Pyaasa
Tokyo, 2006

A long forgotten film – last watched when DD telecast it on the occasion of celebrating 75 years of Indian cinema (1987). Pyaasa is about humanity threatened by the materialistic world shown through the story of a struggling poet. Orson Welles said that a film director holds a mirror up to nature. And Guru Dutt surely holds the mirror at astounding angles. The visual and narrative simplicity accentuates the anguish inflicted by a morally corrupt society. One of the most touching scenes is when Ghulab offers all her jewelry to a publisher in return for printing Vijay’s poems. This is not melodrama. The jewelry itself is irrelevant. The honesty of her love for Vijay in the face of morally hollow publisher and his wife is what touches us. It is one of the best film scenes I have seen. Vijay’s anger towards the society and his desire to leave it is so realistic, it touches a raw nerve.

Pyaasa remains as relevant today as it was in 1957, when it was released. A booming Indian economy makes moral degradation and materialism that much more pervasive, that much more justifiable. Moral compromises can be easier to swallow in the context of economic growth – especially when such growth assumes nationalistic color. I don’t condemn the strides India is making in world economy – it has given Indians an opportunity to realize a future that hitherto existed only in dreams. On the contrary, highly grateful for our current station, I wish to question if our future is going to be a mere accelerating extension of our past achievements. Maybe it is time for those of us fortunate to have ridden the Indian economic success to morally enrich ourselves; to be grateful for our riches and uphold our moral values (rather than compromise them further); to give Vijay his due.