Anuradha (1960)

Cast: Balraj Sahni, Leela Naidu, Abhi Bhattacharya, Nasir Hussain, Hari Shivdasani, Asit Sen, Ashim Kumar, Brahm Bhardwaj, Manav Chitnis

Producer: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Director: Hrishikesh Mukherjee

Sachin Bhowmick wrote the story of Anuradha which starts showing the post-marital life of Former singer Anuradha and Dr. Nirmal Chaudhari who are staying in a village with daughter Ranu.

Father asks his son, Nirmal, after his mother’s death, to study medicine, become a doctor, and live in a small village to help patients who are unable to travel great distances to see a medical professional. Nirmal follows his father's advice, becomes a doctor, and starts his practice in Nand Gaon.

He meets with Anuradha Roy who is his friend’s sister and a well-known Radio Singer and stage dancer. He gets attracted towards her. Anuradha is quickly taken in by Dr. Nirmal's many romantic advances. He treats her injured ankle, both fall in love, and gets married, without the blessings of Anuradha's wealthy dad, Brijeshwar Prasad Roy. In a series of flashbacks, Anuradha’s past as a successful radio singer is revealed to us. Rejecting her father’s warnings of a difficult life and her suitor Deepak‘s (Abhi Bhattacharya) entreaties, she decides to get married to Nirmal, who has set his mind to work in a village. Both re-locate to Nandgaon where Anuradha gives up her singing and becomes a housewife. She soon gives birth to a daughter, Ranu.Then 10 years later, the marriage loses its colours as Nirmal is absorbed in the welfare of the villagers, quite unmindful of the subtle needs of his wife. Her apologetic dad comes to visit her, and takes Ranu away for a holiday with him. Shortly thereafter, Anuradha's former beau, Deepak, the England-returned man her dad had wanted her to marry, re-enters her life. He witnesses that she is being neglected by her overly busy husband, asks her to return back to singing, and go and live with her dad. At first she refuses and asks him to leave, then relents when she sees that Nirmal has indeed been neglecting her, even on their wedding anniversary. She then informs Deepak she is ready to move out.

That night when Nirmal returns home, Anuradha informs him about her decision to leave him. She stays back to play host to Dr. Trivedi (Nazir Hussein), who praises her to the skies and attributes Nirmal’s success to the dedication and devotion of Anuradha. In a daintily drafted climax, Nirmal’s penitence and Anuradha’s forgiveness lends life to their ruined relationship.
At the end, Anuradha’s endless sacrifices for her husband’s medical career and inherent desire to help the impoverished transforms from something personal into a microcosm of Indian motherhood and female resilience that often goes unacknowledged.

What goes on in the mind of a superstar when she gives up glamour and glory to marry a doctor working in a village? Anuradha has some answers. Hrishikesh Mukherjee raises many points which hold water even in today’s world. In a jocular scene, Ranu (played brilliantly by Baby Ranu) asks her father why her mother became Anuradha Chaudhari from Anuradha Roy and whether she too will have to change her name after her marriage. Anuradha Roy (Leela Naidu) is forced to make a painful sacrifice by choosing to surrender her artistic ambitions as a talented radio artist so that she can support her husband’s idealistic desires. The contribution of women behind the success of men, though an oft-repeated fact, is used as the pillar of this story, which finally dawns on an insensitive Nirmal in the climax. Mukherjee explores with great humanism and intelligence, the high price a woman must pay so that Indian society could continue to progress in an era when rapid educational and medical programs were slowly being implemented by the secularism of a Nehruite government.

Balraj Sahni strikes a dignified composure and looks every bit Nirmal Chaudhari and gets into his role with ease. He looks every inch a dedicated doctor, unmindful of his domestic life.

Abhi Bhattacharya makes an impact but his scenes are by and large too less.

Major attraction is the stunning beauty of Leela Naidu. Though she fumbles a bit with her Hindi dialogues at places, one simply ignores it for she lights up every frame with her luminous being. Leela Naidu was Femina Miss India in 1954, and was featured in the Vogue along with Maharani Gayatri Devi in the list of 'World's Ten Most Beautiful Women' and is remembered for her classical beauty and subtle acting style. She was spotted by Hrishikesh Mukherjee when he saw her photos captured by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay.

The beauty of Anuradha lies in its silent charm. Anuradha’s distance from her music is expressed through dusty music notes and a veena, lying unused for years. The charm of the movie is accentuated by its music. Many associates suggested Hrishekesh Mukherjee to go for their usual favourite Shankar-Jaikishan for the movie. But Hrishida was sure that the classicism in the story could be brought out only by a classical musician. It is said that initially Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan was approached. But finally, Pandit Ravi Shankar agreed to score the music for this movie. Though Anuradha failed to give chartbusters, the plaintive notes of Jaane kaise sapnon mein, Haay re woh din and Kaise din beete, sung mellifluously by Lata Mangeshkar, fail to fade away. But it is the stupendous background score that enunciates the latent emotions of the characters.

Anuradha won the President’s Gold Medal and was nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961. Hrishikesh Mukherjee however failed to make any notable works for the next six years, save the Dev Anand-Sadhna starrer Asli Naqli (1962), till he finally saw a tangible success with Anupama (1966). Deep under the colours and revelry of the Hrishikesh Mukherjee classics of the seventies, Anuradha still shines radiantly like the luminescent face of Leela Naidu.

With Hrishikesh Mukherjee what picture comes in mind is that of boisterous households, kurta-clad men and sari-clad women celebrating their middle-class lives on-screen. Hrishikesh Mukherjee is often referred to as one of the forgotten film directors of Indian cinema. Admittedly, much of his work has been overlooked for reasons largely to do with an indistinct directorial style and the middle class sensibilities of his protagonists. The fact that Hrishikesh Mukherjee was a Bengali film maker and not an Indian one seems to provide one of the clearest explanations for his rejection of becoming accepted and positioned in the context of mainstream cinema. Though he did work with many of the A list film stars, his unpretentious approach to film making was nurtured by his formative years as an editor and assistant director with the talented neo realist director, Bimal Roy. This early experience with realism and the ideological imperative of socialism did leave an influence on Hrishikesh Mukherjee but he chose rather to focus on middle class stories and popular genres. Way back in his inchoate days as a director, Hrishida came up with a silent gem called Anuradha. In the year 1960, the successes of many a good movie remained unheard due to the thunder of K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam. Anuradha too celebrated its success under its mighty shadow.