Shikast (1953)

 Jab jab phool khile ......

Shikast 1953

*ing Dilip Kumar, Nalini Jaaywant, Durga Khote , KN Singh Music - Shankar Jaikishan , Lyrics -Shailendra ,  Director – Ramesh Saigal 

Jab jab phool khile.........

Ram[ Dilip Kumar] returns to his village Kundangarh after seven years . A lot has happened since then – his childhood love Sushma [ Nalini Jaywant]has been married and widowed , she has a child  and is back at her paternal village. Ram’s  voice is caressing  – “I hope she’s well ?” , he asks his cousin Madho’s wife[ Durga Khote] who has come to receive him at the railway station. 

Ram is on a short visit  – he wants  to sell his share of the ancestral fields to his cousin Madho[ KN Singh]  and use the money to set up  a hospital in the city. The village brings back memories of all that he has lost – love, hope and desire. He now uses a staff to move around in the village and is  quiet and reclusive.

Ruses are all that Sushma has in her armour , to make Ram  stay back. She inflicts physical and financial cruelty on the poor villagers, orders the abduction of   Sunadriya,  the daughter of a farmer who cannot pay taxes , destroys the clinic and school Ram  sets up for the villagers and  inflicts heavy taxes even when Ram implores her to show mercy.

Yet Ram cannot hate her- he knows that the spark of goodness and love  lurks within . He  meets her near the river with a request  to show benevolence and waive taxes levied on the farmers. She touches his feet ,  he asks ‘Why ?’  “There are sometimes no answers to  questions .” Sushma expresses a desire to go to Kashi – it will give her peace . Could Ram  take care of her son ,  perhaps make Munna   compassionate, kind and generous like  himself. 

She walks away,  they should not be seen together – the young widow in white and the man with a staff. Both bent by fate – he remembers her when the flowers bloom and she remembers  the pain of life itself . 

Jab jab phool khile ...... 

Endnote

The film is based on Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s book ‘ Palli Samaj ‘ – The Village Community[ 1916]  . Along with the undercurrents of the love story, Sarat chandra exhorts educated youngsters to return to the villages to spread education and knowledge. The novel reveals how divisive forces damage the farmers’ unity , their poverty, indebtedness, exploitation, the ravages of disease, police excesses, and illiteracy. 

In a letter from Rangoon Sarat Chandra wrote , ‘ The remedy lies in the spread of knowledge . Those who want to work for the upliftment of villagers should be brought up and educated away from villages so that they acquire a wider outlook. They should then come back to the villages and settle there to mix freely with all villagers , good and bad , so as to gain their confidence. ‘

Even after more than a hundred years , the problems persist.