A mother is a precious and cherished gift of love. She loves us with all her heart and doesn’t scruple in laying down her life if it could be of any use to us. She lives through our dreams, our hopes, and our aspirations. Our success she shares with joy, failure she suffers as her own. She is deeply pained at seeing the mist in our eyes, but she is the happiest when we smile. She pines for our attention like an innocent pampered child, but she makes our life seem really worthwhile. She is never separated, even for a moment, from us for she lives eternally in us.
What if, God forbid, the hand of death strikes us before her time has come? It’s in her nature to defy nature. She has an infinite capacity to absorb the most inhuman suffering. She shall continue to live (ironically, death takes a long time coming), yet deep inside a part of her dies. All that remains is a walking corpse with few emotions.
Deewar is the story of such a lady who has long forgotten what emotions are. But a chance presence at the stage of a police awards ceremony, where sub-inspector Ravi Verma (Shashi Kapoor), who is commended for heroic service, insists that his medal be given to his widowed mother Sumitra Devi (Nirupa Roy) bring back to her a flood of old memories. In the din and cheers of the applauding crowd vivid memories of the past cascade down and the audience are taken to a compelling scene 20 years in the past.
Deewar is the story of a pious lower middle-class woman whose life revolves around her two sons. One is good the other is bad. The story does provide a feeling of déjà vu for those who have watched ‘Mother India’ and ‘Ganga Jamuna’. But let me mention here that there is no story under the Sun that hasn’t already been told, and retold. There is no plot that hasn’t yet been exploited. But what differentiates this film from other mundane Bollywood flicks is the treatment.
Husband Anand Verma (Satyen Kappu), a union leader in the coal mines, presents the demands of his striking fellow miners to their avaricious boss. But the cunning boss plays a cowardly trick on him and exposes Anand Verma as a wheeler-dealer. Broken, and unable to bear the taunts of his fellow workers, neighbours, and children Anand Babu walks away from his hospital bed silently into the night (why do I get a feeling of déjà vu?). Why do people just walk away as if it is a panacea for all ills and problems of life?
Anyway, poor Sumitra devi and her two fledgling sons are left to fend for themselves and face the wrath and insults of society whose hounding instincts are all too well known. The elder son Vijay Verma (Amitabh Bachchan) is brutally traumatised by the local goons who tattoo his right arm with the self-demeaning words "My father is a crook".
Fleeing from the colony and homeless, the threesome makes an old underpass in the great metropolis Mumbai it’s home.
The younger son Ravi Verma (Shashi Kapoor) shows an inclination towards studies which prompts Vijay to take up a lowly job of shoe polishing, whereas, Sumitra Devi becomes a labourer in a construction site. Even here she is not spared of the taunts of lecherous people.
The two sons grow up with diagonally opposite views towards life and values. Deewar depicts the eternal conflict between the good and the bad, the pious and the sinful, the aggressive and the docile, honour and blood, and above all maternal love and respect for values.
Deewar, which means ‘Wall’, symbolises not so much strength but ironically the breach of trust and faith leading to severance of relationship between two brothers and how mother’s love is torn between the two.
The story unfolds showing the elder son Vijay becoming a smuggler and the younger son Ravi becoming (you’ve guessed it right) a police officer. What follow hence are moral conflicts between the two brothers leading to a wider rift between the two which culminates in the famous scene and the most remembered words "Mere paas maa hai" A hapless Vijay looks on as the younger brother Ravi and his mother walk out leaving Viyay brooding. He has everything that money can buy but he no longer has with him his most cherished possession, his dear mother and her blessings.
Produced by Gulshan Rai and directed by Yash Chopra, this film has everything going for it. Powerful dialogues by the then ruling Salim Javed, reasonably good music by Late RD Burman, a taut script, good editing, and power house performance by Amitabh Bachchan that keeps the viewer engrossed right till the end. The story line though not original is powerful enough and that is a plus point of the film.
Amitabh Bachchan delivered a standout performance in a negative role but the masses liked his performance so much that the tag of the ‘Angry young man’ stuck to him for more than a decade. Amitabh definitely was the soul of this film but surprisingly the Filmfare Awards panel thought otherwise. However, the award for the best supporting role went to Shashi Kapoor.
I concede it was, by far, Shashi Kapoor’s best performance in any role but still nowhere as good as Amitabh’s. Shashi Kapoor winning the Best Actor in a supporting role award was in a way symbolic and a reflection of the story itself…he who has mother must also have the award. Poor Amitabh inspite of his critically acclaimed performance was left scratching his head.
You need to see Deewar for the compelling story and taut screenplay. You also need to see the film for Amitabh’s outstanding performance as an Angry Young Man. But, you also need to see the film for Shashi Kapoor’s gatecrash to the party.
mbfarookh