Raj Kapoor@100: His films, portrayal of women and the wrinkles of time

New Delhi: He started with Aag in 1948 and ended with Ram Teri Ganga Maili in 1985, one praised for its portrayal of a man in search for the woman of his dreams and the other panned by some for its male gaze. In the 37 years in between, Raj Kapoor directed 10 films and produced many, each in its own way burnishing the showman image.

"As filmdom, fans and family celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of Raj Kapoor, amongst the most impactful in the history of Indian cinema, it was also time to wonder - have his films wrinkled with time or stood the test of the decades in an ever changing India? Yes, they have. Just like fine wine," said film historian SMM Ausaja, who sees 100 years of Raj Kapoor as a "momentous" occasion for the Hindi film industry.

"His films had a message and got the social issues right. That is the reason why they were also popular outside India, especially in the Russian republic. Those were the days of socialism and Nehruvian socialism. And his father Prithviraj Kapoor was close to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru," Ausaja told PTI.

Raj Kapoor, who would have been 100 on December 14, made his first film Aag when he was just 24.

It was the year after Independence and the young filmmaker mirrored many of the preoccupations of a young nation in the films that followed.

The burning passion of the Hindi cinema pioneer, inspired by his father Prithviraj Kapoor, led to the birth of RK Studios that year.

The banner's films, starting with Aag and going on to Awara, Barsaat, Jagte Raho, Mera Naam Joker, Bobby and Ram Teri Ganga Maili, chronicled the different phases of a filmmaker in tune with an India on the move. All his films are remembered for their music.

There has been a dramatic change in the times, socialism is no longer considered a viable option and consumerism is considered a valuable activity, said sociologist Sanjay Srivastava.

"Hindi films since the 1990s reflect these themes. It is not that Raj Kapoor's films have aged badly but that Indian society has aged differently," Srivastava told PTI.

"Most of his films were heroine oriented. Look at the bravery of this man that he launched his son Rishi Kapoor in a film called 'Bobby'. Which producer in the world will do this?" Ausaja asked.

The 1973 teen romance, which catapulted newcomers Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia, playing the titular role in "Bobby" into stardom, was a runaway hit.

Despite suffering a "colossal disaster" in the ambitious, pensive Mera Naam Joker (1970), Raj Kapoor bounced back three years later with Bobby, which the veteran filmmaker helmed when he was 50, said his grandson Ranbir Kapoor.

"He had the courage to make a film with newcomers, a 50-year-old man making a film for the youth. That means that he really kept up with the times. He was not somebody who was high up in his ivory tower. He was constantly in touch with the common man," Ranbir said at a retrospective of the showman at the recent International Film Festival of India (IFFI).

He remembered Raj Kapoor as someone who "constantly took risks and pushed the boundaries" of cinema.

"Raj Kapoor, the filmmaker, always explored different themes at different times of his life. If you see his earlier films, like Awara was based on casteism. If you see Shree 420, he spoke about greed and the underprivileged trying to make something of their lives.” "He made films with strong Indian moral values, spoke about society in such an honest and a frank way, while making it really commercial and really entertaining," the actor said.

According to film historian Amrit Gangar, Raj Kapoor infused "modernist" ethos into the veins of the history of Indian cinema and that's what keeps his films relevant. "Raj Kapoor had a wonderful sense of rhythm and music which substantially contributed to the non-ageing of his films. To my mind, Raj Kapoor's films in his birth centenary year, still remain evergreen, brimming with youthful modernism always in tension with feudal mindsets," Gangar told PTI.

Awara, which became a legend in the erstwhile Soviet Union and even in today's Russia, Boot Polish and Shree 420 were made on the themes of subalternity and humanism. Sangam, Bobby, and Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Ram Teri Ganga Maili explored sensuality and erotica.

Some of his films like Jagte Raho are still relevant in as much as they are deeply concerned with middle-class hypocrisies and self-serving morality, said Srivastava.

"In many ways, Raj Kapoor held up a mirror to the hypocrisies of Indian life - and did it in a way that had mass appeal - and that is why they remain relevant," he said.

When it comes to women characters in his cinema, Raj Kapoor has both admirers and naysayers.

While his narratives always centred around the heroine, the veteran filmmaker also courted controversy with many criticising him for showing his heroines through a titillating lens. The most controversial being actor Mandakini's scenes of breastfeeding and bathing in a transparent saree under a waterfall in Ram Teri Ganga Maili and Zeenat Aman’s village girl look in Satyam Shivam Sundaram.

"His vision of the woman in white, which started with Nargis till Ram Teri Ganga Maili was also something unique. He faced a lot of criticism when he put the woman in a white saree under the waterfall.

"Even if you look at the original posters of his early films, there is a marked difference between his presence and Nargis' on the posters. Nargis was far bigger in size on the posters. She was also a bigger star that time. Only a man who is not insecure could launch his son in a film which has a woman in a title role," added Ausaja.

Ranbir argued that Raj Kapoor made women-centric films, be it Prem Rog or Ram Teri Ganga Maili.

"If you see Prem Rog, he spoke about widow remarriage. If you talk about Ram Teri Ganga Maili, he compared the protagonist to River Ganga, how it starts so pure, and by the time it reaches down, because of society it becomes impure." For Gangar, Raj Kapoor's women characters were the "products of his imagination".

"They looked pious and progressive but inherently surrendered to the patriarch and the veiled male dominance. All the same, Raj Kapoor did bring in his own interpretation of femininity, its resoluteness and devotion, its beauty and purity.

"Raj Kapoor was an ingenuous showman and sensitive artist who was in search of both 'mother' and 'wife' in his women characters. He needed his Radha and also Yashoda at the same time. His women characters were complex and not simplistic," he said.

According to Srivastava, the women characters in Raj Kapoor's films --- say, those portrayed by Nargis -- represented the 'modern' woman trying to express an independence that women in Indian society were generally not allowed.

"What was particularly unusual was that the 'modern' woman in his films was not necessarily evil or (like the vamp portrayed by Helen) had to, eventually, die or be 'reformed' into a Sati-Savitri character."