Awara: A Musical or Not?

In the 1951 film Awara directed by Raj Kapoor, musical accompaniment is used to emphasize and often predict the events to come in the movie. In this way, the music in Awara seems to be more of modified score in which the music narrates the story as it is being told. Therefore, the music in Awara is a character in itself. It is because the music seems to be a character that I feel that Awara is not a musical, but a movie in which the score takes the form of the narrator.

In a musical films, songs are typically sung by the characters and most of the time they elucidate something about the characters and/or the plot. Sometimes the music just serves as breaks in the storyline. In the movie Mary Poppins, for instance, the character Mary Poppins employs the use of songs to add fun and make the movie whimsical. An example of this is when Mary sings about a spoonful of sugar when making the children take their medicine. This song does not have a "voice" of its own; it is simply Mary Poppins being whimsical so that the children will take their medicine.

In contrast to Mary Poppins' "A Spoonful of Sugar", the song in the beginning of Awara in which the sailor and dancers in the field are singing "Beware" seem to foreshadow that a bad event is coming. This bad event is the kidnapping of Leela by Jagga. However, because this song is not sung by the main characters, this leads one to think that a song foreshadows things about the plot. Thus, the music is the narrator of the story. This is again shown after Leela has been cast out by Judge Raghunath (who was a lawyer at this time). The song is sung by a group of men (who again are not the main characters). They start singing about how the Lord play tricks and how "In murky waters He makes a lotus blooms" after which we here the cry of Judge Rahunath's son (a son of "noble" birth= blooming of the lotus) being born in a gutter during a rain storm (gutter in rain storm= murky waters). By this second song viewers realize that music serves as the narrator of the story and that all the music does is elucidate the plot.

Although music can elucidate the plot in musicals, (a great example of this is the 1954 film Carmen Jones in which the main character Carmen Jones sings about her own death), the key is that the main characters are usually the ones producing the music. In Awara, the songs are sung by "extras" and sometimes unknown singers. In doing this, the view focuses more on what being sung rather than who is singing it. The music takes a life of its own and becomes the narrator rather than "prop" of the characters. For this reason I feel the music is a narrator and that Awara is not a musical.