Subhash K Jha

From its opening montage of a young rustic girl watching her wretchedly callous husband bring home another wife to the dying moments when the woman, now in her twilight years, is taken away to the relative comfort of her foster-son’s home as the festivities of Durga Puja break out on the streets of Kolkata… Amar Prem is a glorious homage to that favourite Bollywood archetype: the golden-hearted prostitute.

That Sharmila Tagore plays the woman whom men of all ages gravitate to in pursuit of some heavy-duty nurturing is a very happy situation for the screenplay. In the film, a 7-year-old boy and a 30-plus man both desire the same kind of emotional attention from her. This prostitute is not about sex. She is about soul. Sharmila brings to this timeless adaptation of Bibhutibushan Bandhopaddhyay’s story a kind of simpering beauty that levitates the lyricism of the tragic but uplifting tale to the level of a supremely seductive saga.

Sharmila’s character, a homeless childless woman who is tricked into a life of prostitution, is not just a mother-figure to the lonely neglected near-divorcee Anand Babu (Rajesh Khanna); she is also the woman the ill-treated neighbourhood imp Nandu (Master Bobby, who played pivotal roles in a number of films including Ek Phool Do Mali and Amar Prem before disappearing into adulthood) keeps running to for solace and samosas, in spite of being severely punished by his stepmother (Bindu).

In one of the many sequences simmering with seductive synergy, Sharmila wonders aloud why Anand Babu insists on coming to her when he has a home and wife. “Even Nandu has a home and a family. Why does he come to you?” counters Rajesh Khanna, thereby raising an important issue. Indian men of all ages look for their mother in every woman they love.

In Amar Prem, the Oedipal complex is turned on its head… away from the bed. The men in Pushpa’s life want to be mollycoddled. Though she’s a prostitute, she is never shown giving sex. Men want something far more basic from her. Pushpa is the Devi Maa reincarnated. So giving, the men forget she’s human after all.

Shakti Samanta was not just a master storyteller; he took grave risks with the draconian star system. At a time when Rajesh Khanna, after the dream launch in Shakti’s Aradhana two years earlier, was the movie monarch, the director cast Khanna as the third lead of Amar Prem. The film’s main dramatic and emotional resonance emanates from Pushpa’s unconditional love for the boy Nandu. Anand Babu comes later.

But it’s Sharmila’s stylised but supremely seductive performance that holds the mutating plot together. Her heavy silk sarees, her elaborate hairstyles, the jewelry and quality of innocent coquettishness contribute cogently to making Amar Prem the experience that it is. Rajesh Khanna actually expresses his appreciation of Pushpa’s singing with folded hands. The Fallen Woman is irreversibly deified.