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Sangam – Of Choices and Consequences

December 31, 2024 | By Anuradha Warrier

Sangam’s take on messy relationships is as relevant today as when it was first written more than seven decades ago, avers Anuradha Warrier

Sometimes, one scene is enough to remind you of a director’s brilliance. In Sangam, that scene occurs more than mid-way through the film: Sundar (Raj Kapoor), whose jealousy is aroused by the knowledge that his wife had loved another man before their marriage, can neither accept her answer that it is in the past – “Jo beet gaya ek sapna tha”, nor can he [seemingly] understand that she’s but human. “Kuchh aur nahin insaan hain hum,” she pleads, but Sundar is far beyond reasoning with. He spirals into a whirlpool of hurt, jealousy and rage that spills out in bitter taunts directed at his wife. He loves her, but it isn’t enough.

The darker side of love

So, when Radha (Vyjayanthimala) tears up the fateful letter in aching despair and throws it out, Sundar waits until she leaves the room, then slips outside. He looks around furtively, then bends down and quickly picks up the fragments. Back inside, he tries unsuccessfully to piece them together again.

It’s a chilling scene, showing how much jealousy can degrade a man. It is shot brilliantly (RK regular, Radhu Karmarkar); we, the audience, are on the inside looking out at Sundar, just as Radha is, her face mirroring the distress (and the anger) that we feel. While he is looking inwards, aware of the depths he has plumbed. You can see it in his haggard look, in his distress, in his breaking down in anguish, the pieces of paper crumpling under his despairing palms. Who is he angry with? Radha? Himself?

At one point, Radha pleads with him for understanding, for empathy. “What do you see when you look into my eyes?” She begs. “Pyar aur sachchaii,” he admits. Love and Truth. But that isn’t enough.

When love is not enough

Self-respecting Radha decides to leave. “Mat jaao, Radha.” Please don’t go, pleads an agonised Sundar who can neither live with nor without her. There’s both hurt and understanding in Radha’s eyes as she responds, “Mujhse tumhaara dukh bardasht nahin hota.” (“I can’t bear your hurt.”) She has tried her best to save their marriage, but her best isn’t enough either.

Sangam (1964) was Kapoor’s first directorial venture in almost a decade; the last film he directed, Shree 420, was released in 1955. Though conceptualised in the late 40s (Inder Raj Anand wrote the story, then titled Gharaonda, around the time that Kapoor was filming Aag), the film did not take shape immediately. The world had changed in the intervening decade and a half. The nation-building ethos of the post-independence decade in which Kapoor made two of the most significant films in his filmography – Awara and Shree 420 – had given way to the tumultuous sixties. It was the era of colour; of glitz, glamour, and excitement. People were ready to move on from the privations of the 40s and 50s. Cinema only reflected their aspirations.

So, when Kapoor resurrected Sangam in the 1960s, he returned to his roots of making more intimate films that examined interpersonal relationships, as in Aag (1948) and Barsaat (1949). But because Kapoor always dreamed big – think of the dream sequence in Awara – there were other changes as well: the small, intimate settings of Kapoor’s earlier films changed into sweeping grandeur; the stark simplicity of dark streets and neighbourhoods in Awara were now exchanged for bright, sunny European locales; the common man’s concerns in Shree 420 gave way to a more sophisticated romantic drama.

Sangam became grander in scope. It was RK Films’ first film in colour; it was the first Indian film to be shot in Europe (Switzerland, Paris, Venice); it would set the template for romantic triangles for decades to come.

The eternal triangle

Despite all this, the human interest inherent in Kapoor’s films remained intact. As did the social commentary. [Barsaat, in my opinion, is the only RK film, which is a pure love story.] If, in Aag, he pleads for parents to allow their children to follow their dreams, in Sangam, he makes a case for relationships to be freed from societal diktats. Both films portray Kapoor’s character as less than heroic. Both films also reference current events – if it’s the Partition in Aag, it’s the Sino-Indian War of 1962 in Sangam. Kapoor’s famed attention to detail can be seen here as well; he flies a Canberra as a bomber pilot, but it’s a Dakota that he flies while delivering supplies. There’s even a throwaway scene which explains why a bomber pilot would be delivering supplies.

But Sangam remains primarily an unexpectedly mature take on messy human relationships. From Aag onwards, Raj Kapoor had never shied away from showing the darker side of love and here too, it’s his character’s obsession that precipitates events.

