Pyaasa

Pyaasa

            Pyaasa was a very depressing and realistically accurate depiction of poverty. Vijay is an interesting protagonist throughout the film and correlated properly with the theme of hypocrisy of views of a person based on their income or overall worth. This film brings on a wealth of emotions through Vijay’s troubling journey.  Many of the scenes in the movie accurately depict this, but three stood out to me. The two scenes I am speaking of are the scene where Vijay is being belittled by his brothers and the scene of Vijay talking at his funeral gathering.

            When Vijay is belittled by his brothers they are merciless. The script and acting was fantastic and ruthless with their assault on Vijay. Insulting his works, selling his livelihood as a joke, and even going as far to wish he was not born all within a quick span with no time for Vijay to react. What is interesting is the mother’s reaction throughout this. She is appalled not at Vijay for his lack of success, but her other two sons for their attack on Vijay. The mom is the voice of reason for this scene. She is what we would hope most people would act like, but in Vijay’s society she is a rare person.

It becomes even better in the later scene where Vijay is believed to be dead. The brothers lie and charm their way into winning his inheritance and are quickly shut down. They even go as far to disown their now rich brother thanks to Mr. Ghosh telling them to deny his freedom and they will receive some riches. The brothers quickly agree smiling in extreme eagerness to obtain wealth at the cost of a brother. Than when Vijay gets freed and Mr. Ghosh is screwed for his wrong doings the brothers quickly switch sides back to their brother acting like they loved and cherished him.

The funeral gathering scene was a place where the crowd came to adore and cherish the memory of Vijay. Even though when he was alive no one gave two annaas if he was starving or had a place to stay. Vijay then attempts to prove he is himself, but the crowd is quick to shut him down until people account to him being the real deal. Then when they do Vijay quickly throws it all away because he realizes it is basically nothing. These people that are in his society have no morals and could care less about the poor and only care about the rich. It is a sad conundrum that isn’t really solved, but through the movie it is shown as a real problem and hopefully people can reconsider the hypocrisy of their views and appreciate people for more than just money.