The cinema of India is unique in many ways, and has travelled a long way since Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra days. Further, there are largely two distinctive strands of cinema in India that run parallel and counter to one another—the wholesome-entertaining Friday releases in cinema halls and the aesthetics-driven genre that appeals more to the cerebral and nuanced expectations of differentiated audiences that populate film festivals. While the gravitas of a majority of wholesome entertainers lies in hero worship and heroine gazing, the chutzpah of art/alternative cinema lies in engaging a more cultured, elitist cine audiences with the larger socio-political discourse rousing the national collective conscience.
MK Raghavendra specialises in interpreting the diversified enterprising excursions of Indian filmmakers and reading the contextual meanings, metaphors, allegorical symbols and emblems in their visual representations. By doing so, he brings an insightful, intuitive, and interpretative discourse into Indian films. His method of mining meanings is an art all by itself.
His latest visitation, Philosophical Issues in Indian Cinema: Appropriate Terms & Concept, a compact 185-page hard bound book, makes for an illuminating and instructive read, in particular, for the initiated, unabashed cineaste who loves to probe beyond the peripheral context of a film that he/she watches, to understand what makes Indian cinema a key differentiator, and to be informed on what it lacks in the context of the global cinema coliseum. Thematically demarcated into 24 chapters, the book opens with the argument that Indian cinema woefully lacks the concept of mimesis in its approach and filmmaking.
In each chapter, the author lays out what constitutes philosophical issues in Indian cinema, while illustratively resting his arguments as regards appropriate terms and concepts “interrogating the vocabulary used in theorising about Indian cinema.” The idea being “to reach into the deeper cultural meanings of philosophies and traditions from which Indian Cinema derives its influences.” The basic objective, then, is to “re-examine terms and concepts used in film criticism and contextualise them within the aesthetics, poetics and politics of Indian cinema.” The book attempts to uncover whether there is an Indian way of filmmaking.
The author begins with the caveat that the book has no exalted ideas to offer about life or reality through cinema. He clarifies that this is neither a look at Indian film through the prism of Indian philosophical systems nor an attempt to deal with the philosophies of film. Rather, this exercise is merely “a revision/correction of the way Indian cinema has been understood in film studies or criticism.” He calls for a more holistic engagement and appreciation in the way Indian films, in particular, the popular, wholesome entertaining genre, are understood by their makers as well as the intended audiences they seek to serve. The idea stems from the fact that “Indian films belong to a different cinematic universe than those from America, Europe, and the Far East.”
The book explores and extrapolates through arguments and illustrations, “the way to understand Indian cinema, since that would help distinguish it from cinema outside of India,” with specific and contextual examples of popular films by noted Indian filmmakers from all over India, down the ages. The author enumerates that unlike what is understood in the Western context of philosophy “in terms of professional intellectual pursuit that can, be set aside at the end of the working day,” in Indian films, the term is more directly “associated with one’s personal destiny,” and “as an attempt to understand the true nature of reality in terms of an inner or spiritual quest.”
“Largely constituted around a set of words or terms used in film scholarship/criticism by Indian film critics,” the primary purpose of the book is to be “devoted to notions connected with the terms in the title, examining the various aspects that make the significance of the terms clear for the Indian context.” The book is guided by a five-point agenda. The original meaning of the terms and the broad debates around them. What the terms mean in the context of Indian cinema from its origins onwards and how the notion has developed; alternatively, exploring the cultural specificity of a generic notion and its significance in India; the differences in the Indian employment of a component of cinema; certain terms that have specific Indian relevance; connections made within Indian culture as a body to explain the development of a phenomenon and the issue of ‘ideology,’ which becomes relevant when certain notions, such as nation, gender and dharma, are implicated.
The chapters have been classified according to terms and terminologies. Each goes on to elaborate their associations and understanding in the Indian context. These being Realism and Reality; Content, Interpretation and Meaning; Casualty; Genealogy and Family; Romance and Marriage; Melodrama; Faith and Devotion; Fantasy; Station and Hierarchy; Humour or Comedy; Character and Individuality; Genres; National Cinema; Regional or Local Cinema; Orality and Literacy; Film Music; Film Art and the Avant-garde; Stardom; Place and Time; Ethics and Morality; Gender Radicalism or Activism; Marginalisation, Oppression and Disadvantage; and Patriotism.
The book meets its ultimate aim of “bridging the gap between the academic study of Indian film and filmmaking practice in India.” Hence, it would be a futile exercise to go in for an illustrative manner how each of these concepts / terms have been dealt with in detail and deliberated upon. For that would not leave much for the individual imagination and ingestion of the reader who would love to have an unfiltered, unbiased read. I would like to state however that this new seminal book on Indian Cinema is not only a welcome addition to the few others that have preceded it, but also opens a whole new vista on how to actually watch, read, and understand Indian films and their filmmakers’ own idea of cinema. It ought to also aid and assist similar scholarly/academic exercises into the world of Indian films, their very many quirks and quibbles and allow the reader to understand what makes Indian films so Indian.
Several readings would be required by both the initiated and uninitiated to appreciate and assimilate the arguments that Raghavendra sets forth to substantiate his clinical claims. In conclusion: though each chapter has a short recap of the gist of the theme that has been taken up and talked about, one feels a bit more elaboration on the films cited as examples and illustrative explanation would have made the book a must-possess one for the cineaste bibliophile.
Fire asks society a few uncomfortable questions. Is the desire to love someone beyond the periphery of the heteronormative relationship a sin? Can a woman not love another woman, or a man love another man? Even in this modern age, why do certain societies step backwards and attempt to regulate the bodily desires of individuals? From whence came this law that only a man and a woman have the right to be in a sexual relationship? Who deems what is perversion, and therefore illegal? And who gave any section of society the right to declare that sexual activity should be undertaken solely for reproduction?
The film traverses through various forms of relationships that individuals escape to, unmindful of the confined lens through which sexual desires are viewed by traditional Indian society. A sexual relationship between two women, an extramarital affair, and the denial of all forms of desire come to the fore while how bodies should behave and who determines this so-called correct behavior underlie each of them.
The family system in India is majorly a patriarchal one in which power is wielded by the eldest male member and the rest willingly or otherwise are required to obey the dictate. In Fire, the male head not only pressures his younger brother into marrying a woman and starting a family of his own but also decides how restrictively his own wife’s body should behave. This male head, though he is married, chooses the path of asceticism, but conveniently holds authority over other peoples’ bodies. In practicing austerity in the name of spirituality, the bodily needs of his wife are sacrificed too. Since she has no one to share her love and pain with, the wife ends up indirectly being a part of his penance.
Patriarchal power often brings with it repression in the form of moral policing, silencing of topics that revolve around sex, and an unspoken insistence on women to engage in the sexual act solely for the purpose of reproduction and never as a means to fulfill sexual desire. In Fire, a girl with a name symbolic of all that is pure rebels to the extent of finding sexual gratification not with a man but with another girl, and the other girl is one who engages in sex with multiple male partners purely for her sexual pleasure.
Deepa Mehta’s lead women appear to have been deliberately named, originally, after religious figures associated with purity. This was done perhaps to provoke the idea of their utmost dedication towards family values and loyalty towards their respective husbands. Initially portrayed as the typical household women burdened with taking care of other members of the family as well as the everyday household chores, they eventually disrupt the conventional ideas of societal balance by finding a companion in each other.
Sex is a private matter, yet the authority, be it the State, the male head, or a charismatic persona, seeks to know the truths of this private sphere. Such private information is used by those in power to control what they deem futile activity by passing judgement on these deemed acts of perversion. In Fire, this authoritative figure comes in the form of a priest who commands confession on the part of his subject, and classifies pleasure as a sin and female sexual bonding as abnormal, and upholds the value of chastity above all.
