At The Edge

Dev Anand (1923 - 2011)

2011-12-04T13:50:00.001+05:30

Goodbye, Last Jedi of Indian Cinema.
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Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!

2011-12-07T00:56:00.001+05:30

An ad from filmindia July, 1943.
Came across above image in 'Wanted cultured ladies only!: female stardom and cinema in India, 1930s-1950s'
by By Neepa Majumdar (Google Books)

Leela Chitnis and Master Vinayak in ''Better Half'
from filmindia, January 1940

The above image (minus the caption) was recently shared on twitter by Pavan Jha. He posted it as a quiz. Quite a few comments raised the issue of 'Smoking in Indian Cinema'. I came to know about the image via Facebook where someone asked me if I knew the answer. I recalled coming across it in filmindia collection shared with me by Greta. I was able to recall it because of the appealing caption: kiss

The Kiss. Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai in Karma (1933)

Speaking of Captions...

From Filmfare, November 1989

Speaking of Ads...

June 1982

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Smita Patil

2011-12-13T22:37:00.002+05:30

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Sex in Cinema: A History of Female Sexuality in Indian Films by Fareed Kazmi

2011-12-30T21:56:00.000+05:30

Rupa Publications
Pages 375
Rs 395

'Isak ki baat to besua jaane/ hum bahu beti hain, hum ka jaanein'

(The art of making love is known only to the prostitute/ we women of the household, what do we know of it.)

A book that starts with a quote like that plucked from the back of a truck has to be great. First 100 pages are filled with quotes after quotes after quotes after quotes from every 'thinking' man or woman (but mostly man) ever born, right from Xenophon to our own Tarun Tejpal, with Derridas, Foucaults, Sartres, Mae Wests, Enslers thrown somewhere in between and even our own Gandhi ji drops in a line or two. Basically anyone who ever thought about sex and wrote about it, pictured it and then wrote about it, is present in this book all to make a case for 'A History of Female Sexuality in Indian Films'. So by page 103 you tell yourself it would have been just as fine if the writer (a professor of Political Science at Allahabad University) had written a one page short note about Misraji of Bhojpur who thinks Madhubala was an angel and that all these new girls dancing on screen are gustakh laundiyas polluting the screen and the naujawaan nasal. He could have claimed Misraji is being simple, that the truth of women on Indian screen is more complex, and then to drive home his point he could have posted 99 photographs of Helen (this book on cinema has only 9 disappointing photographs, including just one of Helen). All this would have been fine because all this time based on the cover of the book and its title a beguiled reader is expecting a (long over due) short concise Indian version of MrSkins in print. Ah the subtle art of selling a book on female sexuality using female sexuality. Judge a book by its acknowledgement:
"From Mehtab to Madhuri, Dimple to Zeenat, Madhubala to Aishwarya, this book owes its genesis, to all those divas whom we have ogled at, lusted for, 'slept with'. however, if it lacks the lustre and the passion these names evoke, the fault is entirely mine."

Wasting ink is a crime if the subject is drawn from Indian Cinema because even if one writes with all the expediency in the world something substantial is bound to get left behind because of the sheer size of Indian silver screen. The fallout of the writer's crime becomes obvious after page 100 when one realizes that the writer has tried to cover the 'The History' by sorting his subject matter by decades starting 1950s and ending somewhere into 2000s. For each decade he picks a few obvious films and dissects them to offer a picture of woman as was carved (intentionally or unintentionally) on the screen in these decade. For 50s we have analysis of word games played by Nargis and Raj Kapoor in 'Awara' and 'Shree 420'. Then we have a truly brutal and brilliant denouncement of 'Mother India' in which son Briju seems to be the real rebel and Mother India just another Pavitra Nari. For 1960s, we are offered 'Mughal-e-Azam' , 'Sahib, Biwi, Aur Gulam', 'Guide', 'Aradhana' and 'Bandini'. The analysis of choices made by Kalyani in Bandni makes for an engrossing read, we see the woman become a mix of rebel and a conformist. The book is worth the money if only for the essay on 'Mother India' and 'Bandini'. Because Fareed Kazmi does his dissection with a deftness, a reader does wish he had written some more on some more films. How can just 'Mera Naam Joker', 'Bobby', 'Hare Rama Hare Krishna', 'Julie' and 'Kabhi Kabhi' be used to define a decade of movies, a decade in which more and more woman, like never before were seen on screen? When you see the line-up for 80s: 'Insaf Ka Tarazu', 'Pratighat' and 'Arth', you know which direction the writer is driving you, the changing image of woman he is crafting? You know 'Hum Aap Kay Hai Kaun' is up, soon followed by 'Murder'. You know how it will end. You know writer has taken an easy route. You feel like a disappointed Misraji from Bilaspur. You put down the book wishing that the writer had written a word or two about Saudagar (1973), the film based on a story by Narendranath Mitra, which could have been a brilliant topic for enquiry into politics of female sexuality. Next you wish to see Padma Khanna burn some gur. Then you watch her and notice the delighted young peeping tom woman in the song. Then you are reminded of those fancy Indian art painting drawn by ancient men. And then a sudden laugh drops on your face as you think about all the mad men who made cinema in India. And then you wait for a fsad ancy post-modern interpretation of the song and how it was charged with overt female homoeroticism and how it was a path-breaking event in Indian Cinema.

video link

Basohli Art

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Tripping on Asimov

2012-01-02T22:36:00.000+05:30

"In 2002, a survey carried out by the Nobel Institute on 100 of the world’s best authors from 54 countries led to Don Quixote being declared the best book of all time. Newspapers trumpeted the news. But how does one arrive at the “best book of all time”? A year later, Salman Rushdie, one of the writers who took part in the survey, claimed the writers who took part in the survey were asked to list, in no particular order, 10 of their favourite books, then this list was fed into a computer. In the end, the computer declared Don Quixote to be the greatest and most meaningful book of all time. Only decades ago, the fact that a machine was deciding matters of art may have raised some eyebrows and maybe given rise to some interesting critique of the methodology. But not a whisper was heard.

