The Cinema Corridor

A page from Indian film history: Dharti ke Lal (1946)

2011-12-08T23:44:00.000-08:00

A shorter version of this post first appeared as "Life, the way it was" in The Hindu on November 28, 2011. (A note: The accompanying photo in The Hindu is not from Dharti ke Lal as the caption mistakenly says, but from Do Bigha Zameen to which the article refers.)

The "Bhookha hai Bengal" chorus song in Dharti ke Lal

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s directorial debut film Dharti ke Lal (1946) begins and ends on an idyllic note, with a sailboat gently wafting across the water in rural Bengal. But what happens in between is the epic ugliness of hunger, poverty, and human suffering. Set against the backdrop of 1943’s Bengal famine in which nearly 5 million people perished, the film documents the anguish suffered by the family of a farmer and his two sons.

The film was a first in many respects. It was the multifaceted Abbas’s first film as a director. It was actor Balraj Sahni’s first major role, and a distinct precursor to his famous role of Shambhu in Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen (1953). Theatre couple Shombhu Mitra and Tripti Mitra appeared on the screen for the first time, as did veteran dancer-actress Zohra Segal. It was the first film presented under the aegis of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and starred, for the first time, a non-professional cast of “the people”—from organizations such as the Dhulia District Kisan Sabha and the Navjavan Mazdoor Party, among others.

The IPTA, formed in 1942, brought together intellectuals of the day who felt, in the then context of a growing nationalism, that theatre could be an effective medium for both social and artistic awakening among the people. The worlds of art and nationalism collided to produce plays that helped formulate the public ethic on important issues of the day. Socialist realism—rooted in songs, dance, and drama—was the mainstay of IPTA productions.

It was a shaky time: The war was on, and with it, a rising inflation and the consequent curse of starvation that was the lot of the impoverished. 1943-44 saw an exodus of hungry people from the villages to Calcutta and their disappointment at the apathy of the city dwellers. Many died, while others returned to the villages, forced to rely on themselves. This is broadly the context in which Abbas decided to make his first film that would highlight the people’s power in fighting against the plague of degradation and various institutionalized injustices. Individual empowerment would lead to collective empowerment, which, then, would create an enlightened public psyche that would keep at bay all the greedy zamindars, moneylenders, grain hoarders and other go-betweens of this world.

An advertisement in The Times of India dated 31 August 1946 invited audiences to Capitol Theatre to watch Dharti ke Lal, “the story that had to be told in all its simple grandeur and stark realism!” The film merged its socialist realism with the new cinematic style of social realism that it helped set off—where the camera’s meaningful engagement with reality meant capturing life the way it was for the poor, dispossessed folks, in all its utter rawness, indeed in all its brutishness and nastiness as Thomas Hobbes would have said.

During his numerous visits to Calcutta around 1943-44, Abbas was appalled by the villagers’ starvation-induced deaths and other miseries that he saw playing out routinely on the streets. A successfully running IPTA play of the time, Bijon Bhattacharya’s Nabanna (The New Harvest), powerfully captured the grimness of the situation while offering hope for a new beginning in terms of rural self-sufficiency. This fuelled Abbas’s desire to tell the story and convey its positive message to the rest of India as well—through the medium of celluloid. After all, a Hindi film on a contemporary issue could have a strong pan-India appeal. Abbas was also influenced by three other works—Bhattacharya’s plays Jabanbandi and Antim Abhilasha, and Krishan Chander’s story Annadata—all of which strengthened his vision of Dharti ke Lal.

Except for a couple of outdoor shots that were filmed in Calcutta—wartime restrictions made shooting impossible in Calcutta—the film was mostly shot outdoors in Dhulia in modern Maharashtra that was the setting for rural Bengal, with city scenes shot in the studios in Bombay.

The film is set in the fictitious village of Aminpur in Bengal, which is home to Samuddev Pradhan, his wife, elder son Niranjan (played by Balraj Sahni), elder daughter-in-law Binodini ((played by Damayanti, Balraj’s Sahni’s wife) and younger son Ramoo (played by Anwar Mirza). Communal harmony is depicted in the form of Ramzaan, Pradhan’s close family friend and neighbour. After a bucolic opening celebrating the expanse of Bengal’s landscape, to the accompaniment of Pandit Ravi Shankar’s music (his second film after Neecha Nagar that also released in 1946), the film immediately cuts to the reality of people’s hardships, signified by plaintive notes on the sitar. Dark poverty and doleful sitar—there is a certain Pather Panchali air about that.

Ramoo is to be married and, to afford the wedding, Pradhan sells off his stock of grains to Kalijan Mahajan, a devious grain hoarder who is busy stockpiling rations to sell later at a steep price. Actor David plays the tout who prods Pradhan to sell his grains to Mahajan. As the days go by, Pradhan’s is just one family that is faced with severe scarcity of food. When Ramoo goes one day to buy grains from Mahajan, he is shocked to notice the latter’s overflowing granary. Indeed, the man from the kisan sabha or farmer’s association had rightly cautioned farmers from giving in to the grain hoarders. Ramoo belatedly realizes the family’s mistake in selling off the grains. The astute Niranjan had foreseen this situation.

From this point on, Pradhan’s family has no choice but to buy grains from Mahajan on credit in the form of a promised next harvest or by pawning off jewellery, with the illiterate Ramoo leaving a thumb impression on the ledger each time, thus getting more and more entangled in debt. Meanwhile, Ramoo’s new wife Radhika (played by Tripti Mitra) wants to learn to read books and urges her husband to learn so that he can teach her. Ramoo goes to Dayal, the local schoolteacher, and starts lessons that he then imparts to his wife. Illiteracy, which is the reason for the impoverished getting mired deeper and deeper into degradation, is no less a bane than starvation, and the film addresses that issue, as an undercurrent though.

When Ramoo’s baby is born, there is not a morsel of food in the house. The family loses its cow Lakshmi (Ramoo’s pet) to the zamindar for not paying lagaan or taxes in two years. As Lakshmi is dragged away, Ramoo says, “Today the son is not able to save his own mother.” Later, when Ramoo, in a fit of helplessness, tells his family to sell the land (over which the zamindar, the tout, and Mahajan all have a vulturous eye), Pradhan and Niranjan are shocked.

Niranjan reminds his brother of the sacredness of the land and reminds him that “the land is our mother.” In keeping with the nationalist discourse, the land and the cow—that provide sustenance to the villagers—represent the life-giving mother figure, a primal inner force, now threatened by the collusion of corrupt outside forces. The recovery of this inner power—or the ability to protect the mother figure, which, in turn, means protecting oneself—is at the heart of Dharti Ke Lal’s socialist parable. With Ramoo affronted by a slap from Niranjan and breaking away from the family to try his luck at the city, the task of realizing the socialist dream will ultimately be up to Niranjan, who is aware that the scarcity of food is just an artificially created phenomenon by the larger power nexus that excludes the farmer.

With grain hoarders sending away their loot to Calcutta to be sold at astronomical prices, shops in Aminpur all shut down, resulting in sordid wretchedness all around. Dayal sees his family die before his eyes and almost loses his mind. As Aminpur turns into a “bhooton ki nagari” or a place of ghosts, the surviving few decide to brave it all the way to the city to beg for food. And then comes the famous exodus scene in the film, with many dropping dead en route, to dirge-like background music.

In Calcutta, the degradation of the hungry reaches a new low as they squat on the streets outside mansions, begging, scavenging dustbins, fighting with each other for scraps, grunting miserably—while the city around turns a blind eye. The rich dine luxuriously, while outside the glass door, the hungry look on: the disparity is Dickensian. When it is impossible to suffer further, respite comes in the form of death to many.

Moreover, the communal divide is fomented in the form of separate relief kitchens for Hindus and Muslims. As pots clang, Hindus shoo away Muslims, and vice-versa—this is in contrast to the religious unity of the village. The city’s inhumanness is personified in the rich Seth saheb (played by K. N. Singh, as villainous as ever), a grain-hoarding merchant who is permanently busy on the phone, making profitable deals.

Meanwhile, Ramoo who has been working as a rickshaw puller loses his job and, reminiscing about the good old days in the village, turns to alcohol for comfort. Pradhan’s family is languishing: Radhika prostitutes herself in exchange for milk for her child; her mother-in-law, weak and mad with hunger, steals the child’s milk; Pradhan is dying; and an unsuccessful Niranjan watches all this helplessly.

When Niranjan turns to a kind, conscientious relief worker named Shambhu dada (possibly Shombhu Mitra) for moral strength, the latter says with conviction that the people’s awakening will definitely happen, and that Niranjan, as a tiller of the soil—tillers are, after all, known for their indefatigability—should not get dispirited. It is just that hunger has crushed people’s spirits. The voice of hunger needs to be heard by all of the country for help to arrive, and that should be the mission of the hour. The stage is set for the chorus song, “Bhookha hai Bengal” (Bengal is hungry), a hard-hitting plea for help addressed to the rest of India. On a map of undivided India stand the singers, and, in the background, silhouetted, are images of Bengal’s misery.

As the news spreads to the rest of India, Niranjan has finally some reason to hope for the better, and he tells his dying father about this encouraging turn of events. Pradhan is delusional and sees green fields, clouds, oxen, and a golden harvest. He tells his family and Ramzaan to return home and start life again, and dies. Niranjan resolves to make the golden harvest a reality. Shambhu, too, reminds Niranjan of the power of the people, of their power to help themselves, and Niranjan is convinced.

Everyone returns to Aminpur, except Radhika who despises herself so much they she can never go back home again. Radhika and Ramoo cross paths in a very unmemorable way: when he hears that there are only two items for sale in the market—“woman and food,” in the words of the same vile tout from Aminpur—Ramoo, with no job and no food, forces himself to be a pimp and tries to strike a deal with a woman who turns out to be Radhika. She informs him that his father is dead, and the rest have returned home with their child who has been entrusted to Binodini. Ramoo and Radhika are reunited in their suffering, and Ramoo is deeply pained that he came close to selling his wife.

Back in Aminpur, Niranjan tells his fellow farmers about the new concept of collective farming, where everyone will jointly plough the land, sow seeds, water the crops, and harvest food, and enjoy the fruits of hard work equally; then no land will go unused and no one hungry. The villagers are first taken aback by this radical idea, but then realize that there is no other option, and agree. The sense of togetherness among the people is echoed by schoolchildren who chime in unison: “Hindustan is our country. This field is yours. This field is mine. We will together make a big field, which will be neither yours nor mine, but everyone’s.” This grand lesson in the people’s empowerment pays off as the next harvest turns out to be a dream harvest.

As the villagers make merry, and sing cheerful songs about the power of unity, Ramoo and Radhika—the wistful outsiders—look on. As the idyllic mood of Bengal’s landscape is reaffirmed, the film ends on a fable-like note with Radhika reminding her husband that as long as the country suffers from oppression and hunger, until then will the flame of their—the outcasts’—memory burn brightly in the hearts of the people of Aminpur.

One wonders at this bittersweet ending: why does Abbas not reintegrate the couple into the social fabric? They have, perhaps, strayed from their roots very far, but do they deserve to face permanent alienation? Perhaps it is Abbas’s way of equating the sanctity of womanhood with the sanctity of land: despite pressures, Niranjan could never be forced to part with his land; in contrast, Ramoo urges his brother to sell the land and, later, tries to sell his wife; Radhika goes one step ahead and sells herself. In the nationalist discourse of the time, women and land were routinely conflated, with each signifying the other, and representing what was sacrosanct. Selling one is the same as selling the other—and both are transgressions of the highest order that confer on the seller an outcast status.

That Dharti ke Lal’s social realism made it an unusual Indian film for its time is illustrated in a rather interesting anecdote from Abbas’s autobiography. When Abbas visited the Cinematheque film library in Paris in 1955, the librarian told him that of all the Indian films they had received, there was one particular film (without titles) that seemed to stand out in that it was not the typical fighting-dancing movie; she was curious to know who had made it, and what its name was; when she described what she had seen to Abbas, it turned out to be Dharti ke Lal.

(P.S. I am away from my home turf now. When I have access to my video equipment, I will post the "Bhookha hai Bengal" song and other excerpts that I have with me. Watch this space.)

The eternal and the transient: Jean Renoir’s The River (1951)

2011-11-06T00:07:00.000-07:00

A shorter version of this post first appeared as "The River sutra" in The Hindu on November 6, 2011.

