Pyaasa- Swan Song of Art!
On the birth anniversary of Guru Dutt, I rewatched Pyaasa and now find myself in a place where the very feeling of being profoundly struck by a beautiful piece of art captivates your very soul.
The entire movie is full of beautiful nuances, but the opening scene always strikes out to me as one of the best opening scenes in the history of cinema, and here’s my amateurish comprehension of the deep entanglements of these opening moments.
It opens as its protagonist, Vijay, humbly rests somewhere amidst nature, while Ludhianvi’s verse provides the soulful narration as a prologue to this masterpiece.
ये हंसते हुए फूल ये महका हुआ गुलशन
ये रंग में और नूर में डूबी हुयी राहें
फूलों का रस पी के मचलते हुए भंवरे
मैं दूं भी तो क्या दूं तुम्हें ए सोख नज़ारों
ले दे के मेरे पास कुछ आँसू हैं कुछ आहें
There’s something extremely deep in this brief shot that sets the tone for the movie. The verse playing in the background beautifully captures a world beyond the conspicuous pretension of human beings. Vijay is happy in that for the briefest of moments before the practicality of the world tears it apart.
The scene shows a bee hovering around flowers, and Vijay is contently joyous. But in the very next moment, a practical man (a man of this world) crushes the bee without even a pang of remorse. Vijay, witnessing everything, can’t help but flinch away.
The sad part is not that someone took away this briefest moment of bliss, but the ignorance of the fact that crushing a bee could cause pain to someone.
Nietzsche’s episode of saving the horse from being whipped or Van Gogh’s cutting off his ear to give it to a streetwalker are amplified examples of the same feeling. The world calls these 'episodes of frenzy’, but it is totally the ignorance of the world that causes such episodes.
The man who crushes the bug is not wrong. He is a rational man for whom a bug is of no consequence. This scene translates the difference between him and our protagonist. It shows that its protagonist is not a sane or a rational person. He is not of this world. Nature provides him solace as his soul finds no resonance in his fellow beings. But he is helpless. He can seek happiness from a bee hovering and collecting nectar from flowers, but he can’t prevent it from getting crushed from the world of consequence and success. All he can do is sigh or shed a tear, and more importantly, write down a verse about it.
The distinction thus conveyed, we see how Vijay, knowing the shallowness of the world, cannot help but flinch away when things that make him feel belonged are crushed without even a pang of guilt accompanying that action.
As Dostoevsky’s underground man once wrote,
I swear, gentlemen, that to be
too conscious is an illness - a
real thorough-going illness.
Vijay knows this illness better than anyone else.
Throughout the movie, this feeling continues, which eventually concludes as the definitive tragedy of a soulful artist. The society which we’ve created for ourselves is an extremely rich society but with the poorest of souls.
A man like Vijay can find no place in a world like this, irrespective of whether he achieves material success or not. He knows people who are ready to crush him like a bug today, will eventually appreciate him if he becomes rich and successful. And knowing the truth of the very shadows of their world, he can never accept the world.
After a beautifully poignant tale of a true artist lost in a world of materialism, the climax beautifully captures the futility of it all. But this time, it is Vijay who crushes the appreciation which the world ostentatiously showers upon him.
Carrying the existential angst throughout the movie, Vijay finally declares the world is not worth having. He refuses the praise and success his talent has finally brought upon him, not because he is not worthy of it but because the world is not worthy of anything.
ये महलों, ये तख्तों, ये ताजों की दुनिया
ये इंसान के दुश्मन समाजों की दुनिया
ये दौलत के भूखे रवाजों की दुनिया,
ये दुनिया अगर मिल भी जाए तो क्या है
ये दुनिया अगर मिल भी जाए तो क्या है
.
.
.
जला दो इसे फूक डालो ये दुनिया
मेरे सामने से हटा लो ये दुनिया
तुम्हारी है तुम ही संभालो ये दुनिया
ये दुनिया अगर मिल भी जाए तो क्या है
The bug thus crushed by a practical man lies dead in a paradoxical world created by shadow beings who carry a graveyard by voiding away the very human soul bestowed upon them by nature; thus perhaps, the bug lays less dead than the alive and happy human beings.