Compare this to the plot of Asimov’s 1955 story Franchise and the debut of Multivac. The story is about the US election in 2008. The election was a simple affair. Computer selected a man, a representative of the electorate, and asked him a few questions. Based on this one man’s answers, a President was elected. With all that computational power at hand, it probably was not hard for Asimov to guess which route humanity will take. At the start of this story, the protagonist is weary of the computer-driven election process but by the time the process is over, and after he has exercised his vote, he feels: “In this imperfect world, the sovereign citizens of the first and greatest Electronic Democracy had, through Norman Muller (through him!) exercised once again its free, untrammeled franchise.”

DownToEarth magazine's Science Fiction special issue (Jan 1-15, 2012) has a piece by me on Isaac Asimov's visions of future. Here's me tripping on Asimov: From cache.

If you are a science fiction buff or even fiction buff, you might as well check out these brilliant articles from the issue:
Arvind Mishra and Harish Goyal on origin of Science Fiction in Hindi.
Debjani Sengupta on Industrialisation, modernity and science fiction in Bengal.

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Rushdie Interview, 1982

2012-01-12T12:38:00.001+05:30

"I do long to go back to India. To live? I just don't know if that's possible. It might be...I'll tell you when I go back there. You see, I haven't lived in India since I was a child, since I was fourteen, because from then my parents were in Pakistan where they still are. I visit them there all the time
and I now really know Pakistan more than I know India, although I like it less, ad the more I know it the less I like it. So India is a sort of country of my
imagination for me, rather than anywhere that I have actual, concrete day-to-day connections with any more. Although one of the pleasant things that's happened through Midnight's Children is that my contact with India has increased enormously.
[---]
People endlessly ask me whether I think of myself as British or Indian. I don't really think of myself as either. I think of myself as me. I never really have particularly defined myself against nations. I don't see why one has to make that definition. I'm somebody who lives in Britain and has his roots in India. That seems to me to be enough, really. Why does one have to be more precise than that?"

~ A recent Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie talking to co-producer of 'Gandhi', Rani Dube for Debonair Magazine June 1982.

Download the complete interview here

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Absolute Bollywood Zeher

2012-01-15T23:21:00.000+05:30

Movies I watched last year. Or 100 movies you need not watch before you die.

Collected these over the last year from a '5-in-1' shop in a basti (now demolished) in Gurgaon.

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Maneka Gandhi DCM towel Ad, 1974

2012-01-22T16:24:00.001+05:30

It seems I and Mr. Bawaseer Kumar from Aonla are the only two people interested in this - Maneka Gandhi's Towel Ad. Bawaseer Kumar's interest is driven by curiosity about the colorful history of his Parliamentary representative (But I suspect his is a closet Nehru-Gandhi Clan hater just looking for ammunition - the proof, the 'dekha mainay kaha tha these Nehru/Gandhi's are sickular people' kind of proof). My interest, I am just vella. It is either all that or that nobody reads or rather cares for India Today anymore. The infamous 'deleted from history' ad was recently re-published in December 26, 2011, 'Makers & Breakers of Modern India' special issue of the magazine.

Maneka Gandhi in DCM's 'Towels so good you want to wear them' campaign, 1973.

Note with the ad reads: "This was justly Maneka Gandhi's, 22, first claim to fame. As an aspiring model, she had signed up with DCM to model for their entire campaign of towels that were launched in 1973. But her success on the modelling scene was short-lived. When she became engaged to Sanjay, the advertising agency MCM was summarily commanded to withdraw the campaign and clam up all possible remaining records of it."

The story is told by Vinod Mehta in 'The Sanjay story: from Anand Bhavan to Amethi' (1978).

"Beginning in 1974 Miss Anand was plasterred all over Delhi. 'A lanky, vivacious college beauty queen' (crowned 'Miss Sri Ram College' in '73). she had recently taken to modelling with great sucess. Dressed scantily in a towel she was seen on billboards and press ads promoting Delhi Cloth Mills."

On July 28, 1974, MCM, the agency behind the ad campaign, was called up by Maneka's father Lt. Col. Tarlochan Singh Anand who demanded all pictures and transparencies of her daughter be returned. The press was told not to run the Ad anymore. On July 29, a press release declared Sanjay's engagement to an 18 year old girl named Maneka who was learning German at JNU and working as a journalist for a weekly called 'Delhi Dateline'.

The image barely seems as scandalous as one's imagination would have you believe. It was censored and cleaned up after all. Well, that indeed is the true nature of censorship. It lets the imagination run wild.

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Chart of Hindu Afterlife Punishments

2012-02-08T23:30:00.000+05:30

Picked this tease from a corner shop in Jammu on a recent trip.

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Bonus

Happy Burners in a corner of a Kiryana Shop

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Kalki Koechlin Foot Massager Ad

2012-02-26T23:34:00.001+05:30

Now, try as you might, you won't be able to look at those white women in those late night ads the same way.

