Jogan (1950)

The title refers to religious female mendicants, whose best-known example continues to be the 16th-C. saint poet Meerabai. One of Sharma’s most emotionally charged melodramas, it features Surabhi (Nargis), a mendicant whose song by Meerabai Ghunghat ke pat khole re (sung by Geeta Dutt) attracts the atheist Vijay (D. Kumar). Despite her protestations, he keeps following her and she eventually tells him how she escaped her debt- ridden father and alcoholic brother who wanted her to marry an old man; she ran away to die and renounced her earlier life. When she leaves, she tells Vijay not to follow her beyond a particular tree. Later, another jogan arrives, meets Vijay by the tree and gives him a book, saying that Surabhi had entrusted her, before she died, with the task of giving it to a man who would be waiting by a tree. The film has several other Meera bhajans sung by Geeta Dutt which became some of her early hit songs. Bulo C. Rani’s most famous film score, assisting an innovative soundtrack incl. voiceovers and monologues, with the songs often set to twilight effects, chiaroscuro and flickering lights.