was quite amused at just any paper being used to represent a degree.

It was during the making of this film that my father discovered that Raaj Kumar was bald, well not exactly bald, he had very little hair. Those were the days when the press was rather sedate, gossip magazines were unheard of, therefore my father who was working with Raaj Kumar for the first time was completely unaware of the fact that Raaj Kumar did not have much hair on his head.  While shooting for the film, my father was in the make-up room when Raaj Kumar walked in after giving his shot and removed his wig before settling down to relax. His wigs used to be of very good quality, one of the reasons why my father hadn’t been able to detect that it was not natural hair.

I have read that many actors found Raaj Kumar a difficult man to work with, but my father did not have any problem, they shared a cordial relationship. While the film was under production, all of us were going somewhere but my father stopped at some studio or some such place, he parked the car right behind Raaj Kumar’s car, who also happened to be there.  My father got out of the car and bumped into Raaj Kumar. As my father and Raaj Kumar were chatting, my brother who was also small then and who was otherwise a very well-behaved child, couldn’t help himself and began fiddling with the car’s controls, there was a slight slope and the car began to roll and it went and hit Raaj Kumar’s car. There was no damage for there was no speed. My father was terribly embarrassed, but Raaj Kumar was quite indulgent and laughed it off , his attitude being 'boys will be boys'. I was therefore quite surprised  at all the negative reporting about him.

My brother has another amusing memory connected with this film. My brother and Akbar Khan - Feroze Khan's younger brother - studied at the same school. When the film released, Akbar teased my brother, "Very good your father is in jail, he killed my brother." Needless to mention my brother was amused, it was a sort of joke between them.

My next post will be about Gumnaam.It might take a little time  but rest assured I will be back with Gumnaam.

Before I sign off, here is another clip from Oonche Log, I had to post this one for I just love my father's performance in this scene.