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The Eye in Art

2012-03-09T01:56:00.003+05:30

The Eye in Art
by
Dr. Rajendra Bajpai (1991)
Publication Division
Rs. 360

"The Eye could never have beheld the beautiful had it not been made beautiful itself first"
-Plotinus

As we see them today

As it was rendered in old days

As it was rendered in various schools in old days

Perhaps the best known - eyes of (Radha) Bani-Thani drawn by Samant Singh's best painter Nihalchand.

Bani-Thani, the courtesan consort of prince Samant Singh of Krishangarh is believed to be the fabled inspiration of an entire style of drawing eyes in Indian painting- the eyes of Radha in Kishangarh School of Rajasthan. It is believed that the prince met her in Delhi, enamored, brought her to his kingdom, took on a poet name, nagri Das and wrote songs about her eyes:

मद भरी, अखिय लाल तिहारी,

तिनसौ तकि-तकि तीर चलावति,

वधति छतिया आनि हमारी |

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Some pop-trivia:
among other things, her eyes were also the inspiration for the title credit roll for Ramanand Sagar's spy soap thriller Aankhen (1968).

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Jahan Begum Dehlavi learns to fly

2012-03-25T00:42:00.000+05:30

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Parveen Babi Cover hits screen

2012-03-25T01:03:00.000+05:30

Today noticed that the famous 'lost' image of Parveen Babi has finally made its ways from this blog to Indian television. Newx channel used it in a run-of-the-mill 'nostalgic' piece on 'Glamour Girl's of Bollywood'. In logo ka meray bina kya hota.

I posted the image around two years ago: Parveen Babi on Time Magazine Cover. You can ~~calculated~~ calculate the pace of information around here. Also, earlier this year I actually found that the image wasn't actually that lost. India Today had last published in 1990.

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Marathi Mermaid, 1938

2012-04-07T02:58:00.002+05:30

In 1938, for the song 'Yamuna Jali Khel Kheluya Kanhaiya' in Master Vinayak's Brahmachari,when Meenakshi Shirodkar (1916 - 1997) dropped her Sari for a swimsuit and dived into a studio pond, slicing and dicing water to tease a youngman whose mind was half-baked by moronic religious thoughts brought on by a political movement, a dangerous mix of both RSS and Gandhian thought, she became probably the first Indian woman to do so on screen. It was a loud revolution. But people probably flocked to the theaters for other reasons.

Years later, Master Vinayak and Meenakshi Shirodkar's daughter Nanda did the water gig in her 1965 film Gumnaam with Manoj Kumar in song Jaane Chaman Shola Badan. It was good, but people probably went to the theater for other reasons.

Meenakshi Shirodkar's grand-daughter Shilpa Shirodkar who spent most of the 90s in water. There were only other reasons by now.

Then suddenly it all stopped. The water act was dead. There are theories. Some thanked global warming and globalization. 'Muncipalty cut the water supply to film studiowallas and instead diverted all the water to them Bisleriwallas.' Some thanked economic liberation. 'No water-fall was remote enough anymore. There was a family of Gujju tourists camping near every fall in the country having samosas and dhoklas.'

(Govennment agencies were to later claim it was due to their 'Save Water' campaign on Doordarshan that the wet dreams of the people dried up).
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Chalo Murga Bano

2012-04-08T14:08:00.000+05:30

conform. conform.conform or Chalo Murga Bano.

A School in the time preceding annexation.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for the Mahárája Dalíp Singh.)

Came across it in 'The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir' (1916) by Sir James McCrone Douie.

Kuan, Dhuan, Aqeab, bhaun

2012-04-11T01:19:00.001+05:30

This bit of information from a book called 'Children's Literature in Indian Languages' (1982) under the Urdu section by one Dr. Muzaffar Hanfi.

Chah Ko Hindi mein Kathe Hain Kuan,
Dood Ko Hindi mein Kathe hain Dhuan,
Hindi mein Aqeab Ka Bichhoo naam hai,
Farsi mein bhaun Ka Abroo naam hai

Lines are from a booklet published in around 1856 called Qadir Nama and believed by some to have been penned by Mirza Ghalib for the sons of his nephew so that they could learn languages and have some fun along the way.

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Beach Babe Mumtaz, 1966

2012-04-16T00:29:00.000+05:30

Close on heels of Sharmila Tagore's August Bikini cover, November issue of Filmfare had Mumtaz as beach babe on cover.

1966 was probably the hottest year in India or that was the year Indians profusely thanked Sardar Patel and Nehru, or either one of them, whoever it was, for bringing in Goa into India.

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blue bare back loop-back

2012-04-22T01:31:00.000+05:30

Fimfare 1-15 Oct 1981

Topic of discussion was Kalpana Iyer's bare back scene in Armaan(1981), a film about 'Liberation of Goa' (you see, I wasn't kidding, there is a co-relation between skin show in Indian Cinema and Goan liberation). The article talked about what a 'bare back' meant generally in greater context of Indian culture and in lesser context to censorship in India.

2012-04-19
The news is about some bright people in Calcutta coloring posters in blue ink to cover a 'bare back' so that it becomes less obscene and less provocative.

April 17, 2012

Good old Khushwant Singh wants to know Why sexy films are ‘blue’… not red, yellow or green? and recounts catching one with Good old R.K. Narayan.

