{"id":1681,"date":"2016-09-30T00:53:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T19:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=1681"},"modified":"2019-04-17T06:23:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T00:53:59","slug":"hrishikesh-mukherjee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/hrishikesh-mukherjee\/","title":{"rendered":"Hrishikesh Mukherjee: In a Humane Genre of His Own"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Rajesh

Rajesh Khanna and Hrishikesh Mukherjee during the making of Bawarchi<\/em> (Pic courtesy: SMM Ausaja)<\/p><\/div>\n

The man who discovered Jaya Bhaduri in Guddi<\/i>, gave Amitabh Bachchan his first big break in Anand<\/i>, immortalized Raj Kapoor as Anari<\/i> and Rajesh Khanna as Anand<\/em>, gave Dharmendra his \u201clife\u2019s best role\u201d in Satyakam<\/i> \u2013 he is none only than the legendary filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee.<\/p>\n

Hrishikesh Mukherjee was, and arguably still is, the undisputed king of \u201cmiddle of the road\u201d cinema in Bollywood. The country\u2019s highest honor in cinema, Dada Saheb Phalke award acknowledged his pioneering contribution towards introducing simple, humane stories of people-next-door on celluloid. Earlier, he had won seven national awards apart from numerous Filmfare and other coveted awards.<\/p>\n

\"HrishikeshFunnily though, this strapping Calcutta lad had wanted to be a biochemist, but became a salaried film editor in New Theaters studios, and eventually came to Bombay in 1951 with veteran director Bimal Roy as editor of path-breaking films like\u00a0Do Bigha Zameen<\/i>. Yet Hrishida, as he is fondly called, felt \u201ccircumstances\u201d made him foray into direction, something he was least interested in.<\/p>\n

\"Suchitra

The bhajan Man re hari ke gun gaa<\/em> sung by Lata Mangeshkar was picturised on Suchitra Sen in Musafir<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The amiable Hrishida was literally forced by his friends in Bombay to wield the megaphone. Close friend Dilip Kumar pestered him to take up direction and even acted in his first film Musafir<\/i> that had three different stories of three tenants in a house forming a sequence of marriage, birth and death. The film had a casting coup of sorts with Bengal’s screen idol Suchitra Sen, tragedy king Dilip Kumar and the irrepressible Kishore Kumar but all three starred in the three different stories and had no scenes together.\u00a0Musafir <\/i>picked up the first-ever national award and high critical acclaim but a lukewarm box-office. Hrishida packed his bags for Calcutta.<\/p>\n

Enter another bosom pal Raj Kapoor. Direct Anari<\/i> for me, he appealed. Anari<\/i>, the story of the honest simpleton, made silver jubilee.<\/p>\n

Kisi ki muskurahaton pe<\/strong><\/em> (Anari<\/em>, 1959) Shankar Jaikishan \/ Shailendra \/ Mukesh<\/span><\/p>\n