A review of Mahesh Bhatt's Saaransh: A film about grief, loss, and enduring human spirit

I'm not too knowledgeable about grief yet.

Thus, I am made little by this immense darkness.

- Rainer Rilke, "Moving Forward"

The phone call It's not simply the worst dread of parents. There is no parent who can accept the possibility. Not even in a nightmare. It is not even possible to consider. Absurd. Not to be mentioned. It makes sense that there isn't a word for it in English. A widower is a man who has lost his spouse. There are words for widows, orphans, bachelors, spinsters, adulterers, and even for men or women who are unable to conceive. On the other hand, there is no term in English for parents who have lost a child. It's as though the condition's horrifying character is denied by words itself.

Saaransh, Mahesh Bhatt's uncompromising 1984 portrayal of grief and loss, delves into this fear and sadness. Following the critical and economic triumph of Arth (1982), a cutting assessment of relationships of a different kind, Bhatt presented us with this depressing and hopeless story of a father and son grieving for their only kid. Saaransh leaves you utterly destroyed with what I would describe as icy fire, whereas Arth burns with the intensity of love, hate, and betrayal.

The movie's plot is too well-known to be repeated. After forty years, its tenacious and merciless examination of mourning continues to be noteworthy. The director grabs hold of you from the opening scene, in which an old man wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to a desk to write a letter to his son, who has passed away. There's also the horrifying sound of the phone ringing and a brief slow-motion flashback to the "call."

The song "Andhiyara gehraya, soonapan ghir aaya," which is performed in Bhupinder's rich voice, evokes a sense of foreboding that permeates the story. It's amazing how the song's three lines, "ghabraya mann mera," convey this foreboding. The film leaves you with a sense of decay and disrepair that is incapable of being restored. Saaransh gives the audience no way out, in contrast to the vast majority of movies from the era that were characterized by songs, dances, and comedic interludes that frequently lessened their "serious" statement, if any. It resembles going through a mental roller coaster. The only other movie that immediately springs to mind that has the same emotional impact is Robert Redford's Ordinary People, which also deals with a child's death and its aftermath for a family.

Saaransh is arguably one of the first Indian films—certainly a Hindi film—that openly address the problems of despair and loneliness among the elderly, highlighting how unfriendly the world can be to them even in a society like ours that takes great pleasure in being sensitive. Additionally, it's a rare movie that discusses suicide as a means of escape.

This is highlighted by the friend of Pradhan's whose wife died thirty years ago. He shares a special sense of loneliness and companionship with Pradhan and Parvati. In a heartfelt moment, Pradhan refers to him by saying, "He used to be a friend." I'm not sure what he's become.

The protagonist narrowly avoids death as he crosses in front of a speeding car early in the movie. B.V. Pradhan experiences something similar in a Mumbai subway as he deals with the loss of his son who was killed by a robbery in New York. Devastated and ashamed (both from the event and from life itself), he looks for the bottle that has the iodine tincture that is being given to his wounds and bruises. At night, when he can't locate it, he locks himself in his kitchen and tosses open the gas burner.

He is saved by his renter Sujata and her boyfriend Vilas, who step in just in time to stop him from letting life to humiliate him. He then screams about the one right that no one can take away from him: the ability to commit suicide.

With Sujata's arrival and the revelation that she is pregnant, the second part of the movie, in a sense, moves into thriller territory. It has some of the most tense scenes ever seen on TV as Sujata and the elderly couple are terrorized by politician Gajanan Chitre. This is also expertly handled, with Pradhan being terrorized by Chitre's henchmen (played by a variety of well-known TV performers at the time, including Salim Ghouse) and the story offering no break from the growing suspense. A few years later, a similar terror on another schoolmaster character and his family would recur in Tapan Sinha's Atanka.

Of course, Anupam Kher's portrayal of B.V. Pradhan, unquestionably one of the best in Indian film history, is the primary reason for Saaransh's lasting fame. One of the most iconic male leads in Hindi film, Pradhan is on par with Om Puri's Anant Velankar and Amitabh Bachchan's Vijay, among others. The fact that this was his first feature film and he was only 27 at the time is astounding. What's even more amazing is that the producers insisted on a greater name, so much so that at the last minute, Sanjeev Kumar almost took his place.