The reason:

"Comparing this notion of prudisness to the expression blue movie (i.e., pornographic films). the later one seems to entail quite an opposite meaning, but it is a metonymy as well, just having gone into a different direction. This expression dates back to the days of Puritanism in Northern America, where certain laws against sinful behaviours, which happened to be written down on blue paper, were passed. These laws referred to drinking, gambling, sex, and business hours. After a while, this original meaning was narrowed down and referred just to laws dealing with sex and pornography, which then gave rise to expressions such as blue laws, blue movies, blue jokes, to turn the ait blue and like."

~ Speaking of Colors and Odors by Martina Plümacher, Peter Holzc [google books, zindabad!]

Had Khushwant Singh stayed with The Illustrated Weekly of India for a few more months, he would have known the answer in all the details. April 21-27 1985 issue of the magazine on 'Blue Movie: The Porn Film Boom in India' prepared the groundwork and proved to be the framework for all subsequent journalistic forays into this sensitive subject. Among other things it talked about how poorly paid were the women working in these movies and how an actress who started her career with Satyajit Ray ended up working in a Southern B-movie. The controversial issue later came under some criticism also for its use of 'blue pictures' to sell story when there might have been no need for them to do so as the subject really was well researched. The piece was so good (or the subject so profitable) that parts of it were re-used for almost a decade by other publications like India Today, Filmfare and few others or their 'Blue issues'. These 'blue issues', in tradition set by Illustrated Weekly, always over illustrated, continued right till late 1990s when finally they found a few subject - Smut Gut Internet. Interestingly, a lot of that Smut, the 'Mallu Masala' flooding the Youtube was produced in 80s and 90s, and started in 1970s in communist Kerala under a liberal censor board.
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Mario Miranda on 'Symbolism' in Indian Film Scene, 1972

2012-04-26T00:32:00.001+05:30

Came across this gem by Mario in December 1, 1972 issue of Filmfare. This was part of the public
debate triggered by Khosla Committee Report (1968-1969).

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For further study: this mind-altering rendition of Chintamani Bhatta's Suka Saptati or 'The Seventy tales of the Parrot' done by bollywood in 1985.

Hindu Hollywood, 1944

2012-04-27T00:09:00.000+05:30

The following verdict on present state of Indian film Industry is from 'Verdict on India' (1944) by Beverley Nichols.

Hindu Hollywood

LET us go to the pictures, and see an Indian film.

It was the first thing I did, when I was well enough to hobble about again, and it would seem that no other Englishman has ever had such a wild idea before.

'What are Indian films like?' one used to ask.

'Good heavens, how should I know?'

'But haven't you ever seen one?'

'Seen one? An Indian film? Really!'

Blank amazement greeted the suggestion that it might be interesting to see an Indian picture. And yet, the films are a living mirror of a nation's life; even if one did not understand everything that the mirror showed, it would surely repay a few hours of study.

I was particularly anxious to visit the studios themselves, and after a little wire-pulling obtained permission to witness the shooting of a big historical picture which was being made within
a reasonable distance of Bombay. Let us make the trip together.

The film star sat cross-legged on the floor of the studio, occasionally dipping her spoon into a bowl of freshly sliced mangoes, iced and glistening and golden. With a gesture of her pretty hand she beckoned to a coolie to move the fan nearer to her; and as he did so its breeze stirred her hair her own fabulous hair, which rippled far below her waist in an enchanting cascade.

It was overpoweringly hot, and as something seemed to have gone wrong with the mike I decided to go outside for a breather. To reach die door one had to step over about a dozen nearly naked coolies, who had seized the opportunity to lie down and sleep in the dust. It wasn't at all like Hollywood in that studio.

It was even less like Hollywood outside.

Imagine a group of shabby Edwardian houses, built of white stucco, clustering near the main road of a Bombay suburb. Down the road passed an endless stream of the rumbling bullock-carts which form the eternal background of the Indian pageant. The coconut palms were noisy with big black crows and the burning skies echoed with the perpetual 'ghee-wee' of kites. At the entrance gate stood an attendant in a mauve and white pugree, lost in dreams, under a tangled mass of morning glory.

Then I turned round, and saw a gaunt building of steel and concrete, painted in staring letters 'Stage Number Four. No Smoking'. The impact of East and West was startling.

In the corner of the yard was a very beautiful tree, with a gnarled trunk the colour of old ivory, and thickly-clustering glossy leaves that Cezanne would have loved, leaves that seemed to drip
green paint into the shadows below. My friend pointed to it.

'I'm going to paint that tree,' he said.

'You'd better hurry up. The director said they were enlarging the studios, and they'll be cutting it down.'

'They'll never cut that tree down. Its a pipal, and a pipal is sacred; if they cut it down they might as well blow up the studio; nobody would work here any more.'

So this was the pipal the same tree which Ramah had climbed when he hurt his leg! Well, it was certainly a lovely thing. And if India has to be cluttered up with sacred objects it is just 'as well that some of those objects should be trees; it is a pity that there are not a few sacred trees in England. Nevertheless, when you come to know India better, you begin to feel that at times the sacredness of the pipal is somewhat overdone. It spreads its shade far and wide, in the mountains and the valleys and the
cities of the plains, and sometimes it spreads it in the most awkward places. Bang in the middle of narrow streets; just over the one spot where a builder wants to put a septic tank; right outside the windows of a room where it is vital to have light. To make a very bad pun, local Government in India is largely government of the pipal, by the pipal, for the pipal.

We walked over and stood in the shade of the tree. It was cool and pleasant here, and it seemed a good place to collect a few statistics from my friend, who was one of the most knowledgeable men in the business.