Watching Jean Renoir’s film The River (1951), made in Technicolor, is like watching a picture book come to life—a picture book of the young English girl Harriet’s girlhood days, spent in Bengal in the early years of the twentieth century. Growing up by the river that is punctuated with rice fields and jute fields, Harriet and her siblings lead a carefree life that is splendidly caught by Renoir’s camera in a way that is reminiscent of a series of Impressionist paintings. Indeed, the film could be described as one long painting that captures life’s fleeting moments and faithfully records the flow of life. As the flow of the mighty river mingles with the flow of life, the film places events—small and big—in perspective.

This was Renoir’s first color film, and the first Technicolor film to be shot in India, on location in Bengal. It had art direction by Bansi Chandragupta, who later became famous for his work with Satyajit Ray. Ramananda Sengupta, the cinematographer of Ritwik Ghatak’s first feature film, the classic Nagarik (1952), was the camera operator. Satyajit Ray himself, not yet known to the world, was somebody whose counsel, during the making of the film, Renoir largely valued. Based on a somewhat autobiographical 1946 novel of the same name by Rumer Godden (who wrote many such works about life during the British Raj in India—see my posting on Black Narcissus,1947), substantially rewritten for the screen, The River intertwines Harriet’s immediate life with the larger life around her—the latter largely shot by Renoir in the form of documentary footage on a riparian lifestyle.

Harriet and her siblings and their rather proud friend Valerie playing in the lush green garden watched by their Indian nanny; Harriet’s naughty little brother Bogey transfixed by the cobra in the pipal tree, which will sadly be his undoing; Harriet’s father going to and from the jute factory where he works; the pensive Mr. John next door, with his half-Indian half-English daughter, Melanie (played by a young Radha Sri Ram before she became Radha Burnier, the famous theosophist), and their new guest—the young American, Captain John; a rather Christmassy Diwali party hosted at Harriet’s place that is exciting to all the children because Captain John, the dashing war hero with one leg, is attending—the subjectivity of this world is interspersed with the life around that is shaped by the flowing of the river on whose banks people eke out a living.

Life simmers by the river, and the everyday comes alive under Renoir’s photographic eye: boatmen tug at their oars, with the boats ferrying jute from Chittagong and Burma to the local jute factories, as the workers toil away; bazaars sell colorful wares including papayas, mangoes, jasmine flowers, betel nuts, candies, kites, silk saris, grains, and livestock; fortunetellers and snake charmers jostle with the crowds, while babies with kohl-lined eyes, heavily smudged, look on; children play, buffaloes graze, holy men meditate, and women wash clothes. Days come and go, the seasons change, the festivals follow one another—and life goes by as the perennial river does, in one broad, majestic sweep, a relentless force that can neither be paused nor reversed.

As the earthen idol of Kali becomes earth once again, at the end of the festival, only to come alive the following year, so does the cycle of birth and death—of creation and destruction—form the basis of all life, which plays out without beginning or end. Harriet and Valerie painfully realize that they cannot always remain cocooned in the carefree world of their childhood, and as Valerie comments insightfully, “I didn’t want it to change, and it’s changed.”

This stoicism seems to come much more naturally to the half-Indian Melanie than to the westerners, all of who, unlike Melanie, have to work hard at accepting the inevitable. Considering that the character of Melanie was not in the book, and was an invention for the screen, one wonders if Renoir, as part of the West’s Orientalist discourse—that Orientals are natural mystics—inevitably equated her Indianness with an innate Eastern wisdom. When Melanie’s father worries about the future of his half-caste daughter and tells her that perhaps she “should never have been born,” Melanie, with philosophical confidence, retorts: “But I am born. Someday I shall find where I belong.” In the same vein, she makes Captain John—a man whose disability frustrates him so much that he is always running away from himself—face the truth. When, in denial mode, he distraughtly says, “I am a normal man in any country,” Melanie replies ruthlessly but realistically, “Where will you find a country of one-legged men?” Melanie, in Renoir’s world, represents the unfathomable wisdom of the Orient.

I have never heard Carnatic music in the context of Bengal, but I must say Renoir’s choice of music is hardly incongruous. Melanie’s Bharatanatyam recital to the song Karunai irukka vendumae in melodious Kambhodhi raagam, and Bogey’s funeral procession to the accompaniment of a song in majestic Kaanada raagam only reiterate the macro-view of life that Renoir paints in all its sublime colors. The music elevates; and, to put it metaphorically, the soul glides off the boughs of the film’s magnificent pipal tree. As the narrative reaches its end, the black blotch of Bogey’s untimely death gives way to riotous springtime. It is Holi, and as the postman (who brings Captain John’s letters to the eager Valerie, Harriet, and Melanie from faraway America) is bombarded with the colors of life, there is life and hope yet again in the form of a newborn, Harriet’s latest sibling, an entity now firmly present in the world, but who did not exist awhile back—while the river continues to flow as it has done, uninterrupted, for centuries.

Dev Anand's first film: Hum Ek Hain (1946) and its rhetoric of nation

2010-09-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on
September 26, 2010.

Kamala Kotnis & Dev Anand

Dev Anand—of the lithe frame and the tilted gait; the impish turn of the head and the quick nod; the doffing of the cap and the dreamy gaze—will be 87 years old this September 26th. When it comes to an Indian film legend who is so deeply rooted in the public imagination as Dev Anand is, and about whom information is galore, I had rather not add to the redundancy of information—information redundancy (or regurgitation) being the bane of today’s Internet world. Instead, I take this occasion to remember his first film.

Let me hark back to a time when Dev Anand was not yet the wildly popular Dev Anand that he would become from the 1950s onward and cause many female hearts to flutter. In life, a certain finesse or confidence emerges with the passage of time and accumulation of experiences; and it is snapshots in time—such as a photo, or a film, or a piece of writing, or a rendering of a song—that capture these various stages of self-formation so palpably. In 1946, when Dev Anand debuted in Prabhat Film Company Limited’s Hum Ek Hain (We are one) under P. L. Santoshi’s direction—Santoshi wrote the dialogues and song lyrics as well—the Dev Anand mien (as one can call it), is still some distance away, although one gets, in the lanky newcomer, a whiff of that persona to come.

In Hum Ek Hain, a story of unity in the face of religious and class differences, Dev Anand shared equal screen space with a host of others, including debutants Rehman, Rehana, and Kamala Kotnis, all saplings in the shade of a banyan tree-like figure that is Durga Khote, a mother who looks on dotingly over her brood—biological and otherwise.

A rather detailed synopsis here. (Spoiler alert: This section of my post gives away the story; so if you prefer suspense, you might want to skip the synopsis bit, and go down to my critique of the film.) The setting is an Indian village. Times are bad, with famine and starvation taking a toll on the poor farmers. A heartless zamindar (or landlord) called Badebabu (? actor) exploits his farmers’ vulnerability by forcing them to sell their small pieces of land—their only subsistence—in return for meager portions of food. In stark contrast, there is a very noble, kind lady whom the villagers refer to as Zamindari Ma (played by Durga Khote), the widow of the good zamindar who is remembered in death as in life for his generosity and good deeds. Zamindari Ma keeps alive the glorious tradition set by her late husband, and rises magnificently to the occasion by opening her granaries to one and all—not just to the farmers who work under her, but also to all the other farmers in the village, including those who work under Badebabu.

She also takes under her wing many orphaned children, and adopts three of them—a Muslim, a Christian, and a low-caste girl—as her own. So, Shankar (her biological son), who is a likeness of his noble parents, now has siblings in Yusuf, John, and Durga. The old faithful of the family is Rehman Chachha (? actor), and Zamindari Ma relies on his counsel. And one big happy family it is, affirming the “hum ek hain” motto under the music director-duo of Husnlal Bhagatram. Song 1: “Meri aankhon ke ujiyaarey ho tum”

As Zamindari Ma spins her charkha, time flies, and the children grow up. Shankar (Dev Anand) looks after the zamindari of his father; Yusuf (Rehman) is a hunting enthusiast; John (? actor) is a doctor; and Durga (? actor) is—well—just all grown up, a lively lass. Zamindari Ma, her heart swelling with pride, says: “Teen ladke, teen tarah ke” (Three sons, of three kinds); she leaves out poor Durga, I guess. Shankar completes the line for her, with Yusuf and John in tow: “… lekin ma, hum ek hain (but mother, we are one).” Durga seconds that, and so does Mithoo the family parrot.

Meanwhile, Badebabu’s son, Chhotebabu (also a crook, like his father; played by Ramsing), has come back to the village as a “vakil” or lawyer, and goes around throwing his weight. Both father and son are intent on fixing the latter’s marriage with Vidya (Kamala Kotnis), the daughter of their family friend from town, Shyamacharan (? actor). Father and daughter are visiting the village and staying at Badebabu’s. On an outing, Vidya witnesses Chhotebabu’s haughty behavior, and is not impressed. She instantly falls in love with the upright Shankar who puts his foot down at Chhotebabu’s domineering ways. Shankar reciprocates Vidya’s feelings.

Yusuf and John also find their ladyloves—Nargis (Rehana) and Dolly (? actor), respectively, and both alliances are fixed. Durga is very excited for her three brothers, but comes to know from the local astrologer that Vidya’s wedding with Chhotebabu is almost finalized. She breaks the news to a dejected Shankar. Meanwhile, an upset Vidya tells her father that she cannot stand Chhotebabu one bit. Shyamacharan is an understanding parent and makes the trip to Zamindari Ma to fix the Shankar-Vidya marriage. Shubh vivaah. Three in one go. Song 2: “Meri aayi hai teen bhabhiyaan”

After the celebrations, Chhotebabu turns up at Zamindari Ma’s household in a suspiciously cordial mood. In a false show of solidarity, he chimes “hum ek hain,” and says how happy he is for the three brothers. When Shankar leaves for town with his new wife to visit his ailing father-in-law, Chhotebabu visits John at the clinic and tells him that the place is too run-down for practice and that he needs to build a bigger hospital. He prods John to write to Shankar for money, and introduces him to an engineer who will head the construction work.

Chhotebabu is hand in glove with the unscrupulous engineer, and together they plan to fleece John. Shankar sends the money, and construction begins, and so does the engineer’s menacing demands for more and more money. John hesitates to ask Shankar again for money, but Chhotebabu assures him that he will visit Shankar in town and get the funds.

Meanwhile, the crop yield is poor that year, and the farmers under Zamindari Ma are unable to pay “lagaan” or taxes. Shankar, who is the family accountant, is informed; and, naturally, he feels reluctant to divert more money to the construction work when there is shortage of funds—and especially so, given the family’s priority of the farmers’ well being. As he discusses this with Vidya, Chhotebabu walks in and notices Shankar’s worried look. When Shankar explains the quandary that he is in, Chhotebabu spews more venom and condemns John for wasting money and urges Shankar to go in person and stop the construction.

Shankar immediately returns to the village and tells the engineer to stop work. John objects, but Shankar tells him that he will explain it all to him at home. The engineer walks off in a huff, the work stops, and John gets angry with Shankar. Back at home, during mealtime, Zamindari Ma notices that John and Shankar, for the first time in their lives, look sullen. Soon, to everybody’s shock, the two brothers fight openly and John remarks angrily that the most important thing in life is money and that he has just realized it.

John then takes his wife’s jewelry to Chhotebabu, who, feigning horror, offers to fund the construction work—but on one condition: no one must know that Chhotebabu is financing the project. Having extracted this promise, however, Chhotebabu goes to Shankar and wonders aloud about John’s new source of money—and prophesies that John’s irresponsible spending will only bring Shankar, the eldest brother, a bad name. In a wily way, he also introduces the idea of “batwaara” or splitting of the family property. Shankar is horrified, but nevertheless the seed is sown.

When Shankar questions John about the source of the money, the latter refuses to tell—followed by a fierce exchange of words. Yusuf intervenes, but the other two only get angrier, and Shankar blurts out that splitting the property is the best option. Pained, Yusuf leaves the house with his wife, followed by John and wife, all in the middle of the night. Zamindari Ma appropriately wakes up from a nightmare of her three sons on a capsizing boat and finds two of her sons gone. She is upset with Shankar and orders him to go bring back his brothers. An irate Shankar refuses and leaves as well with his wife.

