manoharv2001 says:
Khamoshi (1969) is a movie perhaps best known for its beautiful, haunting songs… composed by Hemant Kumar, written by Gulzar. When I watched the movie recently, I realised what a travesty it was to associate the movie only with its music. It is such a beautifully complex, moving film….with one of the most powerful female characters that I’ve ever come across in cinema, right at the centre of it.

DIRECTOR - ASIT SEN (Directed this movie first in Bengali, in 1959).

CAST - Waheeda Rehman, Super Star Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Nasir Hussain, Ifteqaar, Deven Verma.


PLOT -
Radha (Waheeda Rehman) is a psychiatric nurse who works in the National Institute of Psychoanalysis, headed by a psychiatrist called “Colonel” (actor- Nasir Hussain). The institute treats patients with all kinds of mental illness, with different methods, including experimental ones. With the help of Radha, the Colonel has just successfully treated a patient Dev (Dharmendra), who suffered a breakdown following a failed love affair. The experimental treatment consists of the nurse taking the place of the most important woman in the patient’s life, nurturing him like a mother, being a companion to him like a lover would be- basically helping him re-establish his faith in women, as well as in himself.

To the Colonel, this treatment method involves good “acting” skills from his nurse…so she can enact her role well, help the patient and cure him, and then move on with her professional duties. But is that the way Radha sees it? What if, while nurturing Dev, she actually falls in love with him, what if she is no longer able to maintain the difference between her professional life and her personal feelings, what if Dev gets well and moves on without feeling the same way about her? That is what happens and Radha is devastated. She does not tell anyone about her emotional attachment to Dev and tries to get on with the rest of her duties at the hospital.

However, the Colonel, now overjoyed at the “success” of his experiment, all too eager to get accolades and make a name for himself amongst his peers with his novel method, takes on another patient Arun (Super Star Rajesh Khanna), a poet and a writer. Arun, like Dev, is also suffering from a severe psychiatric condition, the after-effects of being rejected by his lover Sulekha. Arun is extremely paranoid about all women, getting physically aggressive and abusive towards them.

Initially, Radha refuses to help the Colonel with the treatment, although she doesn’t tell him why. The nurse used in her place, is not particularly effective, lacking the maturity and the experience. Eventually, Radha does take over the case, her professional ethic winning over her emotions, as well as her fear of history repeating itself. She establishes rapport with Arun, being firm yet affectionate with him, and soon he starts blossoming under her attention. This was one of the super hit movie in 1969 of Super Star Rajesh Khanna.