Sirf ehsaas ki tum paas ho bass
Posted on: May 13, 2025
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
|
Blog Day : |
6143 | Post No. : | 18981 | Movie Count : |
5065 |
‘Mitr, My Friend’ (2002) was an English language film which was directed by debutant, Revathy who also produced the film along with her husband, Suresh Menon. The main cast included Shobana, Nasir Abdullah and Preeti Vissa with the supporting cast of Matt Phillips, Black Ormsby, Shirley Bannet, Brain Linebaugh, Janine Pibal, Michael Bailey, Sreenivasan, Karthik etc. The film is known for having primarily all woman crew, which according to Revathy, was a mere coincidence. Also, they were first timers associated with a feature film.
The idea of making this film came to Revathy when Priya V who was working as an assistant to director, Mani Ratnam, narrated the story written by her which appealed to her. Her husband, Suresh Menon agreed to produce the film along with her. At first, she had thought of making the film in Tamil. However, since the story was mainly concerned with an Indian American family settled in San Francisco, she changed her mind to make the film in English with some Tamil dialogues. She approached Mani Ratnam and Priyadarshan to direct the film. However, they did not show much interest thinking that she was not serious about making the film. So, Revathy decided to direct the film herself. For the Hindi version of the film, only the dialogues in English were retained in the scenes where American actors were involved The film was dubbed in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The film was majorly shot in San Francisco with some parts in Chennai. (Main source of information: Revathy’s interview.
The film is about an Indian-American family with husband having been born and brought up in the USA and his wife who has been brought up in a traditional culture in a small place at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu. When their only teenage daughter who was born and brought up in USA resents her mother’s interference in her life, it leads to a clash of cultural differences without recognising each other’s upbringing. The daughter, in order to avoid constant frictions with her mother, decides to leave house and start living with her boyfriend. The father, who is busy with his work has little time to discuss the issue with his wife. He thinks that his wife has mishandled the situation. With husband drifting away from her and the daughter no more with her, the wife starts feeling lonely. She seeks friends on an internet chatroom and she gets one. With that, there is a sudden transformation in her so much so that she sheds her traditional avatar. The husband, in the pretext of some office work, goes out for a few days. The wife thinks that he has an affairs with his secretary. The husband and the daughter think that wife/mother has an affair with her neighbour. In the end, all is well as it turns out that her ‘Mitr’ in the chatroom was none other than her husband.
I have watched the Hindi version of the film, the detailed story of which is as under:
Prithvi (Nasir Abdullah), born and raised in the USA who works in San Francisco in a software company gets married to Lakshmi (Shobana), a Tamil girl from Chidambaram in India. After marriage, Lakshmi, a traditionally brought up girl in a small town, accompanies Prithvi to San Francisco to start her new life in a different culture. They start the family and a daughter, Divya is born. Lakshmi’s time is fully spent on her daughter and her husband.
The film is fast-forwarded by 17 years. Divya (Preeti Vissa) is now teenager and she wants to have freedom as to what she wants to pursue her career and social life. She feels that despite spending 17 years in the USA, her mother is immersed in her conservative attitudes. Divya does not understand as to why her mother still clinches to her conservative thought process. Lakshmi fails to realise that her daughter has brought up under different culture and her outlook towards life is different than that of her. The cultural differences between the mother and daughter become the source of constant frictions between them.
One day Divya tells her parents that after completion of school, she does not want to go to college immediately as she would like to work to be independent and stay with her friends. Divya’s decision does not go well with Lakshmi. Arguments between mother and daughter lead to a serious friction. Prithvi does not interfere in their argument as he thinks that Divya has grown up and she can take her own decision. Nevertheless, Prithvi talks to Divya at her school premises and agrees to Divya’s desire to differ her college education for some time in favour of work With this, he is able to convince her to return home.
Things go out of hand when Lakshmi sees Divya kissing her boyfriend outside her house. She reprimands her and also fires her boyfriend. At this point, Divya decides to leave the house and stay with her boyfriend. Prithvi blames Lakshmi for mishandling the situation and tells her that they have lost Divya. With Divya leaving the house, and Prithvi busy with his work, Lakshmi feels lonely. In retrospect, she realises that she has been so much immersed with looking after her daughter and the husband that she has forgotten the needs of herself.
A depressed Lakshmi seeks solace in internet chatroom to find a ‘Mitr’ (friend). After some attempts, she does get a ‘Mitr’. During their chats, Lakshmi reveals her problems and the ‘Mitr’ offers quick solutions to her as if her ‘Mita’ is aware of her problem. She is happy to implement the solutions suggested by her ‘Mitr. In this process, Lakshmi slowly gets transformed from a lonely housewife to a multi-faceted woman by exploring her interest in carpentry, dance, hair-style etc which she had overlooked in favour of her family’s needs. She also becomes friendly with her neighbours and socialises with them.
