The magic of Madhumati

Shoma A. Chatterji

Madhumati marked a milestone in Indian cinema. The film, which heralded several elements within cinema, was an offbeat track Bimal Roy took from his usual oeuvre of making beautiful adaptations from Bengali literature. It was as if he had challenged himself to make a film following the commercial formula, which turned out to be a boxoffice success. 

The film bagged 11 Filmfare Awards, a record that remained unbroken for many years. Filmfare introduced the Best Cinematography Award the same year. Dilip Gupta won it for his mind-blowing cinematography. It remains the biggest boxoffice hit under the Bimal Roy Films banner. Students of cinematography consider the film a model lesson in black-and-white cinematography. K.K. Jaiswal, a faculty member of the FTII, Pune, saw Madhumati 14 times in a row as a student at the institute. “The picturisation of two songs “Suhana safar” and “Aaja re pardesi” is next to impossible in terms of perfection,” he says. It was impossible to say which shot was taken indoors and which was shot outdoors, especially when the scene was supposed to be representing the exterior ambience. The hilly landscape with clouds dotting the skies is beautifully juxtaposed against the eerie mansion that forms the epicentre of the drama.

Music director Shantanu Moitra, points out that, in “Suhana safar”, the arrangement and the sound go hand in hand, the chirping of birds, the use of flute and the unmistakable ‘ohoho’ which is like “an echo in the valley,” followed immediately by a line that highlights the concept of paradise (“Yeh aasma jhuk raha hai zameen par”).

“These are changing times,” he laments, “and it is a struggle today to convince directors on a good tune and many of the songs picturised never manage to scrape past the ear. The late Kishore Chatterjee, one of the best scholars and critics of western classical music, in his paper Mozart and Madhumati, states, “I am fairly convinced that Salil Chowdhury had studied Mozart’s allegros carefully before composing [‘Bichhua’]... The fugue in Mozart’s Jupiter symphony finale is present in the faster portions of this song.”

Madhumati is one of the first films in Indian cinema to deal with ghosts, reincarnation and revenge for wrongs done to a pair of lovers in the past avenged in the present. It created an intriguing ambience with the mansion that has the right touch of eerie intrigue where the ending, beginning, with thrills and ascending suspense, from a subtle beginning to an electrifying climax. It begins when Anand, coming to take charge as the new estate manager, finds his journey blocked by heavy thunder and rains on the way. He steps into the mansion and is struck by memories he did not know he had. “Yahan par ek tasveer thee, jo maine banayi thee”, he says without thinking. Ugranarayan feels panic rising within him when Anand finds a painting of someone who looks exactly like himself. 

Madhumati, played very expressively by Vyjayantimala pitted against Dilip Kumar, is a tribal girl from the hills who believes in superstition. “Mat jao Babu” she tells Anand when the flower falls off and she considers it a bad omen. Anand finds out another young beauty named Madhu, who looks exactly like Madhumati, and requests her to step in to frighten the villainous landlord Raja Ugranarayan (Pran, at his histrionic best) who is captivated by the beauty of Madhumati.

This marks the presence of adequate masala for a mainstream film — a ghost, a love story, a reincarnation factor, alcoholism, traditional medicine, tribal song and dance numbers, comedy in the shape of Johnny Walker with the unforgettable song — “jungle mein more naacha kisine na dekha”, romance between two social, caste and class unequals, and much more.

In 2004, some music lovers did a survey of top 25 albums of individual choices. Madhumati topped the list followed by Guide, Pyaasa and Hum Dono. When 

Madhumati was released, Radio Ceylon played seven songs from Madhumati among its Top 10.

The “Suhana safar” number is sung by Anand (Dilip Kumar) when the film opens. He is fascinated by the beauty of the hillscapes when he has not loved and lost and the “toote hue khwaabon ne” that he sings towards the end of the film. Mukesh sang “suhana safar”, one of his career-bests, and the latter by Mohammed Rafi, though the character lip-synching the songs is the same.

Bollywood created several clones of Madhumati, including Om Shanti Om (2015) starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone. Bimal Roy’s daughter reportedly threatened the producers for plagiarisaton, which was silenced with an out-of-court settlement. But Om Shanti Om is actually a present-day tribute to Madhumati.