Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Satyam uses it to guide women and inspire audiences while pretending to question society’s beauty standards

Satyam Shivam Sundaram tries to pretend to be the story of a woman played by Zeenat Aman. This woman has scars on her face in an accident, so she is perceived by society as ‘not very beautiful’, but she sexualizes the same woman all the time. The intention here is to provoke the audience, and the filmmaker’s gaze seems to come across as deeply disingenuous as the camera remains uncomfortably on Zeenat’s body. The plot revolves around a woman named Rupa who is considered unlucky by the townspeople because her mother died during childbirth. Scars on her face from her accident make her feel even worse. The film tells us that Rupa’s greatest talent is her luscious voice. This movie completely misunderstands the idea that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Raj Kapoor explained this in his own words to Vir Sanghvi, the anecdote cited in the latter’s autobiography A Rude Life. “Take a stone. It’s just a stone. But if you put a religious mark on it, it becomes a god. What matters is how you look at things. You hear a beautiful voice. But if it comes from an ugly girl.” It’s only later that you realize it’s a thing…” Kapoor said. I was very fixated on the idea that And while Kapoor may have pretended he was trying to portray lead lady Zeenat Aman as some sort of “ugly duckling,” his camera suggested otherwise. From the start, RK focuses on Zeenat’s exposed back and the translucent garment she is given to wrap herself in. I feel like I was As such, he made her a very religious figure. It’s to make the viewer feel like his mind is at rock bottom while he’s casually sage.

Shashi KapoorPlaying Rupa’s love interest in the film is shown to be the kind of man who appreciates only a woman’s looks and falls in love with a singer who roams the village with her face half-covered. When he marries her and sees her face, he can’t believe he’s the same Rupa. Thus begins the strangest stretch of the film. Shashi Kapoor He believes that he is having an affair with singer Rupa, who always sees him with his face half-hidden, but the wife of the house is a completely different woman. can’t believe it. His prejudice against his wife arises only because of her scarred face, and that prejudice casually comes out the window towards the end of the film. You will never actually achieve it.

At the time, Raj Kapoor casually confessed that his films were “for the masses” and had to make some “compromises”. Satyam Shivam Sundaram was one of the most expensive films of its time. In a 1977 interview, he told his Vir Sanghvi: The kind of budget for this film is that his one temple set where the character of Zeenat is often portrayed was made for his over 7 million rupees. So exactly what compromise was he referring to?

Kapoor talked about nudity in the film, particularly how the character of Zeenat is portrayed and the little blouse she was given to wear in the film. I’m talking like this. Some of the very conservative women said they were upset at first but calmed down after a while and the theme became a key focus of the film. You may have said that you know what you are doing. “Let them come see Zeenat’s girlfriend’s t*ts. They’ll forget her body and go out and remember the movie,” he said.

Zeenat Aman of Satyam Shivam Sundaram.

Actor and filmmaker Dev Anand, one of RK’s contemporaries and the man who gave Zeenat Aman his break in Hare Rama Hare Krishna, called it a “dirty movie.” As he commented to Sanvi, “This is a dirty movie. Did you notice that the camera keeps focusing on Zeenat’s body? Dirty!” The actor found Rupa’s costume a little uncomfortable.Vidya Sinha told Rediff.com in 2015 that she refused the film because she “didn’t like wearing the clothes that Zeenat Aman wore.” said. Hema Malini also rejected the film. In fact, RK’s daughter Ritu Nanda, in her book ‘Raj Kapoor Speaks’, said that the actor wanted to cast Lata Mangeshkar in the role of Rupa, and that Lata Didi was cast in the film. It’s not surprising that there weren’t.

The film has always tried to portray Zeenat as an object of desire and never feels as aesthetically pleasing as anyone would have hoped. It’s pretty clumsy that she’s suddenly shown in a fully covered costume, as the character is currently pregnant and sexualizing her maternal figure is clearly dangerous territory.

Satyam Shivam Sundaram was released in 1978 and was planned as an ambitious project for Raj Kapoor. Of course, the film elicited some strong reactions from not-so-liberal audiences at the time, but 44 years later, the film still tries to sexualize women in a “peek-through-the-window” way. I feel like I’m doing it. Always uncomfortable.