Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein [1964]

Kishore Kumar is mostly remembered by the Indian populace as a singer and a comedy actor, but he donned other hats too on a few occasions. This versatile genius performed a staggering number of roles in Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein – his credits in the film include direction, story, acting (albeit in a serious role), music direction and playback singing! The movie begun on an interesting note – a man returns from the army to find that his wife and father have died in an accident while his young son has lost his voice as a result of the ensuing shock; uninterested in settling down in the village any more, he moves out in the hope of getting his son cured. Despite this serious premise most of what followed, unfortunately, can only be qualified as standard fare. Kishore and his real-life son Amit Kumar did a fine job in sensitively portraying the father-son duo, while Supriya Chowdhury was also noteworthy as a rich but compassionate ‘zamindar’ in whose home they take shelter while on the way to the city. However, most of the remaining characters aren’t worth speaking about – in fact, had the antagonists not been introduced into the story, I might have liked the film more. The movie boasts of a few wonderful songs which, for me, were its hallmarks. An anecdote worth mentioning about this movie is, Satyajit Ray apparently watched and was pleasantly surprised by it (they had a long-standing friendship) as he’d never expected Kishore, known mostly for his comic flair and irreverence, to choose such a serious theme for his film.








Director: Kishore Kumar
Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Romance/Musical
Language: Hindi
Country: India