FilmIndia (1940)

FILMINDIA December, 1940 Photo taken on the occasion of the tea party given to Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis by the Hon. Mr. Manohar Lai, Finance Minister of the Punjab Government. and fortify her citadel of tradition and reverence. But Sandhya was different. She hated her life of shame and sin. The old woman, whom she called her mother, had purchased her when she had yet been a baby. As she grew she saw the clientele of her mother falling. No one wanted an old woman. Lust has eternal youth and it can't be mated with old age. Even the lust laden old man has to give the world an appearance of youth to convince, if not the world, at least himself. Because without this conviction lust dies. For, lust can't be abstract. To be, it has to express itself as a hardened sin. Then one day, Sandhya grew. The knowledge of her ycuth was thrust upon her by an ugly man of forty who had paid a thousand rupees to the old woman. Through fright and pain Sandhya crossed the frontier of childhood and stepped into the land of ycuth with its uncertain promise of hope and fulfilment. The journey across was shcrt. It was accomplished on the wings of the Moon as if claiming thereby the Moon's eternal blessings on numerous such journeys in the dark future. * * * * Sandhya was new to the age-old game. She did not take to it kindly and often protested vehemently. But a few whip cracks on her back from the "mother" broke the back of her opposition and she soon resigned herself to her predetermined fate. Then began a parade of passion. Men, between eighteen and eighty, came frcm all over. Sandhya's soulful music with which she lulled her conscience to sleep woke up the manhood of others. And turn by turn they hunted her down, paying the price of the sport to the old woman. And then came Suman — young and handsome with muscle in tunc and desire in harness. He came with some college boys for a singing concert. Sandhya's beautiful voice haunted young Suman. He looked at her and kept on looking. She looked at him and looked again at him. The eyes drove the hearts into love. And Suman came again and again, paid the admission fee to the inevitable old woman and crept into the innermost recesses of his lady-love to build a new heaven of hope for both. Her first love gave Sandhya newcourage and she defied the "mother." Slaps, more slaps, threats, more threats and whip lashes, ail were tried but Sandhya became more and more obstinate. She sang but refused to share her bed with any one else but Suman. Suman also received his share of abuse and threats. He was stopped from visiting the girl. But he waited outside under the window, even as Romeo had done for Juliet. Some hirelings assaulted him once and yet with a bandaged head he waited there day after day. Sandhya could bear it no longer. That night she and Suman had de That's how the stars are received in India. Mammoth crowds welcomed Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis when they arrived at the Lahore station when they visited the Punjab recently. 22