Jogan (Kidar Sharma) 1950

Jogan (1950)

Director: Kidar Sharma; Producer: Chandulal Shah; Cinematographer: D.C. Mehta; Editor: S.G. Chawandre; Cast: Nargis, Dilip Kumar, Pratima Devi, Pesi Patel, Purnima, Baby Tabassum, Anwari, Ramesh Thakur, Durpan, Rajendra Kumar

Duration: 01:45:14; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 94.376; Saturation: 0.015; Lightness: 0.231; Volume: 0.180; Cuts per Minute: 9.626; Words per Minute: 38.246

The title refers to religious female mendicants, whose best-known example continues to be the 16th-C. saint poet Meerabai. One of Sharma’s most emotionally charged melodramas, it features Surabhi (Nargis), a mendicant whose song by Meerabai Ghunghat ke pat khole re (sung by Geeta Dutt) attracts the atheist Vijay (D. Kumar). Despite her protestations, he keeps following her and she eventually tells him how she escaped her debt- ridden father and alcoholic brother who wanted her to marry an old man; she ran away to die and renounced her earlier life. When she leaves, she tells Vijay not to follow her beyond a particular tree. Later, another jogan arrives, meets Vijay by the tree and gives him a book, saying that Surabhi had entrusted her, before she died, with the task of giving it to a man who would be waiting by a tree. The film has several other Meera bhajans sung by Geeta Dutt which became some of her early hit songs. Bulo C. Rani’s most famous film score, assisting an innovative soundtrack incl. voiceovers and monologues, with the songs often set to twilight effects, chiaroscuro and flickering lights.

Opening Credits

Question mark

According to Mr Sharma (director Kedar Sharma's son) the idea of the film had come from one of the financiers who did not want to reveal his identity. Hence the question mark which will be repeated in the body of the film and turned into a visual narrative motif.

Meera-bai (1498-1547): The lyrics of this film—more precisely the ones that the principle protagonist Surabhi aka Meera-devi sings—are attributed to this Vaishanv sant from Rajasthan. But not all of them are by Meera-bai; and in some songs few words differ from the verse considered as original; for example, eri main to prem diwani in the original has been eri main to dard diwani mera dard na jaane koe.
It can be argued that old compositions by devotional figures often underwent changes as they were sung by different people or as they were copied to be included in various manuscripts and anthologies. We do not know which collection Kidar Sharma and his team had consulted.
This is not something we need to be concerned about; but we need to take note of this when we study the songs individually.

Bulo Chandiramani Ramchandani (1920-1993) was born in Hyderabad, Sindh. He was a singer and composer and has composed for over a hundred films. (for more information see Ranade's Hindi Film Song)