Fire breaks stereotypes and exhibits the different needs in a relationship. The conjugal life of the two different couples in it are the very opposite of what is usually depicted in Hindi cinema: smooth and happy. While one brother completely abstains from sex, the other embraces a relationship outside marriage purely for sexual pleasure. The film also exposes a familial hypocrisy. Though sexual pleasure from a relationship outside of marriage is often heavily reprimanded, it is sometimes conveniently ignored if the consummation in the conjugal sphere has a possibility of leading to an offspring, preferably a son, a utilitarian product displaying the legality of a relationship.
Every era imprints its cultural vogue on its arts. Just over a decade following the onslaught of the information-technology wave thus the template of popular Malayalam cinema predictably underwent a radical change. Since someone has already coined a now-widely-accepted term for this revolutionary template, ‘new-gen Malayalam cinema’, I shall use the same term—even though it is not a perfectly appropriate one—for convenience sake, in this study.
This chapter is one of 34 by as many writers. Published by FFSI in 2016.
So, what is this new-gen cinema of Malayalam that everyone is talking about? What is so different about it? Where did it come from? And most importantly, what does it reveal?
To begin with, most of its exponents—writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, and editors—are GenXers; are in tune with some of the happening foreign films; were not compelled to spend eons crawling up the production rung; and would never have made the films they made had digital technology not been so advanced, inexpensive, and easy to handle. It may appear for a moment that the newcomers are deliberately rebelling against the old timers. The contrast is that stark.
This subgenre is easily identified by its distinguished traits, an overwhelming majority of which is present in every new-gen film.
The images depict the impatience, indifference, imperfections, and impetuousness of the present age. The cameras are many and move around freely. Canted angles, distorted close-ups, lens flares and other such similar tricks are employed to create a certain look. Out-of-focus shots—in earlier times, they were immediately dumped into the ‘No Good’ trash bin—are venerated.
The exterior night shots with only available natural lights put on a blatant display of video noise. The lighting for the day shows no striking resemblance to that of the travelling drama troupes; quite to the contrary, the palette is extensively experimented upon, mostly on the editing table. The pace is alternated. The lights, sets, props, and costumes are colourful.
The script is visual- and not dialogue-driven. The central action does not revolve around families gathered at their homes; it takes place on the urban streets. The celebration of the self (/crime) has replaced that of family life. There’s a deep craving for power and fast money. Threads have replaced intricate plots. The narratives are multiple and nonlinear. Nothing is taboo anymore. Sex outside of marriage is perfectly fine. Women are bold and independent as a rule, and not the exception; they are financially successful.
“A recurrent trope in these narratives is accidents, coincidences, casual encounters, and chance meetings that set in motion an unexpected chain of events affecting the lives of the characters drifting in the urban flotsam.” (Venkiteswaran 2013)[1] This is a style perhaps pioneered by George Lucas in American Graffiti.
The cast is ensemble. No clowns make the occasional entry/exit; instead, the comedy is brought out by the actors themselves through their mannerism and innuendo. The rising acting-stars are erstwhile non-actors with no formal training or theatrical background. Their characters display arrogance, anger, and violence, and shades of grey. Their dialogue delivery is that of ordinary people in real life. And their language is Anglicized, colloquial, slang, gross, and fashionably X-rated.
The fights are bloody real, and not comical.
New gen essentially is a localized replica of the Tarantino genre. The cult filmmaker’s “stylistic traits” (del Prado 2013)2—from his God’s-point-of-view, trunk/trashcan, and slanted-low angles to his references/allusions to film dialogues, long takes, close-ups of feet, and toilet shots—are used with abandon. Of course, his is not the only kind of films from which techniques and touches have been inspired. Indeed, some of these poetic flourishes have in fact been attempted in Malayalam films of yore. So, no doubt, new gen would still have existed even if Terrence Malick had not made Badlands, and Tarantino had never made a film in his life. But then, cinematically, this subgenre would probably never have been anything quite like what it is.
Classic cases: new gen cinema of Malayalam
Freed from years of confinement, the cameras and the testosterone-mad protagonist, in the middle segment of Alphonse Putharen’s Premam (lit. Love), furiously rush all over the place. Yes, literally.
Time drips away quickly in the reel world of new gen. And there’s ever the temptation for easy cash. In Lijin Jose’s Friday, the discovery of a shopping bag filled with gold causes an auto rickshaw driver to start sweating all over. In Alphonse Putharen’s Neram (lit. Time), a jobless educated youth must pay a heavy sum by evening to a loan shark. And rowdies and gangsters populate Lijo Jose Pellissery’s City of God and Double Barrel, both of which are pumped up with stylization steroids.
Sexual talks and acts are no longer on the forbidden list. Females are bold and emancipated, and do simply as they please. However, “when depicting female identity in this globalized reality, cinema falters, failing to explore beyond superficialities; there is no real exploration of the female psyche and its potential… The objectification and commodification that define globalization is also mirrored in these narratives: the female body is glorified for its sexuality.” (Raj and Gopinath 2015, 73)[3]
The males are patriarchal (read, pseudo puritanical). And the urge to have casual sex with multiple partners is not unusual at all. Joy Mathew’s Shutter centres on a moralist. The conservative dad is not happy that his teenage daughter jokes and laughs when she’s with her male classmates. He intends to stop this nonsense studies thing of hers and get her married off instead. However, he has no second thoughts about smuggling a street walker into his empty office space, for his personal enjoyment. In VK Prakash’s Trivandrum Lodge, a frustrated old man wants a ‘special kind’ for his thousandth shot.
The heroes of new gen have shades of grey, and are easily angered. Gone are the days when the stars were chaste in principles, and infallible. Fahad Fazil, Nivin Pauly, Jayasurya, Dulquer Salmaan, Prithviraj, and even Mammootty and Mohan Lal would have no qualms at all today in taking on roles that they would never have dared to in the previous era. This change is not restricted to the cinema of Malayalam. It is happening everywhere. Even Hollywood superheroes from Bond to Batman are revealing their dark side.
On the real roads of Kerala too most everyone these days appears to be standing on a live fuse. It’s hard to tell just when innocent faces would unexpectedly explode. On such matters, the times have terribly degenerated. The people who inhabit the images of new-gen films are no figment of anyone’s imagination when it comes to the issue of temper. What Sudevan’s CR No: 89, made with coins collected from friends and set in a rural area, shares with urban thrillers such as Sameer Thahir’s Chaappa Kurish (lit. Heads or Tails) are scenes of a non-resisting subject being kicked and bashed to an awful bloody pulp. In Aashiq Abu’s 22 Female Kottayam, the crimes are committed by a normal person with the precision and cold-bloodedness of a composed, emotionless psychopath.
Yet another striking characteristic of this subgenre is the conscious effort to shoot scenes in, and/or draw references to, a certain quiet suburb called Fort Cochin. This area, which now includes a world heritage zone, was for centuries the pampered space of the erstwhile Portuguese, Dutch, and British rulers in succession, and was until very recently populated by an Indo-European community. The inclusion is therefore understandable. After all, for a highly traditional society, this particular suburb has since time immemorial been emblematic of the liberal, “freaked-out” West.
In this paper, two terms with reference to the cinema of Malayalam have been used so far: ‘old timer’ and ‘new gen’.
By ‘new-gen’ filmmaker is meant the individual who has made at least one Malayalam film that employs a majority of the new-gen film attributes detailed above. Most new-gen filmmakers started out in the digital era. But all emerging young filmmakers are not new-gen filmmakers, and not all films of new-gen filmmakers are new-gen films.
‘Old timer’ refers to the individual who learned the ropes from the 35-mm-era generation, and who, though they may have switched over to the digital format and may occasionally even employ some of the techniques offered by this new technology is still, at heart, firmly entrenched in the techniques of the old celluloid school.
