{"id":4539,"date":"2018-09-26T00:33:42","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T19:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=4539"},"modified":"2018-09-26T10:19:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T04:49:45","slug":"guide-spiritual-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/guide-spiritual-odyssey\/","title":{"rendered":"Guide: A Spiritual Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

Guide<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Guide<\/em> accommodates more than one perspective.\u00a0 It could pass for a love story that internalizes unconventionality, criminality and finally a reunion sublime. It could also pass for the story of Raju the Guide \u2013 the central character of the film \u2013 of his trials and tribulations and of his eventual redemption. The film spans the\u00a0 spiritual odyssey of a tourist guide.<\/p>\n

The film also offers a transcending view that it is fate and destiny that impels human actions. The film internalizes, towards its end, a stand-alone sub-stream that handles the life and death metaphysics that enquires into the questions of faith. The last twenty five minutes take the film to a dizzy h eight and constitute its unique selling point.<\/p>\n

Another factor that contributes to the film\u2019s popular acceptance is that it does not challenge or offend the religious mores and beliefs that people at large have been subscribing to through millennia. On the contrary, the film reinforces and strengthens them. Raju\u2019s fast unto death for divine intervention \u2013 the rains \u2013 can be loosely equated to much pooh-poohed, by rational\/scientific minds, the rain yajnas.<\/em> While the film may meet the disapprobation of the scientific community on the point, it nonetheless wins over the audience. However, the on-screen execution of this part \u2013 thanks to the directorial brilliance of Vijay Anand – lends it a sublimity never seen before, or after, in Hindi films.<\/p>\n

Guide \u2013 the love triangle<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Marco is explicitly clear that his interest in archaeological explorations over-rides everything including Rosie<\/p><\/div>\n

Guide<\/em> too, like umpteen Hindi films, has a love-hate triangle. On this limited point, arguably there were better films before it as also after. Obviously this film\u2019s greatness lay elsewhere, beyond the love triangle even as the film\u2019s popular acceptance owes,\u00a0 in no small measure, to the fact that players in the triangle are not at all platonic,\u00a0 rather\u00a0mirror characters drawn from real life, ridden with jealousy, insecurity, suspicion and self-interest.\u00a0 The connect or the disconnect inter se<\/em> Raju, Rosie and Marco finds an empathizing chord in the audience.<\/p>\n

In fact, Marco is perhaps the most straight-forward of the three, though ironically his conveyance and outbursts accentuated by his ungainly countenance, make him look like a villain.\u00a0 He is explicitly clear that his interest in archaeological explorations over-rides everything including Rosie.\u00a0 Once through with the explorations in hand, his interest in Rosie also returns, and with that his machinations too.<\/p>\n

Rosie when with Marco is perpetually bitter, perpetually demanding, refusing to appreciate the avocational space that Marco requires, nags him, goes\u00a0 to extremes to engage his attention.\u00a0 She feels suppressed perhaps subconsciously missing the freedom and limelight of her mother\u2019s profession.\u00a0 No wonder therefore that she veers so easily towards Raju, leaving Marco to his ruins and rocks. Once successful, she betrays an emotional ambivalence while handling Marco that exacerbates Raju\u2019s insecurity, leading him eventually to commit an act fraught with criminal culpability.<\/p>\n

\"\"Raju loves Rosie but later loves and abuses her money too. She knows it and mildly remonstrates with him. She is restive again, almost as if under a psychic compulsion to unshackle herself from her once-benefactor Raju. The only thing that she can tether herself to is her dance: tod ke bandhan bandhi paayal \u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her corroboration as to Raju\u2019s act of forgery is open to interpretations: whether she stood for truth or gave in to a sub-conscious egg on to a possible good riddance! Be that as it may, with Raju in jail, a quietus descends on the triangle.\u00a0 The film also does not dwell on the assumable remorse that Rosie must have found herself within the aftermath, and instead proceeds from a point where Raju is being released.<\/p>\n

