How Raj Kapoor even today puts a Sanjay Leela Bhansali to shame

For many in this generation, Raj Kapoor’s name might not readily evoke the iconic images he created in a career that spanned four decades as it once used to. He might be more recognised as Rishi Kapoor’s father, or Karishma, Kareena and Ranbir Kapoor’s grandfather, but Raj Kapoor continues to remain a colossus even after almost three decades of his death.

Had he been alive, the showman, as he was often referred to, would have been 91 today and perhaps might have been kicked to know that even though the cinema of his contemporaries such as Guru Dutt or Bimal Roy seem to be more inspirational to filmmakers who look to make some kind of statement, he, nonetheless continues to remain peerless when it comes to getting away with just about anything in the name of cinematic liberty.

Filmmakers often tend to be recognised with the kind of films that they make and this becomes more prominent in the case of auteurs. In that context, Raj Kapoor is a fascinating case study because of the balance that he struck between thoroughbred entertainers [Andaz (1949), Awaara (1951), Chori Chori (1956)], popular films with subtle social messages [Shree 420 (1955), Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai (1960)] and films that are experimental across narrative and execution [Boot Polish (1954), Jagte Raho (1956) and Phir Subha Hogi (1958)].

Yet, the larger than life persona or the tag of the impresario and later the proverbial "joker" who endured it all to make others see dreams continued to grow organically without threatening the message of his cinema. Maybe it was this flamboyant "dream merchant" label that created an aura around Kapoor that made it possible for him to escape blame when it came to making his heroine do things that no one else dare imagine. Such was Kapoor’s stature that when he made his heroines – Padmini in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai or Hema Malini in Sapno Ka Saudagar (1968), Zeenat Aman in Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) and Mandakini in Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) - dress up in a drenched sari, it was artistic and far from exploitative or dirty.

Kapoor’s logic was simple that beauty lay in the eyes of the beholder and therefore if you found something wrong with what he believed to be alluring then the fault lay with you.

In an interview, Khushwant Singh once mentioned that when he went to the screening of Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram the only one who stayed with him was the filmmaker asking him in a very loud voice: “I am a bosom man. What about you?" When the then 60-year filmmaker showed Mandakini in a white transparent sari under a waterfall in Ram Teri Ganga Maili, the censor board questioned Raj Kapoor on whether it was necessary.

In a way, they weren’t totally wrong for unlike Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Kapoor barely left anything to the imagination. Kapoor turned it around and said that if anyone thought showing a heroine in just a transparent white sari with barely anything left unseen was obscene then the filth was in his mind and not his eyes!

The film Ram Teri Ganga Maili also finds a mention in Sudhir Kakar’s book Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality where he uses the film as a case study to argue how much of the Indian sexual psyche is manifested in its cinema. The fact that Kakar, one of India’s most celebrated psychoanalyst, believes that the film’s narrative exploited the traditional themes of the humiliation of the woman, and the Indian male fantasy of love makes Kapoor’s actions seem exploitative.

Perhaps it does if one were to look at how such a thing works within the realm of popular Hindi cinema - when an A-list director makes an A-list heroine do certain things on screen then it’s not crass but aesthetic. When a Raj Kapoor does it with Mandakini it’s called inspiration but the same thing with a Huma Khan or a Silk Smitha in a Ramsay Brothers’ film is over the top.

But Kapoor’s clarity lies in practically showing the heroine’s breasts in Satyam Shivam Sundram or Ram Teri Ganga Maili and yet not presenting it as a tool of titillation somewhere separates Kapoor from a bevy of present day filmmakers who would find attempting a Raj Kapoor film today impossible because of the intention behind it. Could it then be audacious to say that the intention of a filmmaker thunders over what he/she says to the audience and to even the ever-stifling censor board?

For a filmmaker whose last feature came out in 1985 and for someone who’s been dead for over two-and-a-half decades, Raj Kapoor, for what it’s worth, could beat any present day filmmaker hands down when it comes to being someone whose artistic licence no one dares question.

Come to think of it, when compared to a Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who, at best, can reimagine popular culture or history to suit his creative urges, cinema, and the liberty in its name, seem to have regressed from the era when Raj Kapoor made films. And, the biggest testimony of this lies in the fact that if a biopic on the filmmaker were to be made today the censor wouldn't allow the reel Mandakini or Zeenat Aman to the depicted the way Raj Kapoor shot them in real life!