Book Reviews

The making of a legend

2009-11-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

The Bolivian Diary
By Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.
HarperCollins.
Pages: 303. Rs 295.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, held an exhibition on Che Guevara in 2006. Director Steven Soderbergh made a film on Guevara succinctly called Che which opened in January, 2009. A search on the Net yields a Che store that sells knick-knacks on Guevara. Time magazine rated Guevara as one of the 150 most influential people of the 20th century. This ‘Che’ cult began in the 1960s with Alberto Kordo’s photograph of Guevara, aptly titled ‘Guerrillero’. Since his death in 1967, the stylised visage of Ernesto Guevara has become an icon of radical chic within popular culture. But more importantly, he is revered even today as a symbol of freedom.

In 1966, Guevara left to challenge the military dictatorship in Bolivia and begin "a revolutionary movement that would extend throughout the continent of Latin America". The Bolivian Diary is an account of Guevara’s struggle to put together a band of guerrillas and overthrow an America-backed dictatorship. The narrative of this account is short and pithy and in the nature of short dated notes made by Che. Initially, the struggle made good progress but it ended on a tragic note with the arrest and execution of Guevara.

The books is a compelling and vivid account of the revolution in Cuba and Bolivia. But it is the revolutionary fervour underlying the narratives that makes the account truly moving. The figure of Che with an army beret and a Cuban cigar becomes synonymous with iconic heroism.

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Reminiscences Of The Cuban Revolutionary War

2009-09-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

By Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.
HarperCollins.
Pages 314. Rs 295

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, held an exhibition on Che Guevara in 2006. Director Steven Soderbergh made a film on Guevara succinctly called Che which opened in January, 2009. A search on the Net yields a Che store that sells knick-knacks on Guevara. Time magazine rated Guevara as one of the 150 most influential people of the 20th century. This ‘Che’ cult began in the 1960s with Alberto Kordo’s photograph of Guevara, aptly titled ‘Guerrillero’. Since his death in 1967, the stylised visage of Ernesto Guevara has become an icon of radical chic within popular culture. But more importantly, he is revered even today as a symbol of freedom.

Guevara’s Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War is a gripping accounts of the guerrilla war waged by him and his band of guerrillas against capitalistic regimes in Cuba and Bolivia. The Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War takes the reader back to July, 1955, when Guevara met Raul and Fiedel Castro in Mexico and enlisted in the guerrilla expedition to overthrow the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

In November, 1956, Guevara began the historic armed struggle from Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountains. In the initial phase of the struggle, Guevara, a doctor by profession, admitted to being faced with the dilemma of choosing between his "devotion to medicine" and his "duty as a revolutionary soldier". Very soon, the revolutionary in him triumphed and he played a pivotal role in the two-year campaign that deposed the Batista regime. The blood and gore of the many skirmishes at La Plata or Bueycito, the final offensive at Santa Clara, the betrayal by "traitor" informers and the death of rebel companions is described in stark detail.

The march on rugged terrain hunched under packs of ammunition and weapons, the scarcity of food and water, the low morale of soldiers et al take the reader to the very heart of the revolution. The photographs add to the quality of stark authenticity of the narrative. What comes through clearly in the narrative is the pledge of the rebels to "struggle to the last drop of our rebel blood to make this land a sovereign republic with the true attributes of a nation that is happy, democratic and fraternal".

The books is a compelling and vivid account of the revolution in Cuba. But it is the revolutionary fervour underlying the narratives that makes the account truly moving. The figure of Che with an army beret and a Cuban cigar becomes synonymous with iconic heroism.

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The Forgotten World

2009-08-25T04:15:00.000-07:00

Recovering the Lost Tongue: The Saga of Environmental Struggles in Central India
By Rahul Banerjee
Prachee Publications
Pages: 345, Price: Rs 250.

Snippets of environmental and social struggles of the indigenous populace of Central India have often reached urban centres through the media. But such stories go through a process of dehumanization even as they become print in a newspaper. The truth of the struggle of a living breathing human being becomes lost in a quagmire of statistical data. Also, at times the struggle of the masses is negated as it merges with the name of an established leader. We all have at one time or the other read about the ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’, a mass movement waged against the state by the Adivasis but in our mind the chief protagonist of the struggle has been Medha Patkar. We have forgotten about the other characters of this movement, the Bhil Adivasis who fought not only the repression launched by the state machinery to quell their movement but also waged their own personal battle against debilitating poverty and illiteracy. These characters of a forgotten world have been brought to life with panache by Rahul Banerjee in his book ‘Recovering the Lost Tongue’. In the manner of Gayans or traditional Bhil bards, Banerjee has narrated a tale of the exploitation of the adivasis who slowly learnt to raise their voice against oppression and demand their rights.

Banerjee brings to life Khemla’s single-handed crusade against police atrocities on Bhil Advisis. The Indian Forest Act and the Land Acquisition Act had over the years disinherited the Adivasis from forest land. Although it was against the law, the forest officials allowed adivasis to cultivate encroached forestland or newars ‘in exchange for hefty bribes’. Banerjee narrates the struggle of Khemraj against this malpractice. The narration then veers towards Subadra who symbolizes the emancipated adivasi woman. Subadra joins various NGOs and soon becomes a part of the rare band of educated adivasi women who work for the upliftment of their kind. What makes the saga especially interesting, warming and touching is Banerjee’s physical presence in the narrative. Banerjee is no omnipresent auteur. He is simply the bajariya or non-adivasi activist who attempts to bring some semblance of harmony back into the life of nature’s children and wholeheartedly joins them in their struggle to retain their land and villages. Banerjee’s marriage to Subhadra finally makes him a part of the adivasi community. No wonder his narration has a quality of authenticity.

‘Recovering the Lost Tongue’ is perhaps one of the most interesting and riveting books that I have read in a long time. Environmental and social struggle as subjects do not normally make for enjoyable reading. Yet, what makes the book different is the fact that the author is a part of the milieu and enlivens the narrative with stories, myths and songs of the adivasi community. The narration of anecdotes about Baba Amte and Patkar, the environmental stalwarts, the discussion on the relevance of Gandhianism and Marxism today, the digression into Greek mythology, Camus, Buddha or even the romantic predilection of the Bhils et al adds to the enjoyment of the book. A wonderful book and a great read.

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Sound of Water

2009-03-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

Sound of Water
by Sanjay Bahadur.
Roli Books.
Pages 168. Rs 195.

Mining today finds mention only in environmental forums, with environmentalists holding forth loudly on how defacing it is and how crippling to the landscape. The human aspect, predictably, is lost in academic wrangling. A human disaster tweaks the academic posturing only to settle back into statistics in disaster management texts.

Sanjay Bahadur’s The Sound Of Water’ does not allow the reader to take refuge in such academic trivia. Bahadur with a deliberate brutality cuts through the statistics shrouding the Bagdighi colliery disaster that killed dozens of miners in 2001 and brings the reader face to face with the deadly ‘beast’ that stalks miners in the ‘tomb dark womb of the earth.’ The reader is shoved willy-nilly into the labyrinth of Mine No 3 along with the condemned and expendable five; Raimoti, Arif, Birsa, Lakhan and Sagan. Like Birsa, the reader can feel the gorge rising when faced with the ferocity of the ‘charging beast’, the black remorseless water that rushes into the mine ‘swamping life’. ‘The cold sinewy paw’ of the water alternately immobilizes and stimulates panic in both Arif and the reader. Arif and Raimoti caught in a pre-death situation struggle with the questions of ‘Who wants to die?’ and ‘Why do you want to live?’ This juxtaposition of life and death ‘I exist. I am going numb’ becomes the leit motif of the novel and claws into the consciousness of the reader. The connection between the reader and the protagonists, thus, is complete and unbroken. Against the background of this epic struggle is the tragedy of Bhibhash, the mining engineer who is lost to his family and who seeks oblivion in ‘whiskey’ and then in the dark swirling water of the inundated mine. But his sacrificial death is submerged in the political red tape that needs a ‘sacrificial lamb’ in Bhibhash. The political posturing of the Unionist Ghosh Babu and Pandeyji and the utter detachment of Karna reflect an insensitive establishment.