To put it simply, Yogi or Jogis are followers of Gorakhnath. They practice the Hatha-yoga, hence the nomenclature. But the story of the jogi is not so simple, since there are many different cults, and nomenclatures dependent on the stages of training: so there are the Kanphata (or split-ear, who have reached a fair height of spirituality), and the Aughar (like a novitiate, who do not want to climb all the way up there). There are regional specialities, too. In Maharashtra, they are called the Nath; (Tukaram and Dnyaeshwar are considered as Naths; Bahina-bai had traced their spiritual lineage to Gorakhnath; this is now widely accepted). Most dictionaries, like those by Bhargava and Platt say a jogan (jogini or yogini) is ‘a wife of a jogi or yogi.’ George W. Briggs cites some census reports of the twenties, for example the 1921 census, that puts down the number of Hindu jogis in India then to be 629, 978; the figure is broken down according to gender ratio as male/female 325/305; ‘Muhammadan’ jogis are numbered as 31,158 with the male-female ratio 21/22 (Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis, Motilal Banarsidass 1938/1998). One gathers from these figures and further reading of Briggs’ book that the tradition for women has been to marry jogis and get initiated after marriage; or be initiated after widowhood. Briggs notes there were women already initiated before marriage; in that case, a different sort of wedding ceremony was prescribed. But he does not mention lone itinerant female jogi or jogan; that perhaps is rare and so the figure of a female ascetic renunciate called a jogan perhaps have come out of the imagination of Hindi filmmakers and lyricists. And even if a widow jogin or jogan wanted to roam around freely and teach, she would be accompanied by other women (or men). In films however, what is common is to combine these ascetic figures with the motif of disappointment in love, for example in Shabab (1954) by M. Sadiq. In this film, the heroine sings ‘I will become a jogan because of you (jogan ban jaungi saiyan tere karan).’ She does don the garb of one and spends many months in separation—one day, she appears before her beloved and sing, ‘I’ve come as a jogan, for your sake (saiyan ban ayee hun saiyan tere karan).’ Or in Nagin (1954) by Nandlal Jaswantlal, the hero (Pradeep Kumar) surreptitiously meets the heroine (Vyjayantimala) dressed as a jogi and sings, 'A jogi is at your door. He doesn't desire gold and silver but only your darshan.' And of course, there are dozens of films in which lovers dress up as a jogi or jogan in order to meet with the beloved. So the question is why the figure of jogi or jogan is connected with love stories. To begin with there are some direct connections, as in the story of Heer-Ranjha. When Ranjha (he came from Takht Hazara near the river Chenab) is thrown out of the house of Heer’s parents (she is married off), he begins to travel and meets with a kanphata jogi, Bal Nath, in Tilla. In some narratives he meets Gorakhnath himself and the latter pierces his ears in Tilla. Briggs reports of seeing a stone where Ranjha said to have sat and gone through the ritual. The internet carries some material on Ranjha and the Jogi connection, for example, http://www.merajhang.com/stories/heer.html. There are many more stories where the lover becomes an ascetic (or goes crazy, as in the story of Leila-Majnun). The point is stories like these become tools for teaching spirituality: secular love has always been the bedrock over which the discourses of divine love or love for the divine are constructed. Often when a desire is thwarted there is a turning away from all desires and attachments; so we see lovers leaving house and family, travelling out to finally seek a spiritual master. A lover is one who is coloured in many hues; when s/he is disappointed in love or is tormented by family and community (or the King), s/he dyes herself or himself in the colour of no-colour—and becomes bairagi, dressed in the colour white. In Jogan we see Meera-devi, who has thus embraced spirituality and become a jogan. Importantly, what all this reveals is the deep connection between the extreme desire for desire and the desire for not-desiring, both residing in the popular psyche in this sub-continent.,

The film opens with an empty frame depicting a quiet lake. Vijay (Dilip Kumar) enters from right of frame, throws a pebble in the water but his figure does not even occupy the centre of the frame. His action and the lazy afternoon setting immediately places the hero of the film in the tradition of the Devdas figure, an idle young man with nothing to do. Kedar Sharma had worked with P.C Barua for Devdas (1935/36) and is credited as its dialogue writer. Sharma in fact extends the Devdas narrative. Vijay has already left the village, gone to live in the city (Bombay) and has returned to sell off his ancestral house. Thereafter, the city man will not have anything to do with the "village"

Geeta Dutt

Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Ghungat ke pat khol
घूँघट के पट खोल रे

Ghungat ke pat: This very first song seems borrowed from or is influenced by a Kabir verse. The Meera-bai collection Sanjeev Chimalgi has consulted does not have this verse. However, based on the Raag Asavari, the song is extremely attractive and suitable as an opening song. The composition is as in a doha, two lines of 11/10 syllables (elongating the long vowels). The song is fast paced, and like a typical bhajan, meant for simple folks, devoid of musical embellishment. But despite the fast space and playful gait (chal), it has a sad tinge to it, for there is an yearning for seeing god as a beloved. What is cinematically important is the fact the fast pace song in kaharwa taal or 4+4 beat, is at counter point to the slow speed of cutting and long takes. We will see this practice throughout the film, whenever Meera sings.

The image cuts maintaining the same axis but the image shifts from long shot to a mid shot. The instrumental music accompanying these images are a brief overture to a song in female voice. In this image we see him looking right of frame and listening

The image cuts to a dark silhouette of a temple with a luminous background. Clearly it is not the image of a 'real' temple, it is not clear where it is situated or how far it is from the lake. What is evoked thereby Vijay establishes a mental connection with a devotional song sung by a woman emanating out of a temple. The image cuts back to the previous image. This quick entry and exit out of the same right of frame is again a cinematic element that will occur in many other films including in the airport sequence of Subarnarekha. This is not 'poor' editing but a cinematic gesture which signals not only a narrative shift but a quantitative jump in the signification process. The second shot ends with the empty frame, just the lake. No story is going to unfold here.

