Birthday of Sri Guru Ramdas Ji

ant and the women oppressed.
Some of the most memorable characters
from Bedi’s stories are women
– Indu from ‘Apney Dukh Mujhei De
Doe’ (Give Me Your Sorrows), Munni
from ‘Lambi Larki’ (Tall Girl), the
eponymous Lajwanti and Jogia, and
Rano from Bedi’s only novel, ‘Ek
Chadar Maili Si’ (A Sheet So Dirty).
When he shifted to Bombay, he
flourished in the film industry and in
his 35 years spent there, he wrote
screenplays, scenes, and dialogues of
around 17 movies, including directing
some of them. Almost all of
these films proved to be highquality,
quaint, and memorable,
however, never proving
to be box-office hits.
Despite being written a
few decades ago from Bedi’s
long experience as the ‘father
of Indian parallel cinema’,
many of the challenges it describes
still exist in Bollywood
and Lollywood, though more
acute in the latter.
Bedi was prolific in the
film world. His first script was
for Badi Bahen which was an
instant hit. Then came Aaram,
Do Sitare, Daag, Devdas,
Mirza Ghalib, Madhumati -
often the films were successful
but the writer got little credit.
Moreover while Bombay
films did give him money they
also put his literary conscience
into a quandary - how not to
compromise artistic values to
crass commercial demands?
He later teamed up with
four other outstanding film
personalities - Hrishikesh
Mukherjee, Balraj Sahni, Amar Kumar
and Homi Sethna - to form a cine operative
committed to making better
cinema.
He also became a regular dialogue
writer for Hrishikesh Mukherjee: his
was the soft, sensitive presence behind
Anupama, Mem Didi, Satyakam, Abhiman.
Bedi managed to produce and
direct a few films including Dastak and
Phagun.
Dastak (1970), which was also his
directorial debut, is more closer to
Basu Chatterjee’s Sara Akash (1969)
than any of the other parallel cinema
films, mainly because both films narrate
a middle class relationship, probing
the densities of married life
through a semi-realist prism. However,
Bedi’s film cuts closer to the bone, exploring
‘the suggestion that a woman
economically dependent on her husband
is comparable to a prostitute’
Dastak (1970), which was also his directorial
debut, is more closer to Basu Chatterjee’s
Sara Akash (1969) than any of
the other parallel cinema films, mainly because
both films narrate a middle class
relationship, probing the densities of married
life through a semi-realist prism.
(Flemming, 1985)
Dastak deals with a married couple
who move into an apartment previously
run as a pleasure house. Phagun,
a more ambitious statement on marital
tensions, failed at the box-office.
Padma Sachdev explains: "His own
films flopped because he was a writer
not a businessman." Bedi had by then
lost a lot of money and mortgaged his
house.
He will always be remembered for
his perceptive stories but most of all he
will be remembered for Ek Chader
Maili Si. It is the heartbreaking story
of Rano who after her husband's death
is compelled to marry his younger
brother, one whom she has always
brought up like her son. Into the tragic
tale, Bedi weaves the entire social phenomena
of Punjab in those days.
Well-known film scribe Firoze
Rangoonwala recalls that
when Krishan Chander, the famous
Urdu writer read it, he
hugged Bedi and said: "You
don't know what you've created."
Ek Chader won Bedi
the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Bedi fell deeply in love
with the heroine of his film
Aankhin Dekhi, who married
someone else after the completion
of the film. This took
a toll on his life. His health deteriorated
after the death of his
son, Narendra Bedi, who
made commercially successful
films, and his wife in quick
succession. He fought cancer
and paralysis, lost one eye, yet
kept his spirit.
Though the exact date of
Rajinder Singh Bedi’s death is
not mentioned anywhere, it is
believed that he died barely 10
days after the anti-Sikh riots
and the anguish that the country
went through after Indira
Gandhi’s assassination in November,
1984.
This famous Urdu author
and Hindi film director lay at his residence
in Khar, Bombay, dangerously
ill and yet undoubtedly aware of the
communal madness that his country
was going through in the early days of
November. No, Bedi was not a deeply
religious Sikh but he was a deeply sensitive
man.
October 2015
Punjab Advance
37