As Zamindari Ma sits staring vacantly at her empty nest, Chhotebabu comes pretending how sad he is—and offers to help with the zamindari work. The grief of seeing a broken home is too much for Zamindari Ma, and she takes to bed.

Denouement is in the form of a raging fire in Zamindari Ma’s fields. She rushes out concerned for her farmers, who are frantically trying to save the crops, and faints. Hearing the commotion, her three sons arrive—and in the face of calamity, realize their mistake of straying from the family motto of “hum ek hain.” The farmers catch the culprit (Chhotebabu’s henchman, of course). The angry farmers, accompanied by Shankar, Yusuf, and John, arrive at Badebabu’s, who apologizes for his son’s wicked deeds.

Shankar, Yusuf, and John almost speak in one voice when they realize that this fire is just an extension of the inner fire of brotherly feud started by Chhotebabu. The demand is unanimous: the arsonist should leave the village. The unconscious Zamindari Ma magically springs to life when she hears her three sons declare, with a newfound zeal, the family motto of “hum ek hain.” The lesson of unity firmly in place, the “hum ek hain” song fills the air one last time. Song 3: Version 2 of “Meri aankhon ke ujiyaarey ho tum” that starts as “Hum jaag uthey hain sokar”

Reflections and a critique: If Amar, Akbar, and Anthony famously symbolized religious unity on celluloid in 1977 and thereafter, their predecessors on the eve of Indian independence were Shankar, Yusuf, and John. Director P. L. Santoshi’s story on national integration resounded with the volatility of those tension-filled times of 1946: the fear of communal disharmony dividing India is represented in the film by the fallout between the brothers, which threatens to break up the family and endanger the life of the all-straddling matriarch, quite a Mother India figure.

The Mother India imagery is quite explicit in the film’s publicity material. An advertisement in The Times of India dated 17 August 1946 had an eye-catching silhouette of a partial outline of India’s map, filled with nameless individuals, all children of the same mother, defiantly screaming “Hum Ek Hain.” The ad declared the film, then in its “6th sonorous week at Central [Cinema]” to be a “picture of the moment.” Further, it reproached the colonial policy of sowing disunity amongst the ruled when it emphatically announced: “Turn east—and hear India speak! [This] is today’s tip to the west! …The voices of millions sing in unity—and Prabhat has caught the magic of the words ‘Hum Ek Hain.’”

In the context of the then emerging nation, the idea of unity is unequivocally tied to the figure of the mother. Disunity—within the family or within the nation—is a threat to the mother, the life-giver. This rhetoric of nation, which is the centrality of the mother in the scheme of things, is, however, based on a very simplistic arrangement: it conveniently dispenses with the father, the absent zamindar of the narrative. And clearly it is a world of mothers and sons—with the mother’s deepest and most meaningful relationship with the son and not the daughter.

I end this piece on a lighter, musical note, with a delightful dance by the inimitable Cuckoo as she, the village belle, performs before Chhotebabu and Vidya. The opening credits name Guru Dutt for “dance composition.” Song 4: “Ho nadiya ke paar mora saawarey”

Acknowledgments: My reading of the film would not have been possible without access to the full film. On my last visit to India, I got the VCD of this film from which I have uploaded four songs onto my YouTube channel. But when I was searching for a better print of the film, I realized that what I have is an identical copy of the VCD available at the ExDesi.com Desi Torrents Links and Streams site, where it has been uploaded (and possibly digitized in the first place) by a generous soul who goes by the username of Trinidad. My heartfelt thanks to Trinidad, or the person who made it first available.

Just go to the site, or google “Hum Ek Hain 1946,” and you should find it. In there, you can also find screenshots and songs from the film, a profile of Dev Anand, and a description of 1946 in Hindi films.

Also, members at the hamaraforums site have uploaded the audio of the songs in MP3 format, with as much song information as is presently known. For song credits, I have entirely relied on them.

P.S.: If anyone identifies some of the actors/singers here, please help fill in the blanks.

Copycat blogger rouses my righteous indignation

2010-09-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

A screenshot of sunheriyaadein's blog page

The last one day has been a colossal waste of time for me—courtesy a blogger called sunheriyaadein whom I consider more a copycat than a blogger of any standard. I felt I must record this rather unpleasant experience—that of being plagiarized from, which I accidentally discovered—loudly and clearly with everyone out there. Putting this in writing clearly on my blog, will, I hope, in some measure, deter the copycats prowling on the Internet, who just copy and paste text.

Yesterday was a laidback Friday, and I happened to be browsing a few blogs on old films when, in the Bhooli Bisri Sunheri Yaadein blog, I chanced upon a recent write-up (August 3, 2010) on Mohammed Rafi, whose death anniversary it was on July 31. As I glanced through it, this ode to Rafi started to sound and look uncomfortably familiar in places. I realized I was reading my own writing from one year back.

This blogger (whose real name is a mystery, and who has not listed any email where she can be contacted—I am tired of searching!), had blatantly lifted excerpts, verbatim, from my post on Mohammed Rafi (that I wrote aound his last death anniversary for the passionforcinema blog on July 29, 2009, later republished in my blog here on July 31, 2009) and passed it off nicely as her own! My first reaction was sheer anger and outrage.

Of course, I could give benefit of doubt and deem this to be inadvertent; however, this is too verbatim a case. Anyway, I quickly ran a trial version of Copyscape through my imitator’s posting, and, sure enough, Copyscape caught four clear instances—the exact ones that I had found. (I have recorded them below.)

I am more worldly-wise now and have installed Copyscape as a deterrent, and have become more aware of the importance of protecting one’s intellectual property, and this cannot be stressed enough. I left a long comment with links to the plagiarized passages on my imitator’s blog, but that is “awaiting moderation,” and so I won’t be surprised if it never shows up there. So, I am left with no choice but to post all the details here.

Looking from the other side: I never really imagined someone would find me worth copying from! So it is a compliment, perhaps. Still, although imitation is the best form of flattery, as the saying goes, it is just plain annoying to see someone else stealing one's thoughtfully-crafted paragraphs. Any honest writer will vouch for that.

For your convenience, I have listed below the shamelessly plagiarized excerpts, including the Copyscape links to them. This is what the plagiarist's blog posting looks like when I write this rant. Here goes:

1. My original: So much is written about Rafi (1924-1980) that I don’t quite know where to begin and what new to say really. I am stumped. It should just suffice if I say that Rafi was one of the most versatile singers in the history of Hindi film music. His pan-Indian (and beyond) appeal seems to get only stronger with time. From the doleful Jugnu (1947) to the patriotic Shaheed (1948) to the classical Baiju Bawra (1952) to the effervescent Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955) to the regal Raj Hath (1956) to the poetic Pyaasa (1957) to the meltingly romantic Barsaat Ki Raat (1960)—phew! the list is endless—Rafi sang it all. And more.

The copy: So much is written about Rafi (1924-1980) that I don’t quite know where to begin and what new to say really. Rafi was one of the most versatile singers…From the doleful Jugnu to the patriotic Shaheed to the classical Baiju Bawra to the effervescent Mr. and Mrs. 55 to the regal Raj Hath to the poetic Pyaasa to the meltingly romantic Barsaat Ki Raat - phew! the list is endless—Rafi sang them all. And more. http://www.copyscape.com/?s=98914592341806&sms_ss=google

Screenshot of copied excerpt 1 (highlighted)

2. My original: In his earlier years, before he had fully come into his own, Rafi sang for Ghulam Mohammed (Naushad’s protégé) a lovely duet with Lata in Pardes (1950), called “Akhiyaan milaake zara baat karo jee,” a song to which I am very partial for two reasons: Madhubala’s striking beauty, and Rafi’s deep, powerful rendering that is reminiscent of Pankaj Mullick, not to mention a very young Lata’s exquisitely honeyed voice.

The copy: In his earlier years, before he had fully come into his own, Rafi sang for Ghulam Mohammed (Naushad’s protégé) a lovely duet with Lata. This one is picturised on Rehman and Madhubala and I love this for lots of reasons: Madhubala’s striking beauty, Rafi’s deep, powerful rendition, peppy music and young and dashing Rehman!
http://www.copyscape.com/?s=52609318731807&sms_ss=google

Screenshot of copied excerpt 2 (highlighted)

3. My original: … picturized on Ajit (much before he turned villain for the screen). Bombay—that teeming metropolis, teeming then in the 1950s just as it is teeming today—the land of opportunities—was masterfully captured by lyricist Prem Dhawan to composer Hansraj Behl’s tune that is born for the harmonica.

The copy: This is Rafi singing for Ajit. in the good old days before he turned into a villian on screen. Bombay—that teeming metropolis, teeming then in the 1950s just as it is teeming today—the land of opportunities, sapno ka shehar—was masterfully captured by lyricist Prem Dhawan to composer Hansraj Behl’s tune. http://www.copyscape.com/?s=61913581131803&sms_ss=google

Screenshot of copied excerpt 3 (highlighted)

4. My original: Equally at home on different turfs, Rafi could convincingly slip under the skin of characters that were poles apart: he sang for the brooding Dilip Kumar in Deedar (1951) with the same ease with which he lent his voice to a frolicking Johnny Walker in C.I.D. (1956). And, truly, it is difficult for the listener to decide where Rafi excels more.

The copy: He could convincingly slip under the skin of characters that were poles apart: he sang for the brooding Dilip Kumar in Deedar with the same ease with which he lent his voice to a frolicking Johnny Walker in C.I.D. And it is so difficult for the listener to decide where Rafi excels more and who his voice suits the best! http://www.copyscape.com/?s=49254971131804&sms_ss=google

Screenshot of copied excerpt 4 (highlighted)

End of everyone’s waste of time. We all have better things to do.

Remembering Jairaj and Renuka Devi in Bhabhi (1938)

2010-09-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on
September 1, 2010.

In Awara (1951), Raj Kapoor famously tells Nargis that it is not her fault that she initially mistakes him for a vagabond—actually, there is something about his face that makes him look like one: "Is mein tumhara kasoor nahin, meri soorat hi aisi hai." This memorable apology followed by Nargis warming up to Raj is quite the staple of the Raj-Nargis romance.

More than a decade earlier, in Bhabhi (1938), P. Jairaj (1909-2000) makes the exact same apology about his visage to Renuka Devi (1918-1989), who early on in the film thinks he is a goonda: "Aapka dosh nahin, meri soorat hi aisi hai."

And that kicks off their tender and subdued onscreen romance in this production from Bombay Talkies Ltd. Watch Jairaj's apology to Renuka Devi and her jittery father (played by V. H. Desai) here:

Released on 17th December 1938, at the Roxy Talkies theatre in Bombay, Bhabhi, directed by Franz Osten, was a huge hit.

A quick synopsis: Based on "Bisher Dhuan" by writer Sardindu Banerjee (1899-1970), who adapted it for Bombay Talkies, Bhabhi is the story of an upright young man named Kishore (Jairaj) who promises his dying friend to take care of the latter's wife, Bimala (Maya Devi), left all alone in the world. Kishore brings Bimala to his house, where they live as brother and sister. Society disapproves, and so does Kishore's father, who disinherits his son. Meanwhile, Renu (Renuka Devi) and her father, Vinay Babu—a funny old man, a bundle of nerves—move in next door. Kishore and Renu fall in love, much to the annoyance of the pompous Anupam (Rama Shukul), who plans to marry the wealthy Renu. Anupam plays villain and creates much heartbreak for the lovers. On a side note, Renu's friend Bela (Meera), who is Anupam's cousin, falls for Kishore. Finally, all misunderstandings are cleared, thanks largely to Deenbandhu (the comforting and rather avuncular P. F. Pithawala), Kishore's former teacher.

About the film's leading pair: P. Jairaj (born Paidypathy Jairula Naidu) and Renuka Devi (born Khurshid Jahan, later Begum Khurshid Mirza), both hailed from illustrious families and joined films at a time when the profession had a dubious reputation. While Jairaj was born in Karimnagar in the Nizam's state of Hyderabad, and had India's reigning literary empress, Sarojini Naidu, for an aunt (a fact that he kept under wraps), Khurshid Mirza was born in one of Aligarh's most progressive families that founded the Aligarh Women's College.

Jairaj incurred the displeasure of his family when he ran away to Bombay in 1929, where he started off in silent films. Legend has it that they did not speak to him for nearly twenty-five years. For her part, Khurshid Mirza at least had the support of her immediate family—when she decided to try her luck in films starting in 1937, she was already a wife and a mother. Of course, her extended family and friends back in small town Aligarh were appalled. But the girl from Aligarh was way too determined to bother about other people's opinions, just as the lad from Hyderabad was set in his goal of making something of his life.