Cut back to the temple. Now there is a tilt down and a dissolve as if into the interior.
The interior shot shows the Jogan or Meeradevi (Nargis) sitting at right of frame with a congregation of listeners around her. The camera tracks in. This suggests the entry of the hero. In the next shot, we realise that he has not entered the temple room at all but is waiting outside the door. This track-in creates a viewing position (not viewing point) not of a protagonist inside the film but of an audience outside. Once again we see a triangular relationship between two protagonists of a film and the audience, as we saw in Sant Tukaram (1936), Devdas (1935/36), Bidyapati (1937) and many others.

This is immediately reinforced by a large fore-fronted closeup of Meera and a following image of Vijay in long shot still outside the door. This kind of editing pattern will persist throughout the film when the two principal protagonists are together-two shots not paired as a Hollywoodian shot-counter shot but paired in order to explicate and elaborate on their relationship.
The song as if is addressed to him advising him to lift up the veil covering his face so that he can see his beloved properly. Jogan is about Vijay's attempt to plumb the depth of the mysteries of sexuality, desire and abstinence from desire

Now it is a set of three shots
i. a master shot establishing where the event is taking place
ii. his profile looking at right of frame
iii. her frontal close up -but she turns her head so that her profile now look at left of the frame
It is as if she is aware of his look at her and has responded by turning her face towards him. But there is no such event; they are not looking at each other for they are not sharing the same space, he is still outside the door. Which means a mental connection has been established and the audience has responded emotionally to the expected couple formation between two characters played by their favorite stars- Dilip Kumar and Nargis.

The rest of the song sequence is a continuation of this relationship and the song extending as if a conversation between them with she talking and he listening. The exchange ends with a last reminder that he is still outside.

profile

The sequence closes with the master shot and a reversal of the track, that is the camera tracking back and bringing a closure to the sequence.

As a further extension to the story of Devdas, Vijay visits a singing woman/prostitute in the city. However in this case, in a reversal of the narrative, he has made friends with the woman but he does not have a Paro/Parvati. He has come back to the village and has met Meera for the first time, somebody who could have been his Paro. In this story, he will fully engage with her wanting to find out why she has become a jogan but as of now, as the sequence shows, he hesitates before confronting her with his questions.

Vijay is sleeping at the end of the momentous day but a storm is raging inside him. As a mark of pathetic fallacy, a strong wind blows outside as he sleeps. Sharma uses the superimposition technique to create a representation of the body /soul or jiva/shiva. So it is as if his shiva self addresses his jiva self.

His aunt chastises him because he does not visit temples, worship, attend discourses and singing sessions. She calls him an atheist. Like many contemporary urban Indians, Vijay's religious beliefs and tendencies are complex. He softly replies he is not as an atheist as she makes him out to be. He has not religious but philosophical enquiries and curiosities. The most prominent of which is very endemic to that period. He is split between desireor pravritti and the desire not to desire or nivritti. The word nivritti denotes a cessation of desire but in this case the discourse is not as simple as desire and control of desire but that of a strong desire to be free of desire.

The second song sequence begins with her close up, and then reveals the assembly. In this afternoon session, only women attend. Here there is some kind of shot counter shot creation between Meera and the women of all ages. And this is broken in the end by a master shot that follows this beginning. This opening of space also heralds the entry of the hero. Vijay would enter, move around from behind pillars and peer at her. She would feel his gaze on her and look up and ultimately see him. The mise en scene here is remarkable because his movement around the pillars scuplt the space but not create a straight Hollywoodian shot counter shot. There is always the third position, there is always "us" looking on or being witness to the scene.