'How big is the film industry in India?'

'Pretty big, and getting bigger everyday. For instance, there are over a hundred production companies. Their chief centres are Bombay, Calcutta, Poona, and Madras, and between them they employ about 80,000 people.'

'What about the movie theatres?'

'Well of course they vary tremendously, from air-conditioned palaces like the Metro in Bombay to bug-ridden barns with wooden benches in the smaller cities. Even so, there are over 1600 buildings capable of showing talkies.'

'What about the villages?

'The vans go out to them. Little travelling talkies about 500 of them. They usually show one long religious picture, and a Government "short". Some of the shorts are pretty good; they give elemental lessons in sanitation, first aid, rotation of crops, etc.'

'And the stars what about them? What sort of money do they earn? And what sort of people are they?

'Let's go back to the studio and see for ourselves.'

On the 'set' things were beginning to move. The lady with the fabulous hair had finished her mangoes, and was standing in the entrance of the village hut which formed the centre of the scene.
The director, who even in the most heated moments never removed his Gandhi cap [V. Shantaram ?], was giving her a few final instructions. By her side was an elderly, bearded actor, who was playing the role of a wandering fakir.

The scene showed a spirited argument between the star, who was supposed to be the village belle, and the fakir. The dialogue went on for what seemed an interminable time, and was eventually broken up by the entrance of the girl's husband, which was the cue to cut.

'O.K. Lights.'

'Lights . . . lights!' echoed a dozen Indian voices in varying accents.

The lights came on; the noise of the whisperers was hushed; the make-up man dashed across with a final dab of powder for the star's nose. Make-up men in India have an exhausting job, trying
to keep the stars' faces dry at ninety in the shade.

Dead silence. The old, old feeling of agonizing tension. Business. Action.

The star appeared, the dialogue began, everything appeared to be going well. And then, without any warning the actors dried up.

There was an awful pause.

'Cut!'

The producer hurried forward.

'Dim lights!'

The lights went out.

The producer began to rehearse the actors once again. Now there would be ho point in narrating this incident, which is common in all film studios, were it not for the fact that it happened again a few minutes later and again and again, in all eight times. The lights went on, the lights went out, the make-up man dashed backwards and forwards, but aways it ended in the middle with the producer shouting 'cut'. And the curious thing was that he shouted it with the utmost good humour and the stars, instead of looking peeved or embarrassed, merely smiled.

'Does this always happen?'

'Pretty often. It isn't because they've got bad memories but because they try to do. too much. For instance, this girl's only halfway through starring in another picture for another company. She'll be acting in that to-morrow. No wonder she gets her lines mixed!'

'But why do the producers allow it?'

'They can't help it. Indian film stars are the most independent people in the world.'

Other people's money is always interesting. Here are some financial facts about India's Hollywood. For one film a star may get as high a fee as 75,000 rupees, which is about $25,000. If she does three of these a year, which is quite possible, she is actually better off than if she were in Hollywood, because Indian income tax (even when 'the collector manages to extract it, which is seldom) is a fleabite compared to the British or the American.

This fortune she cherishes with remarkable diligence. No big cars, no grand houses, and not even a hint of a gigolo. Bombay's Beverley Hills is a quiet suburb which does not boast a single swimming pool. No tourists even go to see it, no photographers ever pry their way over the garden walls. When the star walks out to her taxi in the morning, nobody turns his head. There is no demand for 'personal appearances' in India.

Maybe she lives so quietly because her career is so short. Its end is as sudden as its beginning. Strange as it will sound to the Western director, an Indian girl may be starred in a full-length role within a few days of her first screen-test, and neither she nor anybody else sees anything odd in it. She twinkles brightly for a very few years three is considered quite a long life and then, suddenly, she disappears. The public have had enough of her. Why, nobody seems to know. She may be prettier, she may be a
better actress; it makes no difference. Out she goes.

Compared with the wages of the stars, the wages of the rest of the personnel are modest, and of the writers, pitiable. For the complete scenario and dialogue of a full-length film an author considers himself lucky to receive two hundred rupees, which is about sixty dollars. That is one reason why Indian films arc marking time. But there are others, as we shall see. We can best illustrate them e on the set'.

It was late in the afternoon when we returned to the studio.

A love scene was in progress. At least, it appeared to be a love scene, but somehow it never seemed to get going.

The village maiden was making sheep's eyes at a young man with a swelling chest. If ever a girl was saying 'Come on' she was saying it, and if ever a chest were swelling because its owner was activated by 'Coming on' instincts, this was the chest in question.

But nothing happened, nothing, that is to say, in the nature of a clinch. The eyes shouted 'come on' in even louder accents, the chest swelled to bursting point (till, in sympathy, one found oneself puffing out like a pouter pigeon), fingers were twined, necks were arched, eyelashes fluttered like the wings of moths but no clinch.

'This can't go on,' I found myself muttering. 'But really, no. All this titillation. Something will snap, burst, come undone.' And sotto voce I said to my friend:

'When is he going to kiss that girl?'

'Kiss her? 5 he echoes in astonishment.

'Yes, kiss her. When?'

'Never.'

'But why not?'

'They never do.'

'What those two? Is there anything the matter with them?'

'No. Not only those two. Nobody.'

'Nobody kisses?'

'Nobody, never. Not on the Indian screen.'

I took a last hasty look at the swelling chest. It was as the French say about steaks au point. Something was about to burst. This was past endurance. I grabbed my friend's arms and we went in search of a fresh limejuice.