The narrative has a quality of wrenching sadness as it recreates the human tragedy of miners who drink themselves into oblivion to escape the encroaching soul-destroying darkness of the mines. The nightmare of death by water with its quality of utter hopelessness leaves an indelible mark. At times the overt and sometimes encroaching presence of the author does create a degree of discomfort but the consciousness of being walked along by the author on a preordained path dissipates as the narrative gathers momentum and inexorably moves towards its deadly finale. But in the final analysis, it is not Bahadur the deft craftsman, nor Bahadur the ultimate storyteller, that makes the lasting impression. It is the portrayal of the epic struggle of life and death that lifts the novel from the moorings of ordinariness. A great debut novel that transcends the limits of story telling and in doing so transforms into an archetype of life itself.

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The Girl from Foreign

2009-02-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

The Girl From Foreign:
A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors,
Forgotten Histories and a Sense of Home
By Sadia Shepard
Penguin Books
Pages: 364, Price: Rs 450.
The literature of diaspora has caught the imagination of literature lovers all over the world. And why not? An empathy with the ‘rootlessness’ of the ‘diasporic’ protagonist often becomes the inspiration to undertake a personal voyage of self-discovery.

Sadia Shepard’s ‘The Girl From Foreign’ with its long appendage ‘A search for shipwrecked ancestors, Forgotten Histories and a Sense of Home’ appears to be an attempt at a fiction of diaspora. Yet it would be unfair to place this book in such a cliched groove. Sadia’s search for her Bene Israel roots in Bombay has none of the disoriented emptiness of a ‘diasporic’ protagonist .Sadia’s journey is, in fact, a voyage of joyous discovery as she moves from one synagogue to another on the Konkan coast or interacts with the Indian Jewish community and joins them in the Jewish festivals of ‘Sukkot’ and ‘Simchar Torah’. Sadia undertakes the journey at the behest of ‘Nana’, her grandmother who was born Rachel Jacobs, a Jew in Mumbai and who later married a Muslim and shifted to Pakistan after the partition. Her Nana’s directive ‘Go To India, study your ancestors’ takes Sadia on an untrodden path to India where armed with a camera and a pen she enthusiastically etches the Bene Israel community on the pages of her book. The life of the Indian Jews is sketched for the readers through small vignettes of the Waskars of Revdanda, the Chordekars of Chorde and Mr Ellis of Alibag. The author’s journey to her Jewish roots is however overlaid with the pain of losing her beloved grandmother. The book also talks about the regret and pain of a grandmother who even after several decades of leaving Bombay clings to the refrain ‘I should’nt have left’.

The name of the book suggests a serious historical sojourn into the life of ancestors but as the reader moves through the pages of the book it becomes clear that despite the scholarly title, the focus is on the present day joys and sorrows of the community of Bene Israel in India. The history of the Jews can be extracted through snippets of conversation. The arrival of the Jews to India is summed up in a few lines_“A very long time ago, your ancestors left Israel in a ship and they were shipwrecked in India.”

Interestingly, Sadia’s story moves back and forth between her childhood with Nana and her present day search for her Jewish roots . It also recounts how she was brought up by three parents- a Christian father, a Muslim mother and a Jewish grandmother. And yet there is no angst generated by religious conflict. Sadia absorbs in her persona the qualities of all religions. The simplicity of acceptance of three religions is unique to her narrative. At the end of it all ‘Rachel Jacobs’ merges with ‘Rahat Ali’ and Sadia becomes in turn Christian, Jewish and Muslim. The book with its smattering of history and the simplicity of its narrative is a story well told. An interesting and enjoyable read.

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Under Her Spell

2008-11-16T02:13:00.001-08:00

Under Her Spell
by Dileep Padgaonkar.
Penguin Books.
Pages 263. Rs 550.

AS a teenager I would often stay up late at night to watch old films screened by Doordarshan. One such film was Ingrid Bergman’s Notorious. This black and white film with its stark cameos was the start of my obsession with cinema. From Ingrid Bergman, it was but a short step to Roberto Rossellini who directed Bergman in films like Europe ’51 and Voyage in Italy. I learnt that after Voyage to Italy, Rossellini was lauded as the messiah of modern cinema. Any study of neo-realism in films was incomplete without Rossellini. I knew all that but I must admit I was completely ignorant of this Italian director’s Indian connection.

Dileep Padgaonkar’s book Under Her Spell takes the reader on an intriguing Indian adventure with Rossellini. Padgaonkar in the manner of a dramatic storyteller weaves a tale based on inputs from Tag Gallagher, Rossellini’s biographer and anecdotes and insights shared by Rossellini’s friends and associates. The character of Rossellini, who loved fast cars and pretty women, lends itself with ease to the dramatic twists and turns of his Indian sojourn.

Rossellini, we are told, launched the Indian project without any fan-fare. With typical `E9lan, he simply announced to a spaghetti-eating friend, "we’re going to a wonderland". And so in early December of 1956, loaded with 100 kg of spaghetti, Rossellini arrived in Bombay and checked into the Taj Hotel. With Nehru himself showing interest, Rossellini’s project, aptly called India Matri Bhumi, was off to a propitious start. Buzzing with creative energy, Rossellini shuttled between Bombay and Bangalore, Calcutta and Hirakud, in search of the truth about India. He did not visit Ajanta and Ellora or any of the other tourist attractions because he did not want "clich`E9d images of the country". Not for him the beauty of India, for he felt ‘pretty pictures’ were fatal to cinema.

We follow in Rossellini’s footsteps, impressed by his creativity, intrigued by his ‘Latin’ temper and flummoxed by his grand passion for Sonali Dasgupta, a much-married Bengali beauty. But unfortunately, the Indian adventure did not end happily for Rossellini who was hounded out of the country by the so-called moral guardians who denounced his ‘affair’ with a married Indian woman. The only saving grace was that he was allowed to leave India with the film he had shot and of course his lady-love.

In the latter part of the book, Padgaonkar recounts how back in Europe Rossilleni put together India Matri Bhumi, creating a ‘poetic synthesis’ bordering on a symphony. For a long time Rossellini spoke about India with ‘great feeling’ and described art in India as an ‘imitation of joy’. The Epilogue describes the death of this charismatic ‘maestro’ who "lived life like a fantasy, superior to reality". Some of Rossellini’s associates believe that he "probably wanted his ashes buried in India because India could alone beckon him in after-life". An interesting read that gives an "Indian" insight into Rossellini’s character as an artist and a human being.

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Romancing with Life: An Autobiography

2008-09-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

By Dev Anand
Penguin Books India.
Pages: 438, Price: 695.

‘Raju’of ‘Guide’ has been immortalized by Dev Anand. The transition of a Casanova into a saint who brings rain to a parched famine-struck terrain has been fleshed out with great panache by the erstwile romantic. And this is not his only claim to fame. This Gregory Peck look-alike is a consummate actor who has given some great performances in films like ‘Baazi’ ‘Jaal’ ‘Jewel Thief’, ‘Tere Ghar ke Samne’ et al. The list is endless. This bright and ageless star on the Indian film firmament has also directed some unusual films like ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’, ‘Des Pardes’, ‘Heera Panna’ ‘Hum Naunjawan’ boldly analyzing divergent social issues that were spoken of only in whispers. Six decades of cinema does not seem to have dampened the enthusiasm and spirits of this creator-director-actor who even at 82 is running full steam ahead.

‘Romancing with Life’, the much awaited autobiography of Dev Anand gives us a glimpse of ‘Dev-aan’ the person behind the public persona of the legendary film star. A montage of reminiscences strung together in a beguiling pattern, the autobiography is written in a simple conversational style that creates an empathetic bond between Dev Anand and the readers. The reader sits with Dev as he listens to his father reciting the Koran, counts the stars lying on a charpoy on the terrace in Gurdaspur with the future star, murmurs a shy lovelorn hello to ‘Usha’ in the college of Lahore and walks the footpaths in Bombay waiting for a ‘break’. The reader feels Dev’s dejection as he sifts through war correspondence for a living and later becomes party to the adulation that Dev Anand receives after ‘Ziddi’, the film that made him a romantic hero.

