70 years of Awara: Raj Kapoor and Nargis's classic drama on family and redemption

Awara (1951), which was a landmark film for Raj Kapoor and his banner RK Films, was the first collaboration between writer KA Abbas and the actor-filmmaker. The film was initially offered to Mehboob Khan, but Raj Kapoor knew he had to make this film.

The feature became a family affair of sorts, as Raj cast his father Prithviraj as judge Raghunath and his youngest brother Shashi Kapoor (credited as Shashiraj) as his character’s younger self in childhood. His grandfather D Basheshernath, Prithviraj’s father, also has a cameo in the film.

Awara’s story involves a lot of pride and prejudice, especially coming from the high and mighty judge who banishes his wife Leela (Leela Chitnis) when she is expecting their first child because she had been abducted by the fearful Jagga Daku (KN Singh), who has a score to settle with Raghunath. His son Raj grows up in dire conditions and takes to stealing and a life of crime to survive.

In a twist everyone sees coming, it is Jagga who makes sure the honourable judge’s son grows up this way. Awara is also a complicated tale of revenge that pits father against son on opposite sides of the law in court. There is also a poignant love story featuring Raj’s childhood friend Rita (Nargis) who represents hope and the good he aspires to achieve in the world. He aims to be respectable once Rita re-enters his life but fails miserably.

In the book, Raj Kapoor: The One and Only Showman, the filmmaker stated: 'Awara came at a time when films were of a totally different nature. We still had remnants of British imperial dominance and we wanted a new social order. I tried to create a balance between entertainment and what I had to say to the people. Awara had everything. It had the theme of class distinction. It had the greatest juvenile romantic story wrapped up in the poverty that the post-Independence era had inherited. It bloomed like a lotus in the mud and it went to people as something they had never seen before.'

He continued, ‘Could this ever happen to a young man in such circumstances? With a song on his lips and a flower in his hand he went through all the ordeals that socio-economic disruptions could bring about. The change that the people wanted, they saw in the spirit of the young man who was the vagabond, the ‘awara’. Awara celebrates the innocence of the Republic, newly born, learning to cope with the difficult world.’

The film has a socialist message and is an impassioned plea against the ills of the time, from unemployment and class struggles to corruption and greed. Played by the enigmatic Prithviraj, judge Raghunath is a man who allows himself to be led by his prejudices and comes to regret them too late. The chemistry between Raj and Nargis is also electric as soulmates who reunite as adults.

Awara is loaded with metaphors and analogies of themes the film explores. Just like Sita, Leela’s virtue is under scrutiny. Raj also adds an elaborate song sequence revolving around his dreams where his character wrestles with his conscience, with Nargis's Rita representing all that is good and kind.

Raj's character was influenced by Charlie Chaplin and his iconic character of the Tramp; in later films Raj he would continue to explore this ‘awara’ on screen.

All these years later, Awara still holds up. Raj was working with his core team, from music directors Shankar-Jaikishan and lyrcists Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri to cinematographer Radhu Karmakar and writer VP Sathe. Of course, there was also Nargis, with whom he made his most memorable features.

The song ‘Awara Hoon’ travelled far and wide to represent India and her cinema at the time and is still remembered by fans in Russia, China and West Asia. In the documentary on his work, award-winning Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke even recalled the film's influence on him as the feature was one of the first foreign films to be released in China. Jia can be found humming ‘Awara Hoon’ in the Walter Salles documentary Jia Zhangke: A Guy From Fenyang (2014).

Shankar-Jaikishan’s other gems from the film include 'Ek Do Teen' featured on the dancer Cuckoo, the romantic duet 'Dam Bhar Jo Udhar Munh Phere' by Mukesh and Lata Mangeshkar, and 'Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi'.

The scenes between father and son, knowingly and unknowingly, are the highlight of the film, and when the virtuous Rita, as the only female lawyer in the court, steps up to defend Raj, the film scores high marks emotionally as the truth is unveiled slowly but surely.

The film’s description in the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema states, “This was also [Raj] Kapoor’s first fairy-tale treatment of class division in India, whose nexus of authority (power, patriarchy and law) explicitly excludes the hero. It’s main tenet, presented through Raghunath, is the feudal notion of status: ‘the son of a thief will always be a thief’.

At 27, Raj attempted to make his own classic inspired by international filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Cesare Zavattini whose films he saw. He called Awara, which he made after the success of Barsaat (1949), an ‘exciting intellectual adventure’ and said it was his ‘earliest fashioning of a sort of "universal humanity" symbol’.

The Indian film was among the movies that competed at the Cannes Film Festival for the Grand Prix in 1953.