Patient number 24 : O' Henry Meets Asit Sen (Movie Review : Khamoshi)

O Henry stories have been my favourite since childhood especially because the stories have a lot to say at the end which keeps you thinking once you have been through it. Another thing that I have liked are movies that are Emotional Romantic tragedies. It makes you live every moment of the story detailing the feelings of each character in the movie.

Yesterday I saw a movie that has a mix of both the above things. A movie that tells you a moving story of a lady, a story of a woman which was not understood by any of the males she was interacting with. Story of a strong sacrificing woman for whom her profession and her integrity towards her profession of nursing was of the utmost importance.

"Khamoshi" is a story about Patient number 24. As the movie passes different character plays the role of patient number 24 in a mental hospital and it is the story of the interaction of these characters that makes the movie such a treat to watch.



Patient Number 24 # Dev :


He is never shown completely on the screen but he is the reason for the story to start and he is the reason for the story to end. He is a charming young man who comes in the mental hospital after a heartbreak by some girl. At every step in the story along with the Radha (The nurse) you too think of how Dev might have passed through the situations that Varun is passing through. Doctor Colonel did an experiment on him by not letting him go through the normal process of medicine and curing him with love and affection. Radha helps the doctor to do the same but falls in love with Dev while the treatment is on. Dev on getting cured finds his lost love back and leaves Radha in the hospital, without even realizing that Radha loved him. Radha is love lorn and this comes to her like a bad dream.



Patient Number 24 # Varun:


Dev was never on screen but with the backdrop of his story, Director starts the story of Varun. Varun has the same problem as Dev and the Doctor wants to cure him to prove that Dev's case was not the only one and All such patients can be treated with love and affection. Doctor Cajoles Radha to get involved and she gets involved reluctantly, remembering Dev at every moment of Varun's treatment. Varun's Poetry, songs, talks, mental condition, everything keeps on reminding her of Dev. Dev who was the only person she ever loved but lost him without any fault of hers. Varun starts getting emotionally involved with the caring nature of treatment of Radha and falls in love with her. He feels it is only because of Radha that he is getting cured. For Radha Varun is like a shadow of Dev, and she is living her life again. Everytime with every touch of Varun she starts remembering Dev and the personality of Dev and Varun almost converges in her mind. She calls Varun by Dev's name in her semi concious states while being loved by Varun. Varun by her love and affection gets cured. Doctor was right. But....





The story has this wonderful twist here, no one, niether Dev and Varun nor the doctor could understand Radha. Radha passes through such a trauma of living her nightmares again that she could not bear it.

Patient Number 24 # Radha:
The story ends with Radha being the Patient number 24. The trauma results into a mental imbalance for Radha.

There are scenes in this entire story when a drop of tear would invariably flow to the corner of your eyes. One such scene is the last scene where the Matron who was so close to the nurses, is taking a call of the patients and stops at patient number 24 and you listen to a familiar laugh.


Waheeda Rehman in arguably her best performance carries the role with aplomb. You could feel the haunting memories of Dev and the pains of her duty along with her, throughout the 127 min of the movie. You live the movie from her eyes.


Dharmendra is charming in his small apperanace. Nasir Hussain in the role of the doctor, Matron Lalita Powar and Patient number 22, Deven verma adds correctly to the mood of the film. I would like to mention a special short role of love interest of Varun, played by Snehlata, who later went on to become a Gujarati films' sensation.


But the role which is most remarkable considering that it was the first movie to get released for this actor after 3-4 flop movies post his debut. This role is of Rajesh Khanna as Varun. He delivers the first great act of his career. After his debut in 1967 Rajesh Khanna did not come up with any great movies till 1969. 1969 was going to be a year or rising for this new superstar. This was the year which turned fortunes for this intense actor, and this was the first movie of the year for him. The same year he went on to give 3 more average movies (Doli, Bandhan, Do Raaste), one hit (ittefaq) and one super duper hit (Aradhna). But first in line came “Khamoshi”, at a time when there was no set image for Rajesh Khanna and he had acted in this very different role of a person who becomes mentally disturbed after an unsuccessful love affair.


But the movie, according to me belongs to “Asit Sen” (director) and “Hemant kumar” (Producer and music director). To Hemant kumar for producing such a story at times when love stories with hero –heroines singing and dancing around the trees was the trend. And to Asit sen to direct it with such a style. Most of the movies in the year 1969 were in colour but Khamoshi has its charm being a BW movie. The Art direction and use of shadows are just wonderful parts of the movie. Lightings in the room number 24 and on the looks of Dharmendra give the movie a mesmerizing effect. A special mention needs to be given for Gulzar's Dialogues and Ashutosh Mukherjee's Story.





Above all this stands the real hero of the movie : "music" . Even with just 3 songs in the movie the movie seems to have won all accolades in this field. A great background score and some heart warming songs makes the music to be one of the best classics. “Tum pukar lo..” in haunting voices of Hemant kumar sets the tone of the movie. Then comes another song which has one of the greatest lyrics ever written for hindi movies “ Hamne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mahekti khusboo… Haath se chhuke unhe rishto ka ilzaam na do…” and last but not the list to summarize the entire movie comes “who shaam kuch ajeeb thi…”. A true master piece of Music supported by a true master piece of poetry by Gulzar.





A great Story said in style deserves nothing less than a 4 *.