As we travel down memory lane with Dev Anand some reminiscences smack of narcissism and seem to find place in the autobiography for no earthly reason except to highlight a star’s romantic proclivities. But, Dev Anand has defended himself against the charge of self-obsession stating with child-like candor that he is a ‘deity to his millions of fans’ and his memoir is merely to ‘honor that image’. So the star ingeniously says ‘My best moments with myself are when I am in front of my mirror in the bathroom’.

But if we make an honest attempt to look beyond the image of a ‘larger-than-life-hero’, feted by hysterical fans, we find a Dev Anand who feels utter anguish when his dear brother, ‘Goldilocks’, passes away or when his much-loved friend Guru Dutt ends his life. Dev Anand, like ‘Raju’ is in search of ‘that special ray of sunshine that makes life worth living’. His romance with life, it seems would never end.

Seeing is Believing

2008-09-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

Seeing is Believing: Selected Writings on Cinema
by Chidananda Das Gupta.
Penguin. Pages 295. Rs 499.

AS a student of cinema, I would wade through large amounts of research material on cinema and film studies. I found that books on cinematic greats like Eisenstein, Truffaunt, etc. were available in plenty and easily outnumbered books on Indian greats like Satyajit Ray or Shyam Benegal. Also, the idiom of books on Indian films was completely foreign. Words like alienation, Brechtian, catharsis were bandied around to explain not only parallel cinema but also Indian commercial films. Not surprising really, considering that most books were written by foreigners. So, Das Gupta’s book Seeing Is Believing comes like a breath of fresh air in the putrid environs of Indian film studies. Here is a book that examines the Indian tradition of theatre and folklore and attempts to link Indian cinema with Bharata’s Natyshastra and Sarangdeva’s Sangeeta Ratnakara. It attempts to straddle the divide between the fast-paced rhythm of mainstream cinema and the meandering pace of parallel cinema. In fact, the book begins with an enunciation of this traditional divide in Of Margi and Desi.

Das Gupta’s writings are surprisingly self-sufficient in that every article is an exhaustive enumeration of one or the other aspect of cinema and emerges as an independent treatise on the subject. Precursors of Unpopular Cinema, for instance, traces the growth curve of realistic films.

Das Gupta analyses the cinematic verities of Himanshu Rai’s Achut Kanya (1936) and V. Shantaram’s Dr Kotnis ki Amar Kahani. Satyajit Ray’s cinema, he feels, has a distinctive realism such that even today "not a day passes when Pather Panchali is not shown somewhere or the other in the world". This Ray film was a precursor to cinema that was not only "artistically valid but also socially relevant".

Influenced by Ray, Ritwik Ghatak focused on the refugee triology with Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandhar and Subarnarekha while Shyam Benegal’s Ankur, Nishant and Bhumika dealt with oppression of women in Indian society. Bimal Roy’s Do bigha Zamin and Sujata on the other hand were influenced by Italian neo-realism.

Some filmmakers like Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt attempted a symbiosis of ‘art and box-office considerations’ but this blending was a rarity. Efforts like Aamir Khan’s Lagaan or Kamal Hasan’s Hey Ram are few-and-far-between. But as Das Gupta points out, these films hold out a hope that "one day Bollywood will be able to range more freely like Hollywood, from one end to the other of cinema’s spectrum". For cynics, films like Mani Ratnam’s Bombay hold out a promise of cinema no longer "intimidated by the traditional need to endorse the prejudices of the majority".

The interface of politics and cinema, as seen in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the evolution of the cinematic character of Indian women, the necessity of awards—all these issues are examined at length in the Indian context. Das Gupta’s book is a first step towards redefining Indian film studies as an indigenous network of traditional discourses blended with just the right touch of global cinematic patterns.

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The Kapoors: The First Family Of Indian Cinema

2008-09-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

Madhu Jain
Penguin Books India Ltd.

Pages 371
Price Rs 595.

"We are our own individual personalities. We are brought up like individual thinking men; we don't meddle in each other's lives. But we are like Sicilians: when you need us we gang up. We are like the Corleones in The Godfather."
Randhir Kapoor, thus grandly but aptly sums up the legendary status of the Kapoor clan in the Indian film pantheon.

Madhu Jain, in her biography 'The Kapoors' has attempted the Herculean task of weaving a compelling saga of the lives of four generations of this legendary dynasty. Despite the plethora of facts, events and cinematic references doled out with a generous hand, the book is extremely engrossing and eminently readable. Also, the delineation of the life and times of these colorful actors never descends to gossipy kitsch. In fact the book has all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy.
The main protagonists are the Kapoor men with their awe-inspiring and charismatic personalities but they all suffer from a tragic flaw - hedonism. 'Good food, good booze and good living-our life revolves around it' says Randhir Kapoor. This excess translates into the 'family curse' of alcoholism and other maladies which is their nemesis.

The book is divided into three parts aptly called 'The Patriarch', 'The Consolidators'and 'The Inheritors'. The first part focuses on the life of Prithviraj Kapoor, the second on his sons- Raj, Shammi and Shashi while the third part details the life of the third generation of Randhir, Rishi and Rajiv and the fourth generation of Karisma and Kareena. But at no point does this well-researched biography become just a dry factual tome of information.

Jain has used a free-flowing narrative which provides the reader an insight into the grand Kapoor passion for cinema and theatre. She dwells upon their boundless hospitality encapsulated in the colorful phrase 'gadi vi tyar tay roti vi tyar'. The reader is given a peep into a world of lesser known facts about this 'filmi' family - the lifelong affair with food, 'Black label' and music, the academic failures, the strong family-ties, the obsessive dependence on the Kapoor wives, the genuine acceptance of all religions, the socialist idealism, the abiding love for Prithvi theatres et al. But this is done with none of the nascent voyeurism one would associate with such an exercise. Jain displays a rare depth and sensitivity as she goes beyond the outer 'showman' persona of the Kapoors and lays bare the vulnerable inner core. Raj Kapoor's complex about his short stature is highlighted with humor "Mujhse milne aayee thi aur heel mein".

The biography achieves a first in that it brings within its ambit the fortunes and careers of nine Kapoors (twelve if you include star wives Geeta Bali, Babita and Neetu Singh) spanning four generations and seven decades. In doing so, it also charts the growth of Indian cinema from the silent era to the first talkie Alam Ara and from there on to Bollywood cinema in its present avatar. The gallery of rare photographs add a riveting visual dimension to the narrative. The book is undoubtedly a treat for all cinema lovers.

Contributed by:Rachy Singh

Bombay Talkies

2008-08-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

Mayank Shekhar
Frog Books
Pages 268
Rs 295

Mahatma Gandhi has suddenly become popular with the "cool" and "hip" generation of today. And it is certainly not because of any advertising "blitzkrieg" by the government aimed at the awareness-building of national icons. For this we have to thank none other than our very own Bollywood blockbuster Lage raho Munna Bhai, which has made waves with "gandhigiri". This has proved once again that the Indian psyche has lost none of its fascination for Bollywood cinema, Indian cricket, notwithstanding. Film reviews are probably read with a morning cup of tea in most Indian households today. But, unfortunately, most reviews cater to the "cine-goer in a hurry" and are therefore restricted to puerile comments on the storyline or music or theatrics of the actors.

Mayank Shekhar’s Bombay Talkies, an anthology of film reviews of 2004 and 2005, thankfully refrains from handing out inanities clothed as film reviews. He, in fact, offers a veritable banquet of sharp, witty and at times brutally honest comments on the current crop of films. Shekhar uses the sharp edge of his scalpel to cut through the brouhaha of blockbusters with utter disregard for the feelings of the Bollywood fraternity. He makes no bones about announcing that Punit Isarr’s Garv was nothing but "a salute to Bollywood B-grade, apparently aimed at frontbenchers that determine fuzzy film fortunes". He captions the review of Ishaan Trivedi’s 7 Phere as "Sar phir gaya boss" and without much ado announces it to be "brainless, balderdash rehash of Ron Howard’s Edtv". Mayank’s review of Omkarnath Mishra’s Dil Bechara Pyaar ka Maara states the unvarnished truth—"This ain’t a review. This is just to inform you that I survived the film". The review of Indra Kumar’s Masti states tongue-in-cheek "leave your grey cells at home, keep your cellphones for song breaks and step cautiously into this often no-holds barred Carry On series".

