Rajanigandha and my first tears in the movie-hall

Oh what's love got to do, got to do with it
What's love but a second hand emotion
What's love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart
When a heart can be broken....

I remember Tina Turner singing this song in the mid 80s with a passion unknown, mostly 'cause she had suffered a traumatic and strained life with her husband and separated from him in the mid 70s. That was her life which was again made into a full movie in the early 90s. 

However, I am of a different opinion from Tina Turner and would like to say that love has everything to do with everything. Love makes life complete and creates a completely different personality out of a person who never really knew what love was all about. 

However, a decade earlier to when Tina Turner sang this song, Basu Chatterjee created a story of love; love of a woman for two men. Or was it just for one?

Mom took me to watch this movie in a hall in Shillong with a couple of my aunts when I obviously didn't even know what it was to be in love and for the first time cried when the actress was crying for her love. I wish I knew why I cried but Mom still keeps telling me that I was sniffing in the dark and that I was looking for her saree to wipe my tears and also blow my nose. 

However, the story kind of has more meaning to it now when I read about it than then when I was a little girl. 

Deepa (Vidya Sinha) is a graduate student in Delhi who is in a long-term relationship with Sanjay (Amol Palekar), whom she plans to marry. Sanjay is a loquacious, humorous, and a good individual who is also rather lackadaisical and forgetful with no sense of punctuality.

A job interview call from a college in Mumbai re-acquaints her with Navin (Dinesh Thakur) whom she had split up with under acrimonious circumstances. Navin is in every way the antithesis of Sanjay: He is very punctual and looks after her during her stay in Mumbai. Navin shows her the city and helps her with the job interview. This rekindles Deepa's feelings for him, and she finds herself torn between the two men and between her past and her present. Upon her return to Delhi, she feels that her first love (Navin) is her true love. She receives a letter stating that she has got the job in Mumbai. At the same time Sanjay comes to her house and tells her that he has got a promotion. Deepa then feels that she should forget the past and get married to Sanjay. Whom she decides to marry forms the climax of the movie.

However, what I do remember though was that Basu Chatterjee's film Rajanigandha made me feel very sad for quite a couple of days! And as a little girl, I hardly knew why!

Directed by	Basu Chatterjee
Produced by	Suresh Jindal, Kamal Saigal
Written by	Basu Chatterjee(dialogue)
Screenplay by	Basu Chatterjee
Story by	Manu Bhandari
Starring	Amol Palekar Vidya Sinha Dinesh Thakur
Music by	Salil Choudhury Yogesh (Lyrics)
Cinematography	K. K. Mahajan
Editing by	G.G. Mayekar
Release dates	·         1974
Running time	110 min.
Country	India
Language	Hindi

 *Thanks to information on this movie from Wikipedia