Lyricist: Meerabai
Music: Bulo C. Rani
Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Main toh girdhar ke ghar jaau
मैं तो गिरधर के घर जाऊँ
This song (Mein Toh Giridhar ke ghar) in mishra kafi is sung even faster—as if she is eager and in a hurry to go to her God. At the same time, there is playfulness as she repeats, ‘I will go, I will, O King!’ And this line is sung in both the middle as well as the higher octave. The song is infused with the excitement of meeting with her god, Krishna. It is also as if she is challenging her husband or her brother-in-law (depending on which version of her story one believes in), defying him and go to another ‘man’ or another deity, not the one worshipped by the family (her in-law family temple had Tulaja Bhavani as the presiding deity).. Meera-devi smiles singing it, but her smiles seldom reach her eyes—which are half or fully closed anyway. The images are more in close up and occasionally in long shot. Once again we see a contrapuntal use of different elements of mise en scene and melody, in the song picturization. Urmila Bhirdikar points out yet another element (important to note in all the songs in this film): the instrumental interludes between verses. The predominant is the sitar, which does not enter into a ‘conversation’ with the song and become a jugal-bandi. I suggest, together the song and the sitar, the vocal and the instrumental enhance emotions. The yearning for god here is sensual and erotic. Vijay observes her singing like a passionate woman and not a desire-less devotee. And it is in this song sequence that she betrays her emotional turmoil. She looks to see him looking and immediately looks down; but her joy and balance of equanimity and excitement is gone.

The song is over. Vijay waits for her. Today he will speak to her. The woman disperse and Meera leaves the temple. In a long shot, we see her walking straight towards the camera. One could assume that this will be followed by a counter shot of Vijay looking at her or approaching her but no. His relative position is always maintained on the left of frame so as the shot continous and when she is in the foreground in a mid close up, he appears from left of frame, joins her and both of them come towards the camera. In this scene of their conversation, this is the pre dominant mise en scene and editing pattern.

Not only has Vijay questioned her about the reasons for her becoming a renunciate, he has also challenged her. A sure sign of a true renunciate is her or his immense joie de vivre. Often such people behave as if they are full of love, or full of humour or filled with unbridled life's force. In a cinematic metaphor, which might seem dated today Meera is shown as a trapped bird-a status that this high spirited woman does not really relish

Underlining the particular mise en scene/editing/signification technique, once again Meera faces the camera and comes forward but this time she actually has changed space, entered the room and closes the door on him. Meanwhile he has got under her skin but she also started to feel helpless and so she mutters "why you? what for? It would be better if you leave" but she says this in the emptiness of her room

Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Gend kheloon kanha
गेंद खेलूँ गेंद खेलूँ कान्हा के संग

Meera's song sequences and conversations between Meera and Vijay are interspersed by sequences containing the little milkmaid Mangu (Baby Tabassum). These sequences have not been discussed because the mise en scene and editing pattern are not so formally organised and the level of signification is not so layered. However, there is a discursive connection. If Meera is a lover of Krishna but sort of an outsider and so forever separated from her God and hence suffering, Mangu is representative of the gopis or milkmaids of Braj, Barsana and Vrindavan—the three little villages connected with the story of Krishna. She sings Krishna songs and also plays an important role, that of a dooti; or messenger.What is interesting for the study of the film is that she too, as if, is counterpointed with Meera-devi, whose milk she delivers and clothes she washes. She can sing of playing ball with the god, but Meera can only sing her desire for visiting the god’s abode. This is one of the interesting motifs of Bhakti narrative: devotion and attainment of higher stages of spirituality is easy for some and difficult for some others

Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Ae ri Main To Prem Diwani
ए री मैं तो प्रेम दिवानी मेरो दर्द न जाने कोये

Ae ri Main to Prem Diwani: Traditionally this composition is attributed to Meera-bai. The mise en scene here is minimum: a master-shot similar to the one we saw in the very first song; a cut into her mid close-up; and an insert showing he stands outside the door. There is not going to be any interaction between the two here. But because he does not come in and she wants to see him, she looks up her eyes searching for him.

Apparently the third song picturisation is without any particular mise en scene pattern nor does it enhance the discourse but that is because the song itself has now taken on a meaning. She sings 'I am crazy with love and no one knows my pain.' No doubt it is directed at her God or Krishna because she sings 'My bed is on the tip of a sharp lance and His is in the skies, how could we unite?' and she ends by saying the one who has given me sorrow will provide the cure. The song begins to have the quality of double entrende or double meaning and blurring between a beloved who is a God and a beloved who is a mortal. This is typical of songs belonging to the Bhakti, Sufi or Yogi traditions. As Rabindranath Tagore says here..."we turn our beloved into Gods and Gods into beloved" Following this logic in the conversation sequence she admits that she is now distracted by him and pleads with him not to come near her. He admits that he was supposed to have left for Bombay but has stayed on because of her. But at the same time, there is no indication that either would like to break the status quo.