The book, however, is more than just a sarcastic lambasting of the nadirs of Bollywood cinema, even though it comes with "belly-laughs". His reviews are in fact candid comments on the social context and social impact of cinema. We share his bafflement when a "beautifully structured piece of cinema" like Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool fails to attract enough "paying public" while a mundane "boy meets girl" film like Hum Tum sets the cash registers ringing. His sensitive comments on the "Kafkaesque" travails of the Kapoors in Dhoop or the metaphor of death in Maine Gandhi ko Nahin Mara or even Swades as an "honest example of crossover cinema" hint at the makings of a perceptive film critic. It is also obvious that this film critic at least enjoys his "sinfully elating job" despite "off-beam gibes" from the intellectual coterie and Bollywood bigwigs. So here are the beginnings of the birth of our very own Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael, but there is still way to go. Be that as it may, we can only say ‘Mayank bhai lage raho’.

contributed by:Rachy Singh

Bollywood: Sociology Goes to the Movies

2008-08-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

Rajinder Kumar Dudrah
Sage Publications
Pages 210
Rs 280

THE Bollywood cinema as a genre has been regarded with derision by intellectuals who have written off this genre as being ‘escapist’, ‘trivial’ ‘low-brow’ and having only ‘mass appeal’. Such a response obviously stems from uninformed opinion makers who do not want to look beyond the ‘fluff’ perception of a ‘Bunty aur Bubbly’. But with the globalisation of Indian cinema, this perception is slowly but surely undergoing a change.

The hitherto marginalised and ridiculed cinema is now being feted as a multicultural celebration. Increased visibility vis-`E0-vis the South Asian diaspora has added a fresh dimension to Bollywood cinema. Film studies are shifting focus to the multi-faceted and multi-genre Bollywood cinema giving it a patina of serious intellectual study. So Bollywood cinema has finally arrived, and brought in its wake film scholars and their academic wrangling.

Sociology goes to the Movies is an intellectual articulation of Bollywood cinema, which would surely win warm approbation from the most hard-hearted elitist academic. Rajinder Kumar Dudrah has, in fact, made an interesting and refreshing attempt to revive a sociological interest in films. The sociological imagination is brought into dialogue with film studies and related disciplines of media and cultural studies. A Bollywood film, for Dudrah, is a popular cultural text which necessitates an elaboration of the medium through "various and simultaneous modes of enquiry". So, Pardes becomes an example of a film that reflects the diasporic sensibilities of the South Asian community settled in the UK and the USA. And cine stars like Shah Rukh Khan act as mediators between the homeland and the diaspora, enunciating the social and economic aspirations of the audiences through their on- and off –screen performances. This mediation is extended to a Hollywood-Bollywood interface.

The most diehard fans of Bollywood admit that a significant chunk of this cinema is a copy of popular Hollywood films, albeit in an Indian persona. Dudrah, however, logically argues against such a premise. Calling it cultural mimicry rather than plagiarism, he points out that such a mimicry only translates western differences and hierarchies for Bollywood viewers. So the jailor in Sholay is not just a comic colonial remnant but becomes a critique on state forms of penal control and governance in the India of the 70s. Moreover, Hollywood, he strongly feels is now borrowing from Bollywood cinema and with crossover films, the distinction, in any case, is lost.

Dudrah, thus, successfully renews an interdisciplinary dialogue between cinema and sociology, which has been sporadic at the best of times. The methodology of interviews and participant observation used in initial chapters authenticates and contemporises his theories. But the majority of the book reads like a research paper or an academic dissertation that seriously limits its readership. The "elitist versus pedestrian" debate generated by Bollywood cinema is reflected in our response to this book. So, we agree that Dudrah’s book is a great reference for multi-disciplinary research but is not likely to be a bestseller. We admit that the book gives academic credence to Bollywood cinema but has none of its mass appeal. Catch-22.
contributed by: Rachy Singh

The Open Frame Reader: Unreeling the Documentary Film

2008-07-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

ed.Rajiv Mehrotra
Rupa and Co
Pages 162,
Rs 250

THE documentary genre is regarded as a poor cousin of commercial cinema. For most of us, a documentary is a factual and boring delineation of the real world, which we would rather forgo for the magical delights of commercial cinema. It is hardly strange that great documentary filmmakers like Anand Patwardhan, Tapan Bose and Shubredeep Chakraborty are little known than their more glamorous counterparts or that films like Jang aur Aman, Beyond Genocide and Final Solutions have garnered critical acclaim, but commercially sunk without a trace. Financial constraints, unorganised distribution and limited dissemination by a forum like Doordarshan add to an unpalatable scenario. A constant tussle with the Censor Board is the final nail in the coffin. The power and potential of the documentary film remains stifled.

The Open Frame Reader is a collection of views, opinions, perspectives and "takes" on the documentary film. Disparate islands of thought are strung together with a common concern for the revival and understanding of this genre, yet the varied perspectives blend to form a seamless whole.

The concept of reality, central to the documentary genre, has been handled with sensitivity and honesty.

Sanjay Kak in his "take" on reality emphasises that the documentary "is not just life, but an argument about it". The essay of Raqs Media Collective, talks about the construction of a frame of reality based upon the cameraman’s sensory capacities and the director’s slant on reality. The reality of a documentary film then is not a simplistic rendering of the "truth" but a "construct" of the "camera eye", which reflects the perspective and cognition of the director.

When Ruchir Joshi likens the documentary to a butterfly emerging from a cocoon "in which chemistry, electronics, thought and feeling all have come together", she is obviously clueing us to the director’s "take" on reality. Ranu Sharma sums up this reality "construct" when she pithily says:

Something of the real is lost

Something else is found.

More than sound,

more than sight.

More than life,

more like life.

A serious discussion of a film genre would, however, be incomplete without a detailing of its technical aspects. Rajeev Mehrotra, a good editor that he is, weaves in sections that enlarge upon cinematography, editing, montage and sound.

Fortunately, he is able to rescue such discussions from boredom by picking up essays that simplify technical terms for the reader. Uma Shankar’s essay on sound recording makes film gizmos like "modulo meter" or "shot gun" seem user-friendly.

The book also takes a wry but honest look at what ails the documentary genre. With typical management-guru aplomb, it does not stop at the problem, but offers the beginnings of a solution through an "India’s Quest" project. The essays and musings of The Open Frame Reader present an interesting argument, which draws the reader into the pro-documentary camp.

Caught in the spell, the reader declares with Mukul Kesavan: "Why would any documentary filmmaker swap that real magic for the shop-worn tricks of Art?"

contributed by:Rachy Singh

The Lost World of Hindustani Music

2008-07-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

Kumar Prasad Mukherji
Penguin Books
Pages 354
Rs 395

Music has often been described as ibadat or prayer by devotees of this art. Riyaz (practice with devotion) and talim (learning from a guru) were important parts of this musical tradition, whose flashes can still be seen in the Harivallabh Sammelan every December in Jalandhar. However, in today’s world of quick-fix Indian Idol, this tradition has become pass`E9.

Kumar Prasad Mukherji’s narrative traces the origin and creative intricacies of the old musical tradition of khayal gayaki and its individualistic rendering by exponents of various gharanas, but underlying this narrative runs a vein of sadness and nostalgia for the loss of this tradition of music.

Mukherji laments: "When I was young, I did not know what real music was. When I began to get an inkling of it ... the greats had departed for the other world." Thus, the book becomes a touching farewell to musical greats like Ustad Faiyaz Khan of Agra Gharana, Bade Gulam Ali Khan of Patiala Gharana, Moijuddin Khan of Gwalior Gharana et al.

Mukherji has strung together episodes and anecdotes that give a glimpse of the awe-inspiring utter dedication to music found in the great musical geniuses he revered. Of Bade Gulam Ali Khan Sahib, it is said that he took "nightly sojourns" to practice music in the Hindu burning ghat, returning only in the wee hours of the morning as he could not do full-throated riyaz at night in the congested mohalla where he lived. He staged a comeback after a paralytic stroke only because of his "fanatic riyaz and will-power".

