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Original name: Anand
English name: Joy
Year: 1971
Run time: 122mins
Language: Hindi
Type (Colour/ Black & white): Colour
Country: India
Director: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Producer: Hrishikesh Mukherjee, N. C. Sippy, Romu N. Sippy
Cast: Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Sumita Sanyal, Ramesh Deo, Seema Deo
Screenplay: Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, D. N. Mukherjee
Cinematographer: Jaywant Pathare
Editor: Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Music Composer: Salil Chowdhury
Costume Designer: M. R. Bhutkar, Mohan Pardesi
Production Company: Rupam Chitra
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By no means is he any glamorous director, yet Hrishikesh Mukherjee is one of the most popular and beloved filmmakers in Indian cinema. His magic lay not in the glamor or largeness so often associated with cinema, but in its simplicity and warmth. He began his career in Bombay, 1951, as an editor and assistant director to Bimal Roy, another great director himself. His first directorial venture, Musafir (1957), centering on an old house where three unrelated stories dealing with birth, marriage and death occur in a series, was a disaster. But director Raj Kapoor was impressed and strongly recommended Hrishida as director for Anari (1959). Starring Kapoor himself and Nutan, the film was a critical and commercial success.His next film, Anuradha (1960), about an idealistic doctor who neglects his wife to focus on his work, got him the President's Medal Award. But from then on throughout the 1960s decade, none of Hrishida films were particularly distinguishable, barring Asli-Naqli (1962), a Muslim melodrama; Anupama (1966), which was based on a true incident; Aashirwad (1968), a family drama; and Satyakam (1969), about an idealist seeing his dreams crumble after Indian independence.
This multi-handkerchief film about a dying cancer patient whose infectious joie de vivre transforms the lives of those around him was one of the most successful of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s “middle class” films (see notes on ANARI, 1959), and helped Rajesh Khanna establish the character of the fast-talking-but-lovable interloper that he was to deploy (more endearingly, in my view) in BAWARCHI (1972). Fondly regarded in India as a heartwarming tear-jerker, it buttresses a human interest story (on the order of the old Reader’s Digest “My Most Unforgettable Character” series) with the pathos of a losing battle with cancer, a fascination with new medical technology (Anand receives radiation treatments), often witty dialog, and a parade of cameos by veteran cinema luminairies Durga Khote, Johnny Walker, and Dara Singh. The film is dedicated to “the city of Bombay” (which however is not seen much except in the credit sequence) and to Raj Kapoor—a more plausible connection, since the title character’s brand of manic bonhomie suggests the overbearing screen persona for which Kapoor was famous. Anand, at least, has the excuse that he’s terminally ill and trying to drink life to the dregs, and he occasionally reflects on his own behavior—as when he remarks to his physician early in the film, “Whether you live seventy years or six months, life needs to be big, it doesn’t need to be long.”