Kahe nainon mein naina: Without seeing the film, only listening to it, Sanjeev Chimalgi guessed the song belonged to a tawaif. Shamsad Begum sings in her usual style—usual for so many women, singing classical, semi-classical, and folk. But gradually in modern India, this kind of full-throated singing became marked as the style of the singing women or the prostitute who sings and dances. Only the ‘bad’ and ‘fallen’ women have husky, bold voice; they sing with an abandon, not meant for the good heroine, whose voice is totally controlled, whose singing style mellifluous and sweet, but never strong and demanding. And there is more. Urmila Bhirdikar points out women’s songs were bereft of the pukar or the quality of ‘calling out.’ The elongation in the second naina is one example of that. It is done through significant volume shifts and going up and down higher and lower notes. Of course, other theatrical modes like tamasha (in Maharashtra) had it and women in the folk music world continue to sing this way. But commercial stage theatre under Bal Gandharva and others saw to it that only men would use the pukar or other musical ornamentation with such centrifugal force, which can impress, convince and seduce the audience (as songs are meant to). Bhirdikar also posits that the two songs by Anjani-bai are also complete, in that they have the qualities of a full song: little motifs of alap and tankari, pukar, dividing songs in beat and non-beat, dialogic parts, etc. But the songs Meera sings are more like the folk-bhajan with fast two lines and the refrain of two-line verse repeating in between and the musical notes gliding along or skipping but never allowed full elaboration.
Singer: Shamshad Begum
Song: Kahe nainon mein naina
काहे नैनों में नैना डाले रे

Anjani, the Chandramukhi counterpart is singing to a hoard of male clients but Sharma puts them all in a tight row in an amusing composition and robs them of the 'gaze.' This means we never see her from their point of view. At the same time, the song about the eyes and the act of looking is fully engaged with the construction of the gaze.
Thus there is a difference as well as similarity between the songs that Meera sings and the songs that Anjani sings. The difference is that Meeras songs addressed to Krishna are secterian in nature and Anjani's are secular. The former group of songs aim for spiritual transendence while the later are erotic and sensual. But similarity is that all the songs are discursive and take the narrative forward.

To the credit of the film, but unsurprisingly since Sharma is so meticulous in preserving his mise en scene pattern, the hero too is not allowed to become 'the bearer of the look.' Instead she is the bearer of the look and she gazes on.

Additionally a verse sung without beats convey the singers desire: if he has evoked love in her heart then he should rest there (in the heart) and so on. The entire film follows the Vaishnavite kirtan and katha traditions which is made up of singing and talking. The entire performance is divided in multiple sections where the singer describes an event, elaborates upon it, analyses and provides anecdotal remarks and also cites other writers and composers. Such a mix of singing with and without beat or making one part of a song a direct address to the audience was popularly used in early Indian films.

The song ends in a master shot which re establishes that the man and the woman are not sitting face to face so the entire series of intercutting between the to faces evoking the sense that they are looking at each other serve only to make the audience relish the 'landscape of the face' and the respective acts of looking. It is not meant to create an event (in the sense of Classical Hollywood Cinema or the IMR mode).

Again a reminder of Devdas. Like Chandramukhi, Anjani has also given up her career. There seems to be a narrative jerk here-either a sequence is missing or its a mistake. Anjani henceforth will give up her profession, but has not yet if we go by the previous sequence. Also he talks of a song that she has yet to sing

Jin ankhon ka neend: This song in mixed pahari is slower than the previous number. We could say this is more in the tradition of the new film songs that were emerging in the forties and the fifties.
Singer: Shamshad Begum
Song: Jin aankhon ki neend
जिन आँखों की नीन्द हराम हुई

After the mise en scene of the previous song and all the other song sequences earlier in the film, here, Kedar Sharma attains a new height. He uses three very tight close ups of the three protagonists and arranges them variously, sometimes even going into mid shots so that the shots are now like musical notes. This is not a spatial arrangement of characters but musical organisation of the film image (shots at times containing on face, at times two)

smoking

The entrance of the religious figure serves to clarify the background of the film text. The nationalist period and the religious reform movements threw up many such figures who had no problems saying "I too am an athiest. I too am looking for God." So if he has not seen God any, he cannot say with any conviction that there is a God. But since people are everywhere, and many of them are in need of help, he roams around seeking people who he can serve. Appropriately he seems to worship a formless God, addresing him as Being, Conciousness and Bliss.
Additionally his entrance is meant to preserve the dignity and integrity of the sequence The discussion of romantic heterosexual love that is being conducted here through songs and conversations is not to be ridiculed or taken lightly. It is part of a long tradition. The prostitute becomes important because she can be a conduit of the discourse of love, but she might never bring it to a closure and thereby continuing the flow of desire, longing and torment.

