Dastak

Dastak (1970)

दस्तक

Tells the story of newly weds Hamid and Salma. They move into a rental flat next door to the local red light district. The flat had been the former home of a well known mujra and qawali singer, Shamshad. Men still come to the door in the hope of seeing Shamshad and do not seem too put out by seeing Salma despite her protestations. The couple struggle to live within the bounds of their own moral code while the earnings of prostitution seem to be flaunted around them. Hamid gets more and more angry and seemingly unable to reconcile his morality with the immorality of the world and at one point beats his wife and then rapes her making her into a 'whore' of his fantasy. The story here bears resemblance to the later 'Ek Chadar Maili Si' by the same director and seems to explore the complex world of women and sexuality as viewed by Indian men: mother, goddess, whore. This film also explores the ethos of prostitution in its reality and as a metaphor for the outside world.

Date of release
1970-12-31
TMDB
5.0 / 10 (4)
Runtime
2h 25m
Genres
Music, Drama
Director
Rajinder Singh Bedi

Casting

Interesting facts

Dastak is a 1970 Indian Hindi-language drama film and the directorial debut of Rajinder Singh Bedi, who wrote the script too. Bedi based it on his own radio play Naql-e-Makaani, broadcast on All India Radio in Lahore in tha year 1944. Sanjeev Kumar and Rehana Sultan play Hamid and Salma, newlyweds who rent a flat in Bombay once occupied by a courtesan, Shamshad Begum. At the very beginning, they settle in. Men keep arriving at the door asking for her, and the couple finds itself caught in the social stigma still attached to the flat.

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