Zindagee meree hai tootaa hua sheeshaa koi

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Dussehra (Vijaya Dashami) is celebrated on the 10^th day of Navratri festival. One of the common traditions during the celebration of Dussehra festival is the burning of the effigies of Raavan along with his son Indrajit and his brother Kumbhakaran, symbolising the victory of good over evil. However, there are few places in India where Raavan’s effigy is not burnt during Dussehra celebrations. On the contrary, Raavan is worshipped.

In Baijnath (Himachal Pradesh), during Dussehra festival, Raavan’s effigy is not burnt as locals believe that burning the effigy of Raavan, who was a devotee of Lord Shiva, will bring wrath of Lord Shiva. Taking a clue from the practice of not burning the effigy of Raavan in a few places in India, I guess, Johny Bakshi wrote a fictional story for his film, ‘Raavan’ (1984), of a village where, on Dussehra day, though the effigies of Raavan, Indrajit and Kumbhakarna are placed for burning, the effigy of Raavan is left alone. The reason is that a village girl who was in love with a self-centred demonic man aptly named as Raavan, had transformed him from ‘Raavan’ to ‘Ram’. Both of them dies when a huge burning effigy of Raavan collapses on them.

‘Raavan’ (1984) was produced and directed by Johny Bakshi who also wrote the story. Star cast included Smita Patil, Gulshan Arora, Om Puri, Vikarm, Ketan Anand, Vikas Anand, Balchandra Kulkarni, M K Nawab, Manmauji, Naidu, Suresh Desai etc.

The opening scene of the film shows a reporter interviewing the village Sarpanch, Shankar (Ketan Anand) during the occasion of Dussehra and asks him as to why effigy of Raavan is left untouched while other two effigies have been burned. Sarpanch tells the reporter that the death anniversary of a village girl, Ganga (Smita Patil) falls on Dussehra day. She was responsible for transformation of a village goon, Raavan (Gulshan Arora) from demon to Ram. After listening to the full story, the reporter says that it is a good story material for a film.

The story of the film is as detailed below:

In a village, Ganga stays with her old mother and a handicapped younger brother. They lead a hand to mouth existence. Some time, she has to steal fruits and other eatables from others to fend for themselves. Ganga has immense faith in God. She prays and sometime write letters complaining to the God about their extreme poverty and requesting Him to send some money. She drops the letter to the village post office without address. The postman reads her letters and out of pity send her a small amount by way of money order to Ganga.

There are two more characters in the village with opposite temperaments. Nandu (Vikram), an unemployed youth has a poetic mind but lacks smartness. He is a friend of Raavan (Gulshan Arora), a village goon who manipulates him to assist him in cheating the villagers. He is also his partner in his street show of knife throwing act.

Ganga is good in playing flute and singing. Taking advantage of their economic condition, her maternal uncle, who is a Madaari (street entertainer) takes Ganga in his troupe by convincing her impoverished mother and paying some money to her. Because of Ganga, the uncle gets more crowd to see his show. But he treats Ganga like a slave. Ganga is fed up and she is planning to get away from her uncle.

Raavan is also a street entertainer. After Ganga joining her uncle’s troupe, Raavan finds his shows getting deserted. He decides to bring Ganga to his side. This becomes easy for him as Ganga is already fed-up with her uncle. Ganga joins Raavan and Nandu. Nandu being of a sober character, helps Ganga in preventing Raavan to take sexual advantage of her. Raavan sees the closeness between Nandu and Ganga to his dislike. Both Nandu and Gang trust Raavan despite his cruel behaviour because he is saviour for both of them.

Raavan’s hatred towards Nandu gets reflected when Raavan, in his knife throwing act in front of a large crowd, hits his knife on Nandu’s heart and he dies. Raavan and Ganga elope from the scene and take a train to go to an undisclosed destination. They both gets down at a railway station. Raavan leaves Ganga and tells her that he would be back. But actually, he runs away to evade the police.

The Station Master (Om Puri) gives Ganga the shelter. Ganga, believing Raavan’s words that he would come back, waits for him at the railway station for the eternity. Raavan is in jail spending a life term for killing Nandu. Once in jail, over a period of time, Raavan who has enough time now to think over his life’s journey so far, starts remembering his cruel behaviour with Nandu, Ganga and other villagers. A thinking process starts within him that what he was doing was not right. Slowly, his starts repenting his past behaviour making him to cry.

During this period, Ganga makes it a point to join every year Dussehra festival where she would hug the effigy of Raavan so that it is not burnt. For her, Raavan is not the character of Ramayan but Raavan, the village goon whom she trusts and loves. Because of this, the village sarpanch (Balchandra Kulkarni) decides to burn the effigy of only Indrajit and Kumbhakaran and leave the effigy of Raavan intact.