Kapoor plays Sundar as a lovable bumpkin but as director, never glorifies Sundar’s obsessive love for Radha, his stalking of her or his belief that because he loves Radha, she must love him too. Kapoor films these scenes from Radha’s perspective and her reactions make it clear that he’s annoying. Unlike many other films that used the stalking-as-wooing trope, Radha doesn’t miraculously fall in love with Sundar later.

Think of the scene where Sundar exhorts Radha to admit she loves him. “Bol Radha bol, sangam hoga ke nahin?” he asks, to which she constantly replies in the negative. But does Sundar listen? He’ll just keep asking, he tells her, until she says yes. The subtext is chilling. By keeping the focus on Radha’s reaction to this statement, Kapoor adds a frisson of foreboding to what’s a seemingly light-hearted scene.

When Sundar joins the Air Force to prove himself worthy of Radha, he leaves Radha in Gopal’s (Rajendra Kumar) care. Gopal’s acquiescence infuriates Radha who screams her truth to Sundar before he leaves for the war front. The aircraft’s noise is not as deafening as Gopal’s silence.

Sangam Raj Kapoor Rajendra Kumar Vyjayanthimala

A promise made; a promise kept

When Sundar goes missing, presumed dead, Radha tries once again to take charge of her own life – “Don’t you love me,” she asks Gopal. He, freed from his promise to his dead friend, is finally able to tell her how much. But when Sundar returns, and Gopal, trapped in his self-imposed role as Sundar’s guardian angel, decides unilaterally to step aside, Radha becomes collateral damage. Neither the man she loves nor the man who loves her listens to what she has to say.

When no one listens…

Because Kapoor (the director) frames Sundar mostly through Radha’s perspective, we see him for what he is – a good man at heart, but one who is self-absorbed, even selfish in his relationships. “I can’t live without Gopal’s friendship and Radha’s love,” he states, not realising that his desire for both will result in one’s grief and the other’s heartbreak.

But it is as the possessive husband beset by the idea of his wife having a lover in her past that Kapoor, the actor, shines. He’s brilliant (if unsympathetic) as a man torn apart by his own insecurity and sexual jealousy. There’s a brittle edge to his performance suggestive of the twisted suffering that he’s undergoing and that he inflicts on the wife he loves above all else.

The face of jealousy

Like in his debut feature, Kapoor does not shy away from expressing his vulnerable side. Only, here, there’s a darkness inside him that exploits that vulnerability turning it into cruelty. If Kewal in Aag is scarred on the outside, Sundar is equally scarred on the inside. In both films, the scars are self-inflicted.

Gopal, who loves Sundar as a brother and friend, has always supported and protected him, always given in to his demands. The latter’s openhearted good nature has always bent Gopal to his will. It is a dynamic that persists throughout their lives. And Radha – who knows what she wants and is willing to voice it – is forced to move from one man to another trying, like many women before and after her, to make the best of her situation. Indeed, in this film about the deep friendship between two men, it is the woman who struggles to get them to understand her.

Kapoor frames these scenes beautifully. The triangulation that exists in their relationship – Sundar confessing his love for Radha to Gopal, who takes his proposal to Radha’s parents; Gopal replying to Sundar’s letters to Radha; Sundar inviting Gopal on his honeymoon with Radha – is emphasised by the framing.

Sangam - raj kapoor vyjayanthimala rajendra kumar

The eternal triangle – as comrades, conflicted, or confrontational

Kapoor also weaves the film’s music (Shankar-Jaikishan, Shailendra, Hasrat Jaipuri) seamlessly into the narrative, nudging it along, using the songs to enhance the story’s context and the characters’ mood. Whether it is Dost dost na raha or O mere sanam or Bol Radha bol, the songs were more than just placeholders.

At its core, Sangam is a film about choices. It is about the ripple effect of those choices – Sundar refusing to listen to Radha’s objections; Gopal sacrificing his love (and Radha’s happiness) for his friend; Sundar’s inability to trust his wife…

And it is about Radha, who suffers the consequences of the ‘choices’ forced upon her.

Vyjayanthimala as Radha, the apex of the conflict

She is the strongest of the three characters, the most morally upright, the most consistent and the most vulnerable. Though wealthy, educated, and relatively independent, societal constraints still influence her behaviour. She cannot voice her choice of life partner to her parents, for instance; she is forced to depend on Gopal to do so. When he refuses, and also extracts her promise not to tell Sundar about their relationship, her only option is to go through with her wedding to Sundar.

But within these patriarchal constructs, Radha is an intriguingly complex character, and Kapoor doesn’t shy away from showing the plurality of her emotions.

