FLASHBACK TO THE 50s (PART- I)

BAIJU BAWRA (1952)
by guest blogger Pia Sen

Plot summary -- Akbar's Delhi, with some weird law against people singing outside Tansen's house because it may disturb maestro's art. Baiju's dad is leading Kirtan group to that spot, get's stopped by guards, scuffle, dad is accidentally killed, boy Baiju swears revenge on Tansen(18 times, just in case you miss it).

Cut to youth -- Baiju (Bharat Bhushan) has been adopted by do-gooder villager in remote spot and spends most of his time cavorting with lovely Meena Kumaari, 3 very nice songs (Jhule me pavan, door koi gnaae, and the most exquisite Tu ganga ki mauj, mein jamuna ka dhara). Comic relief provided by a bad singer with aspirations to Meena K's love and hand-in-marriage.



Cut -- village raided by buxom female dacoit, Baiju's singing entrances her, she is willing to spare village if Baiju comes with her. Meena Kumari follows them as they go away, singing plaintively, then dissolves in tears.

Cut -- Baiju rejects female dacoits advances with heroic lines like "how do you call yourself an aurat? What do you know of pyar?", till dacoit confesses that her current career all to do with her dad having been killed --- twaanggggg, Baiju remembers HIS dad was killed, starts yelling 'revenge revenge' and runs off to Delhi, makes it right into Tansen's house (in spite of the 30 well-paid guards around) waving sword, dramatic confrontation with Tansen, with Baiju huffing and puffing that he's gonna chop off Tansen's head, and Tansen dreamily intoning that he can ooooonly be killed thru music....

Baiju stomps off to find suitable guru who'll make him such a maestro that he'll "kill Tansen via music", finds some nice Hindu swami type, long and painful scene with Baiju insisting that he will learn music for revenge, guru going on about how music is all about forgiveness and love, this is when I went off to get coffee, when I came back, Baiju is stomping through mountains with veena on his back and comes to this temple with big idol, and proceeds to start singing all kinds of ragas (all of which are symbolized by Meena Kumari in various revealing dresses).

Baiju is now maestro, he returns, and somehow miraculously cures guru's paralysis by singing "mana tarpata hari darshana", gets accepted as disciple. In meantime Meena K is pining and pining, daddy wants her to marry the other guy, she prepares to drink poison, except she takes so goddamn long to lift cup to her lips that dacoit queen appears, dashes cup from lips, and take her off to search for Baiju.

Baiju is now almost super-maestro, when Meena K shows up at doorstep. Tearful reconciliation scene for 3 minutes, then Baiju suddenly yells "no, revenge, revenge, no love, just revenge", and runs marathon all the way back to temple in mountain with Meena K giving chase. Next dramatic confrontation, Baiju giving big dialogues like he will put sindoor on no woman's forehead till he has finished 'badla' for baap ka khoon...he leaves, Meena K dissolves in tears, random snake appears hissing.

Guru comes and tells Baiju (for 98th time) that revenge is bad scene for music, learn the beauty born of pain and turn that into music.

Twaaang, Meena Kumari overhears (that mountian must have seriously amazing acoustics), gets MAJOR inspiration. She goes off and irritates the poor snake till, in sheer frustration, it bites her! Baiju in meantime for some inexplicible reason has decided that pyar can come before badla after all and is running back -- but dwaaang -- dramatic music -- she is DYING....tearful dialogues, tearful dialogues...she is DEAD (with Baiju yelling "I will NOT LET YOU DIE" rather than actually doing anything useful to help her. (Why do movie characters always do
that ?).

Baiju does headache-inducing imitation of gone crazy with grief, yells, cackles with laughter, cusses out poor dacoit queen who doesn't know what the hell is going on, finally tells dacoit queen that SHE can take care of cremation and other necessary things, he's going to just grow a long beard and rave and rant some more.

"Duniya ke raakhwaale" starts, all very beautifully, in front of idol, Baiju wandering through deserts, mountains, and...drama....



.....to Delhi, right in front of Tansen's house -- he is singing in the FORBIDDEN SPOT, and all that "maar daalo us-se" in background is Tansen's guards, but rather than maro-ing him, they just end up gagging him --BIG anti-climax. So now Baiju is in prison, and Akbar has decreed that he must compete with Tansen in musical contest, chop-chop for the loser. In meantime -- dramatic news comes -- Meena K is NOT dead, all it took was her being attended to by someone who actually knew what to do with snakebite victims.

Summary of rest of plot (since none of the other songs are particularly interesting), Baiju gets fresh inspiration hearing she's alive! But daddy decides she should marry guy he originally set her up with, Baiju defeats Tansen by singing so eloquently that he melts big chunks of marble, everyone weeps and sobs and Tansen hails him and Baiju shows magnanimity by asking Akbar to spare Tansen's life, and right when everyone's making long flowery speeches, Baiju suddenly remembers that Meena K is still alive and takes off running like Forrest Gump, shows up minutes before wedding is scheduled but now he's on wrong side of river and major storm is brewing, takes off across river in a boat still singing, Meena K hears him and runs off in all her bridal finery and jumps into river, boat capsizes he falls into river, half the village gathers on the bank to shout clueless instructions, they swim together, exchange highly sappy dialogues, and then drown while in each other's arms. Phew!

I go off to hunt for aspirin.

Pia

PS. Watch this space for more B & Ws from B- and H-wood.