FilmIndia (1948)

)UR REVIEW MELA Producers: Wadia Films Ltd. Language: Hindustani Story & Dialogue: Azam Bazidpuri Songs: Shakil Bad.'vuni Music: Natishad Photography: Fali Mistry Audiography: Robin Chatterjee Cast: Nargis, Dilip Kumar. Jeevan etc. Released At: Excelsior, Bombay Date of Release :8th October 1948 Directed By S. V. SUNINY "Mela" Should Be Re -Censored! A Shameful Picture For Educated Producer! "Mela" is a "Hila Wadia Produclon" which, of course, means noking seeing that previous Hila W adia roductions have failed miserably. After seeing "Mela" one feels that le "Rattan" formula is still very tuch in vogue. In fact, "Mela" is a ad rehash of "Rattan" and as such (resents a very familiar story which le spectators themselves can cornHe at any stage of the picture. Without the Bazidpuri writer taking te trouble to do so. "Mela", however, is a strange eonoction to come out from Wadia lilms Ltd., seeing that J. B. H. Wa ia, with his academic degrees of I.A., L.L.B., can be safely described s an educated man and as such be Kpected to give something, if not rogressive, at least sensible. SLANDER ON HINDUS "Mela" is far from being sensible, t is at once stupid and reactionary. In "Mela", the young village lierone, Manju, is married to an old man, it enough to be her grand father, in n unholy hurry without even investiating thoroughly the circumstances jading to the disappearance of the oung hero during his visit to a earby town. The seventy-year old husband, seefig flesh too fresh and young for his lesire, loses his morale and drops lis tail like a beaten dog, though he omes to the bridal chamber presum,bly to consummate his marriage. He nutters out an apology to the young >ride and says he was deceived in his narriage by his sister and that he lid not know he would have to mate ith one so young. Jamshed W adia vants us to believe that a well-to-do Dan of the world could be roped in ilindly at the age of 70 for a vital vent like his own marriage with a ;irl whom he had not seen. Besides, loes Jamshed also mean to emphasize hat the Hindus marry anything that s given to them without having even fleeting glimpse of the girl who is Mended to be a life partner to a nan? If he intends to tell us so, this aarriage incident in "Mela" must be uterpreted as a slander on Hindus nd Hinduism. As "Mela" is a story of modern imes. we want to know whether Jamhed Wadia can find us in the whole ■f India, at least one man who is prepared to marry a woman without even seeing her and at the age of 70? We can understand an old sex-obsessed man trying to marry a poor young girl using his riches as an argument. But then such types always examine their innocent victims carefully before their marriages. But for a man of 70 to be "deceived"' and married to a young girl, as Jamshed wants us to believe, is certainly too much to swallow. Or is this incident in "Mela" a result of a conspiracy between the Parsi Jamshed and the Muslim Azm Bazidpuri to run down the Hindus and exhibit them as unscrupulous people who have neither decency nor any sense of proportion even in matters of marriage? It is not exactly a state secret that the Parsis and the Muslims do not like the Hindus because of the present political situation but is it necessary to propagate against the Hindus in this filthy manner through the medium of the screen? After all. the Hindus pav the most to see Indian pictures and it i-; certainly bad business for a producer to run down his own patrons. EMOTIONAL MASOCHISM To proceed with the story of "Mela", the 70-year old man goes back from his bridal bed without touching his young bride and after giv ing her a sermon on synthetic motherhood. The young girl is thus condemned to a married virginhood. Having made a 70-year old man marry a young girl, does Jamshed Wadia also want to condemn the girl to a cruel and tantalizing life of selfdenial or does he call this type of emotional masochism a new type of sex sublimation? \^ hat exact pattern in human relationship does this pseudo-intellectual want to prescribe to the masses with the help of this distorted incident? Towards the end of the picture, this 70-year old guy throws a fit and dies like a dog leaving "Manju" a virgin widow. Once again Jamshed Wadia. who calls himself a progressive Pars: and talks of renaissance in one thing or other, turns the virgin widow into a common nursery maid to look after the children of that 70-year old dead instead of sending her back to her first lover and correcting what the idiotic imagination of a film producer had woven as an early misfortune round the life of the young he roine. The producer is nothing if not thorough in his idiotic twists to the story for we are brought to the end with the help of the usual film storm in which everything shrieks and shakes, including commonsense, and the virgin comes out to meet her old boy friend but falls down a cliff and dies. What an end to virgin widowhood or widowed virginhood, whatever Jamsu fancied, with a young man waiting on the lovers' cliff all the while! Is this the optimism in life Jamshed Wadia wants to preach to a new generation of free Indians? MARRIED IN HURRY In "Mela", the hero, Mohan, goes to a nearby town to make purchases for his bride but meets with an accident and does not return. In the village all wait for him but no one goes in search of him. The heroine stands in the balcony against the sky and weeps out a song; the hero's father goes up an attic and starts trembling with rheumatism while Mehkoo calls the local scraggy 'panchayat' under the village tree and they decide to give away Manju to the 70-year old impotent dotard. It is all done in an unholy hurry as if the girl would have missed the marriage for a lifetime, had she missed this particular day. Nowhere previously was any emphasis placed on the date of the 'narriage nor was the marriage such a grand and expensive affair as not to be postponed for a month or two, seeing that the very bridegroom had disappeared. Nowhere in Hinduism is it said that if the bridegroom is missing another must be found immediately to keep up the marriage date. The heroine. Manju. is the daughter of a school teacher, evidentlv the 55