Once Hassu Khan, grandson of Nathan Peer Baksh of the Gwalior Gharana, was singing the Haathi chingar taan (capable of bringing elephants out of the stable) in the durbar of Maharaja Daulat Rao Scindia. In the middle of this extremely difficult taan (notes sung to the beat of the tabla), he stopped and spat blood. Nathan Peer Baksh wiped his grandson’s face with his shawl and said: "Marnaa hai to beta taan poore karke maro". Such was the dedication to music of these great ustads.

Any book on classical music would obviously have to dwell upon the genealogy of gharanas, the different ragas and swar, the complex techniques of layakari, bol-vistaar, etc and the gharana—based rendition of a bandish (musical composition).

Only persons who are well versed in the art of Hindustani classical music can appreciate such complexities. To them, the book offers a rare glimpse into a magical world and yet peppered with interesting vignettes of musical geniuses, their eccentricities and passions, it would still charm all music lovers. The writer’s almost symbiotic relationship with the men of musical genius adds pizzazz to the narrative. I would rate Mukherji’s book as one of the best on classical music in recent times.

All is not lost. Musical greats like Bhimsen Joshi and Kishori Amonkar are still carrying the torch of swar siddhi with great aplomb. The octogenarian Bhimsen Joshi of the Kirana Gharana still "hits the notes in the epicenter and sings with a power that can turn singers half his age sick with envy".

contributed by:Rachy Singh

Enchantment of the Mind: Manmohan Desai’s Films

2008-07-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

Connie Haham
Roli Books
Pages 204
Rs 395.

THE Manmohan Desai’s unabashed proclamation, "I don’t make films for critics", sums up the cinematic genre of fantasy-entertainment created by him. In Preface, Amitabh Bachchan compares this auteur-director to a child who has clambered onto a Ferris wheel and could have enjoyed the ride till the kingdom come.

The believe-it-or-not stories spun by Desai with their repetitive lost-and-found themes, their speed and drama were openly criticised by the scions of serious cinema. In the face of such criticism, Desai simply declared that as most people in the world were facing poverty and misery, "Why can’t I give them an escape hatch? My films are an escape hatch".

Desai offers the audience a carnival, where the rigid norms of society are relegated to the background and the audience takes part in the thrill of watching the protagonist survive the vagaries of fate all the while thinking, "I could’ve been like that chap". In tune with such fantastic optimism, we have the protagonist in Coolie surviving even after being riddled with bullets and we have the infant Dharam in Dharam-Veer being saved by the omnipresent falcon.

Desai’s wonderland peopled with fantastic characters is, however, strongly rooted in reality—the reality of Mumbai’s Khetwadi district. Anthony of Amar Akbar, Anthony, and Iqbal of Coolie are both real characters Desai found in the backstreets and dark alleyways of Khetwadi. Even the timeworn lost-and-found gimmicks have been given a fresh patina. Desai himself admitted that "it is very difficult to bring about the union in a different way every time". But he has done it with great panache every time.

Connie Haham’s treatise is an analysis of the significant aspects of Desai’s genre with its trademark flair for adventure, pie-on-the-face comedy, flamboyant sets and costumes, catchy tunes, lost-found formulae and colloquial dialogues. This American Professor teaching in Paris has done what the most reputed Bollywood buffs and critics could not do—he has taken an objective look at Desai the filmmaker. Haham has fleshed out the true character of this filmmaker who although avowedly a box-office director wove into his cinema the sub-texts of romantic idealism, optimistic survival, communal harmony and traditional familial values that went either unnoticed or disregarded. This ‘anhonee ko honee karde’ director may cringe at the academic analysis of his work, but I for one feel that Haham’s cerebral perspective of Desai’s genre was required to shrug of the label of a non-serious commercial money-spinner that has struck Desai for decades. And what better time than Desai’s 12th death anniversary to do the good deed. Desai once said: ‘Laugh at me today but mark my words, you’ll appreciate my work some day, even if its too late." And we do. More so after Connie Haham’s book.

contributed by:Rachna Singh

Brand Bollywood: A New Global Entertainment Order

2008-07-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

Derek Bose
Sage Publications
Pages 226
Rs 325

A reality show on U.K. Television turned Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty into a global celebrity overnight. This could happen only in the techno-savvy world of today, which is heading for a multiple media fusion. Until a few years back, cinema, television, radio or the mobile phone were considered disparate media, functioning in their own separate spheres. But today, these apparently distinct media are blending seamlessly to create a new era of entertainment. This is especially true for the film industry.

Brand Bollywood is a discerning treatise on this new-age mantra of "media convergence". Derek Bose sketches in the traditional film-maker who was tied down by the "FSS" syndrome, which hinged around "maximising the box-office receipts on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday". He compares this "box-office" junkie with the modern-day "fusion’ film-maker who not only holds the reigns of production, distribution, music rights et al, but also draws upon other media to sell his "product". The fortunes of this new age film-maker, therefore, do not fluctuate with a "bearish" or "bullish" box office. So, as Bose points out, movies like Kisna, Swades and Naach generate revenue through radio and television, sale of music rights, mobile ring tones and home video alternatives in spite of being box-office duds. A modern-day film-maker like Prakash Jha promotes his film Apaharan on the Internet and Rakesh Roshan rakes it in from the sale of replicas of the terrestrial "Jadoo" of Koi Mil Gaya fame. But this convergence is still in a nascent stage.

Bose makes out a strong case for cross-media integration by pointing out that although India has the dubious distinction of releasing 800 films annually as against 200 annual releases by Hollywood, its returns are abysmally low. The media convergence would ensure that a film is always a hit, albeit financially. In true "management guru" fashion, Bose also suggests a two-pronged approach to rid film industry of ills like piracy and disorganised distribution. Corporatisation of the entertainment industry and establishment of a government regulatory authority is the need of the hour. Corporatisation would instill "self-restraint and discipline in the film-making process" and allow for integration, accountability and "institutional memory of the best practices". Government regulation would protect intellectual property rights and investments and also facilitate "adoption of new technologies". Bose’s road map for the future is encapsulated in his pithy conclusion, "ultimately there will be only two types of business left in the Indian entertainment industry—one that is alive and moving with the times, and the other that is dead".

Brand Bollywood is an excellent example of a well-researched dissertation on media integration. It is an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the current and future landscape of the entertainment industry and optimistically holds out the hope of a Bollywood that could challenge the "hegemony of Hollywood". The economics of the entertainment industry with its commensurate jargon do break the lucid flow of the book, but such occurrences are few. Here is an informative book for entertainment enthusiasts.
contributed by:Rachna Singh

Looking for the Big B: Bollywood Bachchan & Me

2008-06-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Jessica Hines
Bloomsbury Publishers
Pages 286
Rs 385

Books on the life and work of Amitabh Bachchan have of late been flooding the market. And why ever not? Bachchan is after all a Bollywood living legend. Be it a temple in Kolkata where he is the reigning deity or be it the waxworks of Madame Tussaud, Amitabh seems to have caught the imagination of not only the celebrity-starved Indian public but also the international film fraternity. It is not surprising that the fascination for this ‘Uberstar’ has percolated into the academia resulting in a steady stream of written work attempting to take the measure of this Bollywood demi-god.

Jessica Hines in her book has made a valiant attempt to bring forth the ‘real’ man behind the larger-than-life persona of the Bollywood superstar. She begins her book on a premise that the Big B is "a cross between Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Elvis but with more than a hint of John Travolta". And then discards the premise with a simple "Nah, that doesn’t come close".

But the book is unable to keep its promise of unveiling the true-to-life persona of the ‘Angry Young Man’ of Zanjeer and Deewar or even of the present-day Gentleman Patriarch. A mention of Amitabh’s excitement in using a ticketing machine or his enjoyment of watching a film incognito in London does make him more real but hardly makes for an insightful study of a complex personality. Comments on the "Italianate leather shoes" or the "fragrant fellow" appear trivial. In fact, the narrative and content of the book is reminiscent of the gossip based on half-truths found in most film magazines. It is obvious that Hines has "absorbed-through-osmosis" so much of gossip that she is unable to objectively evaluate her subject. Hines is honest enough to admit to this error. She self-deprecatingly talks about how she had built her introductory chapter around a half-truth picked up in an interview. It was believed that after his accident, Amitabh, went to a farmhouse to find his "idealised self" by watching all his movies. In actual fact the visit to the farmhouse was to regain the old strong physical self. So, Amitabh, the egoist of gossip, in one stroke becomes a man who with the force of his will power negates adversity. Perhaps this is the one and only insight her book has to offer on the Big B.