A third school exists too, and is equally popular. Born in the twilight betwixt the old and the new, this twin subgenre comprises fundamental elements of both schools, and frequently features a confused lead character standing on the crossroad or witnessing outer/inner change. In this paper, it shall henceforth be referred to as ‘mixed gen’.
This subgenre tends to have marked differences with its twin in many aspects. It glorifies the family, and not crime or the self. It follows a linear structure, even if sometimes narrated using a flashback. It has a semblance of a plot, and isn’t just a simple thread. It is protagonist-centric, and does not entertain an ensemble cast. It has a rather relaxed pace. It is dialogue- and not visual-driven. And it is set around a family-in-a-home, and not on the urban roads. Additionally, mixed-gen films often evoke nostalgia, celebrate sentimental bonding, and touch on the themes of liberty, loyalty, respect, tradition, and values. Of course, these are all generalisations, and there always are the exceptions to these unwritten rules.
Drishyam goes one notch higher while paying due tribute to the originator: the protagonist is modelled after Tarantino in the days before he ventured into filmmaking.
The attributes that mixed gen do often share with its twin is chiefly the Tarantino trademarks. Jeethu Joseph in his Drishyam (lit. Visual) goes one notch higher while paying due tribute to the originator: his protagonist is modelled after Tarantino himself in the days before the latter ventured into filmmaking. Tarantino, the fellow at a video place who loves and breathes visuals and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of films.
Filmmakers who have made such films hail from either school. Some such as Lal Jose, whose style is mostly that of the old-timers, break out of their 35mm upbringing to some extent, for this. While some others such as Lijo Jose Pellissery, whose canvases are futuristic, swim blithely in the colourful digital skies.
Lal Jose’s Diamond Necklace focuses on representatives of the reckless, transition generation caught between two contrasting socio-economic worlds and who “have no regrets of the past, are not anxious of the future, and live in the present.” Set around a village parish and its people, Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Amen glorifies heritage; ironically, the nostalgic man who convinces them to preserve it looks like a guitar-playing priest in sunglasses who has returned from the West. This imagery of the fusion of the conservative past with the modern age is exemplified in Anwar Rasheed’s Ustad Hotel when a virtuous woman happily swaps her purdah for a pair of jeans and a mike, and a traditional mappila song reverberates powerfully with a rocking punch.
The inherent psychological troubles of this new lifestyle is emphasised too. In Drishyam, the happy small world of a man from the cable-TV era is threatened by what characterizes the waste of today’s society: a GenYer with bundles of cash and no values, and the supposed guardians of the law. And the lead characters of Aashiq Abu’s Salt n’ Pepper and Da Thadiya (lit. Hey Fatso) imagine themselves marginalized in a society that is increasingly becoming obsessed with western concepts of beauty.
But perhaps there is a ray of hope in this bleak, selfish age. In VK Prakash’s Beautiful, most everyone around the bedridden protagonist, including his family, has an eye on his inherited wealth. And then, he finds a true friend. In Rajesh Pillai’s Traffic, a police department does a selfless deed. And in Anil Radhakrishnan Menon’s North 24 Kaatham, a self-centred corporate geek reverses direction and selflessly goes out of his usual ways to accompany a poor, old man back to his village.
The sense of exhilaration in the new-found liberation is high. Anjali Menon’s Bangalore Days is situated in a space that offers the main characters ample freedom and fun; a city where girls are friendly and approachable, lovers kiss in the open, and the next-door neighbours neither have the time nor the inclination to poke their noses into your everyday personal affairs. Another character, a henpecked man, runs away from his wife and mails a handwritten postal letter. Back home, as the son reads aloud of his father’s ability to ‘breathe freely finally’, the soundtrack is filled with a lively Caribbean music.
The inclusion and universal appeal of all the techniques and themes detailed above, in the new- and mixed-gen cinema of Malayalam, of course, is not at all accidental. It was inevitable.
“A new civilization is emerging in our lives… It brings with it new family styles, changed ways of working, loving, and living, a new economy, new political conflicts, and beyond all this an altered consciousness as well… The emergent civilization writes a new code of behaviour for us.” (Toffler 1980,9-10)[4]
The radical shift came about in India in the early 90s. It started with the opening up of the economy to the rest of the world, followed by the introduction of foreign satellite channels and the rapid advancement in digital technology, and culminated with the arrival of the internet. Things were destined to never be the same after this. The old world started cracking up. The traditional extended family system gave way to the nuclear family. The focal point of progress and of importance shifted from that of the smallest unit of society to that of the individual. And information and money power, in addition to causing the erosion of values, effectively destroyed the necessity for fear, subjugation, and sufferance.
Rakesh Omprakash Mehra’s super-hit 2006 film-within-a-film about the freedom struggle is probably the earliest prototype in Indian films. It shows these changes. “Hindi cinema uses family stories as national allegories by using available symbols. For example, the mother representing the sacred nation… As motifs in cinema, the parent is now reconstituted as an obstruction to the aspirations of youth—perhaps first hinted at by Rang De Basanti (lit. Colour It Saffron)… The rise of the new economy marks the moment at which children abandoned traditional vocations and followed new paths.” (Raghavendra 2014)[5]
Aesthetically, Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D (2009), That Girl in Yellow Boots (2010), and Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), and Abhinay Deo’s Delhi Belly (English film dubbed and released in Hindi, 2011) are in the same league as the new- and mixed-gen films of Malayalam. But the style did not have many other takers in the cinema of Hindi. Why is this so?
The answer lies perhaps in the economics involved. Hindi films have always enjoyed a sizeable pan-India market share and therefore have had massive production budgets and consequently audiences that grew up expecting lavish sets and costumes and other extravaganzas. A section of the Hindi audience that frequented the multiplexes quite liked this variety. The remaining weren’t particularly bothered so long as the rest of the films continued offering them the expensive ambiances and escapist fare to which they were addicted.
In the cinema of Malayalam, the forerunner is perhaps Shyamaprasad’s 2009 coming-of-age film, Ritu, “a tremendously sad tale that undertakes a refreshingly tender treatment of diverse themes such as the certainty of transition, the dashing of young fantasies and above all the incessant flow of life. It talks of a generation that has everything laid out on one palm and literally nothing on the other. Juggling between the two, they find themselves pushed down into an emptiness that gradually starts to choke them.” (Veyeen 2009)[6] The film was a little ahead of its time.
Year 2011 was the turning point. In the opening days of January, Traffic created a riot at the box office. The excitement was repeated in July of the same year with the release of Chaappa Kurish (shot on a digital-still-photography camera) and Salt n’ Pepper. The gripping new format of the trio and the tinkling of the cash registers ensured that the following year would have echoes. Sure enough, 2012 saw a flood of similarly-patterned films, notably, 22 Female Kottayam, Diamond Necklace, Ustad Hotel, Friday, Trivandrum Lodge, and Da Thadiya. A movement was born.
The popular cinema of Malayalam, unlike that of Hindi, showcases reality and has a very small market share. This should explain why a template having a low manufacturing cost and a high market value—and this at a time when overpaid megastars were ruling the roost—was readily lapped up by indie filmmakers.
To extend its audience/chance of profitability, Neram (2013) included a sufficient amount of dialogues in Tamil. The film broke the box office in Kerala as well as in this neighbouring state. Additionally, it grabbed the attention of a Tamil film critic. “Is it too soon to say that we are slowly beginning to say goodbye to the one-size-fits-all film for family audiences? Perhaps yes. But at least, we seem to be opening up to cinematography that’s more than just brightly lit master shots—there’s texture, grit, and mood in these frames.” (Rangan 2013)[7]
But are any attempts being made to forge a new cinematic path?
