Gunga Jumna

The songs in the film are part of the story. For instance the song 'dhoondho, dhoondho re sajna more kaan ka bala' is a sensuous one, that narrates how the heroine lost her virginity on the first night of her wedding. Take any of the songs, none are out of place, and all compliment their respective situations beautifully. They are shot, choreographed, and performed excellently. Camera work of the film is world class, and so is the sound design. Bollywood films of today, touted as technically superior, cannot match the sensibility and detailing of this one on various technical parameters. I wish we would have had more respect for our mainstream cinema and had not run down our cinematic tradition of using songs and dances and our lyrical romanticism.

Ganga Jumna is truly a world-class film and its characterization is real and the film represented its time and place more realistically than the Bollywood films of today that are seemingly set in India but have very little to do with Indian reality. It is a great entertainer and it also delivers important and relevant messages. This is one of the few films that even showcases that even dacoits followed certain moral code. In one of the scenes when Ganga hits Dhanno, the other dacoits castigate him for hitting a woman. Had the film been marketed well worldwide, it could have won the applause and approval of cinema lovers and aficianados all over the world for its cinematic qualities. While we are celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema, this film is worth our remembrance.