August 15, 2006

Muqaddar Ka Sikander - Tough one

Orphaned boy in Simla gets job with rich widower and daughter after a lot of pleading. Daddy can´t stand the lowly boys relationship with his little princess. So daddy packs bags and boy is out on the streets again. Except that he still has little memsaabs blanket that he needs to bring back and he broke her favorite doll and intends very much to replace it. So boy goes to Mumbai. And he´s out on the streets again. This time in an even more hostile environment.
But it looks like lady luck´s finally smiling on the, btw up to now nameless, boy. He is adopted by poor but loving widow, gets a name - Sikander -, a new little sister and he finds memsaab and her father. He even gets a clone of the dreaded doll. And wants to give it to her on her birthday. But poor filthy little boys are not allowed to the party so he sneeks in only to be mistaken as a thief - even by memsaab. The humilation is too much for his new mom and she dies of a heart attack. But not without Sikanders promise to be good and true.
Fast foreward some 15 years. Sikander, still uneducated, made something out of himself. He fights thiefs and smugglers by reporting them to the police. He built a house opposite formerly rich widower and memsaab. He´s about to get sister married to a good rich guy. But the neighbours still loathe him. And that only because they don´t know that Sikander a) never tried to rob the family and b) he pays all of now jobless sick lawyer daddys medical bills and c) Sikander still is deeply in love with memsaab. To get his mind of that hopeless situation a friend drags Sikander along to a brothel where beautiful Rhekha works.











She falls in love with Sikander, which is not so good as very evil murderer is madly (and very jealously) in love with her and whenever Sikander goes there - to watch her dance only - he gets piss drunk. And to complicate things, Sikanders friend, a young lawyer, whom he sent to neighbours house to get the business afloat again, falls in love with memsaab too. And the stupid girl is ok with that.











So. Where does that leave us? We have accha Sikander, alone and still marked a thief by the people he wants to be loved by. He has a evil enemies in form of the hookers suitor and all those smuggler/thiefs. The one who loves him could ruin his reputation and with that the marriage of his sister. So what happens? Sikander finds out that memsaab does love the young lawyer, is heartbroken but wants them to get married, turns to hooker who poisons herself to save his reputation, evil suitor wants revenge for her death and on the day of sister and memsaabs wedding, kidnaps the brides. Sikander gets them back to where they belong and is fatally wounded. And dies. The End.

Oh, come on! What a kind of terrible life is this. I mean this is the kind of life to use when you want to tell somebody "Others have it much worse then you" Its the blueprint of destinys slaps in your face.
But its still one of the most successful films in hindi film history.
I mean, if only Sikander was a Hindu. Then he at least would have had a chance for a step upward in his next rebirth. But no, he´s muslim and that means no luck even on that front...
So, if you feel sorry for yourself, go and watch it. Or if you want to see AB senior suffer beautifully and Rhekha dance. Its a classic so you have to go and watch it anyway. And Beth, your fake-pretend-father-in-law looks nice in it too.

2 comments:

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

Oh my gosh, I have just started to watch this too! Weird coincidence! I will finish it over the weekend probably but promise not to read your post until after I write mine. And I am completley stunned to see that you used FPTFIL without realizing that in my draft of my post I had come up with the same term!

Anonymous said...

Hi Babasko,
I liked your review but couldn't understand whether you liked it or not....although its my one of the favorite films.