One of India’s Pioneer filmmakers, V. Shantaram is known for making socially relevant films, just as he is known for making historical dramas and big entertainers on an epic scale, most of the latter ones resulting in spectacular shows though often gaudy.
Way back from his “Kunku” (1937; in Marathi) and its Hindi version “Duniya Na Maane,” he laid the corner-stone of his socially relevant films. He had started to make films in the silent era, and many of these were historicals.
“Kunku”/”Duniya Na Maane” turned out to be an epoch-making film, and it left a deep impact on the viewers, including me, about the age-old marriage customs that almost always worked against the bride.
Emboldened and encouraged by the success of “Kunku,” Shantaram continued to make socially relevant films, while also making entertainers. His socially relevant films covered topics such as bride-for-sale (“Kunku”), communal harmony (“Padosi”), rehabilitation of a prostitute and its ramifications (“Aadmi”), dowry (“Dahej”), and widow remarriage (“Subah ka Tara”).
His 1950 “Dahej” was followed by “Teen Batti Char Raasta” in 1953. With the theme of national integration at its base, given that it was made relatively soon after India’s independence in 1947, “Teen Batti Char Raasta” deals with the age-old problem of equating beauty with fair skin, relegating the dark skin beyond reach. Shantaram tackles this theme through the story of a well-to-do family whose five daughters-in-law are each from a different region of India, and each speaks her own language = in addition to Hindi – belonging to that region.
It is worth noting that the actresses playing these five daughters-in-law are actually from their respective regions of India. The Gujarati daughter-in-law is played by Nirupa Roy, Marathi by Shashikala, Bengali by Smriti Biswas, Tamil by Meenakshi, and Sindhi by Sheila Ramani, each with the attire appropriate to their respective regions.
This not only lends the situation an authentic air, it also makes it so much more interesting.
The national integration theme is implied, not express. The Khushalchand household with Khushalchand himself, his wife, and the five daughters-in-law is in itself Shantaram’s statement about national integration.
Yes, it is a family like any other family, and there are differences, and that leads to clashes too, sometimes, but these are resolved amicably, and, in some instances, light-heartedly.
The film’s title is symbolic. It signifies the regional variety of the household, beginning with the patriarch, Lala Khushalchand, a Punjabi, married to a woman from Uttar Pradesh, followed by their five sons, each married to a girl from a different region of India.
As for the Sindhi daughter-in-law, it may be noted that although Sindh went to Pakistan after the partition, many Sindhis made India their home. As such, a Sindhi daughter-in-law in this household does not seem incongruent.
I had seen this film several decades ago, but when I had another look recently, I discovered that in addition to this theme of national integration, the film has another important and interesting story, that has to do with the family’s sixth and unmarried son falling in love with and wanting to marry their housemaid.
But the plot is not that simplistic. Ramesh, the sixth and the youngest son, has fallen in love with the most famous radio singer in the city, without ever having seen her.
Based on her sweet and melodious singing, he has conjured up her image as a dazzlingly beautiful young woman, and it is this beauty he has created in his mind that he wants to marry. Based on his imagination, he has even created a sketch of the love of his life.
As it happens, this singer, Kokila, is poor, and she takes up a job as the housemaid in Khushalchand’s household to supplement the meager amount she gets from her radio singing a couple of times a month. She does not reveal her identity as the singer Kokila. As such, nobody in the family, much less Ramesh, has any inkling that their housemaid Shyama – she goes by that name in their house – is none other than Kokila. In the film’s beginning, she is shown distributing newspapers in the neighborhood. That is how Khushalchand’s family knows her. A little later, she is offered the job of a housemaid there.
After a few dramatic and tension-ridden turns of events, Ramesh finds out to his utter amazement and initial dismay that the beautiful image he has been nurturing of this
singer and has fallen in love with is their housemaid, and that she is not at all beautiful in the traditional sense. He is heartbroken to learn that not only is she not beautiful, she is quite dark skinned.
Ramesh is faced with two insurmountable problems – the imagined love of his life is none other than the housemaid in his own household, and she is dark skinned. He soon finds himself struggling with his own self to accept her as she really is, quite the opposite of his conjured up image of her. The age-old obsession of the “beautiful bride” – read
“fair-skinned bride” – comes into play here, and Ramesh himself hesitates to implement his own decision.
He also knows that it is going to be an uphill task to get his parents’ nod of approval about his proposal to marry Kokila.
In the format of a family drama-themed films of its time, Shantaram deftly handles this story of the age-old stigma of the acceptability of a dark-skinned girl in marriage with a reasonably fair-skinned boy from an upper crust of the society.
The filmmaker is able to create enough cinematic tension to take the story to its climactic point, toward an ending appropriate to the development of the story line. Ramesh and Kokila do come close, and Ramesh, after his internal struggle and introspection, does confess his love and dedication to Kokila after all. She trusts him, and begins to dream of their happy future life.
There are, however, set pieces of typical cinematic impediments and misunderstandings, taking the film to its ultimate resolution of the problems through some funny and some weakly funny moments.
Also, the viewer is able to see that, although Shantaram is adept at making meaningful, socially relevant films, in this current instance, there are some sequences or parts of sequences that are rather bland or stagey, and lack the desired impact. Happily, such instances are not too many and not an important part of the story, and overall, the direction is even-handed.
It may be remembered that this is a 1953 film, and societal norms and people’s tastes in cinema have changed substantially in these 70 years, although some beliefs and preferences take generations to change.
Of the film’s two leads, Sandhya as Kokila/Shyama is quite expressive, and turns in a performance very much in keeping with her character. Karan Divan as Ramesh is more than adequate, and succeeds in bringing out all his character’s nuances. The actresses playing the five daughters-in-law turn in very interesting, apt and funny performances, doing justice to their parts.
Shantaram’s old faithful Keshavrao Datey could have infused a little more life and vigor in his role as the family patriarch’s friend and ‘doctor’ who appears toward the end of the film in the climactic sequence.
I noted a rather unusual thing in the film’s music. Karan Divan was an actor- singer, but here Talat Mehmood has provided his playback. That is very likely because Divan’s two songs in the film are better suited to Talat Mehmood than to Karan Divan himself. There are very few such instances in the annals of playback singing in Hindi films where a singer’s playback is provided by another singer.
An important and interesting film in Shantaraam’s stable of socially relevant and meaningful films, “Teen Batti Char Raasta” is worth a look after a seven-decade gap.
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