A passage to India. Maurice Jarre

It's the early 1920s. Britons Adela Quested (Judy Davis) and her probable future mother-in-law Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft) have just arrived in Chandrapore in British India to visit Adela's unofficial betrothed, Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), who works there as the city's magistrate. Adela and Mrs. Moore, who long for "an adventure" in experiencing all India has to offer, are dismayed to learn upon their arrival that the ruling British do not socialize, let alone associate, with the native population. The eccentric Brahmin scholar Professor Narayan Godbole (Sir Alec Guinness), Adela, and Mrs. Moore would like to invite Aziz Ahmed (Victor Banerjee), a young, widowed local physician with whom Mrs. Moore had a chance encounter.

For the film Maurice Jarre provides two primary themes. The Main Theme is gorgeous, supremely complex in its construct and is imbued with a wondrous joie de vivre, restlessness and carefree romanticism. It provides the backdrop of Adela’s journey across the exotic wonder that is India. Jarre understood that despite Lean’s directive, that his music must speak to the exotic beauty that is India and so accented this theme with the tambura; a two-string instrument, the sitar or Indian lute, a santoor and the sarangi a bowed string instrument, all of which reverberate with the unique voice of that is India. The second primary theme, Adela’s Theme is on the surface a Fox Trot and so, dance like in its construct. But it is far more than this, and Jarre demonstrates mastery of his craft in how he modulates, embellishes and adapts both its expression and tone for the myriad of scenes to which it is attached. The theme thus reflects a conflicted Adela who’s sensual and inner yearnings for unfettered expression are repressed by her prudish and formal English upbringing.