As we learn from the horse’s mouth, Raghu left his job as a professor to make this world a better and happier place. He never had an eye on the family’s hidden jewels though Hrishi-da’s suspenseful and intermittent cuts exposing the locked safe kept under Daduji’s bed would have you believe otherwise. Raghu is a far cry from the fraud that everyone thinks he is. At one point, before we reach the film’s climax, the silver-tongued devil narrates his own story to Krishna’s lover, in a hope to reunite the couple after the Shanti Niwas household has busted their budding romance.
His bond with Krishna remains a little more special than the rest, with the emerging Jaya Bhaduri playing Kaka’s foster sister. But somehow, Raghu stays and ends up cutting a deep influence on each of the Shanti Niwas inhabitants. Does such a man even exist? No wonder, initially, everyone -especially Asrani - are sceptical of this imposter. Glib and a natural charmer, he will have you floored with his working knowledge of languages (Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi), dance, music, literature and last but not the least, the selfless devotion he exhibits towards one and all. For a cook, the khaki-clad Raghu’s credentials are tremendously awe-inspiring. As he spends more time in the house, his actions impact them, provoking a change of heart for everyone involved. The multi-talented Raghu’s entry into Shanti Niwas is a major turnaround for the large clan. Raghu’s charm offensive A gentle comedy with a sense of purpose and sans any kind of sermonising, Bawarchi bears Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s distinct signature. But clearly, the heart of this family is Krishna, a selfless and sweet orphan played by Jaya Bachchan née Bhaduri and she’s soon joined by the film’s soul, Raghu who walks into her home like a godsend. The ageing patriarch lives with his three sons and their families (veterans AK Hangal, Asrani, Durga Khote and Usha Kiran among others). Shanti Niwas is the family home of Shivnath Sharma aka Daduji (Harindranath Chattopadhyay). It should be called Ashanti Niwas, as Asrani jokes. Their family discord and constant bickering are notorious. This is the story of the chaotic lot that are the residents of Shanti Niwas. A young Bachchan guides us to all the technicians and crew that have heroically worked behind the scene to make Bawarchi happen followed by the dramatis personae. Like Anand before, a familiar voice (Amitabh Bachchan) reads out the credits. The film is staged like a play, a trope that points to Hrishi-da’s love for comical charades, happy pretence and role-playing.
The philosophy-spouting Raghu is a man for all seasons, an all-rounder with a solution for everything. Its protagonist Raghu, played by the dreamy-eyed Khanna, however, is no ordinary cook. Writer Avijit Ghosh saw that crucial link when he billed Bawarchi as “proto-Munnabhai.” Bawarchi itself was a remake of a popular Bengali film. More recently, Mukherjee’s cinema became a model for Rajkumar Hirani and many other contemporary directors. At his peak Hrishi-da cast him in an unglamorous avatar of a cook, a character that, decades later, influenced David Dhawan’s Govinda starrer Hero No. There’s nothing in Khanna’s 15-hits run quite like Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Bawarchi in which Hrishi-da insisted on snatching Kaka’s totemic star power and mystique away from him. That is, of course, the fan favourite Anand from 1971.īut there’s one gem that gets lost in the blizzard of box-office tsunami, in what has since come to be known as Kaka’s golden years. Even within that space, one name stands taller than the rest.
The general consensus seems to be that his pairing with Hrishikesh Mukherjee, the master of middle-cinema comedies, produced films of a more lasting quality. In hindsight, a modern viewer might feel some of those big hits starring him have not aged too well. In the early ’70s, before newcomer Amitabh Bachchan dethroned him, Khanna had amassed enough hits and blockbusters to earn a permanent star on the Bollywood Walk of Fame. Between 19, Khanna (today is his birth anniversary) redefined stardom in Hindi cinema in a way that prompted critics and super-fans to rewrite the rules of conventional notions of fame to suit his crazy popularity - because what had previously passed for movie celebrity wouldn’t fit the Aradhana star’s mythology. Mention Aradhana, Amar Prem, Kati Patang, Anand, Namak Haraam and Aap Ki Kasam to Rajesh Khanna fans, and you can feel their hearts jumping with joy.
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