Movie Review: Masoom

Masoom was an old Hindi movie which I rewatched in my current phase of watching alternative Bollywood cinema (or as my brother puts it Ronu-Dhonu cinema). Masoom was made by Shekar Kapur in 1982 as a serious movie (and hence part of the alternative movie genre), I remember the song Lakdi Ki Kathi which used to be on TV all the time, so cannot be so much of a non-commercial movie. It has the usual required 5 songs (all of which are really nice) of Bollywood cinema.

The story is an old story(new to Bollywood, maybe), based on a script by Gulzar. Naseeruddin Shah is DK Malhotra, a successful architect, married to Shabana Azmi, Indu. They have two kids, the older of them is Urmila Matondkar, Pinki and the younger one is an annoying little cute brat, Minni. They lead a very happy life, when one fine day DK gets a letter notifying him he has a son in Nainital whose mother died and he is responsible for him now. Then it is the story of how he deals with the consequence of a one night stand from 8 years back blowing up his happy married life. The boy is Rahul, Jugal Hansraj, who has to come and live them and get snubbed by a very distraught Indu who does not know what to do, when her whole foundation of love in her marriage is shattered. Of course she has to take it out on the kid who reminds her of her husband's infidelity. It is a movie of how they all deal with Rahul and finally of course accept him.

The acting of course is excellent and it is a nice movie to watch. Urmila Matondkar is very obviously Urmila. Jugal Hansraj is a cute version of the annoying pain he is now. Maybe the songs are actually not all that good but I have heard it so many zillions of times that I have no choice but to like it. But all in all, indeed a refreshing movie to watch.