GUIDE: ONCE AGAIN I WISH TO LIVE

I've recently been so much into Dev Anand's movies after reading his autobiography "Romancing With Life" and one of the movies which I watched a couple of days back was "Guide". Directed by Vijay Anand, it is based on RK Narayan's novel 'The Guide' with Dev saab being the producer as well and with Sachin Dev Burman or SD Burman giving the musical score to the film. While I write this blog while listening to one of the classic songs of the film, as a viewer I would say this was Dev Anand's one of the remarkable films. It depicts themes like a married woman having an affair, and a man and woman getting into a relationship outside the boundaries of marriage; all this is especially remarkable considering the fact the film was made and based in 1960s, when such themes were still considered to be quite progressive and western. The film makes no attempt to show any ‘hero-like’ character, it is about frail human beings and their follies, and that is what makes it more relatable to the audiences. Even though they don’t understand or empathize the situations in which the characters in the film are shown, they for sure would understand and sympathize with the follies that these characters commit. The film’s characters are all shown as plain human beings, who are open to commit their own sins, and are still able to continue without being apologetic about it. The characters in the film are being themselves is one thing I like about this film. There is a woman who firstly allows herself to be objectified and bound by her husband, and who later misunderstands the angst of her lover; there is a man who ‘as per social norms’ falls in love with a married woman and gets into a relationship with her and is then also consumed by his own jealousy of her rising successes and his mediocrity; then there is a mother who is so consumed by ‘social  norms’ and society’s pressures that she fails to understand her own son and his love and therefore banishes him out of her home. There are no ‘heroes’ in the film, it is all about frail humans having their own battles with their own mistakes and vices. This is something that the character of Raju is able to showcase the best; and along with him even the others are able to come out of their own fights with their mistakes in life. It even shows the traditional thoughts in the rural areas and even repentance of characters like Rosie potrayed by the ever charming Waheeda Rahman and Raju's mother. The best thing which was liked by me was the music which takes me an entire different level and the scene where Raju, who has been fasting for long, has a moment of internal consciousness. It is the time when Raju mind and heart, which have constantly been at war have a chance of confrontation. This is actually a confrontation between Raju’s ego and the eternal goodness of human nature; it is presented as if it is Raju is having a dialogue with himself . A reference of The Bhagavat Gita was shown here carefully and the dialogue  by Dev Anand "Na sukh hai, na dukh hai, na deen hai, na duniya, na insaan, na bhagwan ... sirf main hoon, main hoon, main hoon, main ... sirf main" stole the show. Every actor did justice to their roles and this is what makes "Guide" ahead of it's time and remarkable.