Nevertheless, common reason won out, and while I have no doubts about Sanjeev Kumar's acting prowess, I question whether he could have captured the raw emotional intensity that Anupam provides. "I put whatever frustrations and heartbreaks I had till the age of 27 into it since it was my first film," he explains. It was not always a man who had lost his son in the United States. Anupam Kher drew on his personal experiences of being humiliated on the streets of Mumbai, sleeping on train platforms, going through difficult times, and secretly thinking that if this movie doesn't work out, I'm done. Thus, I utilized those poignant recollections and integrated them into B.V. Pradhan.

"What is the core of the character?" is a question he always asks the director before taking on a part, he continues. To be exact, I had asked Bhatt sa'ab, "If you had to describe B.V. Pradhan in one word, what would it be?" five minutes before to my first shoot for Saaransh. With compassion, he spoke. The way it sums up the character's journey from sadness, despair, and irritability to a more compassionate perspective on the world is telling. Recalling the core of one of the Rilke poems I use to start the essay:

Since you are in control, get fierce and infiltrate:

then I'll experience your wonderful transformation,

and you will experience my deepest sorrow.

"Divine being, transform me and allow my great grief cry to transform something larger than myself," is what Elaine Mansfield says in her study of the poem. Pradhan undergoes a real metamorphosis throughout the story, and along with him, we the audience—such is the impact of Anupam's performance.

It's also true that with all of the accolades Anupam Kher has received, it's easy to forget about the other outstanding performances in the movie. First, Nilu Phule plays a villain in Ardh Satya who is akin to Anna. The actor portraying the thuggish politician is so realistic and matter-of-fact that it makes you feel cold fear every time you see him on TV. His two exchanges with Pradhan are what give the picture its surprisingly low-key dramatic high points.

Rohini Hattangadi is the movie's other outstanding performance. Much has been written about Anupam's age at the time, which was 27. It often escapes us that Rohini was only 29 years old! After achieving great success as Kasturba in Gandhi, Rohini was given an opportunity of a lifetime to play Saaransh. She is just as skilled as Anupam, if not more so.

She protects herself from the anguish of facing the truth by clinging to the illusion that her son will be born again in her home, which was first provided by the god man. Her frail body language belied the desperate hope and dread mixed together in her eyes, as well as the peace on her face that came from trust. And if Anupam Kher's scenes with the customs officer and the minister—who happens to be his former student—contain two of the most iconic moments in Hindi cinema, Rohini's scene is the most heartbreaking of the whole movie.

With the minister taking care of Gajanan Chitre and his henchmen, viewers have mostly moved on from the couple's hardships, but Mahesh Bhatt isn't quite done yet. He refuses to let us move on after what is, at most, a pyrrhic victory for the movie's main character. In the most heartbreaking scene of the movie, Rohini Hattangadi is seen having the best performance of her career. She pleads and begs Vilas and Sujata to stay, calls out to her dead son whom she believes has found a new home in Sujata's womb, and ends by calling her husband a monster for robbing her of her faith. Pradhan wants Vilas and Sujata to leave so that they are not bound to Parvati's misguided faith and obsession.

As a viewer, it almost requires all of your strength not to cry when you see the character's anguish. To Rohini's credit, her three minutes of cinematic portrayal of trauma have you captivated. Subsequently, she has the devastating realization that her son would never come back: "Ajay sachmuch mar gaya hai." This means that he will not be reincarnated and that henceforth there will only be the two of them with memories and images hanging on the wall.

A word on the movie's soundtrack, which has a significant impact on the impressions it leaves you with. Vasant Deo’s lyrics and Ajit Varman’s compositions for “Andhiyara gahraya soonapan ghir aaya” and “Dard ka doosra naam hai zindagi” (Amit Kumar) do full justice to the pathos informing the narrative, provided that the background score—which alternates between the baroque and the austere—remains faithful to the essence of the film. Mahesh Bhatt's films Aashiqui, Arth, and Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin produced some amazing hits, but Saaransh is one of the few times a song has been so descriptive of the inner worlds of the characters.

When you're young, it's easy to get carried away by the emotions in a movie. When I saw Saaransh as a sixteen-year-old, I was completely enthralled. However, it says something about a movie when it makes you feel blurry in the eyes, when a scene as basic as an old couple who have lost everything stroking a bundle of wildflowers in a park – and the statement that makes about the perpetual nature of life – makes you feel choked up in your fifties. that despite your experiences being cynical, the movie and the hardships its heroes have faced, as well as the universe it established 40 years ago, have endured. that the film's purity, power, and essence have not diminished in light of what you have gone through.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.