The character study in films such as Rajeev Ravi’s Annayum Rasoolum are accurate and some amount of research is been being done on the history and geography of the locations that they are set in. However, a majority of the new- and mixed-gen filmmakers seem more interested in cheap-thrilling the spectator while mirroring a semi-reality than in attempting to affect any change in society. The protagonists often flaunt their decadence with an exaggerated swagger. I know an affluent young couple who ran out of the hall while one such film was being screened. They found it disgusting, but observed that “the rest of the audience seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.”
This brings up the question: what is the intention of making such films? Is it simply to entertain the mass and to be different for the sake of being so? Cinematically, the answer may not be too encouraging.
All these reflections of the evolving milieu along with the desire of intelligent artists to make a quick buck are manifested in the new-and-mixed-gen-cinema-of-Malayalam, which therefore serves as an invaluable document for future reference. The twin subgenres by themselves are not problematic as such, as some of the old timers as well as certain film scholars would like everyone to believe; it is merely symptomatic of the prevailing ethos of a society in decay.
Book released by Prakash Magdum, director of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune, Aug 2016. Anthology: ‘Indian Film Culture – Indian Cinema’. ISBN: 978-93-81686-44-7. Published by the Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI). Editor: Gautam Kaul. Executive editor: Premendra Mazumder. Also in the pic: Kiran Shantaram.
AFTER SPENDING OVER FORTY-FIVE years in media and entertainment, actively working in all sectors at the top, I decided it was time to quit working for profit. However, having spent a lifetime pursuing not only a passion but being involved with various arts and crafts of different media, I wanted to do some academic work on the subject I knew well. One of the first thoughts which came to my mind was to write a book. After bouncing various ideas and discussing them with some friends, whose opinion I value, I zeroed in on doing this volume.
I had two choices. Either I could do a comprehensive book on Indian cinema, a field where I have spent maximum time, or do an overview of the evolution of different segments of creative and performing arts. I chose the latter. Again, the choice was between writing longish essays on different media or taking a much broader perspective. Finally, the book is a bit like an encyclopaedia, where some portions are described in detail. It’s a big fat book, but I have written it in a manner that you can read the whole book or just read about media and art forms which interest you, or about specific periods in history.
When one writes about so many different yet allied subjects which involve hundreds of much-loved and admired people, one is bound to miss out many truly talented achievers. For such omissions, some deliberate, but more on account of space constraints, I can only apologize. I have tried to be objective and give the reader a kind of a bird’s-eye view with an occasional deep dive. Sometimes if it reads like a book of lists, I crave your indulgence. A research team helped me for three years to gather material from various sources, which I then distilled and interpreted. Most of the facts are culled out from different sources, not any one source, hence not attributed. Besides, a large part is based on personal knowledge of people and events since the 1960s.
I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in every media form and discipline in the past five decades. My first poem was published when I was fourteen. I wrote my first play a year later, I got involved with stage, radio and journalism by my sixteenth birthday. I was editing a magazine when I turned eighteen. Soon I did my first TV programme, wrote advertising copy, film reviews and more. I was an active member of Delhi’s cultural scene. All this gave me a chance to observe and acquaint myself with leading artistes, musicians, painters, dancers, journalists and many other creative professionals. Some of those relationships have endured for five decades.
A serendipitous meeting with a matinee idol opened the doors of cinema for me. While still in college, I was working with the star’s production company Navketan. And on completing college, I went off to Bombay and again was lucky that in a couple of years I was heading the company. Meanwhile, I pursued my writing both on cinema and in cinema. Soon I turned a lyricist and script writer, even as I learnt the ropes of film making. Those were heady times as I came in contact with the giants of showbiz and creative fraternity. I worked with several top film-makers, artistes and technicians. I turned a producer in 1975 and was soon an active member and office bearer of the Producers’ Guild and other industry bodies.
By the time, I was an established lyricist, writer, film-maker, industry leader and nominated on various government committees and institutions. I was an important interlocutor between governments, media, industry and a regular speaker at conferences in India and abroad and wrote extensively for various publications. I was one of the first to enter TV production. I was one of the most well-networked individuals in media and entertainment in India and developed long-lasting friendships with many from various fields. I kept engaging with eminent persons from different fields, learning and absorbing as much as I could. Interestingly, while I was involved in the hurly-burly of mainstream popular cinema I kept engaging with my colleagues and peers from the new wave, academicians, advertising fraternity, writers, media and corporate leaders. I was always willing to try my had at something new— from music video to commercials, documentaries to feature-journalism to academics—so that I was constantly learning and acquiring new skills.
In 1989, I set up Plus Channel, the first integrated media and entertainment company, and in 2000 set up Reliance Entertainment with the leading business family—the Ambanis. I spearheaded the move towards corporatization of this industry and have headed media and entertainment committees of both FICCI and CII. All this gave me deep insights into various segments and disciplines. Since I lived alone and worked long hours, seven days a week, I was able to squeeze time for all my interests and work. There are dozens of masters whom I either worked with or observed from close quarters for years, which taught me most of what I know. This book is a tribute to these pioneers and achievers.
Amit Khanna’s book launch in Delhi with Prannoy Roy, Jaya Bachchan, Javed Akhtar, Rajat Sharma, Prasoon Joshi, Uday Shankar, Smita Prakash, et. al.
Imagine the earliest times when homo sapiens evolved on Earth about three hundred thousand years ago. They were roving hunters and gatherers living in unfriendly habitats and fighting for survival with other species. It is assumed that they had at least primitive verbal skills and thinking ability, which allowed them to use fire and fashion basic tools. Somewhere, a few thousand years ago, humans dispersed to different parts of the world in search of food and shelter or just to escape the wrath of nature. Typically, our ancestors would have lived in caves, or other sheltered spaces and in groups. Communication between individuals and groups gave rise to language and semiotics. Conversation, stories and songs ensued.
Besides traversing for food and escaping from predators and, of course, sleeping, a lot of time would have been spent in leisure. Fear and boredom, as Arthur Koestler has once written, are two primordial emotions. Both these require not only conversational skills but also some pastime. My hypothesis is that the early humans thus became the first storytellers. Around a campfire or in long periods of resting or on the move, knowledge gained through experience was shared between community members. Over time, learning from nature, they acquired elementary musical and dancing skills and this became the first form of entertainment. Every small or big event like birth or death or a good day at the forest would call for a celebration. Ritualization of these acts followed, though organized religion was still some centuries away. The first tribes were born around this time, as were tribal cultures. In fact, even today some tribes in remote areas of India have been observed to follow a similar life pattern, thousands of years later.
A few thousand years ago, these nomadic humans settled down in larger colonies which then gave rise to the first civilizations. There is enough empirical evidence now that at least four or five ancient civilizations took root about six thousand years ago. The Indus Valley, Gobekli Tepe, Sumerian, Chinese, Egyptian, Mayan and Persian are among the earliest ones, though some recent finds indicate signs of settlers in Africa and northern Europe as well. These civilizations are the cradles where human thought and creativity was born.
All arts begin their journey in this antiquity. We still have some remnants of the earliest cultural inheritance till date. Cave paintings, artefacts and excavations tell us how rich and varied these people were. For the purpose of this book, let us focus on the Indian subcontinent. There are historians and anthropologists who believe there were indigenous people scattered across India as early as 7,000 years ago, probably part of the first dispersal of homo sapiens. The Indus Valley Civilization, originally thought to be limited to the north-western part of India, is now looked at differently as excavations in the past two or three decades have found ruins dating back to more than 5,000 years in areas as far apart as Lothal in modern Haryana and Dholavira in Gujarat. The people of this period had a well-developed script, and knowledge of agriculture, astronomy, architecture, pottery, weaving arts. There are icons and images depicting dance and music.
