Directed by Sohanlal
Kanwar
Produced by Sohanlal
Kanwar
Starring Manoj
Kumar,Babita
Music by Shankar
Jaikishan
Release date 1970
Country India
Language Hindi
Storyline
Sweet pure Gangaram (seriously, this is one of MK’s most nauseating roles ever) comes to the big bad city from his village in order to find a bride. He meets a woman named Champa (Chand Usmani), helps her escape from the brothel where she has been trapped and adopts her as his sister. He also rescues an old crippled man called Baba (Balraj Sahni) from being beaten up by a nasty piece of work named Raju (Kuljeet, one of only Three and a Half Good Things about the film). Raju is after Barkha (Babita, who is Half a Good Thing), the wayward modern daughter in a wealthy family. Baba was crippled in a fire when he rescued Barkha as a child from her burning flat, and Ganga brings them into each other’s lives again and falls in love himself with Barkha.
Barkha inexplicably returns his feelings after Ganga gives her a cookbook for her birthday.
Granted, her choices are creepy Kuljeet or village idiot Ganga, but still. I might well have gone with creepy Kuljeet.
There are lots of references to Ganga’s purity and his ability to cleanse away the sins of modern living, with all the parallels possible between Ganga the man and Ganga the holy river drawn and then used to beat us repeatedly over the head.
When Barkha’s mother (Sulochana Latkar) agrees to get them married, her brother Rakesh (Sailesh Kumar) takes the proposal to Ganga’s home and finds Champa there.
He recognizes her and rushes home to tell his Ma and Barkha that she can’t marry Ganga because his sister is a prostitute. Amidst a great wailing and screeching of shehnais (or is it some other instrument?), Barkha and Ganga break up and we discover that Rakesh knows all about Champa because he seduced her on a visit to her village and then abandoned her. When she came to the city to marry him as he’d promised, he sold her off to the brothel to get rid of her.
Champa now goes to plead with him not to let Ganga’s good deed in rescuing her interfere with his marriage with Barkha, and predictably Rakesh sends her back to the brothel. Ganga rescues her again after discovering the truth (they have to fight off the goons Rakesh has sent to kill both of them):
and decides that he will get Champa married to Rakesh.
They meet Rakesh, and Rakesh pulls a gun on them.
Champa manages to get the gun away from him, and Ganga slaps her when she points it at Rakesh: it is a great sin to threaten your husband-to-be (although apparently not a great sin to slap her for trying to save her own and Ganga’s life). This results in Rakesh getting the gun back, and he shoots Champa in the back as she flees with Ganga.
Meanwhile, Baba has gone to Barkha and told her the truth about Champa and Rakesh, with the result that she and her mother (Sulochana) also decide that the obvious solution is to get Champa married to Rakesh.
Everyone ends up at Rakesh’s hotel on the occasion of his engagement party to wealthy Maya (Lata Bose), including Ganga who arrives with the bullet-ridden nearly-dead Champa.
They all give Rakesh a whole lot of “do-overs” along the lines of: “Okay you messed up but do the right thing now….Okay you messed up but do the right thing now….Okay you messed up but do the…” You get the picture.
But he continues to make poor decisions, culminating in his setting his own hotel on fire in order to kill poor unconscious Champa who has been left inside. Ganga rescues her again, and finally Rakesh, cornered now by his family and the police, runs into to the burning building to kill himself. Ganga goes in to save him for the sole purpose of…yes, you’ve got it: getting Champa married to Rakesh!
Rakesh is finally purified by I guess the combination of fire and Ganga. He apologizes to all and to everyone’s joy agrees to marry Champa, the woman whom he (let me recap for you):
seduced and abandoned
sold off to a brothel
sold off to the brothel a second time
sent his goondas to kill
when they failed, shot in the back himself
when that failed, tried to burn alive
That, my friends, is our happy ending. I haven’t even gone into Champa’s ongoing penchant for suicidal self-sacrifice although it comes as no surprise when she regains consciousness just in time to be grateful.
So why did I stick with it? Well as usual I don’t really know, except that it was cartoonish enough and so really over-the-top idiotic and self-contradictory (much like Fox News) that I just had to roll my eyes and giggle.
Barkha is a lively, self-confident girl whom I really like before she meets self-righteous prig Ganga and is transformed into a moron, which is why I give Babita Half a Good Thing status. She is a large part of the other Two Good Things (besides Kuljeet) about this film too: the fabulous songs “Lo Aayi Hain Jawani” and “Woh Pari Kahan Se Laaoon”.
Starcasting
- Manoj Kumar
- Babita Kapoor
- Balraj Sahni
- Sailesh Kumar
- Chand Usmani
- Tun Tun
- Brahm Bhardwaj
- Lata Bose
- C. S. Dubey
- Daisy Irani
- Kuljeet
Music
|
Song |
Singer |
|
"Karle Dil Ki Baat" |
Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh |
|
"Gangaram Ki Samajh Men Na
Aaye" |
Mukesh, Suman Kalyanpur, Sharda |
|
"Lo Aayee Hai Jawani" |
Asha Bhosle |
|
"Paise Ki Pehchan Yahan" |
Mohammed Rafi |
|
"Aaya Na Humko Pyar Jatana" |
Mukesh, Suman Kalyanpur |
|
"Bas Yehi Apradh Main Har
Baar" |
Mukesh |
|
"Kaun Kaun Kitne Pani Mein" |
Mukesh |
aaya na hamko pyar jatana
singer:mukesh suman kalyanpuri
bas yahi apradh me harbar karta hu
singer:mukesh
gangaram ki samaj me naye
singer:mukesh
song:"paise ki pehchan yaha "
singer:mohemmad rafi
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