While drinking it I learnt the astonishing history of The Kiss on the Indian Screen. Astonishing because it is a history that has not yet begun to be written.

The kiss is taboo.

Only once, ten years ago, in a gipsy film called 'Zarinah' did an iconoclastic director [Ezra Mir, 1932. Apparently had eighty six kisses! Zubeida was the actress] allow a male star to press his lips against those of a female star. He did not press them very hard and he did not press them very long, but he pressed them quite long enough to cause a major explosion. It may not be true that large numbers of people immediately jumped from high buildings, to propitiate the Gods, but it is true that there were angry scenes in the theatres, meetings of protest all over the country, and an
almost unanimous outcry from the critics.

'Disgusting Western degradation! Keep the Indian screen clean!' So ran the headlines.

'Zarinah' was India's first film kiss and her last.

Which is another reason why Indian films continue to mark time. *

(* The Abbe Dubois, writing at the end of the eighteenth century, is as up to date as ever even if we apply his remarks to the movies. 'What we call love-making is utterly unknown among the Hindus', he writes. 'Although they see no harm in the most outrageous and licentious excesses, there is no country in the world where greater Attention is paid to outward propriety. The playful sallies, jokes, and compliments in which our youths are so profuse would be looked upon as insults by any Hindu lady, even the least chaste, that is, if they were offered her in public. )

But the real reason for the stagnation of India's Hollywood (which is almost entirely dominated by Hindu capital) is the same as the reason for the stagnation of everything else religion.

The great majority of Indian pictures deal, in one form or another, with religious or mythological subjects. The camera is permanently focused on the remote past. 'The screen is literally a shadow screen across which there flits an endless procession of saintly ghosts, whispering the stories of ancient superstitions.

And all this in a land which hums with stories! In modern India, plots grow on every tree; the very air is thick with drama; but none of the drama gets into the studio.

Now and then, it is true, an advanced producer will attempt what he calls a modern 'social'. Since most of the script-writers are unable to think up any new ideas for themselves these 'socials' are pinched almost in their entirety from old American successes. They lift situations which were originally devised for somebody like Lucille Ball, wearing pyjamas against a background of skyscrapers, and they hand them to dove-eyed young women in flowing draperies, capering through miles of mango groves. The
result is, to put it mildly, unhappy. Sophisticated back-chat doesn't ring true in a saree, particularly when the temple bells are ringing in the distance.

Yet what a treasure trove is waiting for the producer and the script-writer to say nothing of the star!

Hete are one or two examples. First, the theme of 'untouchability'.

Why not take a boy who has been born an 'untouchable', transport him to the free air of Britain or America, and let him make good, as thousands have made good before him. (Oh yes, I know
all about the colour-bar. But the colour-bar is a minor irritation compared with the major slavery bf untouchability.) Make him rich and famous . . . and bring him back to his native village.

What a theme it would have been for Arnold Bennett! He is not allowed to draw a cup of water from the village pump? Very well he builds his own reservoir. He is so degraded that the lowest washerwoman will not touch his clothes? Then he builds his own laundry. His children are forbidden to go near the village school? He builds a school of his own and staffs it with the finest
teachers in the world.

If only some courageous producer would make a picture worthy of this subject's tragic possibilities and damn the box office!

Another subject which cries out for dramatic treatment is the institution of 'purdah' the Muslim tradition which compels a man's wife to cover her entire body in a thick veil for the whole of her life, so that no other man may ever see her. It is not for me to criticize this custom we may well leave that to the Muslims themselves, whose more advanced members attack it bitterly and consistently. They describe it as cruel, morbid, unnatural, unhealthy, crippling to the body and torturing to the mind. They call it an evil relic of the dark ages of women.

What a theme for a film for a hundred films the rending of the veil, the struggle to the sunlight!

But in order to make the most of these dramatic riches you must have a producer who is something of an iconoclast; he needs bite and speed and punch, he must have the spirit of attack.

There are such producers in India, but they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Among them must be mentioned Sohrab Modi, who recently showed me his film 'Sikander', which deals with the Indian invasion of Alexander the Great. This is a virile picture, with pace and flair, well up to the standard of that old masterpiece 'The Birth of a Nation'. Another highly intelligent producer is J. B. H. Wadia, who made history with 'The Court Dancer', India's first motion picture with English dialogue. However, even 'The Court Dancer' cannot be called an unqualified success. It has some poetical photography; but to Western eyes its popular star Sadhona Bose is regrettably heavy on her feet, and its English dialogue is startlingly jejune. For instance, on numerous occasions, the only verbal come-back to a dramatic statement is the bald interjection 'Oh!' The effect of this is unintentionally comic. 'Darling, they are coming to kill you,' says the hero, or words to that effect. 'Oh!' replies Miss Bose. It is not an inspiring monosyllable, delivered in bulk.

Yet both Modi and Wadia have touches of genius; both are determined to devote their lives to lifting Indian films out of the slough of despond into which they have sunk. Their task will be a stern one. The attitude of most of their contemporaries, even when they attempt to face up to the ancient tragedies with which their country is beset, is one of weary resignation. For example:

A Hindu Maiden had a Muslim brother! And in their Holy Friendship was embodied a Nation's sigh!

So runs the advertisement of an important film called 'Bhalai', which is a big box-office success. Need one say more? It is a theme that calls for blistering satire, and all it gets is a sigh. It is all very well to advertise a star like Ramola as 'The It girl of the Indian Screen' , or to ape the jargon of Hollywood in the publicity of Winayak's 'My Child' ('A skyful of stars! An eyeful of spectacle!! A soulful of sentiment!!!) In spite of this veneer of modernity, the religious element creeps in almost invariably, and
needless to say, it is coloured by the personal religious prejudices of the producers most of whom are Hindus.

