arifwaqar

No record of the script or the story is available for this movie but it must be acknowledged that "Daughters of Today" was the first ever feature film to be made in Lahore. The production started in 1924 and took three long years to complete, mainly due to financial problems.

Two participants of the cast, later became prominent personalities of the Sub Continent film industry: A.R.Kardar who was one of the most famous Bombay film directors in the 1930's, 40's and 50's; and M.Ismael, the actor, whose film career spans over five decades.

These two persons were the real pioneers of Pakistan film industry but they remain unsung heroes of Lollywood, as the Lahore industry is called today. Their later joint ventures are better documented and some stills from "The Mysterious Eagle" (1927) and The Serpent (1928)are available for the viewing pleasure of the enthusiast.

Long live Indo-Pak friendship! Long live humanism And, yes...better facilities for girls' education.

These propaganda points can certainly make a good movie but they didn't in this case.

Much hype was created before the release of Veer-Zaara about the so called melodies from the golden age but that too came out to be much ado about nothing. The late Madan Mohan, it so seems, didn't leave much behind him to be used three decades after his death. More than sixty percent of the music is based on famous Punjabi folk tunes (Bhangra, Tappay, Mahiya and Lohri etc.) Javed Akhtar, the song writer is however given a free hand this time and the film starts with a Javed poem---it's a prelude in fact. Interestingly enough, the film also ends with a poem which is recited in a Pakistani court room by an Indian prisoner.

Being a Lahorite myself, I was highly disappointed to see the way my city's culture was depicted in this mega budget production. For the benefit of the director let me say that Punjabi politicians don't wear 'shirvani' and 'topi'and they don't greet people in an 'Adaab-Urz' style. If the young writer (Aditya Chopra)was un aware of the fact that these cultural clichés were direct descendants of the so called Muslim Social cinema of India, the veteran director (Yesh Chopra)could have guided him. After all, sons learn a lot from their fathers.

Chalte Chalte is no doubt a fully fledged Bollywood commercial venture with top stars, exotic foreign locations, expensive sets, colourful dances and melodious songs but at the same time it's a daring experiment in many ways. First of all, the story defies the set rules of development and plot construction: the boy and girl get married very early in the story and seemingly there is no emminent danger to their "living happily ever after" and at a time when you are expecting some external factors to pop up and spoil their happy marriage, the talented writer manages to create an effective and convincing internal conflict to keep the story within its logical confines. Secondly, the flash-back technique is used very intelligently: not merely for the sake of breaking the linear order of events, but to release the desired information in well calculated bits and pieces, inserted at the most appropriate places. Thirdly, the minor characters are so fully developed and so painstakingly dealt with that it reminds you of the great masters of characterisation in the Russian classics. It's a common observation in the Bollywood movies that the hero's friends or the heroine's female friends never match them in personality, performance or screen presence. The reason being two-fold: you can not financially afford to hire a good actor for a minor role and big stars are not available for minor roles anyway. The producer of Chalte Chalte however has manage to tackle this problem very successfully. He has hired a whole bunch of fresh faces...God knows from where?...and made them do exactly what was required. For the first time perhaps the status of a hero's minor friend has risen above an extra boy.

Finally I should pay tribute to Johny Leaver, who in his mellow role of a failed lover, has busted his own cliche of a jabbering clown.