Meera in her previous life was called Surabhi. The daughter of a feudal overlord, she was brought up traditionally. She was also filled with the traditional desire to marry but she did not agree an arranged marriage because the grooms chosen by her father were all from the feudal class. Surabhi's desires were modern. She waited for a Prince Charming but her Prince Chanrming was not to carry a sword or a lance in his hand but a pen or a painting brush.
Here the story deviates from the Devdas tradition for Surabhi is brought up only with girlfriends but in continuation with the earlier text, she ultimately is forced to marry a man old enough to be her father. This she cannot accept so she runs away. Clearly, this girl who wrote poetry, painted pictures and dreamt of a happy marriage had not fulfilled any of her desires. In Devdas, Paro was able to sublimate her desires into a deep sense of love and responsibility towards her husband, his family and the community. At the same time, she was able to keep her love for Devdas fully intact. Here, in this film, Surabhi would never have such a fast playing ground for her emotions and affective tendencies. So when she would join the group of renunciate women, she would get into a spiritual straightjacket that would fir her well enough but would reman just so, a straightjacket. And that is why when she meets Vijay, he senses the lack of joy and inner freedom in her and she, on her part is flooded with all her suppressed desires.

Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Chanda khele aankh
देख पिया... चंदा खेले आँख-मिचौली बदली से नदी किनारे

Sakhiri Chit Chor: This song in rag desi is a slow song with pathos—she laments the one who will steal her heart has not come. Notably, the songs that Surabhi sings is no different from the ones that Meera sings: all her songs are sung by Geeta Dutt in her own style; probably she was not directed to bring about a difference in the two modes—or Kidar Sharma did not find that necessary.
Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Sakhiri chitchor nahin
सखि री चितचोर नहीं आए

Dalo re dalo re: This song begins with a sthayi (first two or four line that later turn into refrain) traditional musical motif pertaining to the festival of Hori. But later the other verses are in the style of “film song.” The question of instrumental interlude becomes important here—which is precisely what turns the traditional idiom into film-song.
Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Daro re rang daro
डारो रे रंग डारो रे रसिया

Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Zaraa tham jaa tu
ज़रा थम जा तू ऐ सावन

Singer: Talat Mehmood
Song: Sundarta ke sabhi shikari
शिकारी... सुन्दरता के सभी शिकारी
Sundarta ke: This is the first time Talat Mehmood sings for Naushad. The song tells a story and so the tune is minimum, the refrain very short.

After her recital of her past life is over, once again they sit partly facing each other and partly facing the camera. But the last shot, like a master-shot shows he has been sitting at a very low level at her feet. Once again, we see a play of mise en scene that avoids the cinematic mode of recording conversations through shot/counter-shots.
He tells her finally he has understood why her eyes seem filled with such pains. She complains his appearance in her life has disturbed what peace she had earned through her prayers. He suggests, it is a good idea to share one’s secrets with some one.

Meera alias Surabhi was trained to kill desire and not sublimate it. She was not asked to strenghten her 'being', develop her 'consiousness' and taste 'bliss'. So all she could do was to put a check on her desires, remain calm, and chant 'shanti'. Vijay was correct in his reading when he had told her that the calmness was only at the surface level like a layer of ashes that hide smouldering coal.

