Synopsis
Rattan Kumar Choudhury (Kishore Kumar)stays with his widowed
mother (Achala Sachdev) and sick sister, Umi (Noor) in the
village. He is waiting for his college results and dreams
about the day when he has a job and a house and can look after
his family. Rattan passes his BA and leaves for Calcutta where
his father's colleague had promised him a job where his father
had worked. In Calcutta he takes up boarding in a lodge where
he is neighbour to three other uneducated youth in the 'Bekar'
wing of the lodge. At his father's office he finds out the
manager has given the job to a relative. Rattan doesn't give
up and perseveres applying wherever he can. His sister, suffering
from TB is put on the waiting list at the sanitarium. Meanwhile
in Calcutta Ratan also finds love with Seema (Shiela Ramani)
who stays in the house in the next compound much to her father's
disapproval. Rattan struggles to get a job but to no avail.
One day even as he gets the news that his sister has been
accepted at the sanitarium, he gets a telegram informing of
her death. One of the other youth in the lodge, Shankar, tries
to kill himself but Rattan stops him. Shankar gets a job later
and is grateful to Rattan. Rattan finally gets a job in Bombay.
He sends his appointment letter to Seema's father to prove
he has now got a job but the old man tears up the letter and
now Rattan has to leave for Bombay but he cannot remember
the name of the company Rattan reaches Bombay and ultimately
does make his way to the company. He gets the job but one
day takes up the side of an old employee and the manager fires
him. Seema runs away from Calcutta to be with Rattan in Bombay.
He cannot bring himself to tell her he is jobless. He tries
to commit suicide but Seema stops him and they decide they
will face life together…
The film
 In
Bimal
Roy's films we see a romantic idealist
to whom any form of exploitation - social,
religious or economic was unacceptable.
If Do Bigha
Zameen (1953) looked at the heart-rending
plight of a farmer displaced from his land
and Sujata (1959)
touchingly looked at the plight of
an untouchable girl, one film that sensitively
looked at the dreams and aspirations of
the educated youth getting shattered as
they struggled in the urban jungle for employment
was Naukri. Naukri sees Bimal
Roy tackle yet another social problem in
his usual impeccable and heartfelt manner.
The film in a sense continues from where
Do Bigha Zameen left off particularly
in the sequences as we see Rattan in the
city. Many of the same locations of Calcutta
that Bimalda used in Do Bigha Zameen
are repeated in Naukri and Jagdeep
even makes a cameo as Lalu Ustad reprising
his role in the earlier film.
Naukri
is one of the earliest films where Kishore
Kumar first gained prominence. Since
his madcap comic persona had not yet developed
totally and working with a director like
Bimalda, Naukri sees an extremely
sincere, sensitive and restrained performance
from him. Kishore Kumar is totally at home
be it the more serious scenes in the film
or even in the comic scenes. The comic scenes
however are not the typical slapstick Kishore
scenes but lighthearted and gentle like
most Bimal Roy scenes and bring a smile
to one's lips rather than uproarious laughter.
The germs are obviously there for Kishore's
developing personality as a madcap comedian.
The scene where he sings out his dialogue
is something he often did in real life himself!
Bimal
Roy was one filmmaker who traveled deeply
inside the mind of the woman and created
memorable characters be it the title role
in Sujata or Kalyani in Bandini
(1963). However with Naukri being
an out and out Kishore Kumar film the heroine's
role is not that well sketched out as it
could have been and Sheila Ramani is admittedly
a bit weak in her performance. But then
she was naturally a glamourous star who
acted as the vamp in Taxi Driver (1954)
and was Dev
Anand's heroine in Funtoosh (1956)
and doesn't really look the simple girl
next door. But then Bimal Roy was known
to cast actors against their set image and
often successfully. Even earlier in Do
Bigha Zameen he cast a westernised Balraj
Sahni as the peasant Shambhu and Nirupa
Roy known for mythological films as his
wife. In Baap Beti (1954) he cast
the swashbuckling hero Ranjan in an emotional
role as the father and in Parakh (1960),
he cast Sadhana
as a simple village girl soon after she
wowed the country with her glamour in Love
In Simla (1960). To her credit Sheila
Ramani does try hard but…
In
the supporting cast, special mention must
be made of Kanhaiyalal. Generally cast as
a slimy 'seth' or moneylender or a crooked
pundit, he makes the most of his positive
role as the servant in the lodge Hari who
tries to help out Rattan any which way he
can, be it lying to the men from whom Rattan
has hired a typewriter to type out his application
by telling them he isn't there or even helping
him out financially. And it is interesting
to see Mehmood in an early bit part as a
small time pickpocket in Bombay.
Naukri is full of Bimal Roy's expert
little touches as he perfectly captures
the desperation of the Indian youth wanting
to earn a respectable livelihood for their
families and themselves. In a memorable
sequence albeit inspired from The Good
Earth (1937), Rattan finding out that
a man has committed suicide and overhearing
that he worked in a particular office goes
running over there as if his life depended
on it because he now believes a vacancy
is there...only to be told that the man
killed himself because he was fired...
Bimal
Roy was a master of the use of irony in
his films. In Do Bigha Zameen Shambu
stands outside his land and is not allowed
to take even mud from there, in Bandini
when everything was going wrong he cut to
images of the sentry saying Sab Theek
hai. Similarly in Naukri, you
cannot help but cry silently with Rattan
when he receives the news of his sister's
death along with a letter from a sanitarium
telling him there is a vacancy and she can
now be admitted there. And as Bimal Roy
was a realistic filmmaker whose films mirror
the very images of life, even as he tackled
social issues close to his heart, his stories
by and large stuck to realistic endings.
In Do Bigha Zameen Shambhu
is unable to retrieve his land, In Bandini
Kalyani chooses a life of hardship with
Bikas Babu rather then with the doctor.
Similarly Naukri too ends with Seema
and Rattan deciding to face life together
rather than a all is well kind of happy
ending. What life has in store for them
- is left to the viewer's imagination.
The
music in the film is by Salil Choudhury
with lyrics by Shailendra. The music of
Naukri is more situational rather
than populist but one song Naukri is best
remembered for and did become extremely
popular was the optimistic Kishore solo
Chhota sa Ghar Hoga. The other songs
of the film include Jhoome ri Kali
wherein Seema feels the first flush of love,
a song rendered perfectly in her unique
manner by Geeta
Dutt, Ek Chotti si Naukri ka Talapdar
Hoon Main, the sad O Man Re and
Arzi Humari Marzi Humari. The last
mentioned deserves special mention for its
writing as well as picturisation. The song
is beautifully double layered as Rattan
talks about his job applications as well
as gets his feelings across to Seema through
the song. The music aside, special mention
must be made of the song picturisations.
The songs are picturised very simply in
the smallest of locations like the lodge
or Seema in her room and have a far greater
impact as they go with the film's story.
Perhaps our filmmakers and choreographersof
today could learn a thing or two as all
they can think of is running off to some
exotic location with 200 dancers doing PT
steps!
On
the technical side, the film is greatly
enhanced by Kamal Bose's simple yet evocative
camerawork, Sudhendu Roy's art direction
and Hrishikesh
Mukherjee's fine editing.
Naukri,
released in 1954, looks at a very real problem
that exists in our country even now - that
of umemployment . However whenever one goes
through Bimalda's filmography or even discusses
his social films Naukri is hardly
ever mentioned with Do Bigha Zameen,
Sujatha and Bandini taking
center stage which is a real pity because
Naukri is a film of considerable
merit and as good a film as any that Bimal
Roy has made.
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