It is really interesting as to how a certain piece of art speaks to us only through the already existing image of the world that we have for we are watching it only through that air of understanding. A good film watched over multiple periods of time would mean differently to us each time, for we will be watching it as a different person as new things get accumulated in our way of living. And so, recently when I re-watched the Guru Dutt film Pyaasa again after three years, it spoke to me differently, entrenching its place further in my heart.
There are a lot of things that I saw now which I couldn’t see then. What had really attracted me then in Pyaasa were the songs which really struck a chord with me and instantly had me curious about poetry. It was then that began my love affair with poetry for there songs of all kind in the film right from talking about the petty social conditions in ‘jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kaha hai?’ to the agony of love and heartbreak in, ‘jaane wo kaise log the jinke pyaar ko pyaar mila’ and the effects of spiritual longing in ‘aao sajan mohe ang laga lo’- there are all sorts of feelings expressed. And Much has already been said about their genius throughout the years.
What the film made me to think on second viewing was the condition of the artist and how their perception of the world is quite different from the people of the world or those unaware or yet to taste the delicacies that art has to offer. The film while resorting to certain extreme generalizations and its rather cynical outlook towards relationships and life in general, speaks on a variety of things. This is made clear in the very beginning when we see Vijay(Guru Dutt) sitting in solitude in a garden humming one of his poems and looking at a bee sucking nectar off a flower. He looks at it with tenderness and sensitivity, cherishing the moment. The flower falls off the plant and we see another man crossing it over, thrashing the flower so to speak and then we look at the saddened Vijay. Symbolic as it is, this opening sequence becomes important as it introduces us with the world of the film. What it also does and wants to say, something reciprocated on multiple occasions throughout and also in the lyrics, is the tenderness and sensitivity with which Vijay looks at the world, his heart a delicate petal of a blossom. Whereas the world just crumbles him and his dreams with every passing footstep. That way the film is a tragedy, a lamentation of the artist or as I would like to put it, ahl-e-dil , people of heart, against every heartless pillars looming high, right from love and family to politics and social conditions.
Now this proposition of the artist and the world is something worth pondering over. In an interview to a YouTube channel, Chalchitra Talks, Bhardwaj Rangan, a film critic says that artists and those who understand or reflect over art are sensitive people. And it is something I instantly agreed with for if not for tenderness in emotions and feelings, it is not possible to be in the arts or its appreciation. That is not to say that other people are not sensitive but just that in order to produce art or appreciate art, a certain level of sensitivity is required, a certain level of understanding of the human condition. Certain sensibilities are pre-requisite in order to say what lies deep within the heart or to experience what a piece of art has packaged in tangible form which is nothing but the deepest desires and feelings about the world and existence in general. Pyaasa is a good anchor point to reflect on these ideas. Vijay(played by Guru Dutt) is the quintessential artist who is deceived by the world at all stands of life and complains about it through his poetry, failing to understand what makes a human act in such a way and if at all there is an end to the misery and suffering of not just the individual but the collective as a whole. Throughout the film, he tries to make sense of his friends, of all the rather fishy things they do, of his brothers who sell his poems to the local paper seller, of his publisher who speaks ill of his poems and refuses to publish them in his magazine. Of the people who like Vijay and understand him is an oil massager for whom Vijay writes a Jingle which helps him to get more clients, a prostitute who buys his poems from the local paper seller and falls in love with them instantly, and his old ailing mother. Guru Dutt through Vijay questions everything and everyone as someone who knows yet fails to understand the world. And through that the film then becomes an exploration of loneliness, melancholy, the state of affairs in the country and the petty conditions in which humans are subjugated to live. A beautiful play of words is used to summarize all this in the end when Guru Dutt exclaims in Sahir Ludhiyanvi’s stark words, “yaha par to Jeevan se hai maut sasti, ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai”. There is one particularly striking scene when Vijay is called on the college reunion and made to recite a poem for the occasion as another famous poet who was supposed to come didn’t show up. He goes on the stage and looks at the audience for a bit and recites one of his poems that is a wail on existence. One person from the audience gets up and asks him to sing something happy for the occasion. To which, Vijay as if making the rest of his poem on spot, wails further exclaiming as to how can he sing a happy song when he is filled entirely with grief.
Vijay becomes the “true artist” who speaks and says through his poems what he truly feels within. Hardly any good happens to him throughout the film and it ends on a very pessimistic tone too, all the while making us ponder on the respect given to art and the artist and how it has just turned into a commodity handled by a few wealthy. These implications somewhere can also be used to reflect on the current status of cinema in our country. We lack the sensibility and general sensitivity as a society. Any piece of art is made when certain things are realized by the artist on a deeper, delicate level and reflected the same through different means be it music, painting, film or poetry. Take any good film or poetry, you need to delve further into it to understand what the artist has realized and wants you to experience too. What I saw in Pyaasa upon revisiting is this constant struggle, this dichotomy between people of the world and Vijay who is too sensitive for them to understand him. All of this is told strongly through songs, stark visuals and scenes which succeed in breaking you, making you ponder about a whole lot of things. The film is as relevant now as it was back then, its songs a real herb to momentarily heal you in your loneliness and making you think about the ‘kuche’ and ‘galiyan’ around. That way, it needs to be seen and reflected over by everyone
KuchTohBhi 