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Mayurpankh (1954)

Kishore Sahu

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Release Date1954
GenreRomance, Drama
FormatColour
LanguageHindi
Length3248.55 meters
Number of Reels12
Gauge35 mm
Censor RatingU
Censor Certificate Number9945/53 - Mumbai
Certificate Date01/12/1953
Shooting LocationMinerva Color Studios, Bombay

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SAILING majestically into Bombay harbour, is a passenger ship from England with its usual assortment of passengers. Among the motley crowd of travellers disgorged by the ship, ore Joan Davis and William Griffith, mistaken for a time as man and wife. Joan is a popular authoress who has come to India to gather local colour for her next novel. William has tied himself to her apron-strings for love.

Pyarelal, a loquacious, witty guide, takes the two tourists under his wing. Joan is excited and thrilled by the teeming life and colour of the Orient. She is deeply impressed by the beauty and quietude, the rhythm and romance that she sees everywhere. William, obsessed with love, finds little of interest in this land.

Sojourning through the country, Joan and William find themselves stranded, one night, in a dense forest. Their car will not start and they are famished. They are depressed by the gloom, when suddenly out of the dark appear two powerful shafts of light-the headlights of a car as they presently discover. Ranjit is at the wheel-Ranjit, the scion of an aristocratic house of Jaipur. He introduces himself as a shikari (hunter), sets the car going, and invites them to share his food with him.

Ranjit and Joan talk, for a few flitting moments, under the starry sky. They look into each other's eyes and their hearts leap as they realise that a mutual love has been kindled-love that remains unspoken.

Ranjit and Joan part each going in a different direction. Their paths cross again when they meet anew at Banaras. Here, at a fair, Ranjit buys Joan a beautiful fan made of Mayurpankh (peacock-feathers). Peacock-feathers bring luck to the possessor and Joan is thrilled with the gift. But they part again-only to meet once more at the Taj Mahal in Agra. Ranjit invites Joan to a tiger hunt in the Terrai forests. She accepts Ranjit's invitation, to the annoyance of William.

In the shikar camp, Ranjit's family doctor notices the mutual attraction of the pair. He reveals to Joan that Ranjit is a married man. Joan is shocked and suddenly leaves the hunting party, asking the doctor to return the Mayurpankh fan to Ranjit.

Ranjit eventually goes back to his home town, Jaipur. Shanti, Ranjit's wife, accidentally discovers the fan in his study. Ranjit's embarrassment at Shanti's discovery, gives cause for suspicion that her husband probably has an interest in some other woman a suspicion which is soon confirmed when Joan appears out of the blue at Ranjit's house, as an unexpected guest, to attend the wedding of his sister !

The embers of the old fire ore suddenly raked up and there springs up in the hearts of both Ranjit and Joan the liveliest flame of love. Alas, Joan has already learnt, to her utter misery, that Ranjit is a married man. In a second, Joan's ivory tower of dreams cruelly crumbles around her feet !

But love that is kindled in the human breast dies not as easily as it is born.

And ShantI- the good, sedate, understanding wife of Raniit, the typical Indian wife who looks upon her wedded life as a matter, not only of one birth, but an unending relation lasting through a countless series of births and deaths- Shanti takes her lord's passing remissness as she takes life itself-with undisturbed equanimity, born of her vital faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature.

Joan is touched by Shanti's understanding and forgiving nature. Confusion and remorse rend her heart at the thought that she has been perilously near to breaking up a happy home, trying to take away a husband from his loyal, loving wife, a father from his sweet, innocent child.

Torn between love and the dictates of conscience, Joan comes to a supreme decision: Is she moved by the promptings of her heart or her head? Raniit is ready to accompany Joan and William to England. Shanti does not object. The unravelling of the tangled skein of these lives, caught in the vortex of passion and duty, forms the poignant climax to the tale Mayurpankh tells- a climax, too, in which the fan of peacock-feathers is destined, once again, to change hands !

[From the official press booklet]