Awara (1951)

1951

Directed by: Raj Kapoor

Music: Shankar-Jaikishen

Starring: Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Prithviraj Kapoor, 

Leela Chitnis, KN Singh, Cuckoo

India's post-colonial golden age of movies produced auteurs who used their platform to tell stories of ordinary people - their lives, their disenchantments, their struggles. They used humour and drama and melody to etch out characters who remain imprinted in the memories of generations of film-goers. Amongst these auteurs is the name that cannot, will not, be forgotten. Like him or hate him, Raj Kapoor has left his mark on the cinema of an age, his films becoming a hit not only in his own country, but calling to the emotions of men and women halfway across the world. Much like Ramayya vastavayya in Shree 420 is carried from one part of the city to another by people who hear the song and hum it as they go along, Awara hoon was heard on the lips of men in Turkey and Soviet Russia and Indonesia and China.

 

Awara introduced a generation of film-goers to the 'lovable tramp' image that Raj Kapoor wore like a second skin from then on. It was his homage to Charlie Chaplin, the original tramp. However, it wasn't until Shree 420 that the tramp would become his alter ego. In Awara, Raju is not just a vagabond; he is a hardcore criminal, ironically thrust into the seamier side of life by his own father's actions. 

Awara opens with a court scene - Raj (Raj Kapoor) is being tried for the attempted murder of Justice Raghunath (real-life father Prithviraj Kapoor). 

When it turns out that Raju has no lawyer to defend him, the court seeks to appoint one, but in walks Rita (Nargis), the judge's ward, and Raju's lover. She will fight the case in his defence, thank you very much. Raghunath glowers, but Rita is unperturbed. She begins her cross-examination, calling the judge into the witness box, with a question that shocks the witness - when, where and in what condition (kab, aur kyun, aur kis haalat mein) did he abandon his wife? The power of the dialogues lie not in the words, but in the way they are said. 

Cut to flashback. Twenty-four years ago, Raghunath, then a lawyer, had rebelled against social conventions and married a widow. Unheeding of his father's disapproval, or the taunts of his community, he had done what he thought was right. 

When Raghunath and his wife Leela (Leela Chitnis) go on a holiday, little does he realise that the cross-currents will soon overturn his life in ways he cannot comprehend. Jagga (KN Singh), a dacoit, kidnaps Leela. Raghunath, believing that ‘what is bred in the bone will not out of the flesh’ - a criminal's son will always be a criminal - had sentenced Jagga to prison for rape, heedless of his protestations of innocence.

When Jagga comes out, tainted by his prison sentence, he finds that society does not easily forgive a man's transgressions. Out of sheer desperation, he is forced to turn to dacoity, but he is full of hatred for the man who forced him onto this path.  Now that his enemy’s wife is at his mercy, he intends to rape her in revenge (thus proving the false charge right), but desists when he learns she is pregnant.

Didn't Raghunath believe that a criminal's son will always be a criminal? And the scion of a respectable family always become a good man? Jagga is triumphant. The judge will pay, and he, Jagga, will not even lay a hand on the woman. 

Leela is returned unharmed. When Raghunath finds out that she is pregnant, he is at first happy, but soon seeds of doubt about the baby's parentage are planted  in his mind. Even his friend's sage advice cannot banish his own suspicions. He throws his wife out of the house just before she gives birth. 

And she, weary and helpless, gives birth to a son on the streets, whom she tries to bring up with honesty and integrity. She wants her son to grow up to be an advocate like his father, but little Raju (Shashi Kapoor) is not very pliable. 

Jagga's twisted mind realises that if he can turn Raju into a criminal, it will complete his vengeance. When hunger and the ever growing spectre of poverty hovers around Raju and his mother, the young boy throws his mother's teachings to the wind. Jagga is waiting in the wings, and so begins a life that will negate everything his father held true. Under Jagga's tutelage, Raju grows up to be Raj (Raj Kapoor), the titular Awara. 

Raj meets Rita off and on in his childhood (they are classmates), but a fledgling friendship is destroyed by Raghunath, whose ward she becomes.

Raj has never forgotten her though he doesn’t recognise her for his childhood sweetheart when they meet again as young adults. He is on his next ‘job’ and Rita is now a sophisticated young miss.

Later, chased by the police, he ends up seeking refuge in Judge Raghunath’s house; a misunderstanding leads him inside, to his second meeting with Rita. Casually, she informs him that if he was ever in trouble with the police and needed a defence lawyer, she would defend him in court. Raj is taken aback, but Rita explains that she is a lawyer herself. Raj finds it all very humorous. With a judge and a lawyer in the house, all they need to complete the court is a thief, and lo! There he is!

It does not take long for him to realise who she is, and soon, the young people are in love. 

Neither Raghunath's disapproval, conventional morality, nor Raju's own hesitancy prove barriers to their growing closeness. Main chor hoon kaam hai chori duniya mein hoon badnaam he sings, but Rita doesn't believe him. She adores him, does not care about his antecedents, and makes fun of him, until, one day, he snaps. When she teasingly calls him junglee, Raj hits her.

The anger is at once directed at her, and at himself - for the first time in his life, he is ashamed of who or what he is. He even tries to turn her away from him, but she will have none of it. 

