Hindi Film Silsila

[Gigí Ruais]

Orphanedat a young age, brothers Shekhar and Amit Malhotra enjoy a close relationship but live independently. Shekhar, the older brother, is a squadron leader in the Indian Air Force, while Amit is a Delhi-based romantic playwright. Shekhar introduces Amit to his fiance, Shobha, and the three form a camaraderie. Amit, in turn, meets Chandni and their relationship blossoms into love with hopes of marriage. Before Amit is able to introduce Chandni to Shekhar, Shekhar dies in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Shobha is subsequently revealed to be pregnant with Shekhar's child. Devastated from the loss of Shekhar, Amit marries Shobha to shield her from societal scorn and the stigma of being an unwed mother, and to honor Shekhar's memory. He sends a letter to Chandni ending their relationship, professing his love but urging her to move on, leaving Chandni heartbroken.

Tragedy strikes once more when Amit and Shobha are injured in a car accident and Shobha suffers a miscarriage. She is treated by Dr. V.K. Anand, who is revealed to have married Chandni. Without a child to bind them together, Amit and Shobha settle into their passionless marriage. Amit befriends Dr. Anand in an attempt to rekindle his romance with Chandni, who eventually gives in. They meet secretly, although not without arousing the suspicions of Shobha, who despite her history with Shekhar has come to revere Amit. On the way home from a tryst, Amit and Chandni injure a pedestrian with their car. Their affair is endangered when the policeman investigating the accident happens to be Shobha's cousin, who is protective of Shobha and intends to expose Amit.

Amit decides to leave his loveless marriage to be with Chandni. The news shatters Shobha, who has genuinely fallen for Amit but believes that her love will make him return. Dr. Anand is also aware of Chandni's infidelity and feels devastated. When Dr. Anand leaves on a business trip, Amit and Chandni secretly leave town to start a new life. Anand's plane then crashes, causing Amit, Chandni, and Shobha to rush to the wreckage site. There, Amit is confronted by Shobha, who reveals that she is expecting his child. He vows to return to her, then rushes to rescue Anand from the wreckage. Chandni realizes her love for her husband and returns to him. The film ends with Amit and Shobha living happily in their marriage.

Silsila was directed and produced by Yash Chopra for his banner Yash Raj Films.[4][5] He co-wrote the screenplay with Sagar Sarhadi, who also co-wrote the story with Preeti Bedi.[4] According to Sarhadi, Chopra "fell madly in love with the subject".[6] The dialogue was written by Romesh Sharma.[4] The film is about an extramarital relationship, the first time for a Hindi-language film;[7] after he failed with action films, Chopra had decided to make a romantic film for his next venture.[8]

Chopra's biographer Rachel Dwyer described the casting as complicated, for which the film was controversial before release. Speculations about the relationship between Amitabh Bachchan, who was married to Jaya Bachchan, and Rekha was common in gossip magazines and newspapers at the time.[9] Chopra called his ability to cast the three his greatest achievement.[5] He initially considered Parveen Babi and Smita Patil for Rekha's and Jaya Bachchan's parts, respectively, but abandoned the plans owing to their unsuitability in playing their respective roles.[9] On the recommendations of Amitabh Bachchan, who had agreed to star in the film in 1980, Chopra subsequently replaced them with Rekha and Jaya Bachchan.[8] Rekha designed her own costumes and jewellery.[9] This was her final collaboration with Amitabh Bachchan.[10]

Silsila was shot by Raju Kaygee.[4] Filming was done from November 1980 to May 1981, starting in Kashmir and later Amsterdam, Bombay (now Mumbai), and Delhi.[8][9] Wanting no exposure from the media, Chopra did the filming privately with the entire cast and crew. He described the production as "real life coming into reel life"[8] but said that there are no incidents on the sets and all the lead actors were co-operative.[9] The Delhi schedule sometimes took place at 5.30 PM when the weather was cold; Rekha recounted how she hated it and that she did so only for Chopra.[9] The film, edited by Keshav Naidu, runs for 166 minutes.[4] Hariprasad Chaurasia and Shivkumar Sharma provided the background score.[6]

"But Silsila itself is pure polyester yarn. It's a lot less real than the so-called dirty, distorted and damaging stories that appear in the gossip press which the stars claim are so distressing. At least they read better, look better and may be include half-truths here and there. Silsila looks good, too, but is a distortion of half-lies, which is worse."[16]

"We asked for two weeks, sat together at home and composed the songs. Sahir (Ludhianvi) was contacted to write the songs, but he was not able to fit himself into the schedule. So, after a lot of consideration, Javed Akhtar was taken on. It was his first assignment as a film (lyric) writer."

He agrees to the large assortment of instruments that the music directors want. While the flute and the santoor have their pride of place in the compositions, the role of other instruments in creating the mood and melody is not ignored either.

"It was not a song situation at all; Yashji wanted words, poetry, set to music. We suggested a song and that poetic verses come in between the song, instead of interlude music. First the sthayi, then the recitation, then the antara, then words again."

They are aware that the song is picturised on Amitabh and Rekha, who are cavorting among the breathtaking tulip gardens of Keukenhof in the Netherlands, alternating with the misty landscape of Pahalgam, Kashmir.

Song over, the directors sit back to listen, to see if everything sounds the way they want it to. They know it will, but as first-time music directors and for a big banner at that, there is no harm of course in being doubly sure.

It is Lata's habit to leave immediately after her recording. Her days are so busy, she cannot but do so. And anyway, over the years, she has sung and recorded enough songs to know that it has gone just right.