The Vedic Age saw the first pan-Indian civilization (and among the oldest and advanced) and the Vedas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, arguably the most ancient surviving texts in the world. In the four Vedas, one gets a complete account of ethics and social structure. Samaveda, for example, is the first known text about music. The essence of Vedic culture has survived till today, though centuries of interpolation of what was largely an oral tradition has altered context and meaning. It is also clear that as far as 1000 BCE, there were travellers to and from India, the Middle-East and Europe and they brought and took away various streams of thought into and from India, enriching the people away and in their own countries.
By the time Alexander invades India in 326 BCE, India had already seen the rise of large kingdoms and though Hinduism has no founder, it was already the major faith. Two iterations of the Vedic philosophy, Buddhism and Jainism, had also come into existence. There was a distinct Indian culture and arts, music, dance and literature were thriving.
Obviously, there were influences from the Hellenic and Sumerian (and later Persian, Egyptian and Roman) cultures, which enriched the local lifestyle, but never overwhelmed it. Alexander’s return saw the emergence of the Mauryan Empire which became the largest kingdom of its time. Somewhere parallelly in south India, there was another culture—an amalgam of Vedic philosophy and indigenous peoples’ beliefs. This is depicted well in what is known as the Sangam literature.
By this time Indian performing arts, painting, sculpture and other art forms had developed a lot. There are symbols including India’s National Symbol originating from that period. The iron pillars, stupas and temples going back to Mauryan times illustrate the mature aesthetics and arts of 2,500 years ago. Stone edicts, town criers and special messengers were the mass media of the day. Often, folk tales and specially commissioned songs and dramas would spread the stories of valour and triumph around the country.
It was in the Gupta period, around 2,300 years ago, that ancient India reached its cultural peak. Natya Shastra, written by Bharat Muni during the Gupta period, is the oldest treatise on music, drama and dance. Different styles of singing from simple chants to complex raga-based Dhrupad style of singing were practised in royal courts, temples and other public spaces. Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali and Tamil are all languages with a rich history of being spoken and written from the pre-Christian Era. While other civilizations, notably Greek and Roman, have been historically given more importance, it is now acknowledged that India (and China and Persia) was perhaps richer and more advanced than its contemporaries in the West.
Plays by Kalidas and Mudrarakshasa by Visakhadatta are the oldest surviving dramas. Temple dances dating back 2,000 years are the precursor of classical dance forms like Bharatanatyam and Odissi. A few ancient songs and prayers of this vintage are still current in India. Travellers like Megasthenes, Ptolemy, Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) and Faxian (Fa Hien) have left accounts about India’s rich heritage. Nalanda in Bihar had the world’s largest university 1,500 years ago. Besides there were thousands of learned priests and monks in various temples, monasteries and other holy sites, where through pilgrimage or events and festivals (like the Kumbh) knowledge and traditions and art forms were transmitted from one generation to another.
India has the most continuously inhabited cities in the world—Varanasi, Delhi, Patna, Thanjavur, Kannauj, Ujjain, Gwalior, Kollam, Madurai, Vadodara. India was not only the wealthiest country but also the home to spiritualism, scholars and artistes and with a diverse cultural and social backgrounds. Home to different ethnicities and backgrounds, India gave birth to diverse and heterogenous folk cultures. No wonder it attracted emperors and bounty hunters from all over for thousands of years.
After Alexander’s invasion the next wave of disruption happened a thousand years later when the first Islamic invaders came to India. India by then had broken up into smaller regional kingdoms. These early invaders were basically plunderers, who ransacked the divided country and went back. It was only later when Turks, Afghans, Persian and Central Asians like the Tughlaqs and Khiljis decided to stay and rule India that Middle-Eastern Islamic influences crept into India. Most of these rulers and their courtiers and army settled down and intermingled with the local population, giving rise to a syncretic ethos. Sure, there were conversions and atrocities but by and large the people stuck to their faith and customs.
Sufi scholar Amir Khusro in the twelfth century, for example, not only popularized Hindavi (Hindi) through his poetry and plays but also invented the sitar. These people brought their food, language and culture into India. And some of it has stayed alive over centuries. Ghazal, qawwali and a few other musical forms have their origin in the Middle East and Iran. Much of the existing music, dance, drama was formalized during the Mughal reign. Even as Sufism spread in India, the Bhakti movement took its roots. While Islam was entering India from the north, in the south the Cholas and Pandyas were taking Hinduism to various parts of South-East Asia.
Along with the Vijayanagar rulers the three southern dynasties were at the forefront of a revival of India’s ancient culture. These rulers were great patrons of music, dance and other arts. From various frescos, sculptures and paintings, we get an idea of the creativity of the people in this era. Some of the music and dance created during those times are still practised in India and stories from the epics, puranas and other ancient texts are recited and read till now.
The Mughals came from Central Asia, led by Babur in 1526. Beginning with north-western India, they established in a few decades a large empire. Fascinated by the wealth and cultural diversity they stayed on. Later kings like Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan expanded their kingdom. They were ruthless and often tyrannical but to an extent assimilated with the peoples of their new home. Many of their subordinates and satraps were local chieftains. They adopted some of the Indian customs and values. While they retained Islam as their faith they could never uproot the beliefs of this ancient land.
Kathak, for example, evolved during this period. Indian classical music too spread at the same time. Even smaller states and Indian rulers like the Rajputs, Marathas, Cholas, Pandyas, Sikhs and others also had hundreds of artistes and performers in their courts. While like most emperors of the time they may have been ruthless and tyrannical, the Mughals were great patrons of arts. The stories about Akbar’s court with Tansen and other artistes are well-documented. We have detailed accounts (Babarnama, Ain-e-Akbari, writings of European travellers) from this period which give us an idea about how music, dance, art, literature and architecture flourished in India. Many of these artistic traditions have survived five centuries and are still practised in some form or the other.
The great transformation of media first began with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1439 in Europe. This made the written word accessible to a much larger of population than ever before. In 1556 the Jesuits brought the first printing press to India and ignited what was to be a revolution. Printing led to books, newspapers and journals of various kinds. This was the first new media invented in over 5,000 years of recorded human history. In museums across the world the earliest books can still be seen.
In a country like India with its low literacy and where knowledge and epics had been transmitted through word of mouth for centuries, it would take time for this new technology to take root. During Mughal rule itself the aristocracy, including local satraps, rich merchants and landlords had created their retinue of scholars, artistes and performers. Folk music, dance and theatre, though confined to rural hinterland, were invariably unharmed by invaders or change of rulers except in case of religious or temple activity. Simultaneously, the different gharanas (schools) of music and dance developed. India has absorbed a lot from travellers, merchants and invaders, while retaining its own heritage and values.
By the sixteenth century, many European rulers had set up outposts in various coastal towns in India. Portuguese, Dutch, French and English merchants and small bands of mercenaries began capturing small enclaves. In a decisive battle in Plassey in 1757 British soldier Robert Clive defeated the Nawab of Bengal, sowing the seeds of two hundred years of British rule in India.
The Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Europe had a seminal impact on human life—with the advent of electricity, photography, phonograph, projectors, radio valves, printing, microphone, telephone and wireless and automobiles. There is no doubt that most colonialists, including the British in India, exploited both human and natural resources in countries they ruled. However, there were some gains too. They created the first laws, police, judiciary, civil services, army, hospitals, schools, universities, etc. They built the first railroads, postal system, water, sewerage and electricity supply.
The first newspaper appeared in India in late eighteenth century and a century later there were many newspapers in most large cities in English and local languages. As the freedom movement gathered pace and newspapers became a major catalyst, the British Government of India imposed strict censorship rules. Interestingly most of India’s top leaders of the time had some newspaper connection.
