The musical saga of love and friendship ‘Baiju Bawra’ was screened on the second day of Ekagra film festival.
The fest is being organised by Chhavi series of classical cinema, Bharat Bhavan under which the musical movies of Hindi cinema are being screened.
Baiju Bawra is a 1952 Hindi movie directed by Vijay Bhatt. It stars Bharat Bhushan and Meena Kumari.
The movie is based on the legend of Baiju Bawra from the days of Mughal Emperor Akbar in India. Baiju (Bhushan) is the son of a musician who also grows up to be a musician. He comes to believe that Tansen, the famed musician at the court of Akbar, is responsible for his father's death.
The movie then follows Baiju's attempt to avenge his father's death by challenging Tansen to a musical duel. While he aspires to avenge his father’s death, he falls in love with a village girl Gauri (Meena Kumari) who he leaves behind waiting and goes to Akbar’s court to challenge Tansen. Akbar then arranges the competition which is won by Baiju and Tansen accepts his failure.
Even though there were many changes in the storyline from the original life of Baiju Bawra, the film was both a commercial and critical success and catapulted both its lead actors into stardom.
Meena Kumari went on to win the first-ever Filmfare Best Actress Award in 1954, the first of four Best Actress trophies she won in her career. The film's music director, Naushad, also received the inaugural Filmfare Best Music Director Award for the song "Tu Ganga Ki Mauj"; this was Naushad's first and only Filmfare Award win.
Though the filmy buffs were noticed at the fest, the Ekagra film fest received a satisfactory response on the second day. The fest is being organised for five days and various musical classical movies will be screened there.