The story goes that when the king of the Rakshasas, Bali, was being crowned the lord of the three worlds, Lord Vishnu assumed the form of Vaman to ask for three paces of land as measured by his feet. As soon as Bali acquiesced, Vaman grew in size to be so huge that his first step covered the entire Earth (they believed it to be flat in those days), his second covered the whole of Bali’s kingdom in heaven and with his third and final step, he placed his foot on Bali’s head and trampled him down to the underworld, reinstating the Devas as rulers of all the worlds.
Stories like these, which speak of misplaced trust and backstabbing, are not exclusive to Hindu mythology. In Paris’ abduction of Helen, in Brutus’ stabbing of Julius Caesar, in Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, and in Shakespeare’s Macbeth we see the same recurring theme of an individual heaping favours (or trust) on another, only to see himself being wronged by the same person sometime later. Yes, lying is wrong, robbery is bad, adultery is immoral, but ingratitude has always been cast by human societies of all times in the same mould as blasphemy.
Hindi movies have also repeatedly used this theme to show us this part of human character. How often have we seen the hero of a movie, after a long fight, spare the main villain and start to walk away when the villain suddenly comes up from behind to kill him? No, don’t answer that, for the answer probably lies in the same order of magnitude as the size of the universe. We have been fed the same old trust-betray card so often that it is refreshing to see Hrishikesh Mukherjee tell give an account of a person who read his moral fables only too thoroughly as a child.
Dr Sudhir Roy (Amitabh Bachchan)’s life could have been very different. He had hit rock bottom when he was a young lad; he had no parents, his brother was in the mental asylum, and he had no money. On top of that, he was caught for stealing. If Prashant Chaturvedi (Vinod Mehra)’s father had not given him a home, if Prashant had not given him the gift of friendship, there is no saying where he would have ended up. He most definitely would not have ended up being a child specialist.
The movie begins with Sudhir and Prashant taking a holiday in Kashmir after their studies where they meet Kavita Goyal (Rakhee), who is herself on a holiday with her father. Both doctors, especially Sudhir, get attracted to Kavita and over the course of their stay in Kashmir, a bond of healthy friendship forms between the three of them. When Sudhir realizes that Prashant likes Kavita, he recommends him as a bridegroom to her, informing her that he is linked to another girl (“Mujhe ek aur ladki se ek bahut purani chakkar hai”). So by the end of the first couple of reels, Prashant gets married to Kavita.
Soon after returning to Bombay, Prashant goes to America for further studies while Sudhir and Kavita stay back to look after Prashant’s father, a retired judge played by Om Shivpuri. After the judge’s death due to a heart-attack, Prashant returns a changed man, full of ideas to make money and become “big” in life, by whichever means possible. Some of those ‘means’ turn out to be very untidy and they all pile up until a day comes when the hospital Prashant and Sudhir set up as partners attracts the eyes of the law. The rest of the story deals with if and how Prashant and Sudhir escape the long reach of justice and what part Kavita plays in this process.
There is also a parallel plot that runs all along the length of the movie that concerns the fate of Sudhir’s brother Adhir Roy. It turns out that Adhir became crazy because of a girl falsely accusing him of sexually molesting her. Sudhir meets this girl, Ruby Dutt (Sheetal), by chance and takes revenge on her, just like his brother tells him to every time he visits him in the asylum. This sub-plot really has no bearing on the story and it could be that it was put in just to etch the character of Sudhir with more depth and detail.
The fact that the narration of the plot is so smooth is a testament to the fact that while things like slick camerawork, mind-boggling special effects and beautiful scenery aid in the telling of a good story, they are just that: aids. The real effect comes from how good a story-teller the director is, and often a good enough one will do the job with little more than a video camera. Not once in the entire movie does a scene look dragged, an expression look forced, a character look sketchy and while the actors themselves deserve a little bit of credit for this, most of it goes unequivocally to the man in charge, Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Kudos.
Another factor that makes this movie great is its music, composed by R D Burman. Songs like ‘Kitni khoobsoorat yeh tasweer hai’, ‘Ek roz mein tadap kar’ and ‘Khafaa hoon’ were so popular that they live to this day on the lips of many music fans. Add to this the strength of the performances – Vinod Mehra is the only black sheep so to speak, with Amitabh leading the way admirably and Rakhee and co following very closely - and we have all the ingredients for a movie that looks and is a classic from every viewing angle.
It is surprising that ‘Thou shalt not be ungrateful’ does not figure in the ten commandments, but the number of times our stories feature ingratitude as the central theme only shows our obsession with it. It is probably fitting that in most of the stories, defeat and misery eventually catch up with the villain, like in the case of Paris and Macbeth. But things are not always black and white. Sometimes the person doing the backstabbing could be glorified as a hero or a person who goes to great lengths just to uphold the trust placed in him could be unjustly punished. Bemisal caters to the second of these cases.
It is perhaps ironic that our culture is the only one where God himself commits the ungrateful acts and they are justified, no, glorified, under different convenient excuses. The reasons for why we take so much pleasure in our Gods’ indiscretions could make for an interesting debate. But I suspect this is neither the time nor the place.