India was one of the first countries where cinema took root once Lumiere Brothers of France came and exhibited the first moving images in 1896. Similarly, gramophone records caught people’s imagination at the beginning of the last century. However, it took time for classical music and dance to chart its course under foreign rule, but it remained in homes, bazars and courts. Later, some British governors and bureaucrats began admiring Indian arts and culture and even helped conserve them. The Europeans also brought with them their music, dance, arts, literature, food and attire, which were adopted by affluent Indians. A few Europeans became connoisseurs of Indian music, dance and arts.
The new Indian elite of civil servants, engineers and doctors, educationists, businessmen and merchants were often educated in English in schools and colleges set up across India in the nineteenth century. A few took to western way of life but largely retained the family structure and value system of their forefathers. Some businessmen made big money trading, even abetting, their British masters, but many also were philanthropists and reformers. They spent their fortune to help build institutions and infrastructure. They helped preserve social, religious and cultural traditions. So much of our present-day syncretic heritage comes to us because someone was kind enough to help keep it alive through difficult times.
The first half of the twentieth century is best remembered by Indians for the freedom movement but it was also the time of modern conveniences like electricity, water, sanitation, education, healthcare and of course media and entertainment. The two world wars (1914-18 and 1939-45) in the last century not only killed millions amid destruction and misery but also changed the map of the world. Yet mankind made unprecedented progress in the first half of the twentieth century, which altered our life on this planet.
Science and technology accelerated this dramatic transformation. Telecommunications and air travel increased the interaction between nations and peoples. While manufacturing industries made various goods available to more people at affordable prices, there were still millions in abject poverty, often without food, clothing and shelter. Millions died in the two wars and more due to famine and disease. After the war ended in 1945, the world had polarized around a capitalist America and a communist Russia, which would ultimately divide the world ideologically. Fortunately, after almost 200 years, colonial rule was heading towards a sunset. Media, especially print and radio, played a significant role in these times. Films had by then emerged the dominant mass entertainment form around the world including India. In the West, television was about to go on an expansion spree in the 1950s.
India woke to light and freedom on 15 August 1947. There was a political, social and economic turmoil as a traumatic Partition killed a million people and displaced many more millions. Post-Independence, India was filled with optimism and idealism, despite widespread hunger, disease and poverty. Adopting a socialist economy meant Indians grew up in frugality and shortages. Rapid urbanization and a large-scale migration of people, driven by joblessness, famines and natural calamities, created a paradox of hope and despondency.
Nestled in the cradle of optimism and idealism, India was ready for a renaissance. Driven by the left ideology (India had chosen the socialist economic model) hundreds of idealistic men and women led the new charge. Progressive writers, artistes and intellectuals helped in building a resurgent India. New institutions of learning and propagating the arts came up. Films and newspapers, which were in private hands albeit with governmental controls and regulations, reflected the mood of the times.
I, as a child in the 1950s, the decade of the paradox of hope and despair, grew up in a frugal India faced with perpetual shortages of essentials. Some of us were lucky to be born in comparatively privileged families and enjoyed luxuries such as electricity, telephone, radio and even a rickety old car. We went to picnics, fairs, circuses, and yes, movies. Cinema and film songs were the staple entertainment in urban India, sixty years ago as they are now. Indians were and are obsessed with films (and songs), religious celebrations and cricket in differing order.
Newspapers were read (or read to) by millions who then transmitted them by word of mouth to millions of others. A small minority of Indians had a radio at home and people would often go to a café or shop or a neighbour’s house to listen to their favourite programmes or cricket commentary. News about important political happenings, disasters, elections and war was caught on radio somewhere. Surprisingly, India made a large number of films (100+) every year in several languages even in 1950 and was one of the few countries which could withstand the Hollywood onslaught.
Classical music and dance suffered a bit as the small kingdoms and principalities where they were being kept alive were abolished. Government started to support classical artistes through various academies and institutions. All India Radio and gramophone records were the main platform for most performers, apart from music conferences and public concerts. In spite of various hardships, India produced some of its greatest singers, musicians, dancers, writers, painters, actors, film-makers, journalists, broadcasters and scholars during this time. Amateur dramatics, music and dance festivals, university cultural groups and artist communities like the progressive writers and artist groups too helped further the cause of creativity.
The 1950s and 1960s are said to be the golden period of Indian cinema, which we discuss in detail later. Films are a social document of our lives and times. If you look at a cross section of Indian films of that era you discover myriad Indias, which coexisted in different spaces and times simultaneously. From the most artistic cinema to the archetypical masala film, the sheer variety of talent and genius amazes you. Even the most inane potboiler had some intrinsic merit, which clicked with a disparate audience then. Some of this cinema has withstood the test of time.
There were big stars, heartthrobs, visionary directors and tall writers and musicians about whom we shall read in the book. In a phenomenon not seen anywhere, Indian film music has remained the most popular music since 1930s. Often five generations have hummed the same song. India did not have the wherewithal to get the latest equipment. Our studios were old, recording rooms outdated with little infrastructure for film-making. At the end of the 1960s, over 300 million people every year went to a theatre, often dilapidated, and laughed, cried, sang and danced along. The success ratio of films in India has always been poor, yet brave film-makers not only kept making movies with passion but manged to create a few classics as well.
Often people speak of masala films. We have to keep in mind the long Indian folk theatre tradition of song-and-dance-filled melodrama interlaced with comic interludes to understand the popularity of masala films. Popular cinema adopted this format. It started with archetypes but then soon landed in stereotypes. However, even in the 1950s and ’60s leading film makers made films about human values and idealism. A few even explored neo-realist cinema. Action, romance and mythological were other popular genres. Many actors came from a stage background and brought tremendous sensitivity to their performances. The stars reigned supreme and popularity of music was an important ingredient of box office hits.
The 1970s and ’80s were a time of disruption. The evolution of new technology had created new media, formats, techniques and form of entertainment. The tiny silicon chip ushered in the age of computers and other devices. Offset printing and colour entered publishing in a big way in India. The 1980s brought in scanners. New magazines entered the market and newspapers expanded their reach. A new generation of reporters went out to the hinterland and remote areas, highlighting the failures and triumphs which had so far remained away from print.
Radio reached almost 90 per cent of the population and 80 per cent of the land mass. Commercial broadcasting and FM were launched by All India Radio. TV, which had been confined to Delhi and some experimental rural transmission, reached other cities. New auditoria in different cities encouraged people to start watching plays and live concerts. Indian performers began to travel extensively and a few achieved international acclaim.
Another interesting development was the entry of film personalities in south Indian politics. There is one dark spot in India of the 1970s: the imposition of National Emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. All kinds of curbs, including a draconian censorship, were introduced. Thousands of opposition leaders and activists were arrested. Except for a few brave journalists, most preferred to crawl rather than revolt. Ultimately, the people rose in one voice and freedom was restored after elections and the formation of a new government. Media, specially print, played a critical role in this fightback. The period post emergency saw a glorious decade of journalism as a new aggressive breed of editors and journalists started to investigate and report on issues hitherto not covered by the press.
Electronics heralded the next generation of media. A tiny microchip led to computing and an entire range of technology-driven communication, manufacturing, services and home devices and appliances. There was a burst of new technologies from satellite communication to networked computing. Printing, cinema equipment, radios, music players, all were now technically superior but less expensive. The TV went colour and national as satellite communications arrived in India in 1982. India saw an unparalleled spread of TV across the country in this decade. Doordarshan (the national broadcaster) unleashed compelling programming from soap operas, sitcoms and the two epics, Ramayan and Mahabharat.
It was a matter of years before TV overtook cinema as the main medium of mass entertainment. The state still controlled news on radio and TV but the sheer reach and audio-visual nature of broadcast made teeming millions far more aware of what was happening, via daily news bulletins. TV also started covering major national and important sporting events live. The 1980s saw the awakening of the Indian middle class, and consumerism haltingly entered the collective consciousness. Ad spends increased rapidly and enticing commercials sold everything from soaps, toothpaste, soft drinks, white goods and contraceptives. Video and audio formats contributed in overhauling media and entertainment business models.