Apparently, Jairaj was all set to go to England to study engineering but it did not materialize, and he was rather dejected: fortuitously a relative put him in touch with a friend who worked for a film company in Bombay. Seizing the chance, Jairaj landed in Bombay, although he never thought of himself as hero material: the move simply meant self-reliance, some odd jobs here and there.

But, as luck would have it, he was soon offered a role in Sparkling Youth (Jagmagti Jawani) in 1929/1930. (His monthly salary as an actor was 75 rupees.) There was no turning back after that. Altogether, Jairaj acted in 11 silent films. 1931 saw the arrival of the talkie, and Jairaj with his strong command of Urdu (his Hyderabadi roots came in handy) had a distinct advantage. The drawback, though, was that he would have to sing his own songs, and Jairaj was really not much of a singer. He was grateful when playback singing arrived in 1935.

Certainly, Jairaj was spared the torture of having to sing for himself in Bhabhi—and—what's more—he did not have much lip-synching to do either; interestingly, Jairaj's character sings only in the very end, and that too very briefly. A largely songless hero in a Bombay Talkies production is, perhaps, unusual. Possibly the songs were interwoven with the storyline in such a way that only female vocals were required. Renuka Devi sang for herself, and so did Meera, the supporting actress.

About Renuka Devi, Baburao Patel of Filmindia magazine declared that "Bombay Talkies have found another Devika [Rani]" and that "her performance has that distinctive grace and poise which can only be associated with a lady of culture and education" (January 1939). This was an accurate assessment of the unconventional Begum Khurshid Mirza, who became Renuka Devi for the screen starting with her first film, Bombay Talkies' Jeevan Prabhat (1937), co-starring Devika Rani and Kishore Sahu. Bhabhi was Renuka Devi's second film. (She moved to Pakistan after partition and later became a successful television personality.)

If there is one song that Renuka Devi is famous for, it has to be the raag Malhar-based "Jhuki aayi re badariya saawan ki," in Bhabhi, picturized on her and Jairaj, with the latter dutifully accompanying the former, on the piano. Composed by Saraswati Devi, 1912-1980 (the earliest known, if not first, female music director in Hindi cinema), the song captures the beauty of the Indian monsoon and the accompanying exaltation of the human spirit. It is one of the best "saawan" songs in our films—simple and super hummable. Some sources attribute the lyrics to Meerabai though this is not verified. (Does anyone know?) J. S. Casshyap is the lyricist and dialogue writer for the film. "Jhuki aayi re badariya saawan ki":

My take on the film's theme: Why cannot a young widow live with an unmarried man, as his sister, in peace, without arousing ignoble thoughts in the minds of those around? Bhabhi touches upon the issue of society's narrow mindedness when it comes to man-woman relationships, although in an implicit way. The critique of an ignoble society is not the overarching concern here; in the end, it is more a case of the lovers triumphing rather than society being chastised—the latter is something that the viewer expects rightfully and discovers missing. As Kishore and Renu realize the depth of their love for each other, Bimala's case—and what it stands for—somehow seems to take a backseat.

That disappointment is, in great measure, offset by the melody of the "Haan qaidi" duet; as Jairaj and Renuka Devi s(w)ing their way to happiness, I wonder why the song is so painfully short. This truncation of beauty seems most unfair—so what do I do? I record the song over and over again on my audiocassette, and listen to it nonstop, and just pretend that it is one long song. "Haan qaidi":

P.S.: Does anyone know who is singing for Jairaj? In an interview with Bunny Reuben, Jairaj mentioned that he tried to sing for the screen only once—unsuccessfully. This was for a film called Patit Pawan (1933); despite a month's practice, a nervous Jairaj, wanting the song to be done and over with, reeled it all off in one go, totally breathless, without pausing for the orchestra. The song was scrapped, of course; and a mortified Jairaj vowed never to sing again.

A page from Indian film history: Karma (1933)

2010-03-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on March 19, 2010.

“… it [Karma] marks a beginning, and a very successful one, to break away from the general run of Indian films and to produce something entitling India to a place in screencraft among other countries in the world.”
-The Times of India, 16 March 1934

The husband-wife team of Himansu Rai (1892-1940) and Devika Rani (1908-1994) appeared together only once on the silver screen—in Karma (1933), described as the “first Indian talkie with English dialogue which set all London talking.” In India too, when the film released, there was a lot of talking—tongues wagging, rather. The reason? A kiss between Devika Rani and an unconscious Himansu Rai that is today still as famous as it was shocking then: sure enough, when I start typing in “Devika Rani” on that know-it-all entity called Google, the first suggestion that crops up is “Devika Rani kissing scene,” followed by other keyword combinations—all in search of that kiss from 1933.

The bilingual Karma, released as Naagan ki raagini in Hindi, was Devika Rani’s first acting role (she sang one song in English, and that was possibly the first English song in Indian cinema), while it was her actor-producer husband’s last. Himansu Rai, from then on, until his early demise seven years hence, concentrated on production, and managing the Bombay Talkies studio that he would found, along with his wife, in 1934.

In today’s globalized setup, where cross-cultural films, international productions, and foreign premieres are becoming fairly common, it is worth rewinding back to 1933, when such things, perhaps, had more of a novelty factor.

Himansu Rai, educated in Shantiniketan and London, was a dynamic personality whose aim was to bring Indian cinema of the day on par with the cinemas of Europe and America. Technique wise, Indian cinema—compared to its Western counterparts—was still very much in its infancy. For India to get a grip on the language of cinema, Rai felt it was necessary to initially at least collaborate with Western production houses—that would pave the way, eventually, for a self-sufficient film industry in India.

Karma, a joint production by Himansu Rai Indo-International Talkies Ltd., Bombay, and Indian & British Productions Ltd., London, and directed by J. L. Freer-Hunt, with music by Ernst Broadhurst and Roy Douglas, premiered in England to great success. (The background musical score evokes the mood of a Douglas Fairbanks film, with a touch of East thrown in.) As the London Star evening newspaper wrote about Devika Rani, “You will never hear a lovelier voice or diction or see a lovelier face.” Judge for yourself. Excerpt 1:

Given the time period of the film—it was set in contemporary India—it is not surprising that the film held immense appeal for a Western audience. All the ingredients of an exotic colonial drama were in place: a love story set amidst grand palaces, tiger hunts, snake bites, holy men, frenzied natives, miraculous cures, and centered around that curious eastern notion of karma that binds human actions to consequences.

According to The Times of India, cited earlier, “There was some fear on the part of the producer, Mr. Himansu Rai, that a film in English and designed for the international market might not appeal to the people of this country, since ‘Karma’ is as different from the average Indian film as chalk is from cheese.” The fear was, however, “happily … dispelled” when the film opened favorably, first in Bombay and Delhi, then in “places as widely apart as Madras and Karachi”—although certainly it was a bigger hit in England than in India.

The fact that the film had received high praise in England created a public curiosity in India; approbation from the West (mixed with the cultural insecurities in the people’s psyche) flattered them enough to pay attention to the showcasing of Oriental India.

Still, India was not amused by the kiss between the grandniece of Tagore, and her husband. It was long, fairly unrestrained, and an outrageous departure from the mores of the time. But the kiss went past film censorship (it began with the Indian Cinematograph Act of 1918), which was then more wary of nationalist, anti-Raj feelings than it was of demonstrations of human love.

The film was shot at the Stoll Studios in London and at various outdoor locations in India that included palaces and an ancient Shiva temple. There is attention to detail in capturing the ambience of an Indian princely state of the times—be it lifestyle, apparel, public festivities, or local beliefs. Which is why the opening credits acknowledge “the gracious indulgence of H.H. The Maharawat of Partabgarh” for the film’s depiction of “a pageantry which the jealously guarded traditions of Indian states permit to none but the Ruler himself”; “the exceptional privileges granted by the priests of the temple”; and “the courtesy and guidance of the Central Publicity bureau of the Indian State Railways in placing at our disposal their unrivalled store of information.”

And thus begins the love story of two Indian royals, at the heart of which is the clash between tradition and modernity, a tension that is heightened during the colonial encounter.

A note here: I have had to piece together the story from a bunch of scenes, and that too from memory. I hope I have done justice to the logic of the narrative. One more thing: With the prince and the princess addressing each other as “darling” and “beloved” and so on, and with no else calling them by their names, I guess their names remain a mystery.

The princess of Sitapur (Devika Rani) and the prince of neighboring Jayanagar (Himansu Rai) are deeply in love with each other. The prince’s father (actor Dewan Sharar, who wrote the story) disapproves of the “modernizing” ideas of the princess, which he surmises as her converting “temples into hospitals,” “palaces into schools,” “rice fields into playgrounds”—and as the king’s adviser adds—”peasants into cricketers.” The adviser, a holy man, has a plan to tackle the princess: it is easier to put a stop to her radical ideas by actually letting her marry the prince. As the king’s daughter-in-law, her powers will be undermined.

The princess, meanwhile, thinks of a way to make the king of Jayanagar agreeable towards her; he is fond of hunting, so she plans to offer him a chance to go tiger hunting in the forests of Sitapur. There is a problem, though. There has never been any hunting in Sitapur and it could offend the people’s sentiments. The prince is concerned for the safety of the princess, but she is confident in her decision and tells him that she will schedule the hunt just after the local festival when the people will be in a good mood.

The hunt is announced, and the king of Jayanagar accepts the invite although he wants his son to lead it. The people of Sitapur are uneasy. They resent the tiger hunt—and that too by the neighbor, their traditional rival. Moreover, they reason that a marriage between Jayanagar and Sitapur will result in Jayanagar controlling Sitapur. A few angry people conspire to prevent the marriage by getting the prince out of the way.

On the eve of the hunt, the princess—who has just realized the reason behind the king’s consent of the marriage—“if we marry, your father’s influence will prevent all our plans for progress”—is visibly upset. Soon thereafter, an intruder unsuccessfully tries to kill the prince, and the princess is deeply shaken. She is tempted to call off the hunt, but the prince thinks that would be cowardice. The princess decides that while the hunt is on the next day, she will pray for her beloved’s safety at the Shiva temple. Excerpt 2:

The prince shoots a tiger the next day, but also, accidentally, shoots a man. So the injured man rides back on the prince’s elephant while the prince decides to walk. On the way back among the tall grasses, a king cobra bites the prince, who is then rushed to the snake charmer’s hut. The princess, who is just leaving the temple, is informed. The words of Jayanagar’s holy man haunt the princess: “Those who follow the torch of progress too swiftly sometimes get their fingers burnt.”

She rushes to the unconscious prince, and sits with his head on her lap, praying fervently. Now follows the famous lip lock scene in the film. To the background of the snake charmer’s music, we see the princess bending low and desperately kissing her lifeless lover, hoping to wake him up through her touch. “My prayers must be answered,” she pleads.

The snake charmer tells her about an “old cure” that must happen before sunset: “If Shiva wills it, another snake shall strike the prince again and draw out the poison.” He goes into the forest and brings back another cobra.

Meanwhile, the king hears the news of his dying son; distraught, he ascribes it all to karma, and blames himself for earning the ill will of the people of Sitapur. He decides to perform some good deeds: “prayers to the gods” and “alms to the people.”

We hear the snake music one last time, as the cobra glides by the prince and bites out the venom. The prince opens his eyes. “Praise be to Shiva,” “Har har Mahadev,” and “Jai Shiv Shankar” fill the air as an overjoyed princess hugs the prince tight. The end.

As the belief in karma stands vindicated—spectacle and pageantry aside—the West is left to its reflections on the subject.

A conclusory thought: Given the political context of the times, of the reality of a rising Indian discontent against the empire (it is worth remembering here that the three Round Table Conferences organized in London between 1930 and 1932 to discuss India’s demand for self-rule were a failure due to the highhandedness of the British), one almost wonders if the film’s depiction of the power of the people’s wrath against the ruler pricked the British conscience in any way. Did the British viewer feel a certain compunction, fear a backlash against the Raj, perhaps?

M. S. Subbulakshmi’s Hindi Meera (1947)

2009-12-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on
December 3, 2009.

