Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

Though each one of the music aficionados at one time or the other must have hummed the famous song, ‘Chalte Chalte mere yeh geet yaad rakhna…’ how many among us remember at all the name of the hero on which this song was picturised. It was on Vijay Anand the youngest sibling of the illustrious Anand family’s, Chetan, Dev and Vijay Anand. This in essence is the predicament of Vijay Anand who most of the times loomed in the background of his illustrious brothers, who had no less acumen in the art and craft of cinema, as it was his elder brothers.

If one were do a test check on the hit films that Dev Anand had in his career, in most of the cases it would be found that the person wielding the megaphone of the director would be Vijay Anand. Though he had a penchant for acting as well, he got his fame more as a director of the Hindi films than anything else. His romance with the Hindi films began when he wrote the story of TAXI DRIVER in 1954 and it is one of the milestones in the career of Dev Anand. NAU DO GYARAH followed it, which would be one of the few films in Hindi cinema being shot only in 40 days. It was also probably the second film where Delhi was used as a background, and probably the only film in which one song was picturised inside the rampant of Qutub Minar. TERE GHAR KE SAMNE followed NAU DO GYARAH, and then came KALA BAZAAR, which is the only film in which all the three brothers Chetan, Dev and Vijay Anand also acted together. One of the all time great movies of Shammi Kapoor was the film in which Vijay Anand had done the honors in holding the megaphone to direct the film. The swan song of Vijay Anand was GUIDE which gave him an international recognition, and he again returned to the genre of the noire or the criminal films, which he had successfully displayed his mettle in TEESRI MANZIL with JOHNY MERA NAAM. This was the first film during its times where sports as an activity was used as a backdrop to weave the theme of the film around. It was JOHNY MERA NAAM, which gave a new villain to the Hindi film industry, Prem Nath and started the era of glamorized vamps, Padma Khanna being the pioneer.

Though Vijay Anand's oeuvre has one of the most successful films of the Hindi film industry for all the times to come, he was no mean an actor as well, and this is manifest from the roles that he enacted in KORA KAGAZ and in MAIN TULSI TERE AANGAN KI.

Right from his TAXI DRIVER as a director Goldie Anand as he was popularly called, never repeated himself through any of his films. He always searched for novel issues to address, be it the dilemma of urban existence or the problems in a marriage or the dream to own a house for a newly married couple in a city, nearly all of his films form a part of the prominent milestones in the Hindi film industry. Vijay Anand can also stand out as a director who had the nose and a sense for music and be it TAXI DRIVER or JEWEL THIEF or TERE GHAR KE SAAMNE or JOHNY MERA NAAM or TEESRI MANJIL, all the films are super duper musical hits.

A director, who at one stage of time had thrown up his career at the peak of his career to become the follower of Rajneesh when he still was not Osho, may have given many more new interpretations of the urban maze that he specialized in, from his formative days in 1954. On the eve of his birth anniversary, it would indeed be an opportune and befitting tribute to the caliber of this man to award him posthumously with the life time achievement award in one of the award ceremonies that are going to make their debut with in a month from now.


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