Jadu Tona (1977)

Prem Chopra and his daughters drive from the city to their ancestral village for a visit. The girls have recently lost their mother and it is a period of healing for the family as they gather at the old family house still occupied by the grandparents. As they are about to enter the village, they are beckoned by a simpleton who tells them to pay their respects to the holy Peepal tree that marks the entrance to the community. Chopra merely scoffs at the backwardness of the fellow and drives past disdainfully, failing to notice a menacing black cat casting fierce looks in their direction.

Baby Pinky, the younger of the daughters, waddles off exploring the fields and bursts into song about the virtues of country living: “Yeh Lovely Lovely Gaon”. Quite suddenly she becomes entranced by a distinctly wobbly, though bewitchingly attractive, butterfly which leads her towards a set of derelict ruins. Upon entering the ominous structure, Harsha (Pinky) is welcomed by a sinister looking man lounging upon a charpoy. In a booming voice he asks her to do him a favour by opening a bottle of medicine. As soon as she does so, there is a puff of dust and Harsha goes AWOL, overcome by an almighty giggling fit accompanied by violent twitching seizures. The dark character on the charpoy cackles triumphantly as his spirit, enslaved for so long inside what appears to be a bottle of cough syrup, is finally unleashed and swiftly takes possession of the unsuspecting child. There follows a horrifying scene where Harsha flies into a rage, twitching, shaking and slamming herself violently about while cackling maniacally.

The child soon begins displaying superhuman strength and takes a visiting doctor to task, pummelling him with alarming enthusiasm. The grandparents insist that she has been possessed by the vengeful spirit of Pannalal and promptly send for the local tantrik. When he arrives he is insulted by Harsha’s modern-minded elder sister, played by Reena Roy, who refuses to entertain notions of evil spirits and demonic possession. The rather impressive looking tantrik, portrayed by Premnath, is humiliated and sent packing despite the desperate apologies of the grandparents.

Reena and her father return to the city where they are advised to consult the famous and incredibly brilliant psychiatrist Dr Kailash, dashingly played by Feroz Khan. Dr Kailash is a modern scientific man who has little time for stories involving possession and supernatural forces. Initially his treatment appears to work miracles as Harsha returns to normal behaviour and even resumes attending school. Alas, every now and then she relapses into her murderous demonic state, seemingly triggered by the sight of blood, a black cat or the satanic butterfly.

Harsha soon begins skipping school, telephoning strange men for mysterious rendezvous before attacking them with murderous intent. Inspector Jolly Goodman (Ashok Kumar), as canny a sleuth as one could hope for, quickly realises that the growing body count is connected. Meanwhile Dr Kailash appears far more interested in wooing Harsha’s beautiful elder sister than in treating the child, serenading Reena Roy with ponderous love songs while his patient lies foaming and frothing at the mouth.

Ultimately science and modern techniques prove utterly worthless and the family is forced to turn once more to the mighty powers of the tantrik, who must risk his own life in order to save the child and drive out Pannalal’s horrendous spirit.

There are some spectacular special effects along the way as Harsha passes through various states of possession. She speaks in strange voices, assumes the vocal tones of other people and generally causes mayhem wherever she goes. The twitching fits are impressively staged but perhaps the most astounding effect of all, apart from the inevitable projectile vomiting, is the sequence where Harsha levitates and proceeds to walk upside down across the ceiling much like Lionel Richie in the video for Dancing on the Ceiling.

Having put up considerable resistance to the mystifying antics of the tantrik baba, Pannalal’s priyatatma eventually begins to buckle under the strain of an endless barrage of bhajans and, more importantly, the threat of a fourth holy lemon being exploded in his direction.

The message of the film is the familiar one of traditional values and ancient wisdom pitted against modern science and rational thought. Here we have the old world represented by the grandparents and the tantrik, while the English-speaking city folk place their faith entirely in education, psychiatry and modern medicine. The foreign-educated doctor who scoffs at notions of possession finds himself utterly powerless when confronted by forces beyond his understanding.

Baby Pinky is superb in the central role. Her eye-rolling antics and particularly her extraordinary twitching spells deserve enormous credit. Reena Roy is as dependable as ever and looks suitably radiant during the laborious romantic scenes. Feroz Khan is magnificent as the suave Dr Kailash while Ashok Kumar lends admirable support as the eccentric but insightful Inspector Goodman.

The film benefits enormously from its superior cast and production values when compared to the average Ramsay effort. The music director succeeds in generating a reasonable atmosphere of dread and some of the lighting and camera tricks are genuinely effective, even if occasionally overused. The main drawback is the romantic subplot, which slows proceedings considerably, along with some rather desperate attempts at comedy.

Even so, this desi version of The Exorcist remains a reasonably commendable effort. The film concludes with the profoundly philosophical observation:

“So there is no end to the unfolding mysteries of nature. God knows how long man will take to explain so many things yet unexplained.”

Indeed.