To give Hines her due she does devotes all of a page to Amitabh’s childhood filled with well-remembered children’s games like ‘gili-danda’ and ‘kabadi’. She also talks about the accident on the sets of Coolie and the stupendous public grief and prayers it elicited. But again there are no new nuggets of information or gems of insight. Amitabh, the artist has received no ‘footage’ at all. That is not to say the book does not make for interesting reading. The narrative is free flowing and conversational with the writer’s asides woven in. The writer’s perception of India, Mumbai, Bollywood and Bachchan is colourful if not very perceptive. Though definitely not intellectually stimulating, the book makes for a pleasant ‘time pass’.

contributed by:Rachy Singh

Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language

2008-06-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

Srinivas Aravamudan
Penguin Books
Pages 330
Rs 395

THE ‘guru’ culture in India is deeply embedded. The historical ‘guru-chela’ tradition has translated into a global guru-ism in the modern milieu. We have Hollywood and Bollywood stars swearing by their gurus and we have a spate of ‘Acharyas’ propounding theories of bliss and spiritualism through an omnipresent media. Be it Guru Mayi or Sri Sri or Ramdev, gurus seem to be the current rage.

Srinivas Aravamudan’s Guru English echoes the current global obsession with guruism in the context of a cosmopolitan religion. The book traces the emergence of a language disparagingly dubbed as ‘baboo English’ during the colonial period. This language slowly but surely transmutes into the language of religious discourse adopted by spiritual leaders like Vivekanand. The language evolution continues as the language acquires a literary patina and is reflected in the ‘metaphysics’ of the Lama in Kipling’s Kim or Desani’s All about H. Hatter or in the religious rendition of Dedalus and Bloom in Joyce’s Ulysses.

The nuances of this ‘guru English’ are further explored as a vehicle of parody and self-deflation in Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, where the language sheds its pompous gravity and dons a tone of light playfulness. Interestingly, Oppenheimer’s invocation of the Bhagvat Gita and description of the nuclear test in terms of Krishna’s cosmic form blends the lingua franca with the dialect of ‘nukes’. The language also becomes a New-Age commodity with its Deepak Chopra proclivity for synthesis of Ayurveda, quantum physics and vedanata. Aravamudan’s analysis ends with an East-West synthesis embodied in the image of an Eastern sage who is ‘gizmo’ savvy and propounds a saleable orientalism.

However, the book is not just about the linguistic analysis of the language of South Asian religious gurus. Neither is it just an academic examination of a ‘guru’ discourse woven into literary texts over-run with multilingual puns and parody. Guru English, in fact, functions as ‘transidiomatic environment’ such that the anti-English sentiment of the Irish Harold Bloom of Joyce becomes seamlessly blended with the Indian anti-colonial Nationalist psyche. Guru English also becomes a symbol of the ‘commodifiable cosmoplitanism’ of New-Age Gurus who showcase their spiritualism through websites and offer incentives to modern-day ‘shishyas’ to join their spiritual bandwagon.

Aravamudan has with great penchant drawn a huge canvas in the manner of Colin Makenzie’s View of Dindigul that graces the cover of his book. The guru figure of this canvas continuously morphs into Vivekanand, Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi, Deepak Chopra et al, while the figure of Makenzie is indicative of the manner in which the spirituality of the East appeals to the West. The book thus becomes a synonym for the ‘register’ of the language of religious discourse of South Asia that emerges from and is fashioned by a varied socio-historical milieu.

This well-researched academic thesis would appeal to the students of linguistics and sociology. However, despite the playfulness of its title, Guru English, with its theological references, literary allusions and linguistic terminology is a serious treatise that requires no mean skill to unravel.

contributed by:Rachna Singh

Solving Kashmir

2008-06-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

Lt Gen M.C. Bhandari
Lancer Publishers
Pages 362
Rs 795

If there is heaven on earth, it is here. This famous line of the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jehan, encapsulates the enchanting beauty of Kashmir. But as we traverse the path from history to reality, we find the beauty of Kashmir marred by conflict. The Kashmir of pristine beauty has in the last six decades become the raison d’etre of open warfare between India and Pakistan, and has slowly but surely become a seething cauldron of terrorist violence.

Solving Kashmir is an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of conflict that have dogged Kashmir for years. The history of Kashmir abounds with stories of battles fought by the Huns, the Mughals and the British to attain territorial supremacy. And strange though it may sound, Kashmir was actually sold by Britishers to the Dogra Raja, Gulab Singh, for a paltry Rs 75 lakh in 1846. So, the seeds of conflict and the present-day strife have a historical and colonial antecedent. The colonial legacy of discord was further compounded by the Indo-Pak conflicts of 1965, 1971 and the Kargil debacle. Efforts like the bus diplomacy or the UN intervention or the more recent CBMs (Confidence Building Measures) have done little to resolve the long-standing conflict in the subcontinent.

Against a meticulously detailed historical and geo-political perspective, M. C. Bhandari analyses and lays thread-bare the various options—‘Dixon plan’, ‘Andora plan’ or ‘Chenab plan’—mooted to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio by ‘Armchair strategists’. He points out that the Gen Musharraf proposal of 2004, with its three-pronged strategy of ‘de-militarisation, self-governance and joint control’ of Kashmir, was a devious manoeuvre to usurp territory that could not be won by conventional warfare.

Bhandari offers suggestions that may initiate a process for a long-term solution to the Kashmir conflict. To start with, he suggests that the powers that be need to adopt a tough stance to squelch terrorism completely. Training in the ‘Fourth Generation Warfare’ and psychological warfare would also help to snuff out ‘across the border’ proxy war designed to ‘bleed India with a thousand cuts.’ Creating a vibrant economy in the region would further negate Pakistan’s stance.

The book holds out a ray of hope that perhaps a solution to the Kashmir problem is finally in sight. However, the solution eludes the reader. As the book heads towards its close, the reader waits for a magic solution from the military strategist. But I guess it is the height of naivety to expect a concrete workable solution to a conflict that has been dubbed as the ‘unfinished agenda of the Partition’.

The book ends with a cry of ‘where do we go from here?’—A cry that reflects the frustration and impotence of policy makers trying to find a final solution to the Kashmir malaise. It also replicates the cry of people faced with unending terrorist violence that has taken emotional as well as economic toll of our country. Bhandari’s book is indeed a comprehensive, well-researched and well-written thesis examining and analysing every facet of the Kashmir problem but an ultimate solution still appears to be a ‘chimera.’ So the quest for a solution continues.

contributed by:Rachy Singh

25 Eminent Indians: 1947-2005

2008-06-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

H. N. Verma and Amrit Verma
GIP Books
Pages 245
Price not stated

Everyone reads history, but only a few write history; and those who make history are rarer still.

The Vermas have put together vignettes of 25 Indians who have shaped the history of modern India. The historical canvas encompasses not only political figures but also they who have made a mark in science, humanities, fine arts, business and law.

The book is written on the premise that "history as a narration of events in terms of rulers and leaders is no longer acceptable. Politicians, scientists, businessmen, industrialists, professionals, creative people and others have also been changing the course of events and their contributions claim attention." It encourages the reader to ratify this new view of history.

It is penned by veteran historians who have co-authored books like 100 Great Indians Through the Ages, Forts Of India etc, however, this book is disappointing, although not without flashes of greatness. It has four sections, each devoted to luminaries of a specific field. The first section deals with politics and puts together biographies of eight great statesmen and politicians like C. Rajagopalachari, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dr B.R Ambedkar, Lal Bahdur Shastri, Indira Gandhi etc. The biographies of Lal Bahdur Shastri and Indira Gandhi delineate the character of these epoch-making Indians in the context of the contemporary political and social scenario. The public ambivalence towards Indira Gandhi, who was reviled as well as venerated as "devi", has been well brought out, making the biography a medium of social opinion and comment.

The second section is devoted to men and women who have made their mark in the field of science and humanities. The biography of C.V Raman, the first Asian to win a Nobel prize in physics, makes an interesting and readable narrative. Scientific terms have been explained in a simple language.

