Deewar (1975)

Directed by: Yash Chopra

Music: RD Burman

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, 
Neetu Singh, Parveen Babi, Satyen Kapoo, 
Madan Puri, Iftekhar, Manmohan Krishna

1975 was an important year for Amitabh Bachchan. After having established his acting credentials with Zanjeer, Abhimaan, and Namak Haram in 1973, he had only Majboor to boast of the following year. Other releases like Roti Kapda aur Makan (a supporting role) and Benaam (based on The Man Who Knew Too Much) were average grossers. In an industry where you were only as good as your previous hit, it must have been a scary time. Fortunately for him, 1975 provided him with a bouquet of hits. Apart from Deewar, Mili and Chupke Chupke saw him in varied roles while Sholay became a blockbuster to end all blockbusters.

At the annual Police award function sub-inspector Ravi Verma (Shashi Kapoor) is receiving an award for going above and beyond the call for duty.

In his acceptance speech, he mentions how there is a woman behind his success – and begs that she accept his award in his stead. His mother is escorted to the podium and accepts the award. Only, neither mother nor son are entirely happy.The applause that greets her brings back to memory another day, another audience cheering. 

Cut to flashback: Sumitra Devi (Nirupa Roy) is part of a happy household comprising her husband, union leader Anand Verma (Satyen Kapoo), and sons Vijay (Master Alankar) and Ravi (Master Raju). Anand and the other workers are on strike for better wages and benefits.

The mill owner (DK Sapru) is thoughtful but strikes down a suggestion that Anand be killed. For a man killed betimes becomes a martyr. He cannot be bribed, the minions whine. So? He has to have some weakness, the owner says. And that is where they will strike at him. 

And so, Anand is called to to the negotiation table, and the workers are jubilant. However, when he comes out, they find out that he has sold them out. Why? They receive no answer from him, and overnight, the hero becomes a pariah. His wife knows why he did it, and sympathises, but Anand cannot bear the taunts and the hurt among his erstwhile friends and colleagues. He leaves home, but his infamy lingers like some miasma over the family, as they fend for themselves. 

One day, as Vijay is returning from school, he is taunted by the village louts until his rage boils over. When he retaliates, the men drag him to the town tattoo artist. Vijay’s anger and bitterness spills over. When his mother questions him, he wordlessly holds his arm out – Mera baap chor hai (My father is a thief) has not just been tattooed on his arm; it’s been marked on his heart and soul.

Eventually, Sumitra Devi decides to leave the town and the memories behind; with her children in tow, she comes to Bombay. There, aided by Vijay who refuses to go to school anymore, they toil to educate Ravi. Younger, protected from the worst of their problems by his mother and brother, Ravi slogs at school, while his mother works at a construction site, and Vijay sets up as a shoe shine boy. Where, one man, at least, recognises the fire inside him.

Fed up with their constant troubles, little Vijay has lost faith; when his mother exhorts him to pray, he refuses. And an enlightened priest asks her to leave the child be. And the temple bells clang out the passing of the years. Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) still waits on the temple steps while his mother and brother pray.

As they leave the temple, the brothers go their different ways. Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) is now a graduate searching for a job, while Vijay works at the docks. In conversation with an old colleague Rahim chacha (Yunuz Parvez), Vijay learns that his badge number (786) is auspicious to the Muslims; Rahim chacha tells him that as long as he has it, Allah would protect him.

 

Vijay also learns that nothing has changed for the coolies – they still have to pay hafta (‘protection’ money); only the extortionists change. Samant’s (Madan Puri) men work the docks; every payday means a percentage reaches Samant’s office. When one of the new workers refuses to bow to the extortion, Samant’s men take it by force; in the ensuing melee the poor youth is killed. As the other workers rue the youth’s indiscretion in going against the accepted norm, Vijay is lost in thought.

 

Vijay keeps his word, much to the consternation of the local yokels. No one has ever challenged them before. And this cannot be allowed to rest. They had to deal with the malcontent now!

But that is easier said than done. Bowing down to his Rahim chacha’s wishes, Vijay has been lying low, but not for lack of courage. While Peter’s men are searching for him high and low, he is...

When he has finished with them, he is a hero in his colleagues’ eyes, but his mother lambasts him. Is he their saviour? Why did he have to go looking for those louts? What if something had happened to him? Vijay is not cowed down – what does she want? That he also run away like a coward? The emphasis is slight, but it sears through her like acid.

The next morning, on his way to the docks, Vijay has a visitor. And an offer. Davar (Iftekhar) is a smuggler who has lost his gold three times to Samant. What he needs is a man who will ensure the safety of the gold from the time it’s unloaded from the steamers until it is stored in his godowns.

And the deal is struck, but not before Vijay reminds Davar of something crucial.

Meanwhile, Ravi, at a loose end, is spending some time with Veena (Neetu Singh) when her father comes up; he suggests that Ravi join the police. Vijay has just received his first assignment. Davar’s gold is landing at Versova, and Vijay wants to tackle the job alone. Davar is taking a risk, but he allows Vijay to play it as he sees it. Using Samant’s men, Vijay gets the gold safely into Davar’s godown. Samant is beyond furious.