I have some memories associated with my old VHS tape of the 1947 Hindi version of the 1945 Tamil film Meera that is synonymous with M. S. Subbulakshmi (1916-2004). The year was 1991. Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated on May 21. Sometime in the next couple of days or so, Doordarshan, in a gesture of magnanimity reserved for such somber occasions, paid homage to the departed soul by screening Chandraprabha Cinetone’s Hindi Meera—which, for some reason, unlike its Tamil original, is not easy to come by.

As a schoolgirl, for me—as for many others, undoubtedly, in keeping with Shakespeare’s “whining schoolboy … creeping like snail unwillingly to school”—the death of a famous political leader usually meant a sudden holiday, much welcomed especially if it was the postponement of a dreaded test or assignment. Some things never change. (Of course, Rajiv Gandhi’s death occurred during the summer vacation—I had just finished Std. XI—so it was certainly a lost holiday opportunity for whining school goers.)

The other thing about such deaths was that one could be fairly sure that Doordarshan would be inclined to broadcast vintage devotional or mythological films—essentially, classics that would stir the soul. Likewise, All India Radio would offer quite a musical bonanza, with rare recordings of devotional songs, bhajans, and classical music—which were all certainly not easy to come by on an ordinary day. And, of course, the melodious but sad strains of a shehnai vaadan (usually by Ustad Bismillah Khan) could be heard wafting through the neighborhood TVs and radios that would all be on, in anticipation of any announcements or updates.

For the avid vintage-films/vintage-music collector in me, this was the time for some serious recording work. Armed with enough blank audio and video tapes, and with both the TV and the radio on side-by-side, I would assume the role of watchdog (and a pugnacious one at that, if anyone interrupted), keeping my eyes and ears open for any vintage treasures that were on the way. And that is how I acquired my precious copy of the Hindi Meera, directed by Ellis R. Dungan (1909-2001), the American from Barton, Ohio, and co-written by Kalki Krishnamurthy, the legendary writer and freedom fighter (1899-1954).

Meera, with nearly twenty exceptionally melodious songs, all vying with each for best song, is one of those films that one can never have one’s fill of. The music for the Hindi version was inspired by the famous musician-intellectual of the time Dilip Kumar Roy (1897-1980) and composed by S. V. Venkatraman, G. Ramanathan, and Naresh Bhattacharya. (So far I have not been able to find accurate information about the three music directors, which just shows how wanting the documentation is in this area; I did read in a few places though that S. V. Venkatraman was an underrated composer. That is hard to understand, given the melody of the songs here.)

I really don’t want to sound clichéd, but M. S. Subbulakshmi is, cinematically and musically, quite the personification of Meera. When I think of or read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Sir Laurence Olivier’s brooding face (from his 1948 film) comes to mind. When I think of Meera or listen to her bhajans, the inner eye, by default, equates Meera with M. S.—although I have seen and listened to other adaptations of the story of this 16th century Rajput princess. M. S.’s interpretation of Meera is one of those rare things that one can rely upon when one is down on one’s luck in the world; it is quite the panacea for life’s wear and tear.

The film starts with Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) introducing “Subbulakshmi of the South to the people of the North”—and to the world. It is a spellbinding introduction of a spellbinding artist, from one of modern India’s great literary voices, effortlessly lyrical and heartfelt. Clip 1:

The film tells the story of Meera’s single-minded devotion to Lord Krishna. A reluctant queen who sings the praises of Krishna, she is loved by the common people who call her Meera Maata, but criticized by the palace bigwigs for her unworldly ways. After many a trial and tribulation, Meera finally attains self-realization at the shrine of her beloved Dwarkanath.

Legend has it that Meera, as a child, fell in love with an idol of Krishna that was brought to her house by a holy man called Rupa Goswami. In the following scene, Radha Sadasivam (M. S.’s step-daughter) plays little Meera, sitting on the lap of her grandfather, played by Durasiwamy (an actor who specialized in fatherly roles in Tamil and Telugu films, hence playfully referred to as Appan Duraiswamy by my father, who points out to me that Appan Duraiswamy would die usually coughing). Little Meera is entranced by Krishna’s idol, which for a moment turns into a charming Kumari Kamala—the quintessential Krishna of celluloid. Rupa Goswami appears to be Serukalathur Sama, a Carnatic vocalist who acted in many Tamil films, such as Sakunthalai (1940) and Gemini’s Nandanar (1942). Baby Radha and Serukalathur Sama are singing for themselves in this song. Clip 2:

One day, little Meera sees a marriage procession from her balcony and, when she wonders about it, is told that she will also marry when she grows up. Then and there, she makes up her mind that she will wed only Giridhar Gopal. Baby Radha sings “Nanda bala mora pyaara,” and over the course of the song, she transforms into M. S. in what is now regarded as a sequence unprecedented in Indian cinema. The technicalities are best explained in film historian Randor Guy’s words, which I quote:

“When the changeover takes place, there is a 45-second, fast-paced musical interlude by the background orchestra as bridge as part of the song. Normally such background musical interludes are recorded along with the song in a recording studio long before the shooting of the film commences. But Dungan did not do so. He shot the scene first and the changeover sequence consisted of a number of shots of the statue of Lord Krishna… lighted candles with flames flickering …flowers on trays… prayer offerings…. Krishna’s flute in the statue…and then a cut to a close-up of MS singing with great feeling and emotion, “Hey! Murali… Mohana…” The shots were static, and also on fast trolley in close-up. (There were no ‘Zoom lenses’ in 1944-1945!) Dungan edited them all by himself into a rapidly cut fast-paced sequence first, and then the sadly underrated but highly talented music composer, S. V. Venkataraman scored the background music, in rhythm with the shots in a recording theatre. The impact was ecstatic and brilliant.”

(Randor Guy, “Full of technical innovations,” The Hindu, December 17, 2004)

Clip 3:

After her marriage to the Rana of Mewar, Meera moves to the capital Chittor, where she leads the life of a householder in the eyes of the world only, for, at heart, she is wedded to Krishna. After fulfilling her daily responsibilities, she retreats into the world of Krishna. Clip 4:

Here is the only duet in the film, with Meera and the Rana (played by V. Nagaiah, the very versatile Telugu actor-singer-composer, among other things) strolling in the royal gardens, in happy times. It is a moonlit night, replete with fountains, lotus ponds, rose trees, doves, and graceful white swans—quite an enchanting zone. The Rana has just promised her that he will build a grand temple for Krishna, and Meera is overjoyed. Clip 5:

As Meera spends more and more time at the temple, immersed in the glories of Krishna, she invites the ire of the Rana’s family, who instigate the Rana against her. In one scene, Meera, in a state of spiritual ecstasy with cymbals in hand, takes to the streets of Chittor, with the crowd following her, in her famous “Chaakar raakho ji” song. When the news of Meera singing and wandering on the streets reaches him, the Rana is horrified at his minstrel queen. Clip 6:

The Rana expresses his displeasure to Meera, who then promises to make amends by being present at court by his side for a ceremonial occasion. The day happens to be a special day at the temple as well, but still Meera agrees to fulfill her queenly duties at the court. The day arrives—but at the last moment, when, as a heavily bejeweled queen, she is all set to leave for the court, she hears “Kaanha ki bansi” (Krishna’s flute) from the temple and, utterly overwhelmed, runs to the temple and bursts into a song. Meanwhile, at court, the Rana is anxiously awaiting Meera. There is a look of sarcasm on the faces of Meera’s chief detractors—namely the Rana’s sister (K. R. Chellam) and his younger brother Jayaman (T. S. Baliah, a popular villain). When the Rana hears about Meera’s lapse, he is furious and stomps into the temple, as the chorus builds up dizzyingly. Clip 7:

Jayaman, who hates Meera with all his heart, decides to kill her and persuades his trembling sister (who still has a spark of conscience) to give her poison. Meera drinks the prasad (or offering) laced with poison that her sister-in-law brings her. The poison does not affect Meera; instead, the presiding deity at Dwarka turns blue and the doors close, much to the shock of the devotees there.

Meanwhile, hearing about Meera, people from all over flock to see her. And thereby hangs another tale. Supposedly, Akbar, the Mughal emperor at the time, accompanied by Mansingh, traveled all the way from Delhi to Chittor in disguise to see and listen to Meera, with an offering of a pearl necklace for Krishna’s idol. In this scene, Meera enters the temple with her tanpura and sings the captivating “Main Haricharanan ki daasi”—if I have to choose my favorite song in the film, it is this. Clip 8:

A suspicious Jayaman accosts the two visitors from Delhi, who, in their hurry to flee, accidentally leave behind an item that bears the stamp of the Mughal empire. Jayaman promptly reports this to the Rana and interprets this as a sign of the Mughals spying on Mewar. The Rana is enraged and, at the goading of his brother, orders the temple to be torn down. A triumphant Jayaman marches with the soldiers to the temple and tells all the Krishna devotees gathered there, including Meera, to leave. They refuse, convinced that Krishna will come to their rescue.

A mocking Jayaman orders the canon to be fired—at that very moment, in the palace, the Rana’s sister who is convinced of Meera’s devotion, confesses to her brother that she tried to poison Meera, to no avail, and pleads with him to stop Jayaman from destroying the temple. When he hears about the plot to kill Meera, the Rana is shocked. He realizes his mistake and runs to the temple—but it is a little too late. The canon has been fired, and Meera has made up her mind to go her own way in her quest for Krishna.

Meera, with only her tanpura, sets out on the long, arduous journey to Brindavan, the place where Krishna spent his childhood. She faces many hardships on the way, but steadfastly moves towards her goal. Clip 9:

She finally reaches Brindavan, and all her tiredness vanishes. And here is another snippet. According to journalist Gowri Ramarayan, Dungan was “terribly worried” about shooting the “Yaad aavey, Brindavan ki mangala leela” song since the scene required a crowd to follow M. S., and the production had not arranged for that. The film’s producer Sadasivam (M. S.’s husband) confidently assured Dungan that the “crowd will turn up.” And, indeed that is what happened with the crowd “materializ[ing]” out of nowhere. (M S Amma: A Shy Girl from Madurai, Documentary directed by Swati Thiyagarajan, 2007) Clip 10:

When Meera reaches Rupa Goswami’s ashram at Brindavan, his disciples tell her that their teacher does not see women. Meera wonders aloud about this gender discrimination in the realm of Brindavan, in the realm of the all-pervading spirit of Krishna. Goswami hears this and comes out to see Meera, apologizing for his narrow mindedness. He recognizes her as the little girl to whom, long ago, he had given a Krishna idol.

With Goswami and his disciples, Meera leaves for Dwarka, where the doors of the shrine still remain closed. In the last song of the film, “Suno meri manovyatha,” Meera’s plea to Krishna is answered, as the temple doors unlock and Meera attains salvation. The repentant Rana comes to take Meera back with him—but he is late. Clip 11:

The film was shot entirely on location, with the cast and crew traveling to all the places associated with Meera, including Jaipur, Chittor, Udaipur, Brindavan and Dwarka. Randor Guy, in the same article I mentioned before, writes that M. S. became a “national celebrity” after the 1947 release of the Hindi version of the film—apparently, even the Mountbattens saw the film before they left India.

This December 11 will be M. S.’s 5th death anniversary.

The music of Kamal Dasgupta

2009-10-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on October 24, 2009.

In the Hindi film Jawab (1942), singer-actress Kanan Devi lulls a restless and, rather childlike, P. C. Barua into sweet sleep. The song is “Ay chand chup na jaana,” and it is great for frayed nerves. Given my own battles with sleep—the activity that consumes nearly a half of our lives—I feel compelled to attest to the wonder of this lullaby by music composer Kamal Prasanna Dasgupta (1912-1974), with lyrics by Pt. Madhur. Here it is: Song 1:

Considering the extraordinary melody of Kamal Dasgupta’s music (he was also a singer), it is surprising that today very few remember this prolific genius who composed nearly 8000 songs that spanned quite a range—from films (Hindi, Bengali, and—most astonishingly—even Tamil, which I have not yet had the luck of encountering) to non-film categories such as Meera bhajans, Nazrul geet, kirtans, and ghazals, to name just a few.

Here is a composer who gave Jagmohan and Juthika Roy some of their best songs ever, a composer who shaped the early careers of Talat Mahmood and Hemant Kumar, much before they got a break in films as playback singers. And yet, woefully, it is not easy to find detailed, authoritative information on—as Sarwat Ali puts it, “the first million copy seller of golden discs in [the] Indian music industry.”

