Maaju bi, ras ka mausam Khatam ho gayaa, guR ban gayaa, tum jaa saktee ho

It is rare that a scene has Amitabh and the heroine, and you come back remembering the heroine’s dialogue. Very rare indeed. I first saw Saudagar (1973) on Doordarshan – some 15 years back. It is probably the only movie, where I came back disliking Amitabh. Even in Parvaanaa, though he commits a ‘murder most foul’, you do not hate him. But in Saudagar you would have. Anyways, this film was a Rajshri film and hence the focus was more on story and music than on the stars. The story was based on Bangla writer Narendranath Mitra’s ‘Ras’. It is a very simple story. Moti (Amitabh Bachchan – though later this name was used for his pet Labrador in Mard) is a guR seller of repute. The combination of the ‘ras’ that he gathers and the way it is prepared by Maaju Bi (Nutan), makes his guR a best seller. He is in love with Phoolbano (Padma Khanna – the Rakhee Sawant of the 70s) but is unable to pay the meher (a kind of dower) for her. He decides to marry Maaju Bi to save on the guR making cost. Once he has scrounged enough money for the ‘meher’ he decides to divorce Maaju Bi by falsely accusing her of infidelity. In the scene where Moti accuses Maaju in front of the qaazii, Maaju gets emotional and curses Moti for stooping so low. She sees through his game and says that he could merely have asked her to leave. He needn’t have made such an accusation and that too against someone whom she respected a lot. She captures this sentiment in the line.


माजू बी ...रस का मौसम ख़तम हो गया...गुड़ बन गया...तुम जा सकती हो...
Normally, I end by suggesting possible usages for the line. This time, I will refrain from doing so. The line itself is so loaded, that I would urge you to use your imagination.

And yes, I do not remember what Moti said. I think he did not say anything. That was the pre-Zanjeer Amitabh. He was not wont to saying much.