She is ill and he goes to see her and finds she has fever but she also has been crying. Once again he insists she should talk to him and she wants to thwart all such impulses. In the earlier sequence she had told him, he can read her like a book. Now she tells him, her eyes are closed, but he is looking at her; so he can read her, but not she. He adds, the eyes are the pathway to the soul; so he is unable to look deep into her. He insists, surging desires should not be suppressed. And then she repeats what she has learnt from her female-guru: women should crush all desires. Men can afford to play with desires, but not women. But never once does she say, her desires have not been aroused by her presence. This protracted talk about female desire is quite a rare theme for a film (another film that could be refer to here is Daera by Kamal Amrohi made in 1953).
When she refuses to fully confront her desires, he expresses the alternative as if of his desire to be a companion to her, talk to her, love her. He asks her to give diksha or spiritual initiation—but at the same time, insisting she should confront or squarely meet with her desires.
He then asks her for her book of poetry from her early life. He knows she recorded all her desires and aspirations in that book; he can see how she has been clutching on to it as if that alone gives her peace and calm. She tells him it is not time yet for that.
This text could be considered of a sexist nature because even in the mode of spirituality, a woman continues to practice what she has been trained in: that a woman is always to surpress her desires, control her tendencies and remain calm. Vijay tries to argue about the psychological repercussions of such an endeavour but since thats the only way she is aware off, he cannot convince her otherwise. So out of empathy with her and a desire to be a companion, he asks her to initiate him in her ways.

When she was Surabhi, Meera wrote poetry that allowed her to let desires flow unchecked. So it is possible to say as Meera she was fooling herself because though she did not write poetry any longer, she held on to her book of poems.

Dagmag dagmag: In this song, for the first time Meera-devi is directly connected to Krishna—through the image of an idol and the process of editing. She is in a mode of complete surrender, beseeching her god to save her from sinking—into her desires, a pull towards her past and thus leave her chosen path. In a stunning image we see her large profile in complete dark shadow, as she bows down before her god-of-worship.
Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Dagmag dagmag dole
डगमग डगमग डोले नैया

But no other path was left open for Meera. It was not possible for her to renounce renunciation and form an attachment with Vijay. But it is remarkable that in this film, this woman never once hides from Vijay the fact that his presence distracts and disturbs her. It is also remarkable that in Jogan, the hero fully understands the woman. He tries to convince her but not coerce. However difficult the situation might be for Meera, and though we might say that the path of escape is the only way out for her, what Vijay and the audience along with him recognise is her ability to stick to that path.
As Meera, Nargis is magnificient in the film. Despite the scope of expression being restricted, she is a personification of depth and dignity. And for Dilip Kumar, as well, the range of emotions is limited but perhaps, we have never seen him so tender and so tentative in a film before.

Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Uthat chale avadhoot
उठे तो चले अवधूत

It is also possible to say that Jogan does create a situation where the closure defies the question of happy or sad ending. There has been an exchange of love and the actors have made it possible for us to experience it suitably the last song is a duet. Also, it is not important here to come to any resolution about who were right, whose spirituality was of a superior order, who was more pragmatic etc. Both Vijay and Meera show courage, spiritual conviction and psychological honesty. The path is a difficult one and the song refers to a cult that is known to be most robust and tough- the cult of Avdhoot. it is interesting that a film called Jogan ends with an evocation of the Avdhoot cult. Both were attached to the grassroot level religious practice in India, namely the Nath but they were not exactly the same. And by way of the duet, both- the one who renounced and the one who did not are designated as Avdhoot

Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Ae ri Main To Prem Diwani
ए री मैं तो प्रेम दिवानी मेरो दर्द न जाने कोये

Mat ja mat ja Jogi: Meera-devi leaves the village to return to her guru, deciding to devote all her time in prayer, chanting and meditation. So arduous is her tapasya, that a young novitiate is full of foreboding. She sings, ‘Jogi do not leave!’ It is during this song that much of Meera’s psyche is understood. She really had wanted to divert all her early desires to the desire for spiritual excellence (whether she was well guided or not is not the question). To find that she had failed must have been terrible. The song, attributed to Meera-bai is a call for help, from one jogi to another. It reiterates the fact that the path of full engagement with a certain kind of spirituality is very difficult, often leading to death and destruction of the self—one’s body and mind. The singer begs a departing jogi: to show the way to the path of love and devotion; to light the sandalwood pyre s/he would build; to smear on the body the ashes for the pyre is now fully burnt up, before departing. The pyre is one’s own body; the young novitiate is full of apprehension while singing this. But Meera looks very calm, determined and happy. The song ends with the plea that the light-n-energy of one should mingle with that of another. And that is the crux of her desire—to become full of illumination and realization (of the secrets of the self, the universe and godhood). It is normal, she would always remember her past or she would feel the need to love another human being and that would come in the way of this imagination: that it is possible to ‘crack open the secrets.’ The film has been about this melange of desires and ensuing confusions one can experience. But the film must now end and looks for a closure. But before that, remarkably, the film’s discourse returns to that of the worship of a formless god, after it was initiated in the very first song ghungat ke pat. It returns to the notion of one’s own body and selfhood as the site for all gains—spiritual, intellectual and emotional—something many followers of these and such cults aspired for and so continuously breaking away from institutional forms of worship of deities and idols. That is the reason they could roam around, change guru and their mode—like Ranjha, who could return to his human love, marry and resume a sexual relationship (the story as written by a Hindu merchant Damodar had a happy ending; Pir Waris Shah changed the end to the dual death of the protagonists, wanting the story to become a vehicle for teaching spirituality.) It is said Meera-bai had met with some of these jogis, in yet another sign, showing many in India could easily shift allegiance between the two ways of sagun and nirgun Bhakti (as we see in the works of Tukaram, as much an advocate of worship-of-form as of thinking of god as formless.)

