Seeta Aur Geeta

I started watching Seeta Aur Geeta a few days back about 5 minutes into the movie. After both of them have grown old and have found their respective homes. Seeta in her father’s home and Geeta in her foster home. I think I may have missed out one song as well I am not sure. But with nothing else playing on TV on a lazy Sunday morning in Goa, we decided to indulge in some good old 1972 Salim-Javed masala movie which can easily come into any of these top 100 list of all time and definitely one of the best movies made in that year.

Ramesh Sippy follows his hit debut Andaz (1970) with a formula based movie of twins separated at birth. Seeta (Hema Malini) Aur Geeta (Hema Malini again). One not so fine day a couple expecting their child finds themselves trapped in severe rain and use the services of a way side home for the delivery. Seeing twins, the lady of the house who cannot have children decides to keep one of the kids unbeknownst to the parents. Seeta grows up in her biological parents home only to find herself ill treated by an evil aunt (Manorama) and her brother Ranjit (Roopesh Kumar). Geeta on the other hand grows up in a poor family into an electric street smart young woman. Along with Raka (Dharmendra) she makes a living with tight rope walking – Raka of course picks pockets while all this is happening. Fate gets the sisters swapped and the fun begins.

Seeta Aur Geeta is an absolute formula movie from the 1970s. This was when “separated at birth” was totally in fad and there were a dime a dozen movies released around the theme. Some with twins. Others with just siblings. Salim-Javed has only capitalized on the trend and added another such movie to their repertoire.

The movie is replete with some really good performances by the lead cast with Hema Malini shuttling between the demure and scary Seeta to the complete pataka (firecracker) Geeta. A true compliment to her talent. Dharam Paaji and Sanjeev Kumar are as calm and composed on the screen. But the outstanding performances come from Manorama and Roopesh Kumar who play the negative roles so well that your blood curls when they come on screen and essay their dialogues.

It seems Dibakar Banerjee is remaking Seeta Aur Geeta and that too with Katrina in the lead. Dibakar is definitely one of the better movie makers of our time. But will he be able to do justice to this classic? Time will tell I guess.

I Could not find the trailers on line and therefore I have given the link for the movie itself. Watch it!!! http://www.videosurf.com/seeta-aur-geeta-87197. 7 on 10.