I am guessing that S. M. Shahid’s book (with accompanying CDs) called Kamal Dasgupta: Unforgettable Songs, whose existence I only recently discovered through the Internet, and which I have not seen, should fill the void to some extent. Certainly it is on my buying list now.

And here comes a pleasant discovery I made from the tracks listed in Shahid’s book/CDs—a piece of information that thrilled me indescribably: for many years now, I have been enthralled by singer Jagmohan (or Jaganmoy Mitra, 1918-2003)—another largely forgotten figure—without knowing that many of his gut-wrenchingly beautiful songs were composed by Dasgupta.

Although I knew that Dasgupta had composed Jagmohan’s eponymous “O varsha ke pehle baadal mera sandesa le jaana” for the film Meghdoot (1945), I had no idea that it was the same genius composer behind other Jagmohan numbers (largely non film) such as “Dil dekar dard liya” or “Deewana tumhaara kahta hai afsaana.” (By the way, the lyricist for these songs is yet another forgotten figure—Fayyaz Hashmi, 1920-?)

I wonder why the old HMV audiocassettes of Jagmohan’s songs never ever mentioned the name of the composer. That has been a huge disservice to the legacy of Kamal Dasgupta—and that damage has stayed on: even now, when I look up Jagmohan’s songs, or the more well-known Talat Mahmood’s early songs, on the Internet, usually there is no mention of the music composer. Why does this information have to be so arcane? Why should one have to burrow one’s way through to know the name of the creator of some of the sweetest melodies? It is utterly deplorable.

I will suspend my outrage for a while and return to Jawab (1942), possibly the first Hindi film for which Dasgupta composed music. One of its best-known songs is Kanan Devi’s “Toofan Mail” (in recent times, Lata Mangeshkar sang it for her Shraddhanjali series that celebrated all-time memorable songs), and it certainly ranks as one of the most unforgettable train songs in Indian film music. Lyricist Pt. Madhur sure nailed it when he wrote “Ek hai aata, ek hai jaata, sabhi musaafir, bichhad jaayenge.” Song 2:

From a soothing lullaby to a sprightly train song—and now to a “dulhaniya” song from Jawab: here is Anima Dasgupta (no relation of Kamal Dasgupta) singing “Dulhaniya chhama chham chhama chham chali” for actress Jamuna, who looks on dotingly at the bashful bride-to-be, a charming Kanan Devi in all her bridal finery. Song 3:

In keeping with the grand tradition in Indian films of double versions of the same song—happy versus sad, or fast versus slow, or solo versus duet—here is the second, shorter version of the “Ay chand chup na jaana” lullaby that appears towards the end of the film, when love triumphs. It is sung by, I believe, Kamal Dasgupta himself, along with Kanan Devi. Song 4:

While researching on Dasgupta on the Internet (a very frustrating endeavor), I found a particularly poignant statement by him. An article by Khalid Hasan mentions a line from Dasgupta’s 1971 letter to a friend in Bengali—and I quote the quote: “‘The pictures you see in front, everybody remembers them and praises them. But nobody wants to know the people who work behind the scenes, nor talk about them. That is the nature of the world.’” Guess that sums it up.

Of sudden realizations: Menzel’s Closely Watched Trains (1966)

2009-09-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on September 20, 2009.

TIME magazine described Closely Watched Trains (1966) as one of the 100 best films ever. Set in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during the last days of World War II, the film, directed by Jiří Menzel, powerfully documents a young Czech boy’s aching—and poignant—personal crisis—in this case, a not-so-easy discovery of his manhood. (Spoiler warning: This article gives away the story; if you’d rather watch the film first, stop right here.)

Based on a story by the novelist Bohumil Hrabal, the film is a stark portrait of life’s crisscrossing aspects and moods. For Miloš Hrma (played by Václav Neckář), who has just found initiation into the working world in the form of a train dispatcher’s assistant, the initiation into life’s sexual aspect—or love, to put it more poetically—is fraught with all sorts of difficulties, from the physiological to the emotional. As Miloš looks around at the world, it strikes him that most people are spared the embarrassing problem that he faces—the problem being his hopeless ineptitude in matters of love and physical fulfillment. Here is something that is so tragic (at least for the subject) that, at some point, it oversteps its boundary and becomes comic and tragic, or comi-tragic.

The rather sensitive Miloš is consumed by this deeply personal problem, which afflicts him horribly and settles into a vicious circle: he is tormented because he is physically unfulfilled; this lack, in turn, makes him diffident and awkward with people, especially women—which, then, makes the much-sought-after physical fulfillment a spirally elusive goal.

Miloš’ conflict is played out at a nondescript, although strategically positioned, railway station. Trains carrying ammunitions to the Germans pass through this station. Train dispatcher Hubička, Miloš’ boss, is responsible for the smooth and timely passage of these trains. On the subject of women, Hubička is quite the pro, and his time at work is mostly spent in seducing women, notably the acquiescing telegrapher. The confused Miloš, of course, looks on as his boss effortlessly dabbles in women, and he is constantly reminded—stingingly—of his own inadequacy in the matter.

After a particularly unsuccessful attempt at adulthood, Miloš checks himself into a room at an inn, where he slashes his wrists. However, self-extinction does not come that easy; he is rescued, and finds himself in the hospital, very much alive, and privy to the same depressing thoughts. He confides to the doctor: in Miloš’ own words, “Everything is so difficult in life, for me. While for others it’s all child’s play.” The doctor advises the novice in Miloš to find wing under an experienced woman, who can successfully initiate him into one of life’s most primordial acts. (In some ways, I was reminded of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha approaching Kamala for an understanding of certain primeval matters—something that the much-evolved Siddhartha felt was crucial to life’s completeness.)

So in keeping with the best comi-tragic (or is that tragi-comic?) tradition, Miloš, desperate for an older woman, goes asking for one, quite literally, from door to door. His desperation even drives him to ask the stationmaster, more a bird breeder than otherwise, for the latter’s matronly wife.

One day, finally, Miloš’ life changes—and changes forever. Hubička is the agent of that change. Hubička is part of the Czech resistance against the German Occupation. When the rather enterprising Viktoria Freie, a fellow-member of this group, arrives at the station, ridden with bombs to blow up a train, Hubička introduces her to Miloš, certain that she is the solution to Miloš’ problem. And it works.

Miloš is euphoric, and his newly discovered personality now overflows with self-confidence and zeal. In this spirit, he takes upon himself the task of planting the explosives on the railway tracks. (His boss, who is supposed to do this deed, is in trouble for his dalliances with the telegrapher.) Miloš achieves the mission but also dies in the process, incidentally—and ironically—achieving a permanent place in the history of the Czech resistance.

It is almost as though once his physical longing is quenched, life is complete for Miloš, who is transmuted into a hero of sorts. Menzel conveys the underlying parody of the situation, of this incidental heroism, in such an unobtrusive way that it quite slips past the viewer, who suddenly realizes that Miloš’ death quietly subverts the grandeur of martyrdom. On first impression, the personal merges with the political—or does it? Inarguably, this is one of cinema’s most epiphanic moments.

Closely Watched Trains (the title refers to the close eye that the Nazis kept on trains ferrying ammunitions their way) is the story of a complex human situation in a complex political climate, which is told simply and strikingly. It speaks not just of the brutality of war and death, but of the brutality of life itself, of the everyday, of each one’s peculiar trials.

Black Narcissus (1947) and the colors of chaos, with a touch of E. M. Forster

2009-08-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on August 13, 2009.

No one really knows what exactly happened to Adela Quested inside the Marabar Caves, in E. M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India (1924)—except that she came out of the caves disheveled and nutty, in an accusatory mood, and enveloped in a horrible confusion that was at the heart of this Forsterian narrative. The enigma of the Marabar Caves—and what it can do to hapless westerners, especially women, who end up making spectacles of themselves—is legendary in the annals of colonial literature.

Something similar is the theme of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s British film Black Narcissus, which released in the U.K. on 26 May 1947, just before the British Raj bid adieu to India. (Interestingly, in the U.S., the film released on 13 August 1947, just two days before India’s independence.) Based on a 1939 novel by Rumer Godden, the accused here is a place called Mopu (not far from Darjeeling), 8000 feet up in the Himalayas, where a palace-turned-convent rests rather precariously—both literally and figuratively.

The palace, once a harem of the local Hindu king, is now home to St. Faith, a group of five nuns from Calcutta. At the request of General Toda Rai of Mopu, Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr in a subdued role) leads four nuns from the Convent of the Order of the Servants of Mary in their mission, which is to open a dispensary and school for the locals.

Once in Mopu, the nuns discover that the place is not just dangerously windy—it also has a dangerously volatile effect on their emotions. There is something about the air of Mopu that tests the equanimity (both physical and mental) of the nuns, and casts doubts on their lives of abnegation: it stirs in them long-forgotten thoughts and feelings; it rekindles certain emotions and memories that they have learned to do away with; in short, it disturbs the status quo.

The colors of life that they have trained themselves, as nuns, to keep at bay, burst upon their lives—and, indeed, upon the screen in spellbinding bluish-rosy-golden hues of Technicolor—as enticing to the nuns as it is to the viewers.

(A digression here. On the subject of Technicolor, my first impressions are certainly my last impressions: When I first watched Aan (1952), India’s first Technicolor film, I almost wondered if, perhaps, Mehboob Khan had ordered the film reel to be dipped in a bucket of dye. As the screen dripped with color, I felt that Dilip Kumar, Nadira, and Nimmi had come straight out of a book of fairy tales. Later, when I saw Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), it only reinforced that association of Technicolor with fairy tales. And now, after many years, when I watch the Black Narcissus, the surfeit of colors evokes that same deliciously unreal world. Perhaps it is a case of childhood associations dying hard.)

Back to the story: For the nuns, who find themselves flitting in and out of their many reveries, the varied colors of Mopu bring to the fore the now-obscured aspects of life—whether it is the raw enjoyment of nature, the physicality of desire, or the wild human imagination. And all hell breaks loose. In keeping with the empire mindset, the Orient, it seems, has the power to disturb.

While Sister Clodagh is reminded of her first love in Ireland, Sister Philippa (who is in charge of growing vegetables) stares vacantly at the vast expanses before her and takes to growing flowers instead of the more useful vegetables. The worst case, though, is Sister Ruth who lapses into plain hysteria. Sister Clodagh often catches Sister Ruth casting surreptitious glances at the ruggedly handsome Mr. Dean (David Farrar), an Englishman who is the agent of General Toda Rai.

In fact, Sister Ruth, with a rush in her blood, is, in some ways, like Forster’s Adela. The Mopu landscape opens up a deep recess within her, and she goes hurtling down; if Adela was madly attracted to Aziz in the Marabar Caves, and invited doomsday for herself, Sister Ruth wallows in her imagined love for the rather attractively irreverent Dean (who queries Sister Clodagh, “Isn’t it your business to save souls?”), although here the repercussion is her violent death.

Like the Marabar Caves, the palace at Mopu is a maze with its many rooms. It is easy to lose one’s way and lose one’s mind as well. Cinematically speaking, the serenity of the surrounding snowcapped Himalayan peaks provides a perfect foil for the tumult of the mind and the nuns’ inner struggles. This juxtaposition of the inner and the outer worlds in the Black Narcissus is all the more significant because the outer world—the palace of Mopu and the Himalayan peaks—was not really the outer world; it was a creation of the set designer. If cinema is the art of make-believe, it is verily so here.

Powell and Pressburger use chiaroscuro—or the interplay of light and shade—to bring out, very effectively, the nuns’ conflicted states of mind. Sister Clodagh’s bright and cheerful past in sunny Ireland, for instance, transposes onto the dark silhouette of her present nun’s attire. In another unforgettable shot, the crucifix casts its shadow on her, pulled as she is in opposite directions. The camera angles and the lighting are very reminiscent of film noir—the addition here being color, which is co-opted to convey the underlying chaos of the narrative.

The chaos of Mopu is aptly represented by the wind, which “blows seven days a week;” indeed, the wind is such an integral part of the film that it comes across as a character in itself—it becomes a personification of the Orient that defies control. And it, eerily, blends in with the film’s background musical score. It howls and causes terrible echoes—just like the (in)famous echoes in the Marabar Caves that led to Adela’s discomposure.

