Mehndi Rang Lagyo (1960)

The beautiful and innocent example of Gujarati womanhood, Alka (Kiran), loves and marries Anil (Kumar). However Anil becomes an alcoholic and ends up in jail. Alka finds a job in a college in Calcutta and raises her two children. Anil, released from prison, happens to become a gardener at the college and is thus able to rescue their daughter from a rapist. A classic domestic melodrama, showing the initially Westernised hero corrupted by his first drink at a place called the Bombay Bar, imprisoned in the Sabarmati jail (where Gandhi and other nationalist leaders had been arrested during the Independence movement), and emerging as a bearded, nationalist icon who saves his daughter’s boyfriend from taking his first drink with an extended speech on the evils of liquor. The film also mobilises a range of references to exemplify a tradition of ‘Gujarati- ness’, the title coming from a well-known Raas- garba song to which couples dance during the festival of Navaratri. The film also continues Raskapur’s attempts to fantasise an identity for his native state (cf. Mulu Manek, 1955, Kadu Makrani, 1960).