Today I watched one of my favourite movies - Masoom....it was in a way my way of re-living childhood days....... I had seen the movie when I was a child.... and danced innumerable times to the song 'Lakdi ki katti'..... I used to envy the children in that movie because they were always so well dressed and thin! Almost believing that the 'moti' they refer to in th emovie was me!! so much for complexes......other than these silly things I dont remember anything much of the movie.... and hence I decided to watch it again...

and this time the subtle messages were obvious to me... the question of infidility... the illegitimate child.... the relationship between the husband and wife... everything.... the movie is fantastically made by Shekhar Kapur and at every scene he manages to capture the emotions very very well.... as an adult I now understand what the movie was alll about....

Having said that I just could not help but notice the gender biases in the movie... for instance Nasseruddin Shah has 2 daughters in the movie... and his friends constantly chide him about how he doesnt have a son... and the protagonist also keeps wishing for a son.... when he has two very smart intelligent daughters.... and that is somehow used to explain that accepting the illegimate son is good... so that the void of a son can be fulfilled... I wonder whether in modern times this would be acceptable.... for instance what if the illegitimate child was a girl?? would the movie have been differently made?? also there is one character played by Tanuja who is shown as a career woman... at first she is shown as a cigarrett puffing career woman... who is always bold and abrasive... and who speaks her mind but does not fit into society....and ofcourse her husband has left her for another woman! I mean if that was not there in the movie then the movie would not have been complete at all... so a woman cannot be a bold, speak her mind and smoke a ciggy without her husband leaving her..... tch tch... will women never learn?? that seems to be what the movie is asking.....forgive all indiscretions of the man and stay together as a family.........

Its all about the joy of the movies!