A hugely successful devotional movie in the Punjabi language that was released in 1969 is back in the cinemas on November 27, seeking to cast its spell over audiences all over again.
Nanak Nam Jahaz Hai, which explores the tenets of Sikhism through the saga of a family divided by misunderstanding and greed and reunited by faith, is being re-released in a digitised and colourised version. The movie stars Prithviraj Kapoor and Som Dutt as brothers, Suresh as Gurmeet’s friend Prem Singh and IS Johar as the villainous Shuka. Nanak Nam Jahaz Hai doesn’t run afoul of the ban on depicting Guru Nanak in human form, but instead celebrates the teachings of the founder of Sikhism and includes sequences set in the faith’s holiest shrines, including the Golden Temple in Amritsar. A project of Wave Cinemas, the real estate company that runs a chain of cinemas and also produces films, Nanak Nam Jahaz Hai won the National Award in the Punjabi language category in 1970. “People would go barefoot into the cinemas to watch the film,” said Rahul Mitter, the Chief Executive Officer of Wave Cinemas. “I am not at all surprised by the response to the re-release, because the film is a masterpiece.”
The re-release was the brainchild of Raju Chadha, chairman of the Wave Group of companies, Mittra said. Chadha took over the company after the mysterious deaths of his brothers Ponty and Harpreet in a shootout in 2012 in Delhi. “This film had moved him as a kid, and he once showed me a kirtan from the film and said we would re-release it,” Mittra said. The rights were owned by the distributor Shemaroo Entertainment, and Mittra proceeded to set into motion the process that would improve the screen image and audio quality and upgrade its colours.
Chadha was keen on a re-release rather than a remake. “You can’t fiddle with a masterpiece – there can be only one Mughal-E-Azam and one Sholay,” Mittra said.
The movie is opening on 200-odd screens two days after Guru Nanak Jayanti. The original release had also coincided with the quincentenary of Guru Nanak, Mittra pointed out. Nanak Nam Jahaz Hai will be released in overseas territories in North America and the United Kingdom a week later to target the considerable Sikh diaspora that lives there. “Commerce is not the overriding concern, and the release is rooted more in faith, belief and respect,” Mittra said. Will the movie’s 1960s aesthetic, particularly its acting style, go down well with modern audiences? “I was moved by the drama and the emotions of the film, they are timeless,” Mittra said. “The film is more pertinent than ever before, what with the youth going astray.”