Her love means much to him, and he battles his own conscience,  yearning to break free from the chains that hold him back. As Jagga before him, Raj too learns that the path to reform oneself is full of thorns; and Jagga is still there, twisted, vengeful, criminal Jagga, pointing out that the way into crime is a one-way street. 

It is only when Raj gifts her a necklace that Raghunath had bought as a gift for her, that she realises the truth.

She is heartbroken. Raj withdraws, stricken to the core at the look in Rita's eyes. It does not help that Raghunath despises him for his background, and condemns him as a bastard. Much to the judge's chagrin, even after knowing the truth, Rita is there by Raj's side, exhorting him to change, and supporting him through the challenge.

A further tragedy awaits, and when Raj learns the truth about his parents' estrangement, he goes to Raghunath's mansion to kill him too. There is no love lost between him and his father. Will the bitterness of the past be washed away? Or will he allow his emotions to rule over justice? 

The first film to be shot in the newly built RK Studios, Awara is a great creation from a master director. With his foray into social problems, Raj Kapoor wove skeins of romance and tragedy, crime and punishment, nature and nurture, music and drama into a cohesive whole. The movie had great performances from the two leads, whose chemistry on screen reflected their chemistry in real life. In the scene where Raj, scruffy (and handsome as hell!) chases Rita on the boat, she warns him breathlessly, Aage mat aana, kashti palatke doob jaaoge. He persists (Toh phir?) and she capitulates - Doob jaane do. Romance was never as abandoned, or as magical.

The story was anchored by a towering performance from Prithviraj Kapoor as the embittered father who cannot (or will not) see that he made a heinous mistake many years ago. And he was well-matched. KN Singh turned in an equally powerful performance as Jagga, the man against whom the fates had conspired to turn into Raghunath’s (and his family’s) implacable enemy.

Leela Chitnis had much to do in Awara before she gave up and died. And luckily, she didn’t cry (well, not too much) while doing so. Hers was a nuanced role, wronged wife, supportive mother, and she came up trumps. I do have to put in a pitch for young Shashi – he was scrumpilicious; the most adorable cherub ever. 

Nargis was wonderful in her role as Rita, an independent young woman, educated, self-willed, and surprisingly modern - she loves Raju and sees nothing wrong in premarital sex. (And horror of horrors, she is not even punished for it, except by having to wait for Raju to complete his prison sentence!)

She is willing to fight for her man, not by singing bhajans in a temple and willing God to change him, but by standing up to the world, including her much-beloved guardian, and entering the ring, no holds barred. 

In the centre of it all is Raj Kapoor, the vagabond whose heart is tamed by the love of a woman, and who has a few lessons to learn himself before he can teach his father that nature vs. nurture is not as simple a concept as the latter thinks. Raj was humorous and savage, penitent and unrepentant, resentful and sorrowful, romantic and passionate – this was a film where he could do no wrong – no, not if he tried. His acting was controlled, the ‘persona’ restrained, the direction deft, the chemistry with his heroine unbeatable. 

The sets were elaborate and realistic, from the dungeon-like prison to the elaborately elegant mansion that Raghunath lives in. Longtime associate Achrekar (art director) was responsible for the sets that included the fantastic dream sequence depiction of heaven and hell.

Cinematographer Raju Kamarkar, another team member, gave us some of the best noir  scenes ever filmed - the dark, slick cobblestone streets, the storm sequence at the beginning of the film, the darkly surreal sets evoking the film's underlying mood.

Awara cannot be mentioned with a word (or two, or thousand) about its music. The film had ten beautiful songs (you can also hear O basanti pavan paagal in the background during the climax). Apart from the consistently high quality of Raj Kapoor's music (everyone agrees that he had a highly developed sense of music, and could play many instruments - and well), Awara showcased some of the best picturised songs in Hindi films. 

One was the bar (not a nightclub) sequence where Cuckoo is dancing to the bawdy encouragement of the regulars who are partially or wholly tipsy. The song is overshadowed by their raucous laughter, and their lewd comments. The sets, the atmosphere, the behaviour is starkly realistic – there are times when the conversation and the laughter overpower the song.

The second, of course, is the famed dream sequence, one of the finest ever picturised - where Raj feels the tug of war between his former life and his aspirations for a better one. He is caught between heaven and hell, as expressed in the brilliant double-sider Tere bina aag yeh chandni / Ghar aaya mera pardesi. It's a song that took three months to shoot, what with its architecture symbolising the steps climbing up to heaven, and the slippery slopes toward hell; a graceful Nargis promising redemption, and a giant KN Singh waiting for Raj to fall.

There is a very interesting incident concerning the recording of this song. You can listen to one of the original musicians recount the anecdote, here. 

This was scriptwriter KA Abbas' first collaboration with Raj Kapoor; he had originally wanted Mehboob Khan to direct the film with Ashok Kumar and Dilip Kumar playing the roles of father and son. Awara featured four generations of Kapoors - grandfather Dewan Bashwanath Kapoor (as the presiding judge), father Prithviraj Kapoor,  Raj, his brother Shashi, and son Randhir (the little boy under the streetlamp in the credits). This was a master’s tour de force. How many 26-year-olds, then or now, can claim to have visualised such a concept, and brought it to fruition? 

Want to watch it online? Tom Daniel has uploaded a cleaned-up version of the film here.