Once wed, (however that ‘choice’ may have been forced upon her), she determines to move on and strives to live her life as best she can. But there are still moments when she’s angry at the cards she’s been dealt, a slight sadness that peeks out when she’s alone. But there are also moments of happiness with Sundar and she’s not shy about vocalising her wants and needs. Female sexual desire has never been so explicitly referenced without judgment before.

Of female desire and male double standards

Later, when Gopal comes to visit – forced by Sundar’s persistent invitations – Radha advocates for herself. She had loved Gopal once; now, married to his friend thanks to his misplaced sense of responsibility, she doesn’t want Gopal’s presence to destroy the fragile bloom of her new relationship. “You came for his sake,” she tells him. “Now, leave for mine.” Her silence regarding her past is not because she fears compromising herself. It is because she knows that the truth will destroy Sundar.

For Radha to walk out of her husband’s home because she can no longer endure his pain or her own is, similarly, a bold step. Women certainly didn’t do that back then. Neither Sundar nor the film judge her for doing so.

Vyjayanthimala bites into a role that allows her to portray a spectrum of emotions. Her anger at Gopal’s betrayal (he’d been writing to Sundar in her name), at his willingness to sacrifice her, her life, her happiness, at the altar of his friendship; her increasing helplessness as she endeavours to assuage Sundar’s jealousy; her fury when she realises that once again, the two men are deciding her future…

“Nahin ho sakta,” she screams. “Main tumse poochti hoon, aur tumse – tumse, jisne mujhse pyaar kiya, aur tumse jisne mujhe byaah kiya – tumhein kis ne haq diya ki aaj phir tum donon milkar meri zindagi ka faisla karo? (It’s not possible! I ask you, and you – you, who loved me, and you, who married me – who gave you the right to decide my life’s trajectory?) Through Radha, Kapoor gives voice to a woman’s anger at the helplessness imposed upon her.

But Gopal is as much a victim, albeit of his own choices, as he is complicit in Radha’s suffering. His misfortune is that his love for Radha equals his love for Sundar, and when these two loves clash, he chooses to sacrifice his (and Radha’s) happiness. His deliberate silence before Radha’s marriage constrains him later when his love letter to Radha becomes the bone of contention between the two people he loves most. Through Rajendra Kumar’s quiet, controlled and effective performance, we are brought to sympathise with his feelings even when we do not understand his actions.

“I’m not a beggar; I’m your friend.”

But Sangam rightly skewers the idea of a friendship that demands – and makes – such a sacrifice. “Phir wohi qurbani!” scoffs Sundar. As the recipient of years of benevolence, he knows how debilitating the burden of gratitude can be. What sort of a friendship is this in which truth falls by the wayside?

As Radha says bitterly, “Wah, kabhi ek dost mujhe bali chadhaata hai, kabhi doosre dost.” That one line emphasises the crux of the narrative: a woman is not an object to be bartered.

But Sangam goes one step further. “Aur na hii do shareeron ka milan sangam hota hai” (“Nor is the union of two bodies a true relationship”), is a revolutionary statement to make today, let alone 60 years ago when sexual purity had to be maintained above all else and the bonds of marriage were considered sacrosanct. To advocate for a married woman to leave her marriage and be reunited with her lover was unheard of.

To argue that a successful relationship is one that’s based on love and understanding, not one that is merely sanctioned by society was a bold take for the time and is as relevant today. In Sundar’s words, “Sangam wohi hota hai, Radha,” he says, “jahan dil dil se milta hai. Aatma aatma se mil ke param aatma ho jaata hai.” (True union occurs when hearts and minds meet; when souls meld to become one with the universe.”)

The climax emphasises the utter futility of it all. There’s no happily-ever-after, no neat tying up of ribbons to ensure that audiences go home with the idea that love conquers all. If anything, it underlines the pointlessness of ‘noble’ sacrifice.

Sangam’s relationships may be messy but they are real; the characters may be flawed but they are human; the denouement may be dramatic but Kapoor’s directorial vision, Inder Raj Anand’s emotionally layered characterisation, and the excellent acting by the leads make you feel for the characters and keep you invested in their stories.

Click Raj Kapoor@100

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About the Author

Anuradha Warrier (14 Posts)

Anuradha Warrier is an editor by profession, a writer by inclination, and is passionate about books, music and films, all of which she writes about on her blog, Conversations over Chai.
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One thought on “Sangam – Of Choices and Consequences”

Anuradha Warrier Post authorJanuary 3, 2025 at 10:48 pm

@Gandhi Vadlapatla,

Thank you so much for the appreciation. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to a writer when their writing resonates with the reader!

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