As a result there is practically no honest film criticism in India. With a very few honourable exceptions, the critic's pen is twisted according to his caste, his creed, or his political convictions.

Let me hasten to add that these statements are fully substantiated by Indians themselves.

'Film criticism in India is either a matter of blackmail or of bribery'

It was one of the chief publicists of Indian films who said that; I omit his name to spare him embarrassment.

'There is no honest film criticism to be found in the whole of India. There is no newspaper or magazine which cannot be influenced. Nobody attaches any value to film reviews.'

It was a Hungarian, F. Berko, who said that (he did not say it in India, of course, but in an American movie magazine).

'The world's low' 'a collection of journalistic sewer-rats' 'clowns with dirty fingers'. These are only a few of the epithets which Indians have coined for their own brothers of the critical profession.

This is a gloomy picture, but it is not an ungenerous one, and though it is painted by an Englishman it is not as dark as that which is painted by some Indians themselves, who seem to have lost all hope of advancement.

I myself have hope, very great hope, and in spite of all that has gone before I believe the Indian screen may have a brilliant future.

Why?

There are many reasons. Three will suffice.

The first may sound trivial but is actually important. Until recently all Indian films were of quite intolerable length; fifteen thousand feet was. nothing out of the common. The audience demanded it. So intent were they on getting their money's worth that they would sit in silence through a whole list of credits, unmoved by the names of the stars, the authors, the directors, only to burst into wild applause when the length of the film was flashed across the screen. 15,487 feet. Whoopee! That meant the film
must be good!

The war has put a stop to these inordinate longueurs, owing to shortage of celluloid Government has issued an order that no film may be more than 1 1 ,000 feet. And though the audience chafes, and mutters that this is yet another example of the brutality of the British Raj, the producer and the intelligent film goer heaves a sigh of relief.

That is a negative reason for hope; it shows that Indian films can get into step with modern ideas, even if it takes a war to bring this miracle about.

The other two reasons are more positive. The first concerns the Indian actors themselves. They form the true riches of the Indian screen. They have a born sense of drama; it is as natural for them to act as for thrushes to sing. We mentioned above that a girl may be given a star role a few days after her first screen test, and that nobody sees anything odd in it. Well, there isn't anything odd in it. She is a star and though it sounds incredible she has very little to learn.

Unlike his Western prototype, the Indian producer has to be constantly curbing his actors and actresses; their features are so mobile, their gestures so eloquent, and their emotional equipment so rich and spontaneous that his task is to damp the flame rather than to add fuel to it.

Moreover, the country abounds in magnificent types. There is no finer male specimen in the world than the Pathan. In the streets of the big cities you will see droves of lovely girls, with the huge eyes, the small chins, the delicate noses and the frail but firm figures which are the dream of the casting director. As for the eccentric types the fanatics, the clowns, the wizards, the grotesque India has them by the millions.

And the other reason why Indian films may one day flash brilliantly across the world's screen? I have already indicated it. It is hidden deep in the eyes of Mother India herself; it is written in every wrinkle of her ancient face. Mother India is the world's greatest story-teller; her legends are inexhaustible, and every league of her sun-scarred territory has a tale to tell, of blood or of passion or of sacred fire. And now that at last Mother India is awakening, to all this store of ancient history will be added the
thrill of history in the making; the air will be strident with the echo of snapping chains and rending veils. It is for Mother India herself to walk out of her ancient prison, which is so largely of
her own making, to breathe the fresh air and think the free thoughts of the new world, and then, to translate them into terms of art.

Can she do so?

I think the answer is yes.

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Yes, in deed.

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Book available at archive.org thanks to Dr. BR Ambedkar Open library Hyderabad.

The Beginning of Indian Cinema

2012-05-04T02:42:00.002+05:30

Like all things in India, this story too begins with religion.

In around 1664 a Jesuit named Athanasius Kircher in his writings described a magical device that could be used to project demons. Later when this device got made, this Magic Lantern * became a favorite of conjurers, magicians and missionaries. Although people found it magical, but for some it still wasn't magical enough. The images couldn't move. And they remained immobile for another one hundred and fifty years till in around 1828, a Belgian researcher named Joseph Plateau got an idea on how to make the images move.

In around 1832, Plateau came up with a device called Phenakistoscope that could create an illusion of motion. Soon all kind of devilish ideas started popping in human head. Man wanted to see motion. See himself in motion. In 1891, Edison came out with a Kinetoscope. That motion could be captured on camera became a well known fact. Now the question was, could it be done in a simpler way.

On December 28, 1895 at Grand Cafe, Paris, Lumiere brothers unveiled their cinematographe to a spellbound audience. Three months later, to cash in on the invention, they assigned agents to travel the world with the device. The objective: spread the word and get the cash.

In around 1896, one of these shows reached Bombay. An ad for first of these shows published in The Times of India dated July 7, 1896, screamed: "The Marvel of the Century", "The Wonder of the World", "Living photographic pictures in life-size reproductions!!"

The show at Watson Hotel, Bombay was a roaring success despite the rains the poured from sky that day. Additional shows were held at Novelty theatre from 14 July for people who couldn't have enough of moving pictures. These shows were mostly patronized by Indian anglicised 'gentry' and for the common man it was another one of those fads of men and for the Indian 'elite' it was another one of those fads of angreez log.