Another stand-out point of the film is that its characters, despite their behavioral meanness and below-par conduct, are ace professionals.\u00a0 Marco is an archaeologist involved in his work body, mind and soul. While at work, nothing else matters to him. He is dismissive, rather contemptuous, about Rosie\u2019s possibility as a dancer. Raju, however, discerns it and Rosie gets the necessary ladder to climb to greatness. Both Marco and Rosie remain focused enough, despite a pull-down inter-personal relationship, to channelize their respective talents and possibilities. This is not a peripheral aspect of the film.\u00a0 In fact, it is duly leveraged to take the story \/ film forward.<\/p>\n

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Raju literally falls in love and gives a go by to his profession<\/p><\/div>\n

Marco\u2019s exploration digs him deep professionally even as it proves ruinous to his relationship with Rosie.\u00a0 The blossoming of Rosie, the dancer, is integral to and a critical part of the story.\u00a0 While it gives Rosie a pedestal, it, at the same time, circumstances Raju wherein the lover in him seems to be ceding ground to the\u00a0 \u2018arranger\u2019 for Rosie.\u00a0 What gives a different take to the film \u2013 and it perhaps goes down well with the audience \u2013 that soured \/ failed relationships do not impact or cascade on the professional endeavours of the concerned persons. It is refreshing in contradistinction to many stories \/ films where failed love consumes comprehensively the ones affected.<\/p>\n

But what about Raju, the internationally acclaimed ace guide? He literally falls in love and gives a go by to his profession. Result: inferiority complex, insecurity, turning paranoid as to his \u2018territory\u2019 and finally, jail! Raju in love loses his existential moorings. The jail sentence does him a good. The brutality inherent in confinement presumably lifts the relational haziness, blunts the sting of betrayal, brings Raju down to the stark staring reality, that he apparently has no place to go: Musafir jayega kahan…wahan kaun hai tera.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Aa ke mere hathon mein \/ haath na ye chootega<\/em> \u00a0\u2013 in the spiritually charged sanctum sanctorum of a temple<\/p><\/div>\n

The Raju-Rosie love story does not end however. A much chastised Rosie, perhaps consumed and cleansed by remorse, reengages Raju in the temple precincts, at a point when he is beyond the mundane and the material. Yet the director has not missed out its symbolic value and the possible impact. Rosie falling and fainting at the feet of Raju in sync with the journalist\u2019s question if Swami had ever been in love has its impact. And the significance of interspersing a piece of the song \u2013 Lakh mana le duniya, saath na ye chhootega \/ Aa ke mere hathon mein, haath na ye chhootega<\/em> \u00a0\u2013 in the spiritually charged sanctum sanctorum of a temple\u00a0 should not be lost on the discerning \u2013 that love sublime, sans carnal, is a way to reach Him.\u00a0 And the love turns full cycle when Rosie puts, in her hair parting, the dust from the feet of the dead Swami \u2013 symbolising a love that survives mortality.<\/p>\n

From the viewers\u2019 perspective, just another instance of the best coming out of a man duped and dumped by a treacherous woman!<\/p>\n

The Spiritual Odyssey of a Tourist Guide\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Raju\u2019s turning into a holy man is fortuitous and his spiritual odyssey circumstantial.<\/p>\n

Oftener kismet<\/em> takes over when all doors look closed. It is said, \u2018clothes make the man\u2019. But for Raju Guide, clothes did more than that \u2013 they pushed him into a path unfancied, unimagined ! The ochre-hued sheet that a sadhu covered the sleeping frame of Raju with, to give him a defence against cold, was enough for the villagers to take him for a holy man. And the rest, as they say, is history, and in this case the film Guide<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If one takes a telescopic view of the film, it will appear a story of the one \u2013 Raju here \u2013 chosen to be the ultimate Guide \u2013 the Guide who will show light to humanity in need of succor and support, to put it on the path. The road to greatness is often not straight. A small time tourist guide could not have progressed to his station as destined without the trysts and turns \u2013 each part of a larger design \u2013 on the way.\u00a0 Marco, Rosie, jail, his identity mistaken for a Swami, the blabber of a village ignoramus that Swami will be on fast till it rains, Raju\u2019s failed attempt to escape –\u00a0 they all seem links in Raju\u2019s destinational momentum.\u00a0 To my mind, this is the film\u2019s x-factor. \u00a0It resonates well with the average and mainstream Indian viewer for whom providence is existential.<\/p>\n

