Indian cinema is renowned for its diverse, multi-ethnic filmmaking that tells powerful stories, from large-scale extravaganzas to socially conscious art films. One such movie is Manthan which means churning.  The 134-minute 1976 film was a transposed narrative of the origins of a dairy cooperative movement that transformed India from a milk-deficient nation to the world’s leading milk producer. The story drew inspiration from Verghese Kurien who is known as the “Milkman of India” for revolutionising milk production in the country. Amul is born out the revolution.

The greatest fact about this movie is that the movie Manthan was crowdfunded by farmers. Each of the 500,000 farmers contributed ₹2 from the sale of their milk, becoming both the film’s financiers and producers of their own story.  This unique funding model was conceived by Verghese Kurien, to support the creation of a film about the cooperative movement that he championed. Crowdfunding is the use of small amounts of capital from many individuals to finance a project.

Manthan boasted an excellent star cast, featuring Girish Karnad, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Amrish Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Mohan Agashe in key roles. Vijay Tendulkar, a prominent Indian scriptwriter, contributed multiple scripts. Director Shyam Benegal was a leading Indian director of nonmainstream Hindi cinema and one of its most prolific filmmakers, he selected one of the scripts given by Vijay Tendulkar for the film. Renowned music composer Vanraj Bhatia best known for his work in Indian New Wave cinema and was also one of the leading composers of Western classical music in India.  

In the film, a city-bred government veterinary doctor and his team arrive in a deeply divided village in Gujarat with plans to start a dairy cooperative. As he starts his work, the vet is caught in the violent politics of change and faces challenges from a private dairy owner, the village head and a volatile local milkman. The film focuses on the caste conflicts and social injustices that arise in a rural village when a veterinarian, Dr. Rao, tries to start a milk cooperative.

Director Shyam Benegal instructed the lead actors of the movie to wear the same clothes for the 45-day duration of the shoot. The movie was made in just 45 days’ time.   He did this to achieve maximum realism for the movie, which was set in a drought-affected village in Gujarat. The film was shot on location in the village of Sanganva, which had a severe water shortage at the time. Benegal felt it was important for the actors’ appearances to reflect the villagers’ reality, who rarely had water for bathing or laundry. While actor Naseeruddin Shah took the instruction literally and did not change his clothes for the entire shoot, his co-star Smita Patil would wear the same outfit but washed it regularly. It seems director Shyam Benegal told the cast, which included Girish Karnad and Amrish Puri, “If they stank, they would stink jointly”.

What made the film a superhit? The proposal by Dr. Kurien to the farmers to accept a lower payment for their milk, with the difference going towards the film’s production.  The funding was intended to empower farmers and an effort to break economic inequality and caste discrimination through a cooperative movement. Farmers saw a hope for positive change in their lives. The film itself was distributed for free to hundreds of villages to spread the idea of milk cooperatives and inspire more farmers to start them. Manthan became a legacy and a symbol of the cooperative movement and its significant impact in transforming India into the world’s largest milk producer. Half a million farmers felt inspired because they produced their own story. The result was the unique approach resulted in the world’s first crowdfunded feature film.

The 1976 Indian classic film Manthan received a red-carpet premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, nearly 50 years after its original release. This was for a meticulously restored 4K version of the film. A 4K version of a movie offers a significantly sharper image with four times the resolution of Full HD, resulting in greater detail and clarity. The restoration was undertaken by the Film Heritage Foundation, with funding from the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (Amul).

The restorers recovered the negative and one of the prints. They borrowed and digitised the sound from the print and repaired the film. The scanning and digital clean-up were conducted at a Chennai lab under the supervision of a renowned Bologna-based film restoration lab, with both Benegal and his long-time cinematographer Govind Nihalani overseeing the project. The film’s sound was fixed and improved at the Bologna lab. Some 17 months later, Manthan was reborn in ultra-high definition of 4K. Benegal, one of the doyens of Indian cinema, said the film remains very close to his heart.

The movie was featured in the Cannes Classics section of the festival. At the Cannes red carpet was graced by the film’s cast and crew, including actor Naseeruddin Shah, who starred in the film. He was accompanied by his wife, Ratna Pathak Shah, as well as Prateik Babbar, the son of the late co-star Smita Patil. The screening received a five-minute standing ovation from the audience, affirming the film’s timeless relevance and impact. Naseeruddin Shah one of veteran actors of India described the experience as deeply emotional and touching, stating he never imagined a red-carpet appearance for the film decades later.

Manthan was a classy movie which created its own legacy in Indian cinema forever.

 This romantic all time hit song from film Prem Pujari (1970) is written by poet Neeraj. It is a very well composed song and soulfully sung by Kishore Kumar. The song is themed on evergreen Dev Anand, like him the song is also evergreen. Though the film dint do great business at box office, the songs became super duper hits.

Prem Pujari is a 1970 Bollywood film produced, directed and written by Dev Anand under the banner of Navketan films. The movie stars Anand, Waheeda Rehman, Shatrughan Sinha, Prem Chopra, Madan Puri and Amrish Puri.  The music director is S. D. Burman. The songs are known for the purity of their lyrics, therefore regarded as “evergreen” classics.

This song is sung by Kishore Kumar with superb versatility. The song is romantic yet pensive in mood. Kishore Kumar had the knack of modulating his voice suitably for the actors. He was the voice of Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bacchan. I think because Kishore Kumar was not only a singer but also an actor, music director, movie director too, his versatility was found into various dimensions therefore he could adapt to the song’s different dimensions.

The song’s lyrics are really splendid and touch the heart. It’s yet another brilliant score of Sachin Dev Burman and Dev Anand. The song is composed mainly in Raga Pahadi and mixed with some other ragas. Pahadi is a popular raga based on folk music. As its name suggests, it originates from the mountainous region of Himalayas. It resembles two other ragas which exude the rich cultural heritage of folk music; one is Mand from the Rajasthan region and Pilu from the Hindi heartland. It is a light raga and resembles more like a ‘dhun’. It is popularly used in Hindi film songs. This raga can simulate multiple echoes; for example kora kagaz tha yeh man mera….mera….mera. Few other famous songs are from Humrz (1967) “nile gagan ke tale, dharati ka pyar pale’ and ‘parbatonke pedon par sham ka basera hai’ from Shagun (1964).

Pahadi is usually sung in the lower and middle octaves. The songs composed in Pahadi are usually having shades of tranquility and serenity. The songs composed in this raga have the power to unite separated lovers to achieve eternal union.

The lyrics of the song are penned by the genius Gopaldas Saxena ‘Neeraj’ (popularly known as Niraj or Neeraj). He is among the best-known poets and authors in Hindi literature. His style is considered unique; he used to write very poignant and yet, easy to understand poems. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2007. This song is subtle and romantic; imagine writing letter to your loved one with ink of flower colors and pen of heart….

It’s worth noting from Satya Saran’s book on S.D.Burman titled ‘Sun Mere Bandhu Re’ that S.D. Burman was miffed with actor Dev Anand for spoiling a beautiful melody “Phoolon Ke Rang Se” from “Prem Pujari” by directing the song in an unappetizing manner. It seems S.D.Burman used to get terribly attached to his songs; he used to be concerned on how the songs were shot, their picturization etc. In short, he understood the meaning of scenes, so he was very angry with Dev Anand for spoiling this beautiful song with an unappealing picturisation.

Listen to this classy number.