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Directed by: Prakash Mehra Music: Kalyanji-Anandji Lyrics: Anjaan, Prakash Mehra Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, Vinod Khanna, Raakhee, Amjad Khan, Ram Sethi, Nirupa Roy, Sulochana, Ranjeet, Kader Khan, Dr Shreeram Lagoo, Yusuf Khan, Master Mayur |
Warning: Do expect long comments.
He promises to bring her a similar doll and begs her not to tell her father. She’s a kind soul, so she lets him be. She continues to treat him like a human being even when her father is not being particularly kind to him. And one day, matters come to a head when the children go wandering around together. An incensed father throws the young boy out of the house. He’s bereft. When he learns that father and daughter are leaving for Bombay, he follows.
[We're already in hand-meet-face mode; childhood ‘love’ doesn’t appeal to either of us.]
Wandering lost and helpless in the big, bad city, one day he spots his ‘memsaab’ and runs madly after her. Only to be pulled out of the way of a speeding cab.
Me: For a change, Nirupa Roy is finding a child instead of losing one.
Shalini: This boy is already too stupid to live.
Me: You’re not sympathetic to a child all alone in the world? Bad woman!
Shalini: Not annoying children, no.
As they are talking, another young boy steals Fatima’s (Nirupa Roy) purse, and our young protagonist takes off after him and gets it back. Reminded of her deceased son, Fatima quasi-adopts the lad and names him ‘Sikandar’. She takes him home with her and and presents him with a ready-made sister; her daughter, Mehroo.
Shalini: Ah, remember when Hindi films used to have these multi-religious ‘found’ families?
It turns out that Fatima works as a maid in Dad-and-young-girl’s house. [Where would our films be without these coincidences?] She takes Sikandar along where his ‘memsaab’ is quite happy to see him. Not so much her father who promptly kicks him out of the house again. But Sikandar, who has seen a doll similar to the one he broke in a shop nearby, is hell-bent on giving it to his memsaab on her birthday. So, he steals the doll. Only, the chowkidar refuses to let him in. Sikandar manages to sneak in.
Me: Why a father would want his daughter to sing a song like this seriously creeps me out.
Shalini [still pondering over Sikandar]: I’ve trouble feeling any sympathy for him when he’s such a blockhead. But, yes, what a downer of a song for a kid’s birthday party!
Me: Great job, daddy! Got your daughter to cry on her birthday!
[It is clear that neither of us have any great affection for any character at this point.]
Shalini: Okay, we need to get to AB. I’m tired of these kids!
Meanwhile, Sikandar climbs up the water pipes to the little girl’s bedroom.
He’s seen by one of the guests and when Dad and the guest walk into the
bedroom, they spy Sikandar with an expensive gold chain in his hand.
The boy had picked it up to look at the little girl’s portrait in the locket, but he’s accused of trying to steal the gold chain and unceremoniously thrown out. What’s worse, the little girl now believes him to be a thief, too.
Shalini: The boy is stubbornly stupid, isn’t he? Can’t blame the dad this time for getting mad.
Nirupa Roy stands up for her adopted son, and she and the children go away. [But that was the end of Nirupa Roy’s dates, so they kill her off. Or attempt to… it's the most protracted death scene ever.] Fatima is buried and the grieving children are given some homespun philosophy by an old dervish (Kader Khan) who lives in the graveyard. The song segues into Rote hue aate hain sab, and we sit up.
Shalini: Finally, AB!
Me: Yes, he looks quite dishy, if you ask me.
Shalini: Yes, AB does look good… pity he has no brains!
Me: You can’t have everything, woman!
Shalini [concurring]: AB was a great song actor, too.
Me: Yes, indeed. We have mentioned it before.
Sikandar is a rich man now. He has built a huge mansion for himself and his
sister, while Dad and Kaamna (a morose-looking Raakhee) have fallen on hard
times. Yet, they still snub him for being an upstart and a thief. And when Sikandar
goes to meet Kaamna at the music school where she teaches, she excoriates him
for hounding her. What happened in their childhood, is in the past, she tells him.
Shalini: To be fair, I’m with Raakhee here; she has a right to be left alone. AB’s character is annoyingly pathetic in his devotion to Raakhee.
Me: This was supposed to be a retelling of Devdas, no? Pathetic, whiny men who make a virtue of their selfishness.
Meanwhile (there’s going to be a lot of ‘meanwhiles’; this is that sort of a
film), Pyarelal (Ram Sethi), Sikandar’s friend comes along and takes him to a
kotha so he will forget Kaamna. Zohra Bai (Rekha) is impressed with this tall, dark, handsome stranger.
Me: It is interesting that it is AB and Rekha who get ‘introduction’ songs.
Shalini: I hate this song; Lata sounds screechy; Kishore tries hard but he can’t save this song.
Me: I rather like Kishore’s part – both lyrics and rendition.
Shalini: Me, too. And I like AB’s acting, of course.
From Zohra’s kotha, Pyarelal takes Sikandar to a bar nearby. There, he makes the acquaintance of Vishal (Vinod Khanna), a down-on-his-luck lawyer who’s moonlighting as an accountant for the bar owner.