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The blabber of a village ignoramus that Swami will be on fast till it rains<\/p><\/div>\n

And for the viewers, the Swami\u2019s passing away coinciding with the rains too is providential. Imagine any other ending. What would have been the audience\u2019s response if the Swami had not succumbed following his penance and survived to see the rains? I am sure the audience would have rejected the end and the film that missed being a blockbuster just by a small distance would have floundered at the box office. And if the Swami had perished without the rains in view, as should normally be the case in reality, well one can visualize the audience\u2019s ire!<\/p>\n

The Last<\/strong> Twenty Minutes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The last twenty minutes of the film are very intense. The film in fact owes its exceptionality to this last segment. The Director had a task as he was handling questions dicey and matters abstract, besides emotionally surcharged situations. His task was four \u00a0pronged: first, to handle Raju\u2019s interface with the believing villagers and the congregating multitude; second, to handle Raju\u2019s inner struggle \u2013 Raju versus Raju;\u00a0 third, to steer clear from averments and exhibits that could possibly offend the popular religious sentiments, and fourth, whip up a religious fervor, a climaxing crescendo of sorts, to befit Swami\u2019s supreme sacrifice. This segment of the film is the finest directorial essay.<\/p>\n

Raju\u2019s reunion with his once-upset mother, with his once soul-mate Rosie and his estranged friend Gafoor are emotional highs. And the film does not miss out on supplying a secular sentiment, on Gafoor, a Muslim, being stopped from entering the inner precinct of the temple – with Raju Swami loudly asserting that his dharma is love! This part of the film has pace and grip, and a lot of emotions too..<\/p>\n

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Raju\u2019s inner struggle \u2013 to be or not to be<\/p><\/div>\n

Raju\u2019s inner struggle \u2013 to be or not to be \u2013 a part of him telling him to escape \u2013 is engaging.\u00a0 With all doors shut on him, he later turns a Doubting Thomas if He exists at all \u2013 sawaal ye hai ki duniya ko banana wala koi hai ki nahi<\/em>!\u00a0 He still needs empirical proof of His existence \u2013 if he can cause rains!<\/p>\n

But as he quickly evolves, his moment too arrives \u2013 the moment of enlightenment, that He is within him and without, that He is omnipresent! This almost reverberates the Vedic wisdom AHAM BRAHMA ASMI!\u00a0 \u00a0But the film stops short of saying that. Nor does it say, as a corollary, that creative dispensation is plural in its manifestation with each sentience unique \u2013 in me like me! The film does not supply that, perhaps consciously, for that would have not only become a bit abstruse but would have also compromised the pace and flow of the film.<\/p>\n

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Interesting dialogue between Raju, the mortal and Raju, the soul<\/p><\/div>\n

There however is an interesting dialogue between Raju the mortal being, in tatters, prostrate, cringing and begging for his life and Raju the soul, radiating resplendence.\u00a0 At the end the soul almost ordains: tu ahankar hai tujhe marna hi hoga, main atma hoon, talwar se katunga nahi, main aatma hoon main amar hoon<\/em>\u2026 I am beyond everything\u2026 I alone am! This is a straight adaptation of the wisdom enshrined in Bhagvad Gita<\/em>. The film breaks no new ground on the point. It is just upholding the religion, vindicating the faith.<\/p>\n

