‘Pyasa’ to be screened tomorrow

Director: Hassan Tariq

Music: Nisar Bazmi

Cast: Shahid, Nayyar Sultana, Rani, Ilyas Kashmiri

Lok Virsa Film Club Mandwa returns after Ramazan break with ‘Pyasa’ from 1973, directed by Hassan Tariq, on Saturday (July 1), at 6 p.m.

‘Pyasa’ would be remembered as one of Hassan Tariq's most underrated films. Hassan Tariq began his directorial career with Neend in 1959. He soon became one of the film trade's most bankable directors with titles like ‘Mera Ghar Meri Jannat’, ‘Behan Bhai’, ‘Sawal’, ‘Shikwa’, and still later, ‘Anjuman’, ‘Umrao Jan Ada’ and ‘Suriya Bhopali.’ He married actress Rani who appeared in many of his films in lead.

In 1973, for the first time, he went for pulp novelist Razia Butt's novel ‘Wehshi.’ Razia Butt, known for soft romances centred around her untouched heroines (Naila, Anila, Saiqa), did not go this time for pious leading ladies but a male who has been crushed by the family circumstances and unjust behaviour by his stepfather.

This was a triangle not with two men and a woman or two women and a man. This one revolved around a helpless mother, her ruthless second husband and her son from the first marriage. Nayyar Sultana is seen as the mother, Ilyas Kashmiri as her husband and Shahid as their son battered and tortured by the stepfather. Rani appears as a family guest and reads the diary penned by Shahid, day by day, page by page, narrating the miseries heaped upon him. Hassan Tariq brings him down as a psychopath who is now unable to cope with the pressures of life and behave in a normal way.

‘Pyasa’ is not a formula film in spite of songs scored by Nisar Bazmi and low-grade club dances of Zammurd. Nayyar Sultana and Shahid alone carry the heavy baggage of acting. Ilyas Kashmiri as second husband and stepfather rolled into one is theatrical and at time even comical.Today, forty-three years later after release of film, he largely goes unnoticed.

Shahid who as an actor, always needed a basic course in discipline and good behavior, gives the displaced ‘angry man’ dosage in  plenty with all his might. This, at times too turns heavily dramatic.

May be Razia Butt should have kept herself tied to Naila, Saiqa and Anila-like heroines , away from the stepfather and psychopath spectacles.

Hassan Tariq has handled this adaptation from ‘Wehshi’ with craft and capability coupled but box office compulsions. It is a ruthless world where everything is monitored and measured only by money.

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