The closure of the film also visits the domain of the belief in miracles—something so meticulously avoided throughout. It is suggested that this jogan or yogini is so powerful that she can induce death by yogic process. Instead of going into the debate whether this is possible or not (many yogis are reported to have left their body once their work on the earth was over, for example Sant Dnyaneshwar. At the age of twenty-three, after the completion of two magnum opus and numerous poems, he had gone into a Samadhi leading to death, in Alandi near Pune). Instead, it will be fruitful to see the need for the end of narration here. The logic behind this device and the story element is that there is no resolution to the debate between psychology and spirituality—and between a very prominent national debate this film seems to carry: the duality between preya and shreya. There are things that are desired and pleasing to one (or two); and there are things that are to be desired, for they are good for everyone. Also there is dhyeya: things that one aspires for—they must be pleasing and good.

This song has the most unusual history. Normally, film songs borrow from classical, semi-classical and folk songs; the reverse, classical music borrowing from a film song is unheard of. It seems that is the case with Jogi mat ja. In the sixties, Pandit Omkarnath Thakur had made these words extremely famous all over India through singing in concerts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gApWs6LO0Ww and his recording playing on All India Radio. He sings in the classical mode, pouring in it his entire musical and emotive repertoire; but the main melody in rag Bhairavi is the same as the tune of the song in Jogan. Urmila Bhirdikar informs, he recorded the song in 1961. The question is when did he begin singing it? The question also is whether there was any traditional bhajan with this tune—one that Naushad could have picked up for his version in the film. If these questions are answered, then this historiography would have to be re-written. As of now, one sees this incredible history does not stop there. The classical version was picked up later by Vinayak Rao Patwardhan and Mallikarjun Mansur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUilttdv6Is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md2C8-x1fYE.
Both retained the basic tune from Jogan based on Bhairavi, but their musical treatment is very different from that of Omkarnath. The latter adopted full throttled histrionics that ended up in sobbing. Mansur puts in strains of pleading and pathos, while adopting the conversational mode, but without any melodramatic excess. Mansur maintains the bhajan root of the song. Vinayak-rao’s rendition is less emotive, containing more musical elaborations, more tankari, etc.
Singer: Geeta Dutt
Song: Mat ja mat ja jogi
जोगी मत जा पाँव पड़ूँ मैं तोरी

Geeta Dutt
Song: Uthe to chale avadhoot
उठे तो चले अवधूत
Uthata chale avadoot: After the death of Meera-devi, Vijay receives her book of poems as he stands under a tree she had marked as his boundary—he was not to follow her beyond this point, when she had left the village. The poems bore her past desires; but did he understand what her recent desires were? Did repent that he had so urged her to look at her repressed psychological needs but was ignorant of her desire (psychological need) to sublimate desires and be ‘free?’ He is at her grave—as a jogan, she is buried and not cremated. As he looks on and listens to the background song (as in films, characters are meant to reacted to background scores). He quietly sheds tears.

This last song, as per tradition, is in the rag Bhairavi. In fact, all three last songs of the film are in this rag. Curiously, it is about an Avadoot, who has risen and left—walking away towards some distant horizon. Avadoots, as the root words suggest, are completely free—freed from the restriction of the body, body-soul or body-mind duality, and social norms (so many roamed naked). The Wikipedia entry on this word is adequate and acceptable.

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