The third section deals with literary greats like Surya Kanth Tripathi Nirala and R. K , Narayan, painters of repute like M.F Hussain and Nand Lal Bose, musician Ravi Shankar and cinematographer Satyajit Ray.

The biography of Satyajit Ray is enlivened by an anecdote about "this unusually tall Indian". The final section has biographies of Dhirubhai Ambani, the business tycoon, and legendary lawyers like Motilal C. Setalvad and Nani Palkhivala. An introduction to the Indian Art Movement, which prefaces the biographies of the painters, and a note on Indian judiciary, which prefaces the sketches of the lawyers, gives a historical backdrop to the readers.

The historian couple has put together the life sketches of personalities who have shaped contemporary India. In doing so, the team has attempted to spawn a definition of history which rises above the mere narration of facts. This is a laudable effort, but often the narrative sinks into a prosaic and pedestrian detailing of chronological facts. Printing errors and chunks of unconnected prose jolt the reader out of a somnolent state generated by too many facts and figures. The promise the book holds out at the beginning remains unfulfilled.

contributed by:Rachna Singh

The Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar

2008-05-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

H.L.O. Garrett
Roli Books
Pages 450
Rs 395

THE Taj Mahal and the Red Fort even today take us back into the grandeur and greatness of the Mughal dynasty established by Babur. With political acumen and a just administrative code, Humayun and Akbar built a prosperous empire that was said to be stable enough to survive great odds. But two decades of internal strife and decadence of the Mughal descendants brought irreparable ruin. Shah Alam and Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the lineage, became beggars requesting the British for increase in their stipends. For a short span, it seemed that the Mutiny of 1857 would bring back the splendor of the Timurids. But in the absence of resources and proper leadership, the mutiny degenerated into anarchy that helped the British to re-establish control and exile the last dynast.

The Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar is a detailed and authentic account of the trial of the last Mughal that opened on January 27, 1858, and ended with the defendant’s testimony on March 9, 1858. A day-to-day account of the proceedings, an examination of the various witnesses and a reproduction of the relevant correspondence to examine the ‘treason’ of Bahadur Shah Zafar bring the trial to pulsating life. At another level, the accounts of eyewitnesses bring to life the essence of a bloody mutiny that became one with brutal chaos. The perspective of the mutiny is of course one-sided, being pro-British, largely on account of the fact that the evidences collated are focused on indicting the king for crimes of ‘mutiny and rebellion’.

At yet another level, the account of the trial also highlights the irony of a king charged with inciting ‘the subjects of the British government to rebel’ and proclaim himself as ‘sovereign of India’. But more than that, the trial shows the last Timurid in an unflattering light. It shows him first as a puppet in the hands of the mutineers and then as a shrinking coward who shrugs off blame for the mutiny to save his 82-year-old skin. Zafar unashamedly submitted that he was made a prisoner by the mutineers and his sons Mirza Moghal and Mirza Khair Sultan had ‘leagued with the revolted soldiery’. This indignity of the ‘scion of the House of Babur’ was rewarded by Major General Wilson who barred the Military Commission, set up to bring Bahadur Shah to trial, from passing a sentence even in case of a conviction.

At first glance the book appears to be a dry and boring resurrection of one of several imperial trials. The Prefatory Note by Garrett, Keeper of the Records of the Government of Panjab, describing the book as a ‘summary of principal evidence produced by the prosecution’ does not encourage interest. And yet as one wades through the various documents and testimonies, the king’s ‘farmans’ and court diary, one gets a glimpse of a living breathing of beleaguered Delhi under Zafar. The Trial thus becomes much more than a historical document chronicling dry facts. A rare treat indeed for the discerning reader.

contributed by: Rachna Singh

3 Novels

2008-05-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

Shashi Deshpande
Puffin Books
Pages 379
Rs 295

As a child with passion for reading, all my summer holidays were spent in the library sitting in a har-backed chair reading the adventures of Famous Five or Secret Seven or Adventurous Four et al. The wonderful world created by Enid Blyton was completely enthralling and captivating to a child of nine. Even today, almost three decades later, a book by Enid Blyton brings back those wonderful summers when my friends and I would try our hand at sleuthing or disguising like "Fatty".

Today’s generation does not share this fascination for Enid Blyton. Instead, they gravitate towards books like the Goosebumps series. So when I came across 3 Novels by Shashi Deshpande, I expected it to be a part of the Goosebumps ilk. What I found instead was a pleasant package of three mystery novels with some of the Enid Blyton aura intact.

A Summer Adventure, the first of the three novels, is set in a small town of India. The characters, Ravi, Dinu, Minu and Polly, are reminiscent of the Enid Blyton characters of Fatty, Pip, Daisy and Beth. Daring robberies in and around a small town send the little sleuths headlong into a "lovely adventure". To their immense satisfaction, the culprits are caught before they can do any harm and the adventure "ends happily".

The Hidden Treasure takes the reader to Kaka’s farmhouse with its quaint rural beauty and the tinkling of the bells, as the herds of cows and buffaloes move through the village. Against this backdrop, emerges the mystery of the ancestral treasure buried in a temple. Ravi, Dinu, Minu and Polly find themselves in the middle of a frantic search for the hidden treasure. Battling the bad guys, scrambling through the kidnapping drama, searching through an old "haunted" house, Deshpande sets a fast pace for the sleuthing foursome. The fast-paced drama set against the lethargic meanderings of a village life makes for interesting reading.

The mystery is very reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s The Mystery of the Missing Necklace. The Only Witness moves the readers to Bombay and to a dangerous mystery with bank robbers and kidnappers at large. This time the naivety of Polly, a spitting image of Blyton’s Beth, leads to the kidnapping of Sanju. However, with impressive detecting skills and the help of the ubiquitous Akbar and Joe, the little sleuths again manage to save the day.

The book ends with our very own homegrown detectives giving themselves a pat on the back: "Lovely! Isn’t it wonderful how we made everything come out all right?"

Deshpande, with a Blyton penchant, has successfully woven a tapestry of fun, frolic and adventure. The perspective is, of course, that of a child with its mixture of naivety and child-like wisdom. This is a reasonably successful attempt at resurrecting the art of writing simple adventure stories for children with a distinct Enid stamp. This is also a refreshing change from J. K. Rowling and R. L Stine. A must-read for all nine-year olds and fans of Enid Blyton.

contributed by: Rachna Singh

Revisiting 1857: Myth, Memory, History

2007-10-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Ed. Sharmistha Gooptu and
Boria Majumdar. Roli Books.
Pages 218

A mutiny, a revolt, or a fledgling national movement? This archetypal debate about the 1857 uprising has resounded in the academic corridors for decades.

Scholars and historians have variously described the uprising as a sepoy mutiny, a peasant revolt and lately a death knell for the ‘nawabi’-style aristocracy. With the passage of time, these arguments have become pass`E9. It is not surprising then, that scholars and historians are venturing into uncharted waters and attempting to re-orient the academic and popular perspective about the uprising.

Revisiting 1857 is an interesting attempt in this direction. The collection of essays explore the manner in which the uprising affected the "popular" consciousness and found its way into modes of communication and entertainment like cartoons, ballads, comics, sports and visual renditions like paintings, photographs, cinema, etc.

Majumdar’s essay very interestingly theorises how the cricket field became an arena for "assertion of native strength against European dominance." What began as an attempt at "acculturation" to suppress native sensibilities became a tool of revolt. This essay strongly brings to mind the epic cricket battle of Lagaan. Projit Mukharji’s essay Can the Subaltern Sing? traces how the English broadsheets "memorialised the suffering of the fellow Englishman in India" with ballads that passionately cried:

"they cut their scarlet bodies up as they done many before

this way the clergy used our sepoy at Cawnpore."

Gooptu explores cinematic renditions like Junoon, Mangal Pandey, Shatranj ke Khilari, etc., focusing on how the films have drawn from the "mainstream discourses" and prevalent political climate.

Amar Chitra Kathas have constructed history in the minds of impressionable readers for ages. Mehta points out how Amar Chitra Kathas reflect the dichotomy in the mutiny discourses. On the one hand, we have Rani of Jhansi who draws an authentic picture "of isolated theatres of war" against the British power. On the other hand is the politically correct "The March of Freedom" that describes 1857 as the start of the freedom struggle.