Shalini: Oh, goody! Are we in for an AB action scene?
Me: No, this is VK’s introduction; he gets the action sequence. But this is where the bromance begins.
Shalini: I never understood VK’s appeal.
Sikandar is quietly sipping his drink, enjoying the brouhaha around him. We like the fact that he makes no move to join in.
Me: I love AB when he’s deadpan.
Shalini: AB’s comments from the sidelines are a hoot.
All is bonhomie, and Sikandar takes Vishal’s leave. Only, his enemies, wanting
to get rid of him, plot a deadly plan to get rid of him – a time bomb in a
suitcase filled with money. The unsuspecting bar owner sends Vishal to deliver
it. When Vishal returns, the bar owner, who has by this time overheard the
thugs’ conversation, tells him about it. Vishal hurries back to warn Sikandar.
Meanwhile (I warned you!), Sikandar has just avoided hitting an old woman (Sulochana) trying to cross the road. Turns out she’s Vishal’s mother.
Shalini: I love these coincidences in old masala movies!
Sikandar sends the old lady to his house
with Pyarelal while he returns to his car; Vishal just manages to shout out a
warning before the bomb goes off, injuring him.
[Why Vishal had to reach in to take the suitcase out instead of staying far
away from the booby-trap is beyond our comprehension. But then, this film is
choc-a-bloc with stupid people doing stupid things.]
Vishal lands up in hospital and Sikandar has his men tracing Paul, who runs to Zohra’s kotha to hide. By convincing her that if Sikandar kills him, he will be hanged, Paul prevails upon Zohra to hide him. Which she does, by preventing Sikandar from leaving her house.
While we were debating such earth-shattering viewpoints such as Rekha looking lovely when she wasn’t made up to the hilt, and appreciating her even lovelier speaking voice, Paul has sneaked away.
Meanwhile, Dilawar (Amjad Khan) makes an appearance; after a 7-year stint in Nasik jail, he’s back in prison. He tells the inspector his story – how he had fallen in love with Zohra; how her uncles had sold her into a brothel; how, frightened of Dilawar’s anger, one of them had hidden in a graveyard; how, finding him there, Dilawar had buried him alive…
The police didn’t catch him, he tells the inspector; he surrendered at the
police station. Now, he’s back here because just the other day, a man had come
into a bar exclaiming that Zohra had wounded him to the heart. So, he had
picked up a knife and killed him right there. And then, he went to a police
station and confessed. That’s why he’s back here.
Me: Amjad is awesome in this scene.
Shalini: Yes, Dilawar is a murderer but he has his own sense of integrity.
But, we have only seen one hour of this film; what are the other two hours
about?
Me: Romance, bromance, sacrifice, weeping, more sacrifice, more weeping?
Meanwhile, Paul, who has been caught by the police, is in the same jail, and he
informs Dilawar that Zohra is besotted with Sikandar. He continues to instigate
Dilawar until the latter decides to break out of jail. He makes a beeline for Zohra, where she’s entertaining Sikandar. When she hears
the hullaballoo (the entire neighbourhood is frightened of Dilawar), she begs Sikandar
to leave for fear of what Dilawar will do. [We liked Dilawar a lot less now because he thinks of Zohra as his
property.]
Though the police do reach the scene (quite quickly, I might add), Dilawar manages to escape. He’s picked up by JD, who has his own bone to pick with Sikandar.
Meanwhile(!), Vishal is recovering in hospital. And Sikandar, indebted to him for saving his life, swears eternal friendship. The bromance is official. Sikandar takes Vishal home to meet his mother and their sister. [And we marvel at Sikandar’s propensity to ‘find’ ready-made families.]
Sikandar is also buying up Kaamna’s possessions as and when she pawns them, and quietly paying for her father’s treatment. He also has a (day)dream where he confesses the truth to Kaamna and tells her about his love for her.
Shalini: AB is good at showing you the lonely, affection-starved little boy that’s still inside him, no?
Me: Yes, but even in his dream, Kaamna is a wet blanket. He has the lovely Zohra pining for him, and he’s yearning for a dishrag?
Shalini: We’ve already established he has NO taste.
Meanwhile, ‘Dad’ has learnt that Sikandar has been quietly helping them over the years. He comes to apologize to Sikandar. Sikandar asks him for a favour; his friend, Vishal is a good lawyer. If ‘Dad’ would only let him intern under him (‘Dad’ was once a hotshot lawyer), it would help Vishal’s career. So, Dad takes Vishal under his wing. As he enters their house, Vishal spots Kaamna’s photograph and is entranced.
Shalini: VK falls for Raakhee over that photo?
Me: Both men must have cataracts.
[The sequence goes on and on. And on. We both agree that it is rather tedious.
Besides, AB has been off the screen for far too long.]
Anyway, Vishal and Kaamna are well on their way to falling in love with one
another, Vishal wins his first case and the powers that be hear us, and Sikandar
appears again, full of happiness. [The bromance is nauseating but we are
envious that VK gets to hug AB!]