An obdurate film industry did not notice the straws in the wind and refused to sell TV and home-video rights. Soon pirated audio and video cassettes started impacting both the film and music industry. Cinemas began shutting down, finance became scarce and there was a general sense of despair. In spite of that, big budget multi-starrers and the one-man army of superstar Amitabh Bachchan delivered some huge blockbuster hits. TV started stealing advertising and readers from print. Cassettes replaced hard media.
In 1991, India’s economy shed its socialist garb and dismantled the decades-old Licence-Permit Raj. Animal spirits of a whole generation of eager entrepreneurs suddenly unleashed unknown potential. By the early 1990s, satellite TV entered India as government relaxed its broadcast policy. Millions of homes were wired by cables strung across buildings by enterprising, often shady, local operators. Broadcasters like Star, ZEE, Sony, ATN, ETV, and Sun, BBC, CNN and MTV competed with Doordarshan to grab eyeballs and advertising rupee. Independent production companies came up. I was one of the first entrants along with UTV, NDTV, TV18, ABCL, Nimbus, TV Today, Miditech, BR Films, Sagar Arts, Cinevista, Creative Eye and Siddhant Cinevision. My company Plus Channel became the first fully integrated media company with a presence across media segments.
India and the sector were buzzing as institutional finance was permitted by the government. At least two dozen companies listed on the stock exchange, while a few attracted private equity capital. In every region, there was a similar story. A variety of channels, Indian and foreign, beamed to an eager audience in India. Meanwhile, broadband and a host of devices and services experienced a digital impact. India was this time a few years behind. Mobile phones were launched by various private companies and soon you could see mobile phones everywhere.
Interestingly a new crop of film-makers rediscovered the mojo of popular cinema and Sooraj Barjatya, Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar and others created candyfloss, feel-good family entertainment. After two turbulent decades, box office expanded as the first multiplexes with plush interiors and contemporary technology changed the theatre-going experience. Ticket prices increased substantially and the demographics of audience tilted towards urban young. For the first-time, professional event management was introduced and live entertainment and amusement parks made their appearance in India. E-mail, websites, gaming, streaming music and video were the new catch phrases. A Dotcom bust in 1999-2000 after an irrational boom only filtered the boys from men. Young, tech-savvy Gen X upset the analogue business applecart and were on the way to lead a brave new world through newly minted companies in Silicon Valley.
Life turned digital. Suddenly everyone was talking of connectivity, Internet and digitization. The runaway success of companies like Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, Google and Facebook accelerated the onset of an all-digital ecosystem. New hardware and software reimagined the information, communication and entertainment (ICE) universe. A plethora of new options of communication like text messaging, mobile telephony and worldwide web altered lifestyles everywhere. Hard media including cinematograph film and recording rapidly disappeared. Film-making tools and theatres switched to digital systems. Integrated networks leveraging different technologies created an always networked society. E-mail, Internet search, streaming audio and video, gaming, and millions of websites empowered ordinary people to access an array of services, including news and information, music, movies, gaming, commerce, banking and governance.
Before the end of the decade, social media made the one-to-many and many-to-many contact and communication a reality, making a truly democratic media. However, there were new problems—intrusion of privacy, data theft, fake news, media manipulation, digital addiction. In time perhaps, solutions, technical, social and regulatory, will be figured out. As broadband, wireless and wired multiplied, algorithms were the new weapons of instant engagement mass destruction. In a society where multiple media are consumed simultaneously, traditional media are being forced to adapt.
Never before have so many people been connected to one another. Over five billion people have mobile phones and 3.5 billion use Internet and four billion screens on handheld devices, computers and televisions. On an average, people spend five hours a day before a screen of some sort. We have evolved from an information age and knowledge economy to on-demand services, instant gratification and transactional always-on economy.
Over the top (OTT) services like Netflix, i-Tunes, Google Video, Facebook, Amazon Prime, Instagram, Snapchat, Wechat, Spotify, Hotstar, Gaana, Twitter, Spotify are the way we consume media today and content. We have already seen the beginning of a global takeover of large media and entertainment studios and companies by Internet and communication companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Alibaba. Except Disney (and Fox) and Viacom-CBS, there is no global pure play entertainment company anymore. In India, Mukesh Ambani is the new media czar, who straddles from networks to production and distribution of all types of content. Players like ZEE are looking at a strategic sale.
The big daddy of traditional media, the Times Group is fast acquiring a digital avatar. Newspapers are looking at online edition behind payment walls. Music is entirely online. Gaming is the fastest-growing entertainment segment. Linear broadcast is threatened by an oblivion, driven by mass customization and personalized segmentation. Web series, digital snacking and interactive programming, on-demand music and video are defining taste and creativity. There will be a shakeout. We are over producing films (2,000 a year). We have 800 TV channels of which over 300 are news channels and thousands of online providers of news, information, entertainment, gaming and various transactional and convenience services. Progressively, all of this will coalesce into the new-age living on this planet. Creativity will retune itself and a lot of reskilling will need to be done in the world of automation and AI.
India is in a sweet spot for many reasons. Its large population (1.3 billion and counting) is demographically young. Its economy is growing faster than most other countries. Rising incomes, education and connectivity are increasing media usage and revenue. In the next decade, we should see an unprecedented growth and our share of the global pie will double by 2030. While successive governments talk of entertainment as India’s soft power, nothing substantive has been done to harness its potential. This, when this industry is a force multiplier for socio-economic change. If an industry which offers direct and indirect employment to more than five million people has to match its potential, it must redefine its ecosystem and reach out to newer markets.
Among themes for the next few years will be hyper connectivity, blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI). Smart cities, smart work places and manufacturing and smart homes will become a reality, even as physical infrastructure struggles to keep pace. Immersive content powered by AI will take creativity to another level. Technologies like cinematic VR and holography are not far away.
There is a completely tangential development, which will continue well into the next few decades. Live entertainment, sport, theme parks and other event-based engagement will become popular. The success of IPL and other sports leagues is an example of this. As we spend more time in front of various devices, the social need to move out of the home will impel us outdoors. So even as digital entertainment dominates other segments will leapfrog too. For example, the total number of artistes engaged in classical music and dance has risen sharply in the past four decades.
Shorter attention spans need a different creative grammar to engage audiences. Monetization of content is the key. Blockchain, analytics and AI will help the creative community to be suitably rewarded. New frontiers of imagination are constantly being conquered with science. Formats and platforms will change with time as will narratives. What will not change is human ingenuity and the fundamental need of leisure fulfilment.
The above is the preface from the book ‘Words. Sounds. Images: A History of Media and Entertainment in India’ written by Amit Khan and published by Harper Collins
Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Anantaram (1987), his fifth film and its three preceding films have a common approach of a biography of an individual. They get deeper and deeper as we move from his second film onwards. While Kodiyettam (1978) follows the carefree Shankaran Kutty attaining maturity, in Elippathayam (1982), Unni is like a rat in a trap, caught in his feudal ways. When Sreedharan a revolutionary communist leader makes a comeback from hiding in Mukhamukham (1984), he is a defeated man much to the dismay of the people who look up to him. Anantaram, which differs from them with its narrative strategy, is Adoor’s magnum opus. Analysing it will help in understanding its import and what Adoor achieved in it.
