Dost Dost Na Raha...

This song tugs at my heartstrings every time I listen to it. Sangam is a film as old as the hills. I was seventeen when the film hit KL...and if my memory serves me right,...at Colliseum in Batu Road in 1964.

The story tugs at your heart but what endeared me, and multitudes of others, to Sangam was Dost Dost Na Raha...that wonderful enchanting song that will simply not leave your head once you have heard it. Even now, as I listen to Dost Dost Na Raha, it evokes memories of a time long past. Of a life that, I must insist, was my privilege to have lived.

And for those us who had been privileged to have been around when Sangam first came into our lives....let us, for old time sake, relive the film again....

Sundar, Gopal and Radha have been friends since childhood. As they grow into adults, Sundar develops an obsessive romantic attraction to Radha; for him, she is the only woman in the world. However, Radha prefers Gopal, who is also in love with her, and systematically resists Sundar's advances. Matching Sundar's great love for Radha is his unswerving devotion to his friendship with Gopal. Sundar confides his feelings for Radha to Gopal, who decides to sacrifice his love for his friend's sake.

Eventually, Sundar enlists in the Indian Air Force and is assigned a dangerous mission in Kashmir, delivering items to soldiers fighting there. Before leaving, he extracts a promise from Gopal, whom he trusts implicitly, never to let any man come between Radha and himself while he is away. Sundar subsequently completes his mission, but his aircraft is shot down and he is listed as killed in action and presumed dead. For his bravery, he is awarded the Param Vir Chakra. The news saddens Radha and Gopal, but they are nonetheless now free to profess their love for one another. Among other expressions of love, Gopal writes her an unsigned love letter that touches her and which she hides away. Just when they begin taking steps to be married, Sundar returns, safe and sound. The self-effacing Gopal sacrifices his love once more, stepping back into the shadows and watching as the reborn Sundar resumes his wooing of Radha. Before Sundar enlisted, Radha's parents did not like him, but after he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, they happily marry their daughter to him.

After the couple returns from an extended European honeymoon, Sundar is deliriously happy, as his life's dream has been realised. Radha is resolved to be faithful to her husband and to put Gopal out of her mind, privately asking him to stay away from her and Sundar because of the torture his presence causes her. Sundar's devotion to Gopal, however, is such that he constantly tries to draw him into their lives, much to Radha's chagrin. The perfection of their marital bliss is, however, shattered when Sundar accidentally discovers the unsigned love letter Gopal had written to Radha. An enraged Sundar pulls a pistol on his wife and demands she divulge the name of her supposed lover, threatening to kill the man, but she refuses.

In the days that follow, Sundar becomes consumed with discovering the identity of the letter's author. Radha's life becomes miserable, lived out against the incessant drama of Sundar's jealousy, threats, anger, and fixation with the letter. Eventually unable to bear the wretchedness of her existence with Sundar any further, she flees to Gopal for help. Sundar takes the same route, unaware that Radha has gone to Gopal's house. There, matters come to a head. The overwrought Gopal admits his authorship of the infamous letter to Radha, an admission that almost destroys his friend. Sundar asks Gopal why he sacrificed his love for his sake, admitting that he would have happily done the same for him. Radha, meanwhile, chastises the two men for not ever taking her feelings into consideration through the whole situation, and only focussing on their friendship. Gopal, perceiving no exit from the impasse at which the three have arrived, kills himself with Sundar's pistol. Radha and Sundar are finally reunited but in mourning.