Suggestion: Go buy a DVD for this movie and watch it atleast once. Thanks to moser baer you can get the DVD for rs. 34.

Aate jaate khoobsurat...

What is the last thing you would like to do when you are completely absorbed in reading a nice thriller of a novel, where you want to read the next 5 pages in one look? I am sure that is to get disturbed by someone asking to move a little and make a place for him / her. Well this happens to me everyday.

Everymorning i catch a bus at 8:15 in front of my house to reach office and I catch the bus at 6 to come back. . The office bus is generally full by the time it reaches my stop in the morning and by the time I catch it in the evening. I generally like to avoid the usual hustling bustling that happens around by the passengers who dont find their seat and are standing in the space between the two seats. This is the precise reason why I always run towards the last window seat in the bus where i dont have any one to disturb me.

But Before I even start speaking about my experiences in the bus, i would like to give a brief introduction to my company. The average age of employees in my company is around 25 which is constantly decreasing as the company has been recruiting fresh graduates in thousands. Last year 30,000 were recruited and the same number is expected to join this year. So would the probability of having a fresh engineering graduate sitting next to you in the bus comes out to be around 0.60 and i must agree that is too high. The probability of this engineering graduate to have had a crush / love affair or heartbreak in the last 45 days also can be calculated to be around 0.75. Considering that you can have a really interesting person sitting next to you in the bus everyday. Would like to tell you about the 4 categories of the people whom i find sitting in the last row of the bus.

Love Birds

The best among the lot are what one of my college friend used to call “LBs”, the ever increasing clan of lovebirds in the young IT companies. They wait the whole day to meet their loved ones in the bus in the evening. College did not give them a lot of liberties for a lot of reasons that do not exist in the working life. This is a species which visits the last row of the bus most often.

Unfortunately love came in my life a lot before I got recruited here and hence the last row of bus has never been romantic at least for me. There has been a proper trend of changing behavior in these LBs over the last 2 years.

From talks about “codes and defects” they have moved to topics of greater importance like “Himesh Reshammiah’s songs and the salsa night at discs in the town”.

From clothes that were “formal” on a Monday to some sleeveless revealing tops for girls and some jazzy shoes for boys. Not that I am complaining :).

From smiles that might turn to words one day to looks that might turn to a date very soon.

From “Kal lunch pe milenge” to “Aaj shaam ko tere ghar pe movie dekhe kya”. It is definitely interesting.

The earlier generation seems to have graduated from the last rows to the first ones. The last rows are a lot more hot and happening these days.

Generally when a couple now comes and gets seated in the last row these days I stop reading because I like complete concentration in what I do. And reading does not allow me to do just that. A normal LB trip that I have come across would go something like this :

The girl keeps the bags in her lap and the boy makes himself comfortable in the last seat sitting straight. No sooner the bus starts the girl feels a lot tired by the days work and suddenly puts her head gently on the boy’s shoulders. Well the eyes meet and the look in the eyes these days seem to be a lot different from what I used to see in my times. Well by the time they starts getting cozy and are comforting each others by their touches and advances that they make, thinking that they have boarded a bus of blinds, my stop comes. And it always embarrasses me and gives me a feeling of guilt to disturb these love birds to say “Behanji zara jagah karenge? I need to get down”.

Sleepers

Well apart from love birds then there are loners, the lazy and self-contained set of people for whom the only 2 things in life are office and sleep, the latter being more important. I really hate people drooping over my shoulders while I am busy with something. And the occasional snores make you wonder about the comfort that a torn seat in an old bus bumping on bad Pune road could be giving. Slowly he loses the center of gravity that had been maintained by his continuous swinging and might either end up in your lap or will get wide awake looking at you with some kind of confused smile and getting back to the initial zero position to start oscillating all over again.

Bakars

Thirdly are that kind of loners who don’t like to be alone and others would not like to get into a discussion with them. They are the ones whom I call “Bakars” and are the most dangerous of all. They might just make you feel to shout on their face “Shut up” and all you can do would be smile and take the real “bakar” that is thrown at you.

Well have had many such with me but the most interesting one was on a day when I was absolutely immersed with Dostoevsky’s “crime and punishment” when she came across to me like the pawn breaker in the story.

She was a girl who had just come to pune from Delhi and the only concern that she had was the “crowd” in pune which she felt was not as good as Delhi. I felt as if she was telling me that all you guyz in pune look Sick. But I still kept on listening her talks about PVR priya, DU, JNU and what not. I did not have the courage to tell her that I have been there for 2 years, because saying that might have included me in her best friend list. Well in the 15 min she told me everything about her “aunt” who had been staying in Mumbai while her “uncle” was in Army, about her cousin who had a recent heartbreak, about the bad chapattis that she make. The only fear that I had in the whole story was that “would she be coming by the same bus everyday?” That was too scary for me to even think of.

From the day after that I have been taking care that I sit on a seat where the next seat does not remain empty, else I might just face her in the bus.

Audience

And then there is a fourth clan of people in the bus who like me are observers. the boring and the silent most part of the bus which is better less discussed. I would not like to talk about them because if you fall in this category you know about them already and if you don’t I would rather keep it a secret and let them observe.

But one thing that I have learned through these journeys in the last rows of the buses is to keep eyes and ears open. It is one of the best sources of entertainment that you might ever find.

Advice : Travel through bus in place of personal vehicle and reduce the pollution levels in the cities.