Gulzar's beautiful film Mausam (loosely based on A.J. Cronin's The Judas Tree) comes closest to portraying the prostitute as the no-nonsense professional she is in real life. Kajli, the prostitute in Mausam, bears an uncanny resemblance to Mary (Bette Davis), one of the five prostitutes in Warner Brothers' Marked Woman.

This film was based on the sensational court case of New York on June 6, 1936 in which Charles "Lucky" Luciano was convicted on 61 counts of compulsory prostitution, ending one of the nation's biggest vice investigations. It is as if Kajli (of Mausam) is saying that prostitution will always exist in a capitalist society, of which one necessary facet is the economic and social repression of women. Therefore, there can be neither ‘cure’ for nor end to the trade in women regardless of the number or the intensity of anti-vice investigations.

Writes Anuradha Warrier on Mausam in Conversations over Chai, (14th March 2016): “My usual problem with Gulzar's films - and I honestly have liked many of them - is that while he did tell women's stories, I always got the feeling that they were narrated through the prism of a man's perspective. (Here, too, while the story is Chanda's and later, Kajli's, most of it is told from the perspective of Gill (Sanjeev Kumar) Gulzar's women, while sensitively picturised, were paradoxically very traditional in their attitudes. (Here, too, Kajli breaks down in the end - 'Main adhoori nahin rehna chaahti.') I suppose one could argue that there are women like that, but I've never been able to watch a Gulzar movie without mentally bracing myself for an attitude I cannot get behind.”

Sharmila Tagore won the National Award for her performance in the film in a double role – of mother and daughter. When the grown daughter makes her appearance on screen, the mother, gone completely insane when she believes her lover Dr. Gill has betrayed her, is already dead. When Dr.Gill who had failed to come to marry Chanda (the mother) returned to the hill station after many years, looking out for Chanda, he learns that she is dead and had left behind a daughter following her marriage to a local man who also, was dead.

Kajri, the daughter, trafficked into prostitution, meets Dr. Gill as he goes........

© Mathrubhumi English