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The bedazzling form of Dev Anand<\/p><\/div>\n

The abstraction leaves the audience in awe and it leaves the theatre admiring but without much understanding.\u00a0 The admiration in part owes itself to the bedazzling form of Dev Anand. He gave his best or the director extracted the best out of him.\u00a0 However, the rationalists, though in microscopic minority, are entitled to ask: what does the film give of its own on the point, additionally ? And how is a person seeking euthanasia as he can no longer endure his pains different from Raju who had reached a stage of complete wither ?<\/p>\n

In fact, the atma-paramatma<\/em> metaphysics in the film reminds one of present day discourses and preaching on Aastha<\/em> channel that dish out and rely upon two intangibles \u2013 atma <\/em>and anand<\/em> \u2013 to resolve every mundane and material problem of the listening audience!<\/p>\n

THE SONGS<\/strong><\/p>\n

None of the songs in this film are either interpolated or contrived. They naturally flow out of the larger narrative. At times they appear prose versified for a better and more effective response to the critical strands in the film. Each song encapsulates a defining moment of the film.<\/p>\n

Kaanton se kheench ke yeh aanchal<\/em><\/h3>\n

For instance, Kaanton se kheench ke ye aanchal\u2026. <\/em>and Musafir jayega kahan<\/em>\u2026.While the former is \u00a0an anticipation of an exciting, unexplored future \u2013 a look forward, the latter is a long sighing look back on life that once was. The story of Raju and Rosie falls, both symbolically and squarely, between these two musico-lyrical narratives. Thereafter the story, as it takes a break from Rosie, circumstances Raju on a much larger life stage , as he explores, unfortunately at his own cost, the larger existential questions \u2013 the\u00a0 microcosm vis-\u00e0-vis the macrocosm, the material vis-a-vis the spiritual, the form and the essence !<\/p>\n

\"guide\"

Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai<\/p><\/div>\n

Kaanton se kheench ke ye aanchal<\/em> \u2026 is obviously euphoric in character\u2026 effectively demonstrates a freedom just won. Yet it drops enough hints as to how the story will unfold.\u00a0 Consider, Dar hai safar mei kahin kho na jaayen, rasta naya..<\/em>. not sure if I will not lose my way\u2026 and turn a deviant!\u00a0 She does turn, eventually.<\/p>\n

And in the concluding stanza, there appears an expression… tai kar liya<\/em> \u2026 the assertion, the decision inherent in it is so out of character with the general run of the lyrics! Yet it is significant. It is a pointer to the events in the story, to Rosie\u2019s resolve not to compromise her freedom, as she perceives it, come what may, even if it entails a live-in relationship much against societal disapprobation; even if it means her corroboration as to Raju\u2019s act of forgery, to perhaps achieve a riddance of Raju\u2019s fettering presence! Tai kar liya<\/em>\u2026 freedom at any cost!<\/p>\n

\"guide

I unshackle myself to get yoked to my dance<\/p><\/div>\n

However, to my mind, the line, or rather the half line, that is loaded with meaning, that gives the essence of Rosie\u2019s persona, and that survives the song to hint as to how the story will unfold, is: Tod ke bandhan baandhi paayal<\/em> … Shailendra in his characteristic style slips in a profound truth \u2013 an aphorism \u2013 that stands at its own, independent of the song context, to allude to myriad similar situations. Superficially this half line will appear a contradiction in terms – I unshackle myself to get yoked to my dance! But at a deeper and subtler lever, it is not a conundrum; rather an unmistakable assertion that one\u2019s redemption, one\u2019s freedom is inalienably rooted in one\u2019s inner possibilities… Tod ke bandhan baandhi payal<\/em>. One knows Rosie\u2019s existential concern, her over-riding priority\u2026 and both Marco and Raju are subsumed in that.<\/p>\n

Kaanton se kheenchke yeh aanchal<\/strong><\/em> ~ Lata Mangeshkar<\/span><\/p>\n