But Davar is grateful. And generous. And Vijay’s first step is buy a bungalow for his family. His mother is worried. Is he doing something he shouldn’t be? Vijay reassures her. He is doing nothing he shouldn’t be doing. And then Ravi comes charging up – he has been accepted to the police training academy. Isn’t that great? Vijay is taken aback. However, there is not much he can say, and Ravi leaves for the academy. Vijay continues working for Davar, and is happy to plot and scheme for him, even using his own life as bait. And at the appointed time, Vijay sets out to keep his appointment with death. And for the second time, his badge saves him.

Vijay also finds his romance, in the most unlikeliest of places – the bar of a hotel. Anita (Parveen Babi) is a prostitute, one who openly smokes and drinks. His first meeting with her ends with him buying her a drink; soon, she is his mistress. And eventually, they fall in love.

Samant is not an easy man to fool, but Vijay’s ploy works and soon, one of Davar’s men is a mole in their rival’s gang. And Davar relinquishes his command to Vijay, much to the consternation of his second-in-command. Vijay has attained all that he had set out to do, and Ravi is coming back after training. The brothers’ paths have diverged more than Vijay had ever dreamed. And what Vijay fears comes true. 

On his first day on the job, Ravi is given a file of police suspects. When push comes to shove, his mother, for whom Vijay had forsaken everything, forsakes him. And as she and Ravi leave his home, Vijay is left alone.

As Ravi takes on the case, the crime lords are willing to put a price on his head. Vijay stops them but is forced to tell his mentor that Ravi is his brother. Ravi is now both hunter and the hunted.

Vijay asks to meet him, the final meeting between the brothers, who now stand on opposite sides of the law. The only neutral area they can meet is under the bridge where they passed their childhood. Vijay has already played his hand; now, whether he wins or loses, he has to await the outcome of the game. His brother, he argues, still has time… 

But will Ravi agree to leave? More importantly, will Vijay be able to save his brother from the wrath of the underworld? 

But that is just the beginning of Vijay's troubles. 

And the film winds tautly down to its tragic climax.

Zanjeer was Amitabh’s breakthrough into the big league. However it was his controlled performance in Deewar that consolidated his position. His anger and his anguish scorch the screen with an intensity that hasn’t been matched yet in commercial cinema. For a film that does not let up on the drama, it was Amitabh’s acting coupled with the taut script by Salim-Javed that had us rooting for a man outside the bounds of morality. 

Vijay is totally anti-hero. He does not sing; his ‘romance’ starts as an affair with a prostitute (played with great empathy by Parveen Babi); it’s the meeting of two lonely souls who find an understanding non-judgemental partner in the other. There is no moralising; Anita stops drinking not because ‘good women do not drink’ but because she is pregnant. Vijay goes straight not because he suddenly gets religion but because he does not want his unborn son to be scarred the way he was. Even when he steps into the temple again, it is not out of a return in faith, but more to condemn a stone god who cannot do anything to save a woman whose faith has been beyond reproach. 

Ravi’s character gave me more trouble. It is a complicated one, and even today, after repeated viewings, I cannot warm to him. He has reaped the benefits of his brother’s sweat; why the necessity, nay, the urgency to hunt him down? There is something unlikeable about his character (and I’m biased enough that I’ll admit that if the tables were turned, and it had been Amitabh as Ravi, I may have been more sympathetic), and while Shashi Kapoor played him more than competently, I wanted to take a gun and shoot him for relentlessly pursuing his brother. (And what on earth was Shashi Kapoor playing younger brother for, anyway? He is older than Amitabh!)

Neetu Singh was there for the forgettable songs. I wish they had removed her character (and the songs) since it seriously derailed the narrative. Her character was totally unnecessary to the plot. Parveen Babi, with much less screen time, fared better. Her Anita was not stereotypical ‘whore-with-a-golden-heart’. Au contraire. She smokes, drinks, sleeps openly with her lover, and does not exhort him to marry her when she realises she is pregnant. She dies in the end, yes, but there is no feeling that she died because she is a ‘fallen woman’. She is collateral damage, a fact that Vijay understands, and mourns. 

Some trivia: ‘Vijay’ was originally offered to Rajesh Khanna. Erm, I can only be glad that the role changed hands. 

And Amitabh’s look in the film? Well, a dressmaker’s mistake was responsible. The shirt that was given to Amitabh the first day of shooting was too long, and it wouldn’t have done to tuck it in. With no time to get a new shirt, Amitabh picked the tails and knotted it in front, leaving the buttons undone. They liked the look so much they kept it right through until he graduates to smart suits and smuggling.

What I liked about Deewar is that it is not a gratuitously ‘violent’ film, in that there is only *one* fight scene in the whole movie. Yet, the violence was so much more for being implied. The scene where he kills Samant is all the more chilling for the cold-bloodedness with which Vijay carries out the murder. Vijay’s anger is turned inwards, much as the other Vijay from Zanjeer. While the latter Vijay’s anger bursts out once in a while, Deewar’s Vijay has suppressed his emotions. He is not interested in revenge for the sake of revenge. It is the system that he is fighting, not the representatives of that system. But just as in Zanjeer, he was symbolic of the youth of time and their angst. 

And as the westerns would have said it: “Gentlemen, beware. A man has come to town.”