Bombai Ka Babu

A masterpiece. One of the best movies I have ever watched. It is said to be based on a short story by American author William Sidney Porter (a.k.a. O'Henry). However, Rajinder Singh Bedi has been credited for the story. Director Raj Khosla weaves a fine blend of Music, romance and intrigue in to a classic human emotions story that makes a lasting appeal to our sensibilities. A criminal on the run finds a fine refuge to hide as well make hay at the behest of a village crook with an eye on the family cashbox. But a transformation of the heart and falling in love with the daughter of the house was not part of his original scheme of things, so the destiny decides to teach him that there are finer values in life like sacrifice, duties and responsibilities etc which are far more precious than making a quick buck as a criminal.

Most importantly, the theme has romantic angle between a long-lost brother (impostor in this case) and sister in their youth falling for each other much against the norms of societal ethics. A bold attempt; certainly in the 60s. although the story does not go fully on that route. Awesome compositions by S.D.Burman for Majrooh Sultanpuri songs like; 1) Chal Ri Sajni Ab Kya Soche, 2) Deewana Mastana Hua Dil, 3) Dekhane Mein Bhola Hai, 4) Saathi Na Koi Manzil and a few more.

Excellent music and a classic befitting climax makes this film a must see for those who likes old classics. It is a rare gem for Indian movie screen. I challenge the current breed of film producers and directors to come up with such a fine film.

Yeah, this dirty linen of Rajinder Singh Bedi belongs to someone named William Sydney Porter, also known as O'Henry, a not extremely unknown literary figure, and the original story is entitled "A Double-dyed Deceiver". Interestinly, there was also a movie made,with the same title,way back in 1920.

Bombai Ka Babu was a complete copy of this O'Henry short story, until Bedi brought in the angle of supposedly brother-sister love (something perhaps unthinkable in India even by today's norms), and thus made this movie very bold and quite interesting/impressive. This movie was my all-time favorite Hindi movie until I read the O'Henry story. But then, the most sincere tribute inferiority pays to genius is by copying their work.

I was really impressed by Bedi's book "Ek Chadar Maili Si" and it's difficult for me to attribute the adjective of "inferiority" to him. But as far as I remember now (maybe I'm wrong!), this movie does not acknowledge the source, and thus Bedi, as the author, should be accountable for this.

Bambai Ka Babu (The Bombay Man) is a film that subverts the classic romance story of a wayward city guy meeting a coy, village girl. The tonal shift in the film - where it takes place both in city and village in parts - gives for a very good storytelling. Babu (Dev Anand) flees to north India from Bombay after an incident, only to be embraced by a world new to him. He's unable to mend his ways when received by a peculiar man (Rashid Khan) with ulterior motives and the story follows his jaunts as he gets closer to the villagers. Although I'm not a fan of the music here, I was amazed by the storytelling, performances, and the story in itself.

(Watched during Raj Khosla's centenary celebration in Mumbai.)

Apart from the good direction of Raj Khosla, and good performances by the lead players, Dev Anand and Suchitra Sen, the music by S. D. Burman was the highlight of the movie. Three songs particularly stand out. "Chal ri sajni, ab kya soche", by Mukesh, "Saathi na koi manzil, diya hai na koi mehfil" by Mohd. Rafi and "Deewana mastana hua Dil" by Mohd. Rafi and Asha Bhosle.

In this Netflix generation with new coming-of-age genres added to the contents, I'm glad you're here searching for an Old-but-Gold movie. There may be thousands of TV Series and movies out there open to watch for all with exceptional picture quality; none of those would still be able to match up the authenticity this story brings to us. It wouldn't be wrong to say that these kind of movies are such precious gems that all the generations of movies and tv shows have copied the plot and served with a different style. Similarly, you'll find everything one looks for in a movie, excellent plot, conflict, sub-conflicts, character arcs, turning points, tent poles, adventure, comedy, action, romance, crime and everything else I missed to mention. It was then celebrated as one of the best movies with people watching it over and over again and entertaining themselves to such an extent as though their team has won the World Cup. Now, the question lies, in today's age when we are used to watch contents with exceptional quality, locations, served so beautifully with incredibly skillful editing, would we like watching it? Will the movie experience be that good enough we can entertain ourselves? Certainly not to the greatest extent. If we are already used to watching coming-of-age stuff, we would start getting bored with this type of contents, however, they have such authenticity, once connected, you'll never look back to discontinue it or regret watching. You won't enjoy to the greatest extent, but you will to a far good extent..