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Hum Dono 1961

How many movies open with a romantic song and sustain the melody for the next two hours, dealing with varied subjects like love and war? Hum Dono, a classic from 1961, starring Dev Anand in a double role with Sadhana and Nanda, pre cisely achieves that distinction at a pace that even at the end you would want the narration to go on.

A Navketan production, directed by Amar Jeet, it was a path-breaking movie that prospered on the strength of quality performances by every actor who graced the screen and unforgettable music by Jaidev. Of course, in the opinion of Dev Anand, playing a double role, it was a movie that remained dear to him.

The story is simple. Mahesh Anand is in love with Mita (Sadhana), a rich girl. On his first visit to her mansion, Anand is reminded harshly by her father of his poverty and the fact that he is jobless. Hurt, he joins the army to prove a point. Mita, meanwhile, leaves her house to take care of Anand’s ailing mother (Leela Chitnis). At the battlefield, set in Burma against the backdrop of World War II, Capt. Anand meets Major Manoharlal Verma, his look-alike. Major Verma, wounded, goes missing and is believed dead. Entrusted with the job of breaking the news to the Major’s family, Capt. Anand, is drawn into living with the family after he is mistaken for the Major himself. Misunderstandings remain with Verma’s mother (Lalita Pawar) and wife Ruma (Nanda) taking Anand to be the man they were waiting for. One day, Major Verma returns, minus a leg, but Capt. Anand deals with the situation to reach a happy ending.

Even though Hum Dono did not win many awards, it was one of Dev Anand’s better movies and his acting, especially in the role of Major Verma, most convincing. “I had to put on a haw-haw British accent, patterned on a moustached Major I had known in a British army cantonment in Kirkee,” writes Dev Anand in his autobiography. Another anecdote is connected to his telling dialogue “ek taang to hai.” Years later, a wounded soldier rose from his border area hospital bed to greet Dev Anand with this line.

The opening frame leaves the audience spellbound as a coy Mita presents Anand a musical lighter and the romantic duet, ‘Abhi Naa Jao Chodh Kar’, gives an early peep into the range that Jaidev commanded as a composer of rare quality. Anand’s introduction as an armyman is with the evergreen ‘Main Zindagi Kaa Saath Nibhata Chala Gaya’ and concludes with the classical ‘Kabhi Khud Pe Kabhi Haalaat Pe Rona Aaya’.

Jaidev’s music, the outstanding background score, was a significant contribution to the film’s success. It opened to full houses. Nanda singing the bhajan ‘Allah Tero Naam Ishwar Tero Naam’ remains one of the most lasting images of the film. The melodious bhajan, penned by Sahir Ludhiyanvi, was to become the national hymn. Nanda has one more bhajan to sing in the latter half…’Prabhu Tero Naam Jo Dhyay Phal Pae’….”Rafi, Lata and Asha, singing at their best, made the songs immortal,” noted Dev Anand.

The film highlights the anguish of the two mothers for their soldier sons and the scene when Lalita Pawar runs around desperately for someone to read the telegram in English is an unforgettable tribute to Amar Jeet’s direction.

The director also deserves a pat for balancing the strong characters of the two leading ladies. In fact, every single character in the film reflects maturity as needed by the script and the director has handled them brilliantly.

Dev Anand does justice to his two roles, which he termed once as “very challenging”, even as Sadhana and Nanda, without having to confront each other even once, emerge with impeccable credentials after having drifted away from their respective men in a taut storyline.

Sadhana, in only her second year in the film industry, is alluring and her charisma carries her through. Nanda does her bit flawlessly as the devoted wife and impresses in the moving climax scene in a temple.

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