Community feeling (Biradari)

There is a magnanimous old woman, who is forever kind to her poor and helpless tenants. There is a handsome young man who is impressed with her affectionate behaviour when he comes to live in the same chawl. There is a sweet love story that brews between him and the old lady's attractive daughter. There are the simple and funny neighbours who keep the halcyon atmosphere intact. There is the big builder who is scheming to get the building to himself, there are misunderstandings, songs and dances and everything that a chawl film should have. Yet, Biradari comes across as pretty unconventional.

And that is solely because the director, Ram Kamlani, paints the heroine in grey shades. She becomes the instrument with which the wicked builder starts ruining everyone's happiness here. And things go awry to such an extent that for once you start hating this pretty yet impulsive girl. Towards the end, she appears extremely selfish and even goes to the extent of striking her mother off to attain happiness for herself. She is gullible, foolish, irrational and doesn't bother to think. Now, in 1966 when heroines played only safe and good roles, this is a rare deviation from the ordinary for the leading lady. And, what a choice for this role. Faryal is simply perfect as Seema. She is part sweet, part sour, sometimes loving and sometimes mean. In totality she is the exact opposite to her do-gooder mother. Even when she declares her undying love for Rajan, she is not ready to accept her defeat. She is stubborn, juvenile and egotistic. And in my opinion, it couldn't be more unconventional than this.
From the very beginning you witness an evil streak in Seema. When she instigates her mother to force the poor tenants to cough up their rents, you know that soon she will soon make this a huge issue. Here is her mother who is the owner of this property but such is her soft temperament that she doesn't seem to summon up enough toughness to extract the rents from her tenants. In fact, whenever they are in trouble she goes all out to help them with money. So, naturally the tenants love and respect her very much.
Though initially Seema sees this behaviour of her mother as merely irritating, when it gets too much she starts being harsh and unreasonable. And to some extent, cruel. Then when she suspects her lover of having an affair with Radha, the young wife of Murari (David), the crippled old man, she storms into the scene demanding Murari to vacate the room if he cannot pay his rents. Seema is impatient, unreasonable and impulsive for sure. But then, she never lies about her affections for Rajan (Shashi Kapoor), whom she loves so very much. And, she leaves no stone unturned to let him know that no matter what she loves him dearly.
This naivete of Seema's is misused by Bihari (Pran). He gulls her to get an entry into the chawl and makes her believe that these poor tenants are mere slackers who are better off outside the property and that he would help her to rid the place of these 'parasites'. He convinces her that she too would live a comfortable life, full of riches, if she follows his advices. And being the gullible youngster that she is, Seema tows Bihari's line.

But Rajan and his cronies will not take things so easy. He makes life hell for Bihari, pulling his leg whenever there is chance and teaching him a lesson or two one after the other. They spoil his housewarming party with the madcap Tum jo ho so ho, and spoil his dapper suit with the Holi song, Aa ra ra ra ra (Fun music by Chitragupta and great renditions by all singers, namely Manna Dey, Mohd Rafi, Suman Kalyanpur and Asha Bhonsle). In the midst we of course have the beautiful ghazal, Abhi na phero nazar (Shashi Kapoor looks earth-shatteringly handsome and Faryal looks blissfully attractive).
In a film like this you obviously know that things will turn out to be happy towards the end. And here too it is no different. But the activities throughout are extremely engaging. For instance, the exchanges between the landlady (Lalita Pawar) and her tenants are heartwarming. She is a strict woman with a heart of gold. And Pawar can never go wrong with that. David isn't given much scope. Same with Nana Palsikar.
Shashi Kapoor plays Rajan, the shoe seller, who comes to live in the chawl and becoming one of the family here. Kapoor is not just good looking but he is very natural with his expressions. But, there are times when he looks too good for Faryal. For Kapoor is sweet and has a boyish charm. Sometimes that looks a little out-of-place when Faryal is around. She does look very mature before him. Even though she has a tinkling voice that she infuses with a lot of mellowness, you cannot discard that she has this screaming sexuality about her. The charm she unfurled in her later films!!

The subplot focuses on these two men called Chandu Rotiwaley and Rammurthy Doodhwaley. And, they are simply hilarious. Never knew Kanhaiyalal had a comic streak in him. But then even when he played wicked roles they used to be lipsmacking. Here he is a good-natured milk seller who is loving, caring and depends solely on the breadseller. In return the breamseller Chandu, played by the inimitable Mehmood, loves him too. Mehmood is ribtickling. He makes the funniest faces and utters the funniest one-liners. The film, with a good storyline, nice music and an able cast, becomes all the more rollicking because of the histrionics of these two comedians. Do watch this please...