From the realm of the mind

The crisis of conscience has been the muse around which stories of many
films have been woven, writes M. L. Dhawan

FILMmAKERs have explored the elusive mind of their protagonists time and again in their films. They revelled in various opportunities of drama and emotion caused by the conflict within the mind of a protagonist.

The crisis of conscience has been the muse around which many film stories have been woven. Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Red Alert reveals the war within the mind of the protagonist Narsimbha (Suniel Shetty) — who in order to eke out a living — finds himself in the midst of the Naxalite movement. He starts as a cook for a terrorist group but soon graduates to weapon training, shootouts, kidnapping, killing the innocent and raising a war against the state.

Finding himself between the devil and the deep sea, he feels he has no choice at all. He fears that having entered the world of crime, the return to normal life may be equally devastating. But the trial in his mind is so overpowering that these inner demons push him to the brink. Govind Nihalani’s Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa dealt with the theme of rebellion and repression of the Naxalites in Bengal during the 1970s.

Sujata Chatterjee (Jaya Bachchan), who belongs to a middle class, is indifferent to the political violence ravaging in Calcutta. One night, she is called upon to come to the local police station to identify a badly mutilated body —- No 1084 —- of her dead son Brati, who was a student, among the bodies in the police morgue. Feelings of guilt and remorse assail her mind as to how and why a boy who was so balanced becomes a revolutionary. She undertakes a quest to understand the motivation behind her son’s conversion. Her quest takes her to the slums of Calcutta, where she came across Brati’s companions and how they did not accept the social and political inequalities surrounding them.

Gulzar’s Mausam was a heart-touching study of guilt, expiation and longing as reflected in the moral and emotional quandary of Dr Amarnath Gill (Sanjeev Kumar), who is unable to face the pricks of his conscience.

He returns to the hill station after decades where he had inadvertently betrayed the faith of Chanda (Sharmila Tagore) following which she turns insane. As the feelings of guilt and grief gnaw into his troubled soul, he resolves to do whatever amends he can make. He leaves no stone unturned to wean away Kajli, Chanda’s daughter who had become a prostitute, from the brothel.

In Mahesh Manjreker’s Vaastav, Raghu (Sanjay Dutt) and his sidekick Deidhfootia (Sanjay Narvekar) get sucked into crime because when two bullies bash up Deidhfootia and Raghu kills them in a fit of rage. They go to another gangster for help and then it is a downward slide into crime, killing, drinking and gambling. As his mind gets used to crime, his redemption becomes devastating. Finally, when guilt and remorse engulf him, his life turns into hell. All those whom he had maimed, tortured or killed haunt and horrify him. He escapes his torture and agony only when his mother shoots him and librates from the ordeal his inner demons had pushed him into.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Namak Haram delineated a conflict of conscience between two friends — Somu (Rajesh Khanna), who belongs to the working class, and Vikram (Amitabh Bachchan) — a capitalist. Vikram implants Somu into the workers’ union to disrupt their unity but when Somu sees the plight of the workers, his mind undergoes a metamorphosis and he thinks of improving their condition. Betraying their faith was impossible for him and so he prefers death to disloyalty. By his sacrifice, he turned the young industrialist Vikram from a management’s man to a champion of workers.

In Mehboob Khan’s Amar, Amar (Dilip Kumar), a lawyer, was in love with Anju (Madhubala) and was to marry her. In a moment of weakness, he takes advantage of a village milkmaid Sonia and seduces her but keeps quiet when she is ostracised. After a long cowardly silence, Amar’s conscience started raising its head. Unable to bear the onslaughts of his conscience caused by the ordeals of Sonia, the lawyer makes a clean breast of his guilt and saves the milkmaid from ignominy and shame
by marrying her.

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