Kissi Se Na Kehna (1983)

Add together pithy social commentary + family comedy + deep belief in the inherent goodness in flawed people and what do you get? No, not a John Hughes movie. [Though, sidenote, I somehow missed seeing Pretty in Pink with all the other Hughes films and Brat Pack fare I saw in high school, and recently remedied that fact. I'm currently kicking myself for not being able to tap the youth power in that movie when I was actually a youth.]

No, I'm talking about a Hrishikesh Mukherjee film!

Kissi Se Na Kehna trades on the oh-so-relatable generation gap between an aging widower Kailash (Utpal Dutt) and his workaholic son Ramesh (Farooq Sheikh). Here to close and/or set this generation gap on fire is muslim uncle Lalaji (Saeed Jaffrey), recently returned from Lucknow. 

Also recently returned is Dr. Ramola MBBS (Deepti Naval), back to stay with her uncle for a time. 

After initially rubbing each other the wrong way, Ramesh and Romola fall into deep, awkward, middle-class attraction...the earthy anti-ethereal stuff that all Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee films seem to be made out of. 

Meanwhile, Kailash has had too much time on his hands, and too little attention at home, and with the help of his cadre of gossipy friends, sets out to find the perfect bahu for his son (but also kind of for himself). After a few hilarious encounters with ultra-hip, educated candidates, Kailash develops an allergy to all women who speak English and listen to modern music. (Utpal trying to understand why "patthar" translates to English "rock" and becomes music is just one of the many delights of this sequence.) Kailash decides that he needs a bahu who is educated in "sanskriti" and not the ways of the Angrez. Unfortunately, the only uncorrupted girls left are all back in the gaon, doing puja and dreaming of the days when they would have the pleasure of waiting on their future in-laws hand and foot. 

Luckily, clever uncle Lalaji (who was also the one to help the lovers get past their paralyzing shyness) sees the problem coming a mile away, and calls for a powwow to discuss options. After all, the two lovers are barely able to manage their own communication problems, much less able to plead their case. And, they're too distracted to realize what's going on to overcome the seemingly insurmountable fact: that Ramola is VERY educated ... just in all the "wrong" things. 

But, Lalaji comes up with a plan ... or rather, a farce. Ramola will be the orphan girl raised by the pandit from his native village, well-schooled in the Ramayana and Mahabharat. Her uncle will be the pandit, and no matter the lack of Sanskrit knowledge, as he can always play deaf. 

The plan works beautifully. Kailash thinks he's in father-in-law heaven. What he doesn't know is that Ramola's been schooled in a few tough Mahabharat questions and that delicious food she's served him is not bahu ke haath ka khana but is from a local shop. To him, she's practically an incarnated goddess. When Ramola sings, Kailash closes his eyes and sees her as Yashoda disciplining a naughty Krishna. [Oh the tangled web of mother fantasies in Hindi films...] He's smitten. 

Ramesh and Ramola get married and try settle into joint family existence ... but hey, this is still the middle of the film! The solution *seems* all very idyllic and clever... for everyone but the daughter-in-law, who is forced to hide both her flaws and accomplishments and speak in pure Hindi indefinitely. The burning question? How long will it take working girl Ramola to get fed up with the household duties and the pressure of lying to her needy father in law? Or will she contract some sort of Stockholm Syndrome and start to enjoy the restrictions (if not the lies) of her new life? 

As befitting Hrishikesh Mukherjee's middle-of-the-way philosophy, the answer is, of course, a little of both, a little of both. 

[Minor spoilers ahead.]

There are very few directors or writers who manage to give every character the benefit of the doubt ... to remain equally sympathetic to every actor in the narrative. However, HM usually does, and this film is an excellent example of how satisfying a unconditionally compassionate story can be.

KSNK doesn't demonize the older generation's way of life, but pokes gentle fun at it; showing how out of step it is with the present, but also revealing how both good intentions AND dangerous delusions continue to fuel it. The viewer's heartstrings are not safe here, as HM doesn't let you just write off the older folks as fools or villains. One feels the pain of Kailash and Co. in their feelings of "uselessness" and separation from the world of their children/grandchildren.

Causes are explored, not just effects. Kailash feels neglected and so becomes demanding. He is blind to his own unreasonability, and this lack of self-awareness drives much of Kailash's actions throughout the film.

Likewise, the younger generation is so far removed from this mindset of good "Sanskriti" [traditional culture] bahus and "Seva, seva, seva" [service]  toward one's in-laws, that they are almost helpless against it. How can they explain that they must operate by different rules, when their parents have managed to isolate themselves from the pressures of the new social system? The youth live in a drastically different society than their parents and grandparents. Both genders work outside the home, are equally educated (and the woman is just as likely to be more educated than her spouse), and English is not just a symbol of rebellion or a mark of status but also a means towards social mobility and expanded techniques of expression. Hinglish is notoriously impressive in its ability to assimilate whatever vocabulary it needs to get the point across, so why would they limit themselves to one language or the other?

Of course, this is exactly what Ramola sets out to do. Unsurprisingly, it is just one more thing that alienates her from the world she has always known.

Sociologically or linguistically, it's fascinating to see Ramola change as she gives up speaking English. A hotly contested linguistic theory [The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis] claims that: 

• One's language of birth actually controls the ability to conceptualize. 
• Ideas only happen when we have the words to describe them, or when the language provides room for them to exist. 
• Cultural values are reinforced by speaking the language of the culture and thinking in the language of the culture. 

Isliye, it makes sense from a certain perspective that when Ramola gives up English, and uses only Sanskritic Hindi, her brain re-orients towards traditional patterns of thought. So when we see her become the perfect bahu, obsessed with serving her father in law, choosing his welfare over her own, one could argue that she has become the person she pretended to be, aided by artificially altering her own thoughts ... OR that she was always that person deep down, underneath the modern woman facade.

HM leaves that mystery unsolved. What he does provide is a more personal motivation behind Ramola's seemingly uncharacteristic actions. She is an orphan, and has always longed for a home, parents, and the security of a family structure to call her own. Likewise, Kailash is widowed and spent much of his childhood motherless. He often blurs the line between goddess, mother, daughter-in-law, and wife in his actions and his dialogue directed towards Ramola. Despite one or two references to her wifely duties, the most important relationship in the film, thus, isn't between Ramola and Ramesh, but Ramola and Kailash--and their increasingly obsessive bond.

It doesn't reach "Devi" levels of creepy, however. Utpal Dutt's delivery always makes you feel that his character is somewhat facetious. He even breaks the fourth wall once or twice, signaling to the audience something to the effect of "Isn't this all hilarious? Isn't Kailash a little silly?"

The other thing that mitigates the noxious (thanks Bollyviewer for this apt descriptor) traditional flavor of the Ramola/Ramesh relationship, is the comedic guru character ... the golden-tongued, golden-hearted, and shrewd Lalaji. As the film builds to a climax, and Ramola is forced to reveal her true self in order to save Kailash's life (the lady doctor is the only doctor in the house, gasp!), Kailash disowns Ramola. At this point, Lalaji gives his misguided friend a stern talking to... with a speech that had me in tears with its poignancy and its brilliant philosophical points.

This alone makes the film beautiful ... because everything silly up to that point is effectively countered by Lalaji's harsh, but wise words. I think I will love Saeed Jaffrey forever, just for this role.

*P.S. While writing this I feel like I passed a language learning milestone. I desperately wanted to use the multipurpose word "apna" to simplify a sentence. But it wouldn't have made much sense in a mostly English phrase. Not really a big deal to most people, probably, but a big deal to me...