A movie shrouded in darkness, the viewer is presented with Guru Dutt's misfortunate, educated poet Vijay that endlessly struggles to be recognized for the talents of his craft that he went to school for.The general theme of sorrow and misfortune permeate the story as the vast majority of the scenes before Vijay wakes up from his coma. The same can generally be said of the score the audience hears. Vijay is featured in a majority of slow and somber musical scores and the only moments that ever become upbeat or positive are when Vijay is day-dreaming or when he runs into Gulab as she is reciting his poetry. The film attempts to capture the importance of artistry and poetry despite society not allotting any value or credence to such a craft and in many ways it does a good job of making this depiction but what caught my attention was the ways in which the romantic interests, Meena and Gulab are represented, the roles they play and what Dutt does to progress the narrative of these two characters and how Vijay is perhaps not a character to be whole-heartedly lauded or empathized with.
Vijay is nothing like Kapoor’s tramp character from Shree 420 in that he is not exactly a good protagonist. The earliest invitation to the character we learn that he is a struggling poet that, while indisputably talented, refuses to compromise his poetry by writing run-of-the-mill sentimental poems. As a result, he struggles. Vijay can’t get published, often can’t afford to eat, has no permanent home and often relies on others. One of the few isolated instances of Vijay attempting to help himself was when he acted as a coolie to (presumably) a taxi drive for some money to pay for that nights meal. Unfortunately, his efforts were fruitless in the sense that his payment turned out to be fake tender which nearly cost him his shirt only that he had his meal paid for him by Gulab which Vijay took as a form of pity for him. Gulab being a sex worker that has her own struggles to deal with, still offers to help someone in need despite her own situation in life.
Afterwards Vijay is left feeling as dejected as he was before. Even his friend and his friend’s female companion call Vijay a child. albeit jokingly, but the sentiment is true. Vijay clings to maintaining the integrity of his art and his pride as a poet but refuses to make any attempts at helping himself out in any way other than through his art. He is borderline narcissistic especially when early in the film, Vijay is shown haplessly trailing after a seductive singing Gulab wherein this scene it is interpreted a romantic gesture between Gulab and Vijay, following the many zoomed in shots of Gulab giving off sultry looks to Vijay, but also as a representation of Vijay chasing after his own art, his poetry, that Gulab happens to be singing. But then we have Gulab.
Gulab is an extremely hard-working mother that works as a sex-worker whom still is able to appreciate the arts by going out of her way to purchase some of Vijay’s works. She seems to be a common trope character for bollywood films who embodies all the Indian nationalistic values and morals as she is a very spirited, hard-working, open-hearted, selfless individual. She’s depicted as wearing what appears to be more traditional Indian clothing similar to the romantic interest in Shree 420, often the only illuminated element in most scenes, especially with Vijay as he is usually off-center or shadowed in some way. Gulab also exhibits a strong passion for Vijay though, wishing for him to succeed as she supports him even in his “death” which according to the one of the viewpoints from viewingbollywood.blogspot.com is part of what traditional Indian femininity looks like. This character being the powerful visage of what it means to be Indian comes as an impressively progressive one, particularly for the time, as among all of her outstanding qualities Gulab is in fact a sex-worker which typically is viewed with intense disdain and pity but Dutt makes a strong effort to remind the viewer of just how great she is through her actions that we forget she is a sex-worker until we’re faced with the jarring scene that features her performing for a client where her child is crying in the background.
It comes as no surprise then that the cover art for the film has Gulab front and center, taking up over half of the image next to Vijay. Gulab is the character that deserves to be appraised. Vijay is without a doubt talented, intelligent, and makes considerably apt and poignant commentary about society of the day in his poems, but he falls short in the other aforementioned ways whereas Gulab is the character that is a single mother, works a job and still has the kindness in her to aid the floundering yet talented artist that is Vijay. Gulab goes as far as using all her assets available to her just to have Vijay’s works published. Actions of a true protagonist to which has a foil meant to enhance her image -- through Meena.
Meena, however is a misjudged character in this series because we’re given a lot of reason as viewers to dislike her for her “materialism” and lack of morals when it comes to selling her love for wealth as Vijay puts it. Her interaction with Vijay at Mr. Ghosh’s party shows both the absurdity of Vijay’s expectations he put on Meena in the past and also how strong-willed Meena actually is. Dutt makes it quite apparent during Vijay’s song at the party that there was still residual love between Vijay and Meena as multiple times the camera fixates and zooms past party-goers to an isolated Meena standing in an empty hallway, or where we see Meena leaning against a doorway looking almost longingly at a singing Vijay, holding her hand over her mouth to mask her true emotions for Vijay.
After Vijay finishes reciting his poetry, he meets with Meena and they argue about why Meena left him. Vijay poises his argument in a fashion that shows Meena as being selfish for leaving him to marry into wealth with Mr. Ghosh when she apparently should have stayed with him and support him in his artistic endeavours. In an attempt to reinforce Vijay’s importance, he is depicted in his all white robes against a generally darker backdrop where he is often in direct lighting to set him apart from everything and everyone else, Meena included in her dark garb. Meena barely defends herself from Vijay’s accusations of abandonment and selfishness but in her saying she no longer wanted to be poor with Vijay, a stubborn man that refuses to work to support neither himself nor her, she doesn’t truly need to defend her decision to leave him. Whether or not Meena believed that Vijay’s artistic talents would ever amount to anything is not important -- symbolically, it may be -- but realistically, to the character, her well-being is arguably more paramount.
In the end, Guru Dutt produces a film that does wonders to bring to light the hypocrisy and corruption in society through a relatively dark and somber visual and musical experience as well as create what may be hailed as two strong female roles to contrast one another and yet show both ways that they thrive in the environment they find themselves in.