The Black Narcissus has all the staples of the colonial story: there is Kanchi, the exotic-looking local girl; there is high-strung Angu Ayah, the antiquarian caretaker of the palace; then there is the bejeweled and perfumed young prince (the nephew of General Toda Rai), who persuades the nuns to accept him into the children’s classroom because he “want[s] to study a lot of learning”—incidentally the film is named after a perfume (from the army/navy stores in London) that the prince wears. He asks, “Oh, Sister, don’t you think it’s rather common to smell of ourselves?”

Finally, there is the holy man—the former General Sir Krishna Rai—now a silent, detached observer of life, always unfazed. The General-turned-sannyasi has a profoundly unsettling effect on Sister Clodagh, who, distracted as she is by the Orient, cannot help but feel spiritually inferior, which only exasperates her more. I am reminded of Professor Godbole in Forster’s book.

Filled with subterranean passions that bubble over, the Black Narcissus ends with the fiendish Sister Ruth falling to her death and the mission of St. Faith silently retreating out of Mopu. The viewer is left with images of the falling rain and the snow-clad peaks. According to film critic Dave Kehr, given the release date of the film, the Black Narcissus could, perhaps, be seen as the British empire’s swan song (although the book was published in 1939).

Remembering Mohammed Rafi

2009-07-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on July 29, 2009.

Come July 31, and it is Mohammed Rafi’s death anniversary. So much is written about Rafi (1924-1980) that I don’t quite know where to begin and what new to say really. I am stumped.

It should just suffice if I say that Rafi was one of the most versatile singers in the history of Hindi film music. His pan-Indian (and beyond) appeal seems to get only stronger with time. From the doleful Jugnu (1947) to the patriotic Shaheed (1948) to the classical Baiju Bawra (1952) to the effervescent Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955) to the regal Raj Hath (1956) to the poetic Pyaasa (1957) to the meltingly romantic Barsaat Ki Raat (1960)—phew! the list is endless—Rafi sang it all. And more.

Equally at home on different turfs, Rafi could convincingly slip under the skin of characters that were poles apart: he sang for the brooding Dilip Kumar in Deedar (1951) with the same ease with which he lent his voice to a frolicking Johnny Walker in C.I.D. (1956). And, truly, it is difficult for the listener to decide where Rafi excels more.

In his earlier years, before he had fully come into his own, Rafi sang for Ghulam Mohammed (Naushad’s protégé) a lovely duet with Lata in Pardes (1950), called “Akhiyaan milaake zara baat karo jee,” a song to which I am very partial for two reasons: Madhubala’s striking beauty, and Rafi’s deep, powerful rendering that is reminiscent of Pankaj Mullick, not to mention a very young Lata’s exquisitely honeyed voice.

In the lines of the second stanza, “Dil ke khazaaney koyi aaya hai lutaney aji din hain suhaney chaley aao naa,” Rafi’s inflection has a strong, decisive tinge of Mullick’s style of singing; it is one of those nuances that just cannot be overlooked. I have not heard such likeness to the Bangla maestro in any of Rafi’s other songs. (Of course, there are many Rafi songs—his earlier ones, especially—that I have not heard; so there might easily be other instances as well.)

Moreover, for various reasons, some songs are not as well known as they deserve to be (one does not find these in the typical compilations), and this particular Rafi-Lata duet is a prime example. (By the same logic—or lack of—Ghulam Mohammed was one of those vastly—and most unfairly—underrated composers.) Here is the song, on Rahman and Madhubala: Song 1:

As the decade of the 1950s unfolded, Rafi’s own distinct style—with its almost nonchalant attitude to the vagaries of life—firmly stuck roots. This is the quintessential Rafi, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the “Le chala jidhar ye dil nikal padey” number from Miss Bombay (1957), picturized on Ajit (much before he turned villain for the screen).

Bombay—that teeming metropolis, teeming then in the 1950s just as it is teeming today—the land of opportunities—was masterfully captured by lyricist Prem Dhawan to composer Hansraj Behl’s tune that is born for the harmonica. (Its more famous precursor that spoke of urban vicissitudes, also tailor-made for the harmonica, is, of course, “Ay dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan” from C.I.D. in 1956.) Here is Rafi in Miss Bombay: Song 2:

I am going to end this piece with “Dil ki tamanna thi masti mein,” a hit song from Gyaara hazaar ladkiyaan (1962), a film that is, nevertheless, not easy to come by. Rafi and Asha Bhonsle sing for Bharat Bhushan and Mala Sinha, under the music direction of N. Dutta (another underrated composer). On a personal note, this is one of my mother’s favorite songs—it takes her back to her college days, when she and her friends would attend matinee shows, spellbound by their favorite heroes. And, of course, they would also get the latest fashion tips from the reigning screen queens of the day, whose sari styles or hair buns they would imitate. That nostalgia has badly rubbed off on me, too; it just underscores the cross-generational appeal that Rafi’s songs have. So here is going back to another era: Song 3:

The enduring power of certain old Hindi film songs

2009-07-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on July 15, 2009.

Of all the Raichand Boral (1903-1981) songs I have listened to—not that many, given how rare these songs are—my favorite has to be Binota Roy’s rendering of “Manwa kaahey phir tadpaayey” from Calcutta-based New Theatres’ Wapas (1943). The world of old Hindi films is full of so many beautiful songs that make it very difficult, if not plain impossible, to pick out favorites. Moreover, selecting favorites is purely an exercise in subjectivity and, indeed, self-expression; what appeals to me may not appeal to another.

To put it in a different way, I have noticed that certain songs have this unfailing power to make me feel completely in tune with myself, irrespective of when and where I listen to them, irrespective of my circumstances in life, irrespective of everything—and “Manwa kaahey phir tadpaayey,” with its charming Bangla intonation, simply has to be one of those songs. Here it is: Song 1:

I place these melodies in a category that I call “instant elevation.” My “instant elevation” songs are what I turn to when I feel weary of life, when I feel uninspired and lost, when I desperately need perspective, and even when I am a bit too smug for my own good. And I have never been let down. For this, I am extremely grateful—it is the one comforting thing in a world of here-today-gone-tomorrow. I hope I never lose this capacity to draw joy from this little well of mine.

The first time I heard this R. C. Boral composition, I was in standard X, feverishly mugging the “21 sets” preparation material (is it still around?) for the Maharashtra State Board exams. After every hour of mugging, I would reward myself with one “instant elevation” song, and then, inspired, return to mugging. Nearly two decades down the line, this literal interspersing of “instant elevation” songs with life’s many duties continues.

I also remember my habit (I still do it, much to the exasperation of my poor husband) of recording a single song repeatedly onto a whole side of an audiotape, sometimes even both sides, and listening to it non-stop. My one-song tapes would draw an irritated remark from my grandmother, “Why is the same song playing over and over again?”

Other culprits in the one-song tapes were, to name a few: Lata’s famous “Tum na jaaney kis jahaan mein kho gayey” from Sazaa (1951), composed by S. D. Burman; two Khemchand Prakash ditties from Ziddi (1948)—Lata’s lively “Chanda rey jaa rey jaa rey” and the delightful Lata-Kishore duet, “Yeh kaun aayaa”—the latter sounding very Pankaj Mullickesque; and M. S. Subbulakshmi’s “Main Haricharanan ki daasi” from her Hindi version of Meera (1947), composed by S.V. Venkatraman. (Incidentally, Binota Roy’s “Manwa kaahey phir tadpaayey” reminds me, in some subtle way, of M.S.’s songs in Meera—it could be the style of singing, the orchestration, the heartwrenching melody; I am unable to pinpoint it. It is just one of those things that strike me afresh every time I listen to it.)

I also have another name for my “instant elevation” songs: instant levelers. They elevate, and, by the same token, they level: during moments of hubris, when I revel in self-importance, nothing is more humbling than the majesty of my favorite music.

The years come and go, people come and go; even memories fade. As they say, nothing’s forever. But I find I am able to hold on to the beauty of a R. C. Boral song. On that note, I will leave you with (the quite literally not-to-be-forgotten) “Bhool na jaana aaj ki baaten” melody from Wapas, sung by actor-singer Ashit Baran, and Binota Roy. Here goes: Song 2:

A page from Indian film history: The Court Dancer (1941)

2009-07-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on June 21, 2009.

1941: World War II was raging on in Europe and, back home in India, Tagore passed away. The year also saw the first trilingual production of an Indian film—Wadia Movietone’s The Court Dancer or Raj Nartaki, directed by Modhu Bose (1900-1969), which was released in English, Hindi, and Bengali. According to the film credits, The Court Dancer was “the first Indian film with dialogue in English to be entirely produced in India with an all-Indian personnel.”

Once, in the late 1980s, Doordarshan broadcast the English version of The Court Dancer in the late-night slot. (Unfortunately, old classics are typically relegated to the hours of slumber.) After finishing my school homework well in advance, I was up that night with my video recorder to capture this momentous piece of Indian film history. I was very curious to hear the cast speak English, especially given that the film was set in early 19th century Manipur.

After many years, I recently revisited my videotape of the film, this time to digitize it, to make it last forever. And here, I will have to necessarily digress a bit. In the last few months, I have had to wade through unknown waters. (I am still wading.)

As someone with zero technical knowledge, I have been faced with many questions: sitting here in America, where the NTSC format prevails, how do I digitize my Indian VHS tapes (PAL format) so that they will work universally? What multi-system VCR must I invest in? What kind of a converter box will I need? How do I go about all this without getting ripped off? After being assailed by umpteen other such doubts, and after long months of research, I finally figured out what exactly I need and, hey, the process of digitization has finally begun.

Now I have moved on to the next stage: I am immersed in researching the world of media storage! So what is the best way to store these newly digitized films? Should I copy them onto DVDs with their painfully small storage space, in which case, am I to split each film into two or three DVDs, and add to the clutter of my tiny apartment? Or should I copy them onto Western Digital-manufactured passport drives that come in terabytes, where a one-terabyte passport drive can, amazingly, store up to 666 hours of material? Just the other day, I learned about the My Book external hard drive that can even be plugged into the television.

More than anything else, I am terrified of losing these priceless films, so what about backups? I am still deciphering all this and more. End of digression.

So, getting back to The Court Dancer (which is still sitting on my computer hard drive while I decide where to store it permanently), the film tells the tale of doomed love between a courtesan and a prince—as such alliances are usually doomed to be. (For starters, think of the unsanctioned love of Anarkali and Prince Salim.) Based on a Bengali play by dramatist Manmath Ray (1899-1988), the film starred the legendary Prithviraj Kapoor (1906-1972), one of the doyens of Indian cinema, as Prince Chandrakirti (Jyoti Prakash replaced Kapoor in the Bengali version); and the accomplished Sadhona Bose (1914-1973), an exponent of both Kathak and Manipuri dance forms, in the role of the court dancer Indrani. (Interestingly, Sadhona Bose, the wife of director Modhu Bose, was the granddaughter of Keshab Chandra Sen, the Brahmo social reformer, 1838-1884. Sadly, in her later years, she was reduced to begging in the streets of Calcutta.)

Here is a brief write-up of the film, with excerpts.

In keeping with the Vaishnava tradition of 19th century Manipur, the film opens with a musical celebration of Lord Krishna’s love for Radha, in the court dancer Indrani’s garden. It is the night of the full moon and, to the accompaniment of Timir Baran’s music that sounds appropriately regal, the viewer is introduced to His Highness Prince Chandrakirti as he grandly enters the garden of his beloved. As his eyes eagerly look for Indrani, the camera follows suit and pans to a striking Sadhona Bose. Indrani and Chandrakirti are swathed in their love for each other. Thus begins a story of human love that is intertwined with divine love, in the background of the Raas Leela. Watch the beginning of the film, with an introduction from Doordarshan:

Soon the strains of “Jai madhava mukunda murari” herald the arrival of the High Priest Kashishwar Goswami and his followers in the grove. Indrani, with sincere devotion, performs the Raas Leela with her group (choreographed by Bose herself), which touches the heart of Kashishwar who tells her, “I have never seen such devotion before, my child”. He is about to offer her “the most valuable treasure of the Vaishnava,” which is the “sacred dust from Lord Chaitanya’s feet,” when Chandrakirti’s father, King Jaisingh, arrives at that critical moment and shouts to Kashishwar that Indrani is a court dancer. Kashishwar recoils in horror. Chandrakirti looks on helplessly as Indrani is reminded of her stigma, her fate—something that will happen over and over again as the story unfolds. Indrani is a courtesan with the proverbial heart of gold—or should we say purity, of selfless love, for her prince as well as for Lord Krishna. But this is not recognized by society: how can a nautch girl have any stake in spiritual matters, let alone dream of marrying a prince? Watch the Raas Leela, and Kashishwar recoiling from the court dancer:

Later, Indrani is turned away from the royal temple, where she goes to offer worship. And then a melody wafts through the air as these words fill the screen: “The tortured soul of Indrani found solace in a broken temple whose keeper was a singing hermit.” Comforted by the kind hermit, she offers her prayers in this dilapidated, desolate temple on top of a hill and regains her peace.

