More than a decade after its official release in 1999, SOORYAVANSHAM has been more famous for being repeatedly shown on Sony’s Set Max channel as their all-time favourite and has also been the prime target of funny memes posted at the social networks.
Gaining the status of a cult film for various reasons (other than the box office) the film received critical acclaim for Amitabh Bachchan’s effective portrayal of a double role, particularly excelling as the father, which he certainly does better as witnessed in the past in his every film having a double (and even triple) role. An official remake of the Tamil film SURYAVAMSAM (1997), the Hindi version was directed by E. V. V. Satyanarayan (his only venture in Hindi) with music by Anu Malik, lyrics by Sameer and featuring Soundarya, Jayasudha, Anupam Kher, Kader Khan and more in the important roles. It was the only Hindi film of late Soundarya and also probably the only film wherein Rekha dubbed for two characters on screen played by Soundarya and Jayasudha.
Reportedly Sony Set Max has got perpetual or 100 years exhibition rights of the film, which explains why it repeatedly gets aired at such quick intervals. However its numerous screenings has surely worked for them as well as for the audience too, who now remember many major sequences of the film, especially the ones featuring Amitabh Bachchan, Kader Khan or Anupam Kher.
Among these widely known sequences is the one wherein Radha (Soundarya) has become the District Collector and Thakur Bhanu Pratap Singh (Amitabh) comes to meet her regarding his area’s water issues. Seeing Radha (his daughter-in-law) as the collector, Thakur has to deal with the situation keeping the ego aside, as he only had thrown his son and his wife out of the house in the past due to some false allegations.
Seeing her father-in-law coming into the office, Radha wishes to get up from her seat but controls herself and then quietly touches his feet by deliberately dropping a paper-weight from the table. The scene beautifully re-establishes Indian family values on screen making an instant emotional connect and therefore received a wide appreciation from the audience in the last decade of its repeated airings on the channel. In fact the clip has also been made viral as a representation of Indian Traditional values at various social networks and whats app.
As an amazing co-incidence, an almost similar situation and sequence is there in S. S. Balan directed SANJOG (1972) too, which had music by R. D. Burman, lyrics by Anand Bakshi and was probably the only film featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Mala Sinha together (as a rare casting).
Remake of K. Balachander’s Tamil film IRU KODUGAL, its story was about a separated couple Amitabh and Mala Sinha, who later meet after years when Amitabh has married again and now working as a clerk in a government office. Incidentally Mala Sinha also gets posted in the same office as the District Collector and gets shocked meeting Amitabh there as a clerk and a happy family man living with his wife (Aruna Irani) and a kid.
Now in one of its early scenes, as soon as Amitabh enters the office of newly appointed collector Mala Sinha, she suddenly rises from her seat but then controls herself in front of another colleague Jagdish Raj present in the room. The moment he leaves, Sinha comes forward and touches the feet of Amitabh Bachchan being his first lawful wife and still in love with him. The scene is quite close to the one seen in SOORYAVANSHAM both in terms of situation and characters.
As a viewer, it’s really amazing to see such coincidental similarities between a sequence of two completely unrelated and distinctive films made at a gap of almost three decades. But it will be even more interesting to know that whether Amitabh Bachchan recalled the sequence of SANJOG while shooting an almost similar scene in SOORYAVANSHAM after so many years or not?
Interestingly SANJOG has another rare feature associated with the famous comic actor Johny Walker, as it has two songs filmed on Johny and both sung by two legendary singers of Hindi cinema in their own style. In the first hour of the film a qawwali ‘Ek Se Phool Gulistan Mein’ is sung by Mohd. Rafi and then a playful fun song ‘Ek Do Teen Chaar’ is sung by Kishore Kumar (a rare one for Johny Walker along with another later seen in Ramesh Sippy's SHAAN)
Cheers!
Bobby Sing
(bobbytalkscinema.com)
NOTE : An edited form of the article was also published in THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL Newspaper (Mumbai Edition) on 31st October 2021
