Another movie from the buzzing year 1975 but this time a refreshing comedy in the category of an Indian classic. With all the main course servings of 1975 like Deewar, Sholay and all, Chupke Chupke was like the proverbial sweet dish, an icing on the cake for the year.
Chupke Chupke is one more social comedy from the Hrishikesh Mukherjee stable with great direction, best actors of that era and melodious music. Based on Upendranath Ganguly’s Bengali tale ‘Chaddobeshi’, the dialogues were written wittingly by Gulzar. With a remarkable star cast of Dharmendra, Amitabh, Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bhaduri, Asrani, David, Om Prakash and Keshto Mukherjee, the film’s music is composed by Sachinda (Sachin Dev Burman).
Dr. Parimal Tripathi (Dharmendra) is a Professor of Botany, due to circumstances he doubles as a watchman to a Girls’ Botany camping group however his identity is exposed to Sulekha (Sharmila). Things develop to love between them and they get married. As Parimal, unlike any other serious professors is a fun loving person and likes to pull a fast one on people would love to test other’s intelligence. A specimen exactly of that sort is Sulekha’s dear brother-in-law Raghvendra (Om Prakash), Raghav for short, staying in Bombay who she is really in awe of and she gives Parimal the complexes while often mentioning about her brother-in-law, not missing any opportunity of praising the elderly gentleman’s wisdom and command over Hindi language.
As circumstances would have it Raghav is unable to attend their marriage and hence hasn’t seen Parimal. While Parimal and Sulekha receive an invitation from Raghav to visit him in Bombay, in the same letter he also asks Haripad (David) Sulekha’s brother to send a ‘pure Hindi speaking’ driver from Allahabad. This is an opportunity to check Raghav’s intelligence and put paid to his wife’s admiration for her genius ‘Jijajee’, it is decided that Parimal will go as the driver while Sulekha will follow him a few days later and it will be told that Parimal will come after a few days.
The fun now begins when Parimal impersonating as Pyare Mohan reaches Bombay and creates one situation after other for the overconfident fool that Raghav is. Sulekha arrives feigning discontent with her marriage and displaying affection for Pyare. This takes a toll on Raghav who is at his wits end when Sulekha runs away with Pyare and the fake Parimal i.e. Sukumar (Amitabh) lands in Bombay and demands to meet his wife. This merry-go-round goes on till the climax where Sukumar is married off to Vasudha (Jaya), Parimal’s friend P.K. Shrivastava’s (Asrani) sister-in-law. With more characters added to the melee in the end everything is sorted and revealed to the genius.
Chupke Chupke is a light comedy a la Hrishida style. It had a couple of hummable songs like ’Ab ke sajan sawan mein’ and the very funny Rafi and Kishore duet ‘Sa re ga ma’. The on-screen shenanigans keeps one in splits.
Some of the scenes were shot in Producer N.C. Sippy’s bungalow which is now known as ‘Jalsa’ – Amithabh’s bungalow. And also that Jaya was expecting thus the shots have been taken accordingly. Truly a much ado about nothing.
The comic timing of all the characters was brilliant and all have played their parts beautifully. Chupke Chupke can be seen whenever one is feeling low and lonely, it will surely perk up sagging spirits.
– Revisited by PAWAN GUPTA
