A myriad of emotions arise in every objective mind as the term India is uttered because facts dictate so. The largest democracy in the world. Widespread presence of poverty. Taj Mahal! Extreme corruption. Himalayan Valleys and so on. But what if you had only 3 hours to know about this nation? What if you could only expend a mere 3 hours to grab the concept behind this land of mysticism? Out of all the resources available to humankind, I'd suggest you to watch the movie known as Mother India.
Now a logical mind begins to question. Why so? And that is what what I am here to answer. Mother India was not only the first encounter of India with the Academy Awards also known as the Oscars but till date it is also the closest one. Now consider this, Mother India was released 61 years ago and Indian cinema is the world's second oldest film industry in the world. It currently produces the largest number of movies and also sells the highest number of tickets every year.
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was first awarded in 1956 after giving out 8 honorary awards during previous years to the best foreign language films released in the United States. Rumours were flowing that Mother India has already won so director Mehboob Khan flew to attend the ceremony in person. Now I'd like to state a fact and a legend. It's a well known fact that Mehboob Khan went almost bankrupt while completing Mother India and legend says that a lead actress secretly provided money to his office during the final phases of production.
In the final contestants stood Nights of Cambria directed by Frederico Fellini who had also won the first and previous award in this category. This was the story of a prostitute who continues on her quest for love despite failures. The last scene of this movie resounded spectacularly with the post-war France and was described to be more in worth than "all the fire-breathing blockbusters Hollywood has to offer" 41 years later by the Times' critic Janet Maslin. On the other hand was Mother India trying to depict independent India's mentality through a remake of Mehboob's brilliant movie "Aurat" translating to "Woman" which was released in 1940. But Mehboob had not spendt 17 years trying to win an Oscar. He was trying to send a message to the Indian public at their 10th Independence Day. Trying to explain the belief which led to the Constitution of India. He was also in love with Sardar Khan, the lead actress of Aurat, a major inspiration behind the remake and also his wife.
Nights of Cabiria won by one vote over Mother India that day and Mehboob Khan had a heart attack. I don't believe that people of high enough artistic calibre to be on the Academy Awards panel can be unfair towards art. I personally find both the movies equally compelling since Giulietta Masina who was also the wife of Fellini has given a miraculous performance in the role of main character. Also, I do not consider myself capable enough to accurately judge such wondrous pieces of art, so I simply rely on expert reviews to find their shortcomings. I tried to search for the shortcoming that could have led to this difference of one vote.
Being a general internet user, I first checked on ImDB and realised that both movies had the same rating of 8.1 out of 10. So I turned to my next trusted option for comparison, Rotten Tomatoes. This website had 92 percent expert rating for Mother India with 12 reviews. I looked for the one negative review finally arriving at the last review. Ironically, this review was given on the same date in 2002 which marks India's largest heartbreak as India waited to see the sunrise of independence. The review states "The only thing this movie could inspire is matricide". However, it appears that Mehboob Khan had adequately researched the Hindu scriptures himself. The most furious phase of a main character is depicted when he attacks the gate of his own house with an axe while his mother is inside. This could easily represent Parshurama literally translating to "axe Rama" who is the only person known to have committed matricide across the entire Hindu scriptures. A scene like this is not present in the movie Aurat despite depicting a more violent relation between the mother and son.
Therefore, I believe that this one vote can simply be attributed to a person who couldn't clearly understand the Hindu culture depicted in the movie. This is quite acceptable and the argument behind this belief generates from a simple fact that one of the Hindu scriptures known as Mahabharata is the world's largest poem in itself while also being coded in Sanskrit. I will write a different article to explain the concept of matricide in Hinduism based on facts but I can fleetingly tell you that matricide is one of the worst sins as per the Hindu religion and I believe it to be the worst sin.
In 2013, fifty six years after the release of Mother India, an article in The Guardian stated that website Play.com had conducted a study to determine the scariest scene in movie history. First the website polled 10,000 users to find out the 10 films which most frightened customers. After this they used heartbeat monitors to find out the exact scene which most scared customers. The answer was "Here's Jhonny" scene from the Stanley Kubrick's 1980 movie The Shining. If you watch both the movies, you will realize that these scenes are not only similar due to the shot angles but also share the condition of a mother being present inside with a weapon that plays an important role in the scene. It may be possible that Stanley Kubrick got subtly inspired by Mother India three decades later. On the other hand, it may also be possible that the magnificent creator of the unparalleled movie known as 2001: A Space Odyssey (released in 1968) never had a chance to see Mother India. Maybe the real answer rests in peace with him.
The fact that Indian film industry sold around 900,000 more tickets than Hollywood in the past year clearly indicates that cinema is popular among the Indian public. According to numerous experts, successful movies of the Golden Age of Bollywood (around 1940 to 1960) are entirely responsible for the shaping the current Bollywood with Mother India taking the lead. Therefore, knowingly or unknowingly Mother India has had a massive impact on the Indian population over the past six decades and efficiently explains the concept on which India was formed and shaped. This is why I think every non-Indian should watch this movie.
Over the past weekend, a friend asked me to watch the latest biopic of Bollywood known as Sanju. I considered the suggestion positively mentioning that Sunil Dutt and Nargis were the parents of Sanjay Dutt, the person on whom the biopic is based. But my friend didn't even know these people outside of that movie. Another friend told me how the photo of Nargis was missing at the end of the movie though I haven't watched it yet and can't confirm. Today an old friend referred to the recent Netflix show "Sacred Games" as the magnum opus of Bollywood which prompted me to write this article as I would beg to differ because Mother India has permanently taken that place according to me. As of yet, I am eagerly awaiting for a free weekend to binge watch Sacred Games and Sanju. I personally believe that Mother India is more than a movie, it's a phenomenon that changed a country. This is why I think that all Indians should also watch Mother India at least once in their lifetime after growing up. If I was to review this movie in one line, I'd say: "The character of Mother India portrayed by Nargis is the pinnacle of Bollywood."
What saddens me is that Sanjay Dutt may never realize that he could have released a biopic on his mother and father who were both exemplary actors and received the fourth highest civilian award of India known as Padma Shri in 1958 and 1968 respectively. If he does realize that and ever reads the previous line then I apologize to him right now. However, I'd like to also tell him my views since I once watched an episode of the Indian television show "Aapki Adaalat" translating to "Your Court" where Sanjay Dutt appeared as the guest to be questioned. I respect Manyata Dutt and there's no question about it but he gave the example of Indira Gandhi not using the Nehru surname to justify his views regarding Priya Dutt and Namrata Dutt (as mentioned on Sir Dutt's Wikipedia page presently). Next time I would advise him to simply state that his own mom is popularly known only as "Nargis", kindly check her Wikipedia page. Also, I personally believe that the host Rajat Sharma already realized that despite Sanjay's mistakes the Indian public has always forgiven him because of Mother India. This is because Sanjay Dutt strikingly resembles the prodigious actor and his father, Sunil Dutt who was the leading male actor in Mother India and portrayed a marvellous role that resounds with Sanjay's character in real life. As if some irony of nature, the day I decided to write this article is the day news arrived that India has overtaken France to become the sixth largest nation in gross GDP according to data released by the World Bank.
