This year, Vijay Anand’s Guide turned 50. And when the seasons unfurl in Yahan Kaun Hai Tera even today, you watch without blinking. Dev Anand’s Raju sheds his past visibly and morphs from an ex-convict to a wanderer to a yogi by default when a monk covers his curled up body with a saffron shawl. Every frame of this song paints a man who was once immersed in life, but is now retreating. His shoes fall away, as does his identity and the song sets the tone for a deeply complex film. Guide could have been a huge disappointment because it deviated in form and context from RK Narayan’s novel.There had been many disagreements between the author and the makers and Narayan understandably feared that his story would be Bollywoodised beyond redemption. But then Vijay Anand was no ordinary maker. He was a compelling story teller and also had an instinctive understanding of material and actors, an eye for technical finesse and respect for the intelligence of the audience.
Watch Tere Mere Sapne, his adaption of the AJ Cronin novel The Citadel where the ideological conflict of two medical practitioners in a corrupt and opportunistic profession, was portrayed with great insight.
Guide was more than a rainbow lolly. From the sweeping camera work by Fali Mistry, memorable shots of the Chittorgarh Fort and the forbidding Limdi town where the climax was shot to the lush songs and dances including the famous snake dance where Waheeda Rehman’s Rosie vents her suppressed angst, to SD Burman’s music that continues to be referenced, Guide had many visual hooks. But the reason why we go back to the film is the way it told the story of a destructively confused woman, a fatally misguided man and their passion without integrity. Rosie was unlike any Hindi film heroine of the time. She was born to a mother of ill repute, married off to a pervert, saved by a sentimental Guide who leaves everything familiar to stand by her and then is betrayed by her because she cannot forgive him a lapse of judgement.
Rosie meets Raju when her marriage is snuffing the life out of her and she walks straight into his life and home and unwittingly isolates him from his mother and his friends. He fuels her rise and when he begins to enjoy her fame, instead of sorting their issues, she begins to play the victim and shuts him out of her heart. Alone and insecure, Raju keeps away from her, a gift of some value sent by her ex-husband but she finds out and does nothing when the police whisk him away. It is when he is in jail that she runs to him, wringing her hands, and wondering why she did not save him in the first place.
She is one of the most frustrating women in Hindi cinema because she has no idea just what she really wants from life. Because, as soon as she gets something, she loses interest in it and when she loses it, she suddenly wants it back. It is this pusillanimus selfishness that ruins Raju. But then the film is not about her at all. It is about a man who after exhausting all that life can offer or take away from him, is forced to look within and find his higher self. And it is the final scene where the fear in him is being vanquished by these words, “Na sukh hai, na dukh hai, na deen hai, na duniya, na insaan, na bhagwan … sirf main hoon, main hoon, main hoon, main … sirf main,” that turns the film into something more than just a formulaic cliche. Guide finally is a film about finding ourselves because when we do that, we open the door for others to do the same. That is when a seeker becomes a Guide. And a story turns into a legend.
with The New Indian Express Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be silent with her cats.