Shalini: I do like that Kaamna is consistent; she still hates AB.
Me: That’s a good point; she doesn’t like him, so she doesn’t like anything he does, even if it is good, or something like that. I do remember hating her in this scene. Because she was being needlessly sarcastic about AB and 10-year-old me was very upset.
[AB meanwhile is doing what he does best – his dialogue delivery is so on-point that even though I hate his character, I’m tearing up a little.]
Me: Well, he’s consistent, too. Consistently pathetic. But I do remember shedding copious tears during this scene.
Shalini: Nothing in this movie makes me cry. I just want all of them to die already!
Me: Well, I was 10. If AB cried, I wept. When he died, I died a little too.
Shalini: Aww, poor little Anu. I must say that AB is selling this scene as best he can.
Me: Jaya once said that AB made the most unbelievable things seem believable on camera.
Shalini: Agreed.
That night, Sikandar comes home drunk as usual. In a fit of drunken amiability,
he informs Vishal that one must never love anyone; the pain is terrible. The
next morning, Vishal wants to know the truth – who is Zohra? And who is
'memsaab'? He will do anything for Sikandar; just tell him who she is and
he’ll abduct her and bring her to him. (Men!)
Back at Kaamna’s house, her father is disabusing her of the notion that Sikandar
is a thief. So Sikandar returns home to find Kaamna waiting for him. As a
result, Sikandar feels like he should now tell her how he feels. Vishal, who
only learns that ‘memsaab’ had visited, suggests that Sikandar write her a
letter to tell her of his feelings. But Sikandar is illiterate, so Vishal takes
it upon himself to do the needful.
Kaamna, who receives the letter, recognizes Vishal’s handwriting and we are in full throes of a misunderstanding all around – Sikandar, who watches her read the letter, mistakes her delight as her love for him. Vishal, of course, has no clue that ‘memsaab’ and Kaamna are one and the same. But there’s another storm around the corner. Iqbal (Harish Magan), Mehroo’s fiancé, brings grave news. His father wants to break their alliance because of Sikandar’s close acquaintance with Zohra. Sikandar, in fact, is with Zohra at that very moment. He's gone to share his happiness with 'one who mitigated his unhappiness'. A broken-hearted Zohra wishes Sikandar well and makes him promise he will never step foot over her threshold again.
[It’s a poignant scene, and possibly the best scene in the film. It’s telling that the two best scenes in the film belong to Zohra, who’s afforded a remarkable dignity.]
When Vishal comes to meet Zohra, he’s at first insulting (he offers her money) and is taken aback when she gives as good as she gets. "Itne mein main Sikandar ka tasveer bhi na bechoo..." she tells him, but promises she will not be the reason for anyone's ruin. He leaves with the recognition that Zohra is not the person he thinks her; she loves Sikandar deeply.
Meanwhile, Dad is thanking Sikandar for bringing the happiness back into their
lives. Kaamna, he says, is finally celebrating her birthday. So, Sikandar
reaches Hotel Sangam, where Kaamna is, doll in hand.
Me: Raakhee looking like a powder puff! I hate this song with a vengeance.
Shalini: Oh, this whole sequence makes me howl with laughter.
Me: You don’t feel sad for AB’s angst? (/s)
Shalini: It leaves me unmoved.
Me: Hard-hearted woman! Heavens! This man has very realistic daydreams, doesn’t he?
Shalini: The orange ‘blood’ on VK is the cherry on top of the melodramatic sundae!
And poor broken-hearted Sikandar returns to Zohra. Who, keeping faith with Vishal, ends her life.
But, there’s Dilawar to deal with. And JD, who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes. What will happen to Sikandar now? Will Vishal and Kaamna ever learn the truth? Did we care?
Our final verdict?
Muqaddar ka Sikandar is an overwrought melodrama with several unsympathetic characters whose stupidity is only emphasized by their actions. The movie works only because Amitabh Bachan, as Shalini says,
had such an embarrassment of gifts as an actor and knew how to use all of
them. This movie, in his prime, is a testament to how much a good actor can
elevate the most mundane script; it also says a lot for his talent, and that of
Rekha and Amjad Khan that they make this wreck of a film work.
Amitabh lends a poignant dignity to his destruction; the desolation in his eyes in the final scene is a class act. As is Zohra’s death scene. Or the one where Dilawar finally learns the truth. He’s a somewhat unusual villain who’s consistent in his one-sided love for Zohra.
Last words:
Shalini: Stupid, stupid, AB; boring Raakhee, clueless VK and a stupid plot.
Me: And a criminally under-utilised Rekha. Who was very, very good in the
short part she had, and played her character with a subdued intensity that made
one root for her.
Shalini: I responded emotionally to some of the emotional scenes, but I was
a little surprised at how unmoved I was by AB’s plight most of the time.
Me: It must be because I haven't seen AB for a long time now; I
responded very emotionally to him. Even when my rational self wass screaming,
'Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!' But the 10-year-old inside me was yelling “AB is
crying and you’re not sad?”
Yes, I was, but, we're sorry, MkS fans, we still hate the film.
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