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MY TAKE

Ahead of its times

Meghnad Desai on “Naya Daur”

Lord Meghnad Desai came up with a path-breaking biography of Dilip Kumar, correlating his rise as a film star with the ascent of Nehruvian socialism. Holding the film star as a living embodiment of emerging secular India – Dilip Kumar, real lif e Yousuf Khan, hardly ever played a Muslim character, except in Mughal-e-Azam – the Lord has very clear views on Naya Daur, a film noted for its music, for its espousal of socialist doctrine besides of course mind blowing performances by Dilip Kumar, Vyjayantimala and Jeevan.

Desai holds, “Naya Daur was not the first socialist film since Hum Log (by Ziya Sarhadi), Do Bigha Zameen (by Bimal Roy) were ahead in this matter. There were others but all these were for the quality market not the masses. But Naya Daur was the first commercial film rather than a ‘parallel’ cinema, and it succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. It was also in sympathy with Nehruvian socialism rather than critical of it as Pyasa for example was. The film succeeds because the message is well integrated into the box office formula. B.R.Chopra was a master in that respect.”

And what about the pulsating music by O.P. Nayyar with superb songs by Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhonsle?

“The music by O.P.Nayyar – Dilip Kumar’s only film with OP’s music if my memory serves me right – is fantastic. He made Bhangra into a mainstream musical theme rather than a folk music genre which the Left celebrated – Salil Chaudhry’s Bhangra number in Jagte Raho for example. The lyrics, “Ude jab jab zulfe teri” – the first time in Hindi cinema where a woman makes an advance on the man – were again fantastic. There is no bitterness in Sahir Ludhianvi. The dance compositions with Vyjayantimala and Dilip Kumar in Bhangra numbers were also good. The ‘message’ was suitably ambiguous rather like Nehru’s socialism itself!”

ZIYA US SALAM

( ziyasalam@thehindu.co.in)

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