When romantic drama Sangam was released on June 18, 1964, it became a huge blockbuster success. The love triangle, regularly listed as one of the greatest Bollywood movies ever made, had iconic moments, and influenced many filmmakers in subsequent decades.
The movie also had unforgettable songs, eyecatching international locations, and standout performances from lead stars Raj Kapoor, Vyjayanthimala and Rajendra Kumar.
Eastern Eye decided to celebrate the film’s 49th anniversary by presenting 20 interesting facts connected to it.
- The story of Sangam was penned by Inder Raj Anand during the making of Raj Kapoor’s directorial debut Aag (1948). Kapoor initially had planned the film as Gharonda in the late 40s, with himself, Dilip Kumar and Nargis in the lead roles. He revived that passion project as Sangam in the 1960s.
- Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor became huge stars after the release of record-breaking film Andaaz (1949), but never worked together again. Kapoor was keen on starring alongside Kumar in Sangam, which like Andaz was a love triangle, but he refused. Kapoor had even offered him the first choice of roles.
poster of the movie - Nargis rejected the female lead because she had retired from acting and broken her real-life relationship with Kapoor.
- Kapoor had narrated the Sangam story to Vyjayanthimala, telling her she would portray a character named Radha. After a while Kapoor sent a telegram to her, asking ‘Bol Radha bol yeh sangam hoga ya nahin?’ and she replied ‘Hoga, hoga, hoga’. That question and answer would inspire the film’s famous song Bol Radha Rol. It would be the last movie Kapoor would star in opposite her.
- The then relatively unknown Feroz Khan was promised the second lead if Rajendra Kumar had turned it down, but he didn’t. Khan was later cast in Arzoo (1965) with Rajendra Kumar, which was also a love triangle.
- Interestingly, hit 1961 movie Aas Ka Panchhi had a similar storyline of a military man returning to find the woman he loves has moved on, with Sangam leads Rajendra Kumar and Vyjayanthimala playing the two key roles.
Kumar with Vyjayanthimala - Hari Shivdasani played a supporting role in the movie. Shivdasani’s actress daughter Babita would later marry Raj Kapoor’s son Randhir, and their daughters are of course Karisma and Kareena Kapoor.
- Sangam was the first prominent Indian movie to feature the Indian air force. It was also the first Indian film to be shot around Europe at eye-catching locations and would inspire other Bollywood producers to do the same.
- The English-German song Ich Liebe Dich-I Love You by Vivian Lobo appeared in the film. It would later inspire Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) track Sun Sahiba Sun, a film Raj Kapoor also wrote and directed.
- The film’s song Bol Radha Bol would inspire the title of a 1992 movie starring Raj’s son Rishi Kapoor. Other Sangam songs that would later inspire film titles include Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega, Dost Dost Na Raha, O Mehbooba, Mujhe Budhha Mil Gaya and O Mere Sanam.
- Lata Mangeshkar didn’t like the lyrics of the song Mujhe Budhha Mil Gaya, which she sang and unsuccessfully tried to get them changed. She didn’t like how the song was picturised and refused to watch the movie. Speaking of Mujhe Budhha Mil Gaya, it was the first Bollywood film song where the heroine tried to seduce the hero with sensual outfits and dancing. The song blurred the lines between the heroine and vamp. Some analysts looked deeper and saw a metaphor of a young wife trying to arouse an older man.
- The songs were composed by music duo Shankar Jaikishan. Legend has it that Jaikishan had a falling out with lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri, who wrote him a letter with the lines ‘yeh mera prem patra, padhkar tum naraz na hona’, which was then turned into a song for the film.
- Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega was originally supposed to feature the vocals of Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh, and Mohammed Rafi. But Rafi and Mangeshkar were not on talking terms at the time, and Mahendra Kapoor was used instead.
Kapoor withVyjayanthimala - 14. Sangam was the first colour film featuring Kapoor and his last big success as a leading man.
- 15. Sangam was the first film actor and filmmaker Kapoor edited himself. He received a Filmfare Best Editing award and would edit all his subsequent films himself.
- At nearly four hours long, Sangam became the longest commercial movie released at the time. It was the first Hindi film to have two intervals. That didn’t stop it from becoming the highest grossing Bollywood film of that year.
- At the film’s premiere a fight broke out between Kapoor and the writer Inder Raj Anand. In the heated exchange Anand slapped Kapoor and he subsequently got the writer a Bollywood ban that resulted in him losing 18 films. This later caused the writer to have a heart attack and the two patched up.
- Sangam song Bol Radha Bol was declared as the best Bollywood song of 1964 by massively popular radio countdown show Binaca Geetmala.
- Mumbai’s famous Sangam cinema is named after the movie, as Kapoor was a frequent visitor.
- Sangam was remade in Telugu and Kannada languages as Swapna (1981). It was also remade in Turkish as Arkadasımın Askısın(1968)
poster of the movie
Kumar with Vyjayanthimala
Kapoor withVyjayanthimala
The actor’s evolving style from youth to maturity getty images
Aamir Khan embracing vintage looks with classic charmgetty images
Bold and dramatic changes defining Aamir Khan’s careergetty images
From rugged to refined Aamir Khan’s versatile appearancesgetty images
Memorable film moments showcasing Aamir Khan’s unique stylegetty images
Aamir Khan’s blend of classic and contemporary fashiongetty images
Aamir Khan’s dedication to authentic character portrayals getty images
Cinematic milestones reflected in Aamir Khan’s on-screen imagegetty images
A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5