Prithvi observes a change in Lakshmi’s personality in that she is no longer his traditional wife, a quality which made him to marry her. While he is happy in her transformation, he now feels that in her social circle, there is little space for him. He also starts doubting her friendship with a neighbour in an alarming way. He decides to leave the house for few days in the pretext of some office work. During these period, Lakshmi is in touch with her ‘Mitr’ to update him about new developments in her life. This time, her ‘Mitr’ is posing his problem that his girlfriend has lost interest in him and he wants suggestion from her (Lakshmi) as to what he should do. She suggests to ‘Mitr’ that time, love and care is the buzz words for wooing back his girlfriend.
One day, Lakshmi receives a call from a hospital that her daughter, Divya is in the hospital as she got hurt during a fight with her boyfriend. She rushes to the hospital where Divya reveals to her that she is not able to cope up with the uncertainties in the relationship with her boyfriend. Lakshmi brings her back home. They start afresh bonding with attitudinal changes in mother and daughter which works well. Lakshmi shares all these developments with her ‘Mitr’. On Divya’s insistence, Lakshmi request her ‘Mitr’ to meet them in person. The ‘Mitr’ turns out to be Prithvi, her husband.
What Prithvi, as a husband, could not bring change in Lakshmi’s rigid traditional attitude could achieve so as her chatroom ‘Mitr’. Similarly, as a wife, Lakshmi failed to convince Prithvi that he has to give some time,love and care to her which she could do so as his chatroom ‘friend’. With this, there is a peace in the family.
I liked the idea of introducing the concept of the chatroom ‘Mitr’ of Lakshmi in the film with whom she shares her problems to improve her quality of life. When the chatroom ‘Mitr’ has his own problems, Lakshmi to whom the ‘Mitr’ addressed her as ‘My Friend’ gives him the solutions. Both are happy with the outcome. During the chat, her ‘Mitr’ has said that sometimes one gets a better perspective while talking to nameless and the faceless stranger. But the surprise element in the film is that the ‘Mitr’ turns out to be Lakshmi’s own husband, Prithvi and ‘My Friend’ of Prithvi turns out of the Lakshmi. I do not know as to why this suspense for the audience was revealed about 40 minutes earlier in the film than for the characters in the film almost towards the end. This revelation towards the end would have created a greater impact of suspense on the audience.
The film won the National Film Award (2001) as the Best Film in English language and Shobana won the Best Actress Award for the film. The film also won Special Jury Award of Silver Peacock at International Film Festival of India (2002).
The film had seven songs – five in Hindi and one each in Tamil and English. Five Hindi songs were written by P K Mishra (4) and Gulzar (1) which were set to music by Vikesh Mehta (3) and Bhavatharini Ilaiyaraja (2). In the films, all the songs get played as background songs and that too for about a minute or so. However, Audio clips have full songs. I present the first song from the film, ‘sirf ehsaas kee tum paas ho bass’, a short love poem written by Gulzar and set to music by Bhavatharini Ilaiyaraja (daughter of music director, Ilaiyaraja). The song is rendered by Hariharan. In the film, this song gets played in the background for less than a minute when Lakshmi (Shobana) is waiting for her husband, Prithvi (Nasir Abdullah) for celebration of their wedding anniversary who is still in his office. Her daughter, Divya (Preeti Vissa) wishes her a wedding anniversary and goes back to her room upstairs. Sitting lonely, Lakshmi recalls her first wedding anniversary when Prithvi has given her a surprise by preparing the food himself on the occasion. The audio clip contains the full song.
It is a typical Gulzar’s style of poem with unusual metaphors. He has also used a strange metaphor with two contrasting elements in this poem, ‘barf si thhandee sulagtee aankhen’ which reminds me of Gulzar’s another strange metaphor, hamne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mahakti khushboo.
Audio Clip:
Video (shorter)
Song-Sirf ehsaas ki tum paas ho bass (Mitr My Friend)(English)(2002) Singer-Hariharan, Lyrics-Gulzar, MD-Bhavatharini Ilaiyaraja
Unknown female voice
Lyrics: (Based on Audio Clip):
sirf ehsaas ki tum paas ho bass
sirf ehsaas ki nazdeek ho tum
sirf ehsaas ki tum paas ho bass
sirf ehsaas ki nazdeek ho tum
anginat logon mein ghabraayee huyee
ajnabee aankhon se lajaayee huyee
tan pe lagtee hai chipaktee aankhen
barf see thhandee sulagtee aankhen
anginat nazron mein uljhaa liptaa
anginat chehron mein rakhaa chehraa
saikadon taangon mein uljhaayee huyee
sahmee simtee huyee sharmaayee huyee
sirf ehsaas hai ki paas ho tum
sirf ehsaas kee nazdeek ho bass
sirf ehsaas ki nazdeek ho bass
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
Leave a comment