When watching this movie, you’d forget its a Bollywood masala.
The grand magnum opus that almost granted India’s first ever Oscar, was created by a director who was very much familiar with village life, Mehboob Khan himself. Mehboob blends in a bit of the familiar Bollywood melodrama, real life telling and Mega superstars such as Raj Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Nargis and Rajendra Kumar to give the viewer a look into the rural life of India after independence from the departing British Empire.
The main character Radha is the motherland, her children its citizens and the moneylender the British. The village’s citizens can’t read or write adding more burden to their lives as they are constantly taken advantage of by the Sukilala (the more educated of the villagers) who harvests most of the land. Particularly, the moneylender continues to take advantage of Radha and her family after her mother in law mortgages the land to pay the moneylender 500. Rupees.
To make matters worst, Shamu is maimed after trying to move a boulder with his bare hands and an ox also dies trying to remove the boulder from off of his crushed arms. Not wanting to be a burden to no one in the village especially after Sukilala places a bullock around Shamu’s neck and states, ’’All you can do is live off the support of your wife.’’ Shamu lives while the family is asleep. Radha quickly jumps out of her sleep noticing her husband is missing and runs after him.
For moment it seems as she too will abandon the family to run after her husband but doesn’t. Ramu and Birju run after her screaming, ’’Mata! Mata!’’ When they catch up to her she walks back to the village singing, ’’Nargi Nargi Dware Dware’’ wishing for her husband to return, this is the moment when the mother suddenly becomes the symbol of strength.
It is now left up to Radha and her two small children to plow the land and they do so with tears in their eyes singing ’’Duniya Mein Hum Aaye’’ pushing the plow through the harsh land with the mother leading them with the plow handle across her shoulder. And it seems Mother Nature takes advantage of the family as she whips up a massive flood common in seasonal India that destroys the crops. The children are able to get to a high platform perch. And while Radha is carrying food to them one of the poles break and she immediately jumps into the water to replace the pole while a snake swims to them frightening Birju and Ramu. But she quickly scares the snake away.
The family is able to reach dry land. Radha’s fourth son, the baby of the family dies from starvation leaving Radha baffled. The family runs into Sukilala who has come looking for them carrying food with him. He offers grams to Birju but Radha not wanting Sukilala to offer her or her children anything after taking advantage of them, tells Birju to not eat the grams. Birju immediately drops Radha picking him up screaming, ’’Birju! Birju! Birju!’’ She places him next to Ramu and begins digging through the mud looking for the small bits of grams.
Not wanting her child to die of starvation, Radha gives herself up to Sukilala. His house is a mansion lined with god and a statue of Shiva, which he protects with his heart. When Radha picks up the statue and threatens to break it, Sukilala panics warning her to be careful. She looks at the statue and says, ’’Why did you come in this form? You can’t see the suffering of a mother trying to feed her children and living in poverty!’’ Angered by god for not seeing the sufferings of humankind, Radha builds up her strength beating Sukilala above the head with a broom when he tries to touch her.
Years pass, Radha is now an old woman, and the movie brings the viewer back to where the beginning left off. The soil is now fertile thanks to Radha and her sons since she can’t afford oxen to plow the land. Unfortunately Sukilala still lives and STILL taunts Radha and her sons. Birju is seething with anger that can explode at any minute towards the old man. He confronts Sukilala when lying down on a pile of grain telling him, ’’My family has sacrificed all for you and this is how you repays with more payments to be taken care of!’’ Sukilala than shows Birju the payment his grandmother had made in the panachyat but can’t read it as he didn’t receive formal education.
Soon Birju is frantically running back and forth in the circle the villagers have form asking anyone if they can read it. People shake their head sadly saying no. One man apologized, ’’I would but I don’t know how.’’ Birju than says, ’’We can’t read this! It is wisdom!’’ Wanting to read and write Birju interrupts a class of children learning the alphabet. The school children giggle surprise to see a grown up man sitting among them with his legs crossed having difficulty in pronouncing each syllable.
And the rest from here is pretty straightforward but the ultimate scene is when Radha confronts Birju after he kidnapped Sukilala’s daughter Rupa on her wedding day. He states, ’’You can’t kill me, I am your son!’’ She in turn states that she is a woman and a woman’s honor should never be crushed and shoots her son afterwards sings ’’O Mere Aaj Laja’’