Bandini (translation: Prisoner) is a 1963 Hindi drama film directed and produced by Bimal Roy. It stars Nutan, Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra. The film tells the story of a woman prisoner serving life imprisonment for murder, Kalyani, the all-suffering, selfless, sacrificing and strong yet weak Indian woman. She must make a choice between two very different men, Devendra (Dharmendra), the loving prison doctor, and Bikash (Ashok Kumar), a man from her past.
The film is based on the Bengali novel Tamasi by Jarasandha (Charu Chandra Chakrabarti), a former jail superintendent who spent much of his career as a jailor in Northern Bengal, and wrote many fictional versions of his experiences.
Bandini was the tenth highest grosser of the year and was declared a 'Semi Hit' by Box Office India. It swept that year's Filmfare Awards, winning six awards in all, including the top awards of Best Film and Best Director, as well as Best Actress, and is still considered a landmark movie of the 1960s, especially being the last feature film of the director Bimal Roy.
Plot
The film is set in a prison around 1934 in pre-Independence India,
Music
The soundtrack includes the following tracks, composed by S. D. Burman, with lyrics by Shailendra. The film also marks the debut of Gulzar, who was working as an assistant director on the film as a film lyricist, initially having refused Bimal Roy on the offering, saying that he didn't want to become a lyricist, Gulzar relented only after the film's music director S.D. Burman convinced him so, and he wrote the song "Mora Gora Ang Lai Le", sung by Lata, in five days. The rest of lyrics are by Shailendra, who gave classics like the haunting "Mere Sajan Hain Us Paar" in the bardic voice of S.D. Burman himself, Mukesh's sad song "O Jaanewale Ho Sake", where Burman uses Bhatiyali with a variation.
The songs depict the situation, like a prisoner singing an ode to an imprisoned bird, "O Panchhi Pyare", sung by Asha Bhosle and Asha Bhosle's "Ab ke Baras Bhej Bhaiya ko Babul" composed in Raga Pilu, uses the folk idiom of a traditional song of a newly married girl longing for her maternal home, (maika), but being sung by a prison inmate of Kalyani, immediately conveys the irony in its placement.
{|class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
! Song !! Singer
|-
| "Mora Gora Ang Lai Le"
| Lata Mangeshkar
|-
| "Jogi Jabse Tu Aaya"
| Lata Mangeshkar
|-
| "Ab Ke Baras Bhej"
| Asha Bhosle
|-
| "O Panchhi Pyare"
| Asha Bhosle
|-
| "O Janewale Ho Sake"
| Mukesh
|-
| "Mat Ro Mata"
| Manna Dey
|-
| "O Mere Majhi"
| S. D. Burman
|-
|}
Awards
- 11th National Film Awards
- Best Feature Film in Hindi
- 11th Filmfare Awards
- Best Film: Bimal Roy
- Best Story: Jarasandha
- Best Actress: Nutan
- Best Director: Bimal Roy
- Best Cinematographer: Kamal Bose
- Best Sound: Dinshaw Billimoria
References
Further reading
External links
- Bandini at Bimal Roy Online Museum