After hearing the Ganga’s wait at railway station for Raavan, a newspaper reporter visits the railway station and wants to take her interview which she flatly declines. However, he clicks her photos and carry the story in the next day’s local newspapers. A copy of the newspaper reaches in the jail and Raavan reads the article on Ganga. The already emotional Raavan breaks down and he wants to reach out to Ganga at the railway station at any cost.

On the Dussehra day, the new sarpanch (Ketan Anand) is bent upon implementing the burning of the effigies as per the convention which means that effigy of Raavan would be burnt. Ganga on the other hand is determined not to allow the burning of Raavan’s effigy by hugging as she has been doing for many years.

Raavan breaks the jail and runs away to meet Ganga at the railway station. However, finding Ganga having gone to the site of Dussehra celebrations, he runs toward the site, They both meet and hug each other when the process of burning the effigies starts. The heavy weight burnt effigy of Raavan falls on them killing both of them.

The film is a story of despair, betrayal, love and salvation which is presented to give an impression of a folklore. The film is a good attempt on the part of Johny Bakshi who made his debut as director of this film with somewhat off-beat subject. The theme of the film is that rather than burning the effigy of Raavan, it is better to ‘burn’ the demonic behaviour.

The wait of Ganga at a railway station every day for Raavan reminds of a real story of a faithful Japanese dog, Hachiko (details at Wikipedia) who visited and waited for his master at a railway station everyday till Hachiko’s death, but he could not see his master who had actually died in the office few years back.

The film is said to be inspired from the Italian film, ‘La Starda’ (1954). I have watched this film too and one can say that it is a partial inspiration for ‘Raavan’ (1984). The film’s ending scenes in ‘La Starda’ (1954) create more emotional impact on the audience then in ‘Raavan’ (1984). For, Gulshan Arora is no Anthony Quinn. Smita Patil as Ganga and Om Puri as Station Master have done their roles as per the expectations. Vikram has an unusual role with few scenes in the film which he has done well.

The film had 7 songs all written by Urdu poet, Sudarshan Faakir which were set to music by Jagjit Singh-Chitra Singh. I am presenting the first song, a ghazal, ‘zindagi meri hai toota hua sheesha koi’ from the film to appear on the Blog. The ghazal is rendered by Bhupendra Singh. A long prelude of flute supplements the poignant mood of the ghazal.

Sudarshan Faakir has been known to write most of his ghazal of poignant mood depicting sorrow, despair, gloom, pessimism as his own life story was of that nature probably due to his neglected childhood and a failed love affair. The ghazal singers like Begum Akhtar and Jagjit Singh became popular by singing the ghazals written by him. But he remained unknown during most of his active years. It was at the insistence of first, Begum Akhtar and later Jagjit Singh (his college mate in Jalandhar) that he came to Mumbai to record non- film songs for them and also for some films.

The ghazal under discussion appears in the film in three different situations. The first two stanzas of the ghazal are picturised on Ganga (Smita Patil) and Nandu (Vikram) reflecting on their own life after Raavan (Gulshan Arora) beats both of them, breaking Smita Patil’s flute for suspecting them of stealing his cash. The third stanza of the ghazal is played in the background when an aged Ganga is waiting at the railway station for the return of Raavan. The last stanza is again played in the background when Raavan breaks down in the jail, repenting for his wrong doings to Nandu and Ganga.

The online video clip of the ghazal is available for only the first two stanzas. I have culled out the relevant scenes of stanzas 3 and 4 to make it a video clip of the full ghazal.

Video Clip:

Lyrics

zindagi meri hai toota hua sheesha koi
zindagi meri hai toota hua sheesha koi
kaash mil jaaye mujhe aaj maseeha koi
zindagi meri hai toota hua sheesha koi

ladkhadaane lage ukhhdi huyi saanson ke chiraag
ladkhadaane lage ukhhdi huyi saanson ke chiraag
haaye kis waqt mila banke ujaala koi
kaash mil jaaye mujhe aaj maseeha koi

kaafile aaye gaye phir bhi kayi barson se
kaafile aaye gaye phir bhi kayi barson se
jaane ik mod pe kyun baithha hai tanha koi
kaash mil jaaye mujhe aaj maseeha koi

kaise ro ro ke pighalte hain gunaahon ke pahaad
kaise ro ro ke pighalte hain gunaahon ke pahaad
aake dekhen to sahi ye bhi nazaara koi
zindagi meri hai toota hua sheesha koi
kaash mil jaaye mujhe aaj maseeha koi
zindagi meri hai toota hua sheesha koi