But not all was lost. One of these shows was caught by a man named Harischandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar who was a professional photographer. He was so inspired by the spectacle that for twenty-one guineas he bough himself a movie camera. This was India's first recorded import of a movie camera. In 1897, Bhatvadeka shot his first film, a wrestling match held at Bombay's Hanging Gardens. He shot moneys. He shot Cambridge returned Indian topped named R.P.Paranjpye. He shot Dilli durbar of King Edward the VII. He was India's first documentary film-maker. The first Indian filmaker.

By 1912, Indian had developed a taste for films. But most of these films were imported. Mostly from France, United States, Italy , Denmark and West Germany.

Then in 1912, we had Pundalik, which could be hailed as the first Indian film and its director Dadasaheb Torney be called the first Indian director. But that fact is over shadowed by the aura of a filmmaker named Dadasaheb Phalke.

In the year that west saw Louis Mercanton's Queen Elizabeth. Dadasaheb Phalke came out with his Raja Harischandra.

Trained to be a Sanskrit scholar, studied photography at J.J School of Arts, been to England, inspired to be a filmmaker by watching a film on the life and death of Christ, learnt cinema basics from a book called 'The ABC of Cinematography', Dadasaheb Phalke opened the flood-gates of cinema in India with his 3,700 feet long creation.

It is believed that between 1912 and 1934 about 1200 films were produced in India.** Of these hardly ten films like Himanshu Rai's "Light of Asia", "Shiraz" and "A Throw of Dice" exist. Besides these, also preserved in Indian Film Archives are some parts of early Phalke films and quirkily, some documentary footage of the very first Lumiere Brothers' short films shown in India on July 7, 1896.

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Phalke Images

Young Dadasaheb Phalke/ Dhandiraj Gobind Phalke
(1870-1944)

Dadasaheb Phalke directing a scene from Raja Harischandra

Salunke as Taramati, Bhalchand and Dattaraj

Ad for Raja Harischandra published in The Bombay Chronicle

Another Ad from around the time .
"Sure to appeal to our Hindu patrons"

Phalke Studio Nasik

*
Read my other post Tamasha comes to Kashmir for an account from 1903 on travels of a Magic Lantern or Tamasha as it was called in this part of the world, to Kashmir with the Christian Missionaries.

**
1200 number come from article '60 years of Indian Cinema' by Abdul Ali, Star&Style, May 26, 1972.
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Images from:
Filmfare March 8, 1963. Celebrating 50 years of Indian Cinema.
Filmfare July 1-15, 1988. Celebrating 75 years of Indian Cinema.
Cinema in India, August 1990. Khalid Mohamed on early days of Indian Cinema.

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You can catch major chunks of the film at Soumyadip's India Public Domain Movie Project

Tea as cure for Daru, 1938

2012-05-08T01:03:00.000+05:30

Indian Express, Aug 6,1938

Indian Express, Jul 28, 1938

A throwback from sustained British efforts at curing native alcoholism using tea.

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Chori karo par Akal Say

2012-05-11T00:27:00.001+05:30

In 2009, after an entire day of experimentation with a scanner and a photo-editing tool, I posted an interesting newspaper cutting from year 1997 pertaining to year 1947. It was front page of The Hindustan Times, 15 August, 1947.

I am a Kashmiri. It was probably an eventless day for my ancestors. If I think about it well enough, the day is not supposed to mean anything to me. Just a footnote on myth building and nation building. Paper selling.

But what about other people? Do they see through it too? Do they too know the absolute endgame of an epic nation building process? Car Sales.

This morning I found the image used as a pointless prop in a stupid car ad.

In the morning I felt like a mad dog who has been chasing fast cars for too long. If things keep going like this I will probably have to start an '8ate Impact' section on this blog about how media from media industry posted here is re-consumed by media industry.

Previously:
mufat may toh koi gaali bhi nahi deta!

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Rows of inappropriate Indian political Cartoons

2012-05-12T21:00:00.000+05:30

From year 1979.

From year 1982.

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At least , we could have picked a more interesting topic. How does NCERT deal with this topic? Maybe in another decade of so we will have public discussions on the issue. Of course, triggered by a controversy.

Cartoon caricaturing Ambedkar's decision to resign from the Law Ministry over the failure to implement the Hindu Code Bill. Shankar's Weekly, October 7, 1951.

From the book 'The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India' by Anupama Rao.

Update:

Funniest thing. I just realized that the caption 'Note the use of Hindu themes to represent what was, in fact, Ambedkar's challenge to Hindu hegemony.' is essentially wrong and it miss appropriates symbols. The obvious reference that Shankar was making in the cartoon was to an important scene in the story of Buddha, his renunciation. According to the story Buddha quietly in the dead of the night, walked out on his wife,Yasodhara and child, Rahula to understand the purpose of life and death.

The interesting thing is Ambedkar accepted Buddhism good five years after this cartoon was published. So if anything is being mocked in that image, it is Ambedkar's flirtations with Buddhism. It can be interpreted as Hindu householder's recoil at Buddhist renunciation.

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Funeral Nehru

2012-05-28T01:20:00.001+05:30

If any people choose to think of me, then I should like them to say: 'This was the man who, with all his mind and heart, loved India and the Indian people. And they, in turn, were indulgent to him and gave him their love most abundantly and extravagantly.'

Sir, please stop making extravagant and abundant appearances in Newspapers on your death anniversary.
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