But the most intriguing study is Manjita Mukharji’s Violence in the Mutiny: Reading the World of Punch. Manjita argues that the Punch cartoons published in 1857 are the uncanny reflections of ‘English’ sensibilities regarding the uprising. Especially interesting is the study of the cartoon titled "The British Lion’s Revenge of the Bengal Tiger" published on August 22, 1857. Here, the Bengal tiger of the cartoon reflects the marauding ferocity of the mutineers who killed innocent women and children, while the British tiger symbolises the call for vengeance of the British public. The cartoon of Disareli stirring a cauldron with ingredients of "King of Oude’s sauce" also makes a good case study. Both cartoons highlight the British psyche after the uprising.

The book successfully redraws the academic lines of debate about 1857 to include in its ambit genres of popular culture. In doing so, it not only frees the discourse from a time freeze but also makes history more contemporary. Although academic in form and content, the essays are a great read for all history buffs.

contributed by: Rachna Singh

Jaipur Nama: Tales from the Pink City

2007-10-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

Giles Tillotson.
Penguin Books.
Pages 260

Jaipur with its piquant blend of antiquity and modernity, history of intrigue and legends of Rajput valour and ‘aan’ has been the focus of historians, architects, naturalists et al for over 200 years. Even today, the ambience of a rich past clings to the city bringing to life the history of the Kachchwaha clan, which ruled Jaipur from the day it was built by Sawai Jai Singh.

The history section of most libraries has several books delineating the life and times of the Rajas of Jaipur. Most of us would, therefore, react with a sense of ennui to another entry in this statistical collection. But Giles Tillotson’s Jaipur Nama is not just another dry and dusty historical tome. This book has the rare distinction of making history interesting and appealing. Jaipur Nama presents the history of Jaipur as witnessed by chroniclers as varied as a court pandit, a merchant, a pilgrim, a French naturalist and various representatives of the British Raj. Its narrative is an eclectic mix of descriptions of present-day Jaipur juxtaposed with extracts from the writings of old scholars.

Tillotson takes the readers on a wonderful journey that starts from the National Highway No 8 and moves to the heart of the present-day pink city set against the Aravalli spurs. Tillotson’s time machine takes the reader to the 18th century court of Sawai Jai Singh to witness an arcane Vedic ritual and the zenana intrigue, which dogs the natural and adopted successors to the throne. Completely caught up in the time warp, the reader moves happily through the 19th and 20th centuries and becomes a close observer of the ‘Ram rajya’ and the voyage to England of Raja Madho Singh. The narratives of Vishvanath Ranade, a priest in the court of Raja Jai Singh, blends seamlessly with the account of Shivanarayan Saksena, Madho Singh’s royal chronicler. The descriptions of the French traveller, Louis Rousselet, Heber, the young Bishop of Calcutta, Jacquemont, the naturalist, add a fresh dimension to the accounts of the Rajas of Jaipur. Thus, what emerges is a well-rounded, unbiased rendering of the past. Tillotson’s comments and observations link together the varied perspectives and give a quality of wholeness to the book. Short passages on ‘minakari’, ‘tah-i-nishan’ or damascening and blue pottery give a contemporary relevance to the narrative.

Jaipur Nama is not weighed down by an academic delineation of facts nor is it just an entertainer built around myths and legends of the Rajput clan. The book is in fact a blend of both and will, therefore, appeal to all book-lovers. For those of us who have been to Jaipur, it brings to life the sights and sounds of Jaipur and adds a certain pizzazz to the reading. For those of us who have not been to Jaipur, it acts as a tourist hard-sell spurring the reader to see the City Palace, the Jal Mahal, the Jaigarh Fort, the Amber Palace, the Nahargarh Fort and even the Shekhawati havelis. So we join the author in reiterating "Jagat main aakar kya kiya, kabhi na dekha Jaipuria?"

contributed by: Rachna Singh

Mercy In Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair

2007-10-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

by John Kenneth Muir.
Westland Books.
Pages 290
Browsing through a collection of films in a Music World outlet one day, I happened to look out of the glass window and saw to my amusement three city urchins engrossed in dancing to Hrithik Roshan’s hit number Ek pal ka jeena of Kaho Na Pyar Hai fame. This little vignette, so reminiscent of a ‘frame’ from Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay, sent me willy-nilly to get hold of a DVD of the film. Watching the movie, I felt that even after almost 20 years of release, the film has still not lost its relevance or contemporary cast. This is also true of Nair’s other films—Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, etc.

John Kenneth Muir in his eminently readable book Mercy In Her Eyes traces Mira Nair’s journey as a filmmaker who intends to "change the world through art". Muir forges a true-to-life image of Nair as an intensely visual auteur, a "truth-seeking" Amazon and a filmmaker who feels a sense of "genuine joy" in her creation.

Varied perceptions of people associated with Nair’s cinematic genius give this well-researched book a life and vivacity of its own. Sooni Taraporewala (screenplay for Salaam Bombay), Roshan Seth (Jay in Mississippi Masala ), Uma Thurman (Deb in Hysterical Blindness) et al show us a Nair "who wants to make serious passionate cinema that will get an ordinary audience, not an arty intelligentsia crowd".

We also see an "irreverent and playful" Nair using her consummate skills to "reveal our tiny local worlds in all their glorious peculiarity". The eccentricities of the marigold-eating Dubey of Monsoon Wedding or the graveyard sojourn of Krishna and Chillum of Salaam Bombay leave an indelible stamp.

Nair’s oeuvre encompasses within its ambit locales as disparate as the streets of Bombay, Delhi and Kampala, stories that "jump-cut" from Cuban exiles to an "AIDS" doctor to a Punjabi wedding. And yet, as Muir rightly points out, for all her experimental forays, Nair’s focus is almost always on the vicissitudes of characters in exile.

Krishna of Salaam Bombay, Jay of Mississippi Masala, Dorrie of The Perez Family, Deb of Hysterical Blindness are all "nowhere" people attempting to forge their own particular identity which emerges from the embers of a type-cast "chaipau" or a Uganda expatriate or a Cuban exile. This odyssey is, however, delineated with mercy and compassion. So, Baba, the pimp, is despicable, but ‘Baba’, the father, is human.

For Muir, this depiction of a human truth makes Nair unique and her cinema global.

Kenneth Muir also infuses his book with an honesty which is characteristic of Mira Nair and her work. So Muir, forever the judicious critic, hands out "kudos" to Nair’s genius but also openly debunks Kama Sutra for its sensual and languorous haze, which overpowers a story of true love. The Perez Family also becomes just an "attractive spectacle". But in the end, what endears the book to the reader is its pulsating rhythm and energy, which encapsulate the true Mira Nair. A must read for film aficionados and all Mira Nair fans.

The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills

2007-10-19T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills
Author: Bond, Ruskin (Ed.)
Year: 2005
[ pp. 170, pb ]
[ Price: RS. 95.00, US$ 2.44 ]
The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills is another collector's anthology. Ruskin Bond in this collection of racy and dramatic stories caters to the human craving for excitement and adventure. Ruskin Bond has with 鬡n put together stories that catapult the reader into a world of men and women caught up in death-defying escapades. Stuntmen, pilots, soldiers, explorers, aeronauts, medicine men, gamblers and lion-tamers enliven the pages of this anthology with their heroism. Each story brings forth a different facet of bravery. Rescue Squadron by Philip McCutchan and Four Men, Against the Desert by A.P Luscombe Whyte are true stories about the gallantry and never-say-die spirit of soldiers. Most protagonists are, however, ordinary men and women made extraordinary by their qualities of courage and valor. The story First Day in the life of a lion Tamer by Patricia Bourne is the true story of young woman who is determined to become a lion tamer. The attack by a lioness on her very first day does not frighten her. She simply taps the lioness on the nose and admonishes her for being a 'naughty girl'. Ruskin Bond's comments prefacing every story add to the spicy treat laid out by this master anthologist. Ruskin Bond is to be congratulated for editing two wonderful collections of stories which are a veritable treasure trove for the young as well as the old. I agree with Bond when he says that ?these are stories you can turn to again and again, as one turns to a favorite piece of music or a much loved picture.