Bawarchi (1972)

बावर्ची

I watched this classic on loan from my Hindi teacher, who described it as "idealistic" after I told her that I thought it was "sweet."

A grumpy, dysfunctional family is completely transformed by the arrival of a mysterious servant Raghu - the Bawarchi, "cook" (Rajesh Khanna) - who works magic in the kitchen, sings beautiful songs and poetry, and teaches classical dance.  One by one he solves the problems that plague the discordant household.  But he may just be too good to be true ….

The music in this film is delightful (lyrics by Kaifi Azmi, Shabana's father), and so is the very young Jaya Bhaduri as the downtrodden and neglected daughter whom Raghu brings out of her shell.  Jaya went on to become a big star, and also married Amitabh Bachchan, arguably the biggest star ever in Hindi cinema. 

Comments

[Manohar]

Rajesh Khanna's the superstar of india acting in Bawarchi is so great and its touching the millions viewers. He is a great actor and real superstar of india.

[carla]

Yes, I am thinking that I need to see some of Rajesh's famous superstar roles - other than Bawarchi I haven't seen much of him yet.

[Daddy's Girl]

I like Rajesh Khanna (loved him in 'Aradhana', but he kind of bugged me in this movie... but maybe I was missing some kind of context (the language gap maybe - subtitles can only say so much). But, like you, I thought it was a sweet movie, and I always love Jaya Bhaduri. I blogged about it as part of a tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee films... please check out the post on my blog when you have a free sec.. would love to know what you think...

[V. Manohar]

Rajesh Khanna is the real and only superstar of indian cinema

[carla]

Thanks for your comment, V. Manohar - I can only say that I am glad it is your opinion and not a true fact, because I don't think I'd watch much Hindi cinema if my only choice were Rajesh Khanna.

[madhurima]

The more-than-occassional-heavily-underlined moralising by Khanna is quite tolerable in this movie. It is well balanced by the more cynical members of the family.

[Veer]

For an extraordinary movie like Bawarchi you wrote such a small review....and you tore Anand into pieces.......I suspect you saw/read the subtitles than actually heard/understood the dialogues.....correct me if i am wrong.....Bawarchi and Anand are basically "dialogue" movies and one need to know the nuances of hindi/urdu to understand the full essence of it.....just not the visuals.......Its another matter that in a Rajesh Khanna movie he is "The Visual". For me, both Anand and Bawarchi are heady combination of Rajesh khanna the visual and Gulzar/Hrishida the dialogue writer/Director....

[carla]

Thanks for your comments, Veer. I regret that I had to give such short shrift to Bawarchi, which I very much enjoyed. It was one of the earliest Hindi films I saw, long before I started writing reviews, and so I never wrote a full review of it and even if I had, at the time, I didn't have even the relatively small amount of knowledge and experience I have now to place it in its context and understand it.

I do appreciate Gulzar and Hrishikesh Mukherjee movies greatly, as much as I can given the obvious limitations of my perspective, some of which you have identified. I hope my other reviews reflect that respect I have for their work. Anand is, sadly, an exception, a film I really did not care for, and again I hope my review explains that with respect for the fact that reasonable minds can differ.