King Jaisingh is, meanwhile, busy forming a marriage alliance for his son with the princess of neighboring Tripura. Since Manipur and Tripura are not on good terms, binding the two kingdoms in wedlock seems strategic: as Tripura’s envoy informs King Jaisingh, if this alliance is not finalized soon, Tripura will invade Manipur. “To keep the envoy in good humor,” the king orders Indrani to perform in the court, and this is followed by the envoy’s announcement of the to-be royal wedding. A shining crescent moon, glittering stars, and a flower garland are all momentarily transposed onto Indrani’s fingers during the dance sequence: the imagery has stuck in my mind. Watch the dance sequence and Indrani’s reaction:

As a dejected Indrani returns to the temple on the hill, Chandrakirti rushes there to vow before the idol that he loves only her and will not marry anyone else. Later, at Indrani’s house, a furious King Jaisingh arrives and orders his son to leave the place at once. Watch the father-son encounter:

Not caring for the disastrous consequences of breaking a marriage alliance with Tripura, Chandrakirti tells Indrani that he will come at dawn and take her to the faraway Shyamsunder temple where they will get married. Indrani is ecstatic. The disturbed king, sensing trouble from his son, confides in Kashishwar, who, in the interests of Manipur, decides to talk Indrani out of marrying the prince. He finds Indrani in the broken temple; she has gone there, one last time, in the middle of the night, to thank the lord.

Kashishwar successfully dissuades Indrani from her goal of marrying the prince by painting a picture of doomsday to her: the people will never accept her as the queen, the army will rise in revolt, Tripura will invade, Manipur will be destroyed, and Chandrakirti will certainly perish. He reminds her of her duty to her country, to her religion, and most importantly, to her prince: if she really loves him, she will give him up for his own sake, for his own life. A broken Indrani collapses to the ground. Kashishwar walks away relieved, although sad for Indrani.

When the prince comes to take away Indrani at dawn, she feigns rudeness. When Chandrakirti tells her that he has given up his right to the throne so that they can live together happily, Indrani spurns his love—a love “without the pomp and grandeur of palaces.” A disbelieving prince concedes, “Oh, a court dancer after all” and stomps out. Indrani is shattered. Watch the Indrani-Chandrakirti encounter:

The royal wedding is announced for the next day, an auspicious occasion when Kashishwar will distribute the “sacred dust of Lord Chaitanya’s feet” to all devotees. Indrani is ordered to dance on the festive occasion, which she does, but faints towards the end. Considering this an ill omen, the king contemplates postponing the marriage. Meanwhile, the people of Manipur are clamoring for the sacred dust from Kashishwar, who is suddenly not to be found, much to the consternation of the king and the people.

Touched by Indrani’s selflessness and duty towards her country, Kashishwar has gone to Indrani’s house to give her the sacred dust, which he had once denied her. Meanwhile, the captain of the guards arrives at Indrani’s house to escort Kashishwar back to the palace to distribute the sacred dust. Kashishwar sternly replies that the people must come to Indrani, who will dispense the sacred dust with her own hands. As the horrified captain leaves, Kashishwar gently tells the surprised Indrani that he knows of nobody more deserving of the sacred dust than Indrani herself and begs her to accept it.

Meanwhile, the captain spreads rumors among the people that Indrani is a witch, for she has even trapped a holy man. As an angry mob marches to Indrani’s house to kill her, a faithful maid runs to the prince to ask him to go save Indrani and tells him of her sacrifice; Kashishwar also confesses to the prince his role in Indrani’s pretence. As the prince rushes to save Indrani from the mob, she spots her finger ring containing poison and quietly swallows the powder. She dies in his arms. Watch the last scenes:

A conclusory note: The Court Dancer is a simple love story, told simply and effectively. Some may consider the acting to be exaggerated, but that is in keeping with the theatrical style of acting common in those days. After all, many of the early legends of Indian cinema started out in theatre—Prithviraj Kapoor notably. Timir Baran’s music brilliantly recreates royal Manipur and conveys the soulful devotion of the Vaishnava poets. At 80 minutes in duration, The Court Dancer is a short film by Indian film standards.

David Lean’s Hobson’s Choice (1954)

2009-07-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

This post first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on June 10, 2009.

Laughton as Hobson

There lived in England, between 1545 and 1631, a man named Hobson who owned a horse-rental business. He was quirky in that in he would rent out horses only according to his choice. It was, quite literally, Hobson’s choice for his customer who could either ride away in the horse that was offered or not ride at all. By the end of the film, David Lean’s Hobson’s Choice (1954) turns out to be exactly that—an instance of Hobson’s choice—for the portly Henry Hobson (played by Charles Laughton, 1899-1962), who has no say anymore, neither at home nor in his business. The film comes a full circle with the authoritarian, although bumbling, Hobson of the early frames firmly cut down to size.

Hobson, a bootmaker in 1880s Salford, Northern England, has three chief pursuits: bullying his three daughters, bullying his shop employees, and drinking at his favorite Moonrakers inn. The daughters are unmarried and stuck at home because their father is not willing to give them settlements—the settlement being a woman’s passport to a good marriage in Victorian society. The employees in his boot shop are also stuck in their dead-end jobs, given the class system of the times. Hobson unfairly calls his daughters the “rebellious females” of his household, just as he is quick to a peeve when a rich customer praises the bootmaking genius of his star employee, the meek Willie Mossop. Hobson is used to his own supremacy, and his girth dominates the frames, literally.

Hobson’s eldest daughter, Maggie, however, has a mind of her own and is determined to liberate herself. Maggie is entrepreneurial, ambitious, and has a deadly practicality about her. To her father’s horror, she fixes a marriage-business deal for herself with the socially inferior Willie Mossop. She believes in the combination of her brains and Willie’s hands, and persuades the wide-eyed Willie too. This marriage of business and romance is an astounding success and, as the narrative unfolds, a disbelieving Hobson finds himself eating his own words. The tables turned, a bankrupt Hobson finds himself faced with a bad case of Hobson’s (read Mossop’s) choice.

Lean tells this tale of reversal in fortunes, based on Harold Brighouse’s play of 1916, in his characteristically British, understated, and imaginative way. Lean’s world here is very Victorian—late Victorian, to be specific—with the “ayes,” the cobblestone streets where marketplaces stir to life every morning, the in-fashion bustles (or “humps” as Hobson calls them mockingly) of women’s dresses, the class system—and yet, like Dickens, the other great chronicler of Victorian England, Lean tells a story that is timeless and universal in appeal.

The singular thing about this film is the ease with which it straddles different realms, and welds worlds, much like a Dickens novel. The comic and the sublime come together—as in the scene where an inebriated Hobson catches sight of a beautiful full moon in the street puddles and then proceeds to trample over all the puddles, one by one. The comic is treated poetically, and the poetic is treated comically. Each signifies the other, and, temporarily, I am reminded of another portly gentleman—Mr. Pickwick in Dickens, although, of course, Pickwick is a kind and noble soul, quite unlike the boor that is Lean’s Hobson.

Here is a humorous film (not typical for Lean) whose underlying themes are essentially heavy duty. It is the story of one woman’s determined fight against the gender and class stratification of her times. Maggie is delightfully pragmatic, and not even the sphere of romance is exempt from her pragmatism: in an early scene, an optimistic Maggie assures an awkward Willie, who is too much in awe of his employer’s daughter to see her in a romantic light, that if he cannot bring himself to love her immediately, “then we’ll get along without it”. Lean’s portrait of the romance between Maggie and Willie is at once comic and poignant, and the viewer looks on amused as Lean masterfully captures the changing subtleties of their relationship. By the end of the story, Willie fondly tells his wife, “you are growing on me”. The pragmatic gives way, quite effortlessly, to the poetic, and Lean’s genius for recording the endless variety of life is, it seems, quite inimitable.

On an aside: Around 1954, the year this film was made, which of Laughton’s contemporaries in Hindi cinema, I wonder, would have fitted the bill for the role of Hobson. Purely wishful thinking on my part, but if I could go back in time, I would cast Gope, that much-forgotten rotund comedian, the “piya” of the famous “Mere piya gaye Rangoon” song from Patanga (1949).

Rantings of an old-movies buff

2009-07-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

My very first post, which first appeared in the PassionForCinema blog on June 3, 2009.

I sit in my California apartment, happily surrounded by my old, tottering VHS tapes of Hindi films from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Like King Midas with his gold, I proudly survey my precious collection, which is my only tangible link to a world that is far away in both space and in time. Having just embarked on the process of digitizing my film collection, I realize, though, that I will have to fortify myself. Case in point: When my tape of Calcutta New Theatres’ film Wapas (1943) jumps, my heart jumps too—heavily. The pain of seeing that vintage, irreplaceable treasure in that tattered condition is no less than the pain of seeing a dearest person wasting away. In my desperation, I find myself thinking, perhaps irrationally, that I would even trade in all my jewelry just to restore Wapas to its glory. I am just inconsolable. I even go on a hunger strike, convincing myself that if I rebel hard enough, Wapas will somehow regain its celluloid life and come back (“wapas”) to me.

When I explain this to people, many are puzzled. The typical response goes like this: “Old movies are easily available these days. Just check out this Indian DVD store…. They stock everything. It is not worth wasting your money on all this equipment converting VHS to DVDs when you can just buy them.”

To which, I enquire eagerly but doubtfully, fervently hoping for an affirmation, hoping against hope, “Oh really, do they have Buzdil (1951), or how about Khazanchi (1941)?” The response comes, somewhat indignantly even, blatantly bypassing my query—“Of course, they have old movies. There is Aradhana (1969), Seeta aur Geeta (1972), those Rajesh Khanna-Mumtaz starrers and those 70s movies.” These are, quite often, the same people who conflate the Burmans—S.D. and R.D. Indeed, much before Kishore Kumar teamed up with R.D., he sang for S.D. the “Dekho dekhojee” duet with Lata in Naujawan (1951), picturized on a dapper Premnath and a chirpy Nalini Jaywant.

As the years go by, of course, it is understandable that movies from the 1970s should rise in seniority—that is the law of chronology—just as the passage of time has earned me the suffix of Nivedita aunty. (I myself am a product of the mid-70s.) But with “old” becoming increasingly equated with the 60s and 70s, what epithet must one, then, use for movies of the Silent era, the 30s, 40s, and 50s? For a die-hard vintage-movie buff who unequivocally (and rigidly) considers “old” to be pre-1960, it is disquieting that an Aradhana is more easily available than a Buzdil.

I remember once catching the tail end of the utterly haunting “Ada se jhoomtey huey,” a Shamshad Begum-Rafi duet from Sindbad the Sailor (1952), on a program called Raymond (later Centura) Sargam Smriti that used to air once a week on Bombay radio in the early 1990s. I still recollect being utterly mesmerized by this Chitragupt composition and kicking myself for not having been ready with my cassette recorder. For awhile, I even went into the Sindbad phase, constantly humming the tune to myself, in a bid to keep it alive within. Much later, I found the audio of that song, but I am still dying to lay hands on the film itself, which was directed by Nanabhai Bhatt and starred Naseem Bano and Ranjan. But at least I have managed to get a glimpse of Naseem and Ranjan, thanks to a kindred spirit who has uploaded the “Ada se jhoomtey huey” song onto Youtube that is fast becoming a haven for people like me in search of old treasures.

But the question remains: why are our old films doomed to anonymity, to sheer atrophy in cinematic memory? Why should getting hold of a P.C. Barua film of 1936 (I refer to New Theatres’ Manzil that was co-written by the legendary Saratchandra Chatterjee, with music by two stalwarts, R.C. Boral and Pankaj Mullick) be so difficult, if not downright impossible? Surely the old classics deserve to be better remembered, better documented, and better exhibited.