Silsila (The Affair, 1981) and Lamhe (Moments, 1991) are Yash Chopra films about thwarted love. Both were box-office failures when first released--the first for seeming to condone adultery, and the second for its incestuous undertones. While I didn't have moral objections to either film (although the thought of a middle-aged Viren being romanced by an 18-year-old Pooja in Lamhe is a bit creepy), I find their classic status to be somewhat puzzling.

Warning: spoilers follow.

In Silsila, the writer Amit (Amitabh Bachchan) has just met and fallen in love with Chandni (Rekha); his brother Shankar (Shashi Kapoor), a fighter pilot, has been betrothed to Shobha (Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan) for some time. Knowing little about the film, I still realized immediately that Shankar was doomed, and sure enough, fifteen minutes into the film he's killed in action. When Amit learns that Shobha is pregnant, he decides to save her honor and that of his brother's child by marrying her, and writes a bitter letter to Chandni telling her to forget him--but without telling her why (shades of Devdas).

Amit later meets Chandni again; in one of several unlikely coincidences in this film, she's become the wife of Dr. Anand (Sanjeev Kumar), who saves Shobha's life (but who can't save the baby) after a car accident. Amit and Chandni begin an ill-concealed affair--especially ill-concealed when they all but declare it to their appalled spouses during a Holi celebration. There's a particularly heart-breaking scene where Dr. Anand pleads with his wife for a loving embrace as a sign of her affection; her reluctance tells him all he needs to know. Out of his love for Chandni, though, Dr. Anand goes on a business trip whose thinly disguised purpose is to give her the opportunity to run off with Amit; in one of the most emotionally telling scenes in the film, at the airport Dr. Anand gives Chandni a last look full of sadness before boarding the plane. Shobha, too, realizes what's going on, and discovers that she has grown to love Amit (although, given his coldness towards her throughout the movie, you have to wonder why).

Despite feeling overlong, the film does have some compelling moments. The song "Peheli Peheli Baar Dekha," in which Chandni playfully warns Amit not to get burned by her flame, is a (too short, alas) classic:

And there's a confrontation scene between Shobha and Chandni whose emotional impact is heightened if you believe the rumors that Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha had an affair in real life. But there are yet more incredible coincidences, a totally ludicrous climax (I'll just say it involves a plane crash and the highly improbable rescue of a single passenger, while everyone else on the plane dies) and what feels like a tacked-on resolution.

The film works neither as a latter-day Krishna-Radha fantasy (Amit and Chandni's behavior towards their kind and loving spouses is too self-involved and cruel for that) nor as a tawdry slice of realism (those coincidences, and the plane-crash of an ending). I find that I'm not the only skeptic about Silsila; you can read a kindred (but funnier) review at The Post-Punk Cinema Club.

Lamhe is the story of Viren (Anil Kapoor), who on his return as a young man from England to his family estate in Rajasthan falls in love with his neighbor Pallavi (Sridevi), whom he spots dancing ecstatically in the rain with the other village girls in "Megha Re Megha" (the excellent music by Shiv-Hari, who also did the music for Silsila, is one of the chief strengths of the film). Pallavi is incredibly vivacious, as she loses no time in demonstrating again in the song "Morni Bagaan Maa." It's performed with the great Ila Arun; Pallavi compares herself to a peahen awaiting the call of the peacock, while swivelling her hips suggestively in Viren's direction:

Seeing this from his perspective, we're to be forgiven if we conclude (as he does) that she returns his feelings. Watching a second time, you can also see what's less apparent on a first viewing (and which is entirely invisible to Viren): Pallavi's wistfulness as she thinks of her absent lover, Siddarth (Deepak Malhotra). When Siddarth returns and marries Pallavi, the brokenhearted Viren returns to England. After the couple are killed in an accident, though, Viren has their daughter Pooja raised by his amah (the great Waheeda Rehman) at his estate. Viren only visits briefly each year on the anniversary of Pallavi's death.

Eighteen years later, Pooja (Sridevi in a double role) is a young woman, and she's fallen in love with this remote, emotionally withholding father-figure (c'mon--that never happens in real life!). Viren, though, is highly disturbed by her resemblence to Pallavi. And for some odd reason he thinks that his role as her surrogate father and the 25-year difference in their ages present problems--I can't think why. (Of course, in real life Anil Kapoor was only a few years older than Sridevi.) But despite Viren's repeated rebuffs and his sudden determination to marry his long-suffering Westernized girlfriend Anita, Pooja is undeterred. Yes, it's the classic battle between the woman who is the symbol of the West vs. the woman who is the symbol of India--I wonder who wins?

Since the film involves a double helping of Sridevi, your feelings about it will probably depend on whether you find her irresistibly charming or highly annoying. This is my first Sridevi film, and I have to confess that she won me over as thoroughly as she does Viren. Sridevi's irrepressiblility and the terrific dance numbers (including one in which songs from earlier Bollywood movies are parodied), the striking landscape of Rajasthan and the beautiful Rajasthani costumes (particularly the adornment of the women), make up in part for a film that spins its wheels for most of the second half and whose happy ending may leave you instead feeling somewhat queasy.

Update 23 October 2012: On Sunday, October 21, Yash Chopra passed away in a Mumbai hospital. Our thoughts are with his family at this sad and difficult time.

Update 12 November 2012: In memory of this legendary figure, I've written a post on Six favorite songs from Yash Chopra films.

Update 30 July 2014: In late 2012 Sridevi appeared in the delightful English Vinglish, which I later picked as one of my favorite films of 2013.

Update 25 February 2018: Sadly, Sridevi passed away late last night. I've written a brief appreciation with links to several posts about her films.

Update 4 July 2020: Saroj Khan, who choreographed the dances in this film, passed away yesterday. For an appreciation of her life and work, please see "In memoriam: Saroj Khan."

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