If one attempts to write the story in brief for Anantaram, one may end up putting down its plot instead. In place of the terms, “story” and “plot”, David Bordwell uses the terminology of Russian Formalists who call them as fabula (sometimes translated as “story”) and syuzhet (usually translated as “plot”). [1] In Anantaram the fabula has to be constructed by the viewer from the syuzhet which is presented by the film. Ajayan also known as Ajayakumar (performed exceptionally well by both Sudheesh as a boy and Ashokan as a youth), the protagonist of Anantaram, tells his story in one way and as the title goes (Anantaram means ‘and then’/‘whereupon’), he tells his story once again which doesn’t have much correspondence with the previous one. There have been films such as Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) and Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run (1998) having different versions or points of view of the same events. In Anantaram the two versions are told in the first-person narrative by the same person which is rather new. The English title of the film is ‘Monologue’. It is in fact a double monologue and its structure can be called as “Double monologue/ narrative in the same first-person point of view”.
Ashokan in Anantaram
In his first version, Ajayan recounts that he was an unwanted child abandoned by his mother after his birth in a hospital. The doctor in the hospital raises him as an adopted son affectionately. His extraordinary talents alienate him from others except his foster brother Balu (played with a quiet presence by Mammootty) who is studying medicine. When he grows up and goes to college, he gets estranged from Balu– a doctor now – too when he gets strangely attracted to Balu’s newly wedded wife Sumangali called Suma (performed sensuously as well as hauntingly by Shobhana). With the feeling of guilt due to that he leaves home and he is apparently driven into suicide. Ajayan comes out quite the contrary in his second version in which he is far from being a gifted child. Suma resembles Nalini (also played by Shobhana) with whom he was in love, which torments him further.
Ajayan has been abandoned by his mother somewhat like Karna in the epic “Mahabharata”. Balu reminds us of Duryodhana who bonds with Karna, admires his great skill in archery and feels that he doesn’t get his due owing to his pedigree. Ajayan comes to know about his real parentage like Karna. While such a reference to the epic can enhance the appreciation of Anantaram, the characters in the film are not in the epic mould. The literary antecedents to the dual personality that comes through in Anantaram can be traced to several works which use the strategy of doubling identities. Of particular interest is Dostoevsky’s “The Double: A Petersburg Poem” (1846) in which Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a titular councilor, encounters his friendly doppelgänger. The Golyadkin Jr. though turns his bitter foe taking his place causing Golyadkin Sr. a nervous breakdown. Golyadkin Sr. is probably a schizophrenic who is driven to insanity. In Anantaram too it could be one of the interpretations as there are indications such as Balu asking Ajayan in his second version whether he has taken his medicine. Mikhail Bakhtin developed the concept of ‘polyphony’ meaning multiple voices about which he has written, “A plurality of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices is in fact the chief characteristic of Dostoevsky’s novels. What unfolds in his works is not a multitude of characters and fates in a single objective world, illuminated by a single authorial consciousness; rather a plurality of consciousnesses, with equal rights and each with its own world, combined but are not merged in the unity of the event”. According to Bakhtin the multiple voices haven’t become fully independent in “The Double…” unlike in Dostoevsky’s longer novels. [2] The structure of Anantaram can be viewed in this light. The two voices in Anantaram are that of the protagonist but they are quite distinct. Since they are presented in two versions, the polyphony in Anantaram could be called polyphony of the protagonist in time.
Shobhana in Anantaram
The interpretation of Ajayan driven into insanity due to schizophrenia is a denotative meaning of the film which fits up to a point. The two stories that Ajayan narrates are about the two separate realities in which he experiences to exist. While the first one is shot in the realistic style, some of the scenes in the second are expressionistic. Nalini in Ajayan’s second story could be part of his imagination. Adoor pulls off quite a coup by having Shobhana play both Suma and Nalini to indicate that Ajayan is strangely infatuated with Suma as she appears like Nalini. The other world, that is imagined by him, dominates the perception of Ajayan. But just when we create the fabula (story) based on this, we’re confused by seeing Ajayan’s roommate pick up a rose from the floor and ask Ajayan whether someone was there. We have an unreliable narrator who creates ambiguities.
The narrational gaps in Anantaram call for multiple interpretations of a higher level, bringing out its connotative meaning. Regarding how to do the interpretation, David Bordwell has written that “the procedural slogan of art-cinema narration might be: “interpret this film, and interpret it so as to maximize ambiguity””. [3] Going by that, we can discern the unintegrated personality of Ajayan who has in him mutually opposite elements. He has both extraversion and introversion. The servants appear helpful but not really so. His foster father might even be his real father. There is a hint that the yogini who is affectionate towards him could be his mother who abandoned him. He is all admiration for Balu but later he notices Balu ogling at a lady who is on her way back home after bathing. He can love Nalini but she is not real. Her look-alike Suma is a real person loving whom is forbidden. Like his counting of the steps in odd numbers and then in even numbers, he encounters things in dual form. It is very hard for him to synthesize such contradictory elements which push him to the edge. This interpretation of unintegrated personality is a view of Ajayan that is created in our mind by putting together the two versions that are narrated by the protagonist Ajayan.
Adoor’s illuminating interpretation of Anantaram is that it is about storytelling as mentioned in his “Director’s Statement” in his website. To quote a few lines from it, “[Ajayan] is drawing up on the experiences from his life basically from two stand-points – that of an introvert and an extrovert, the two positions we all keep shifting from time to time…Each story picks and chooses from those experiences from his life that go to prove its theme. The stories do not contradict themselves, instead they complement each other. The stories jell together because there is a certain built-in ambivalence in his life.” [4].
It speaks for the richness of Anantaram that the presence of the two independent voices in the film supports a dialogical discourse too. While narrating his stories, Ajayan doesn’t find the self to be coherent but alienated and fragmented. His dual voices point to a dualistic or divided self with a doubled and divided mind. Hence the two stories that his two voices narrate are like thoughts of two different minds. Applying Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of polyphony to the film suggests a dialogical discourse.
Such an approach will lead to yet another interpretation: Unravelling the mystery of one’s psyche and searching for one’s identity may lead to one’s self-destruction. In this view, Ajayan’s search for identity starts right from when we see him crying as a child for mother’s milk. Questions on who are his mother and father haunt him. True to the meaning of his name Ajayan (the invincible one), his performance is extraordinary in studies, sports etc. but he excels in everything perhaps to make up for his lack of identity. The film makes an acute observation that super competence may end up as a failure. Yearning for a caring woman, Ajayan develops a liking for an elder girl Lata which is thwarted by a couple of senior boys. He gets attracted to his foster brother Balu’s sensuous wife Suma which ruins his studies. Curiously, the meaning of Suma’s full name, Sumangali, is “a married woman whose husband is alive”. He confesses his feeling of guilt for his forbidden feelings for Suma which apparently leads to his suicide. The second version is clearly in a different voice, making us recognize that there are in fact multiple voices in one person which may come into conflict. Perhaps the voice in the first version overstated his ability as the voice in the second one doesn’t portray him as gifted. “Ajayan” turns out to be an ironical name. The two versions view the servants differently. The three caring servants in the first are made to look iconic like the male counterparts of the three witches in Macbeth, inflicting pain on him perhaps because they know that he is the foster son of their employer. Later Ajayan comes to know that his foster father whom he has been calling as “uncle” and the yogini could be his real parents. He must have been very much disappointed that he was denied his identity. While the love for Suma is forbidden, the love for Nalini cannot be materialized. When he goes to meet her in her house, she is called Malini which is the name of a yakshi (seductive spirit). His identity as a lover is in question. Ajayan doesn’t find the world knowable. In the end he says that there are some more things that he hasn’t told us and some he has forgotten, hinting that there could be more versions. But he is nowhere near fathoming his psyche. The ending is unresolved. Ajayan’s problem is that he is very sensitive and he is aware of the futility of his search which torments him and leads him to his self-destruction.
Some of the filmmakers from Kerala ushered in a different kind of modernity to Indian art cinema. As M. K. Raghavendra has written, “Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Anantaram, 1987), G Aravindan (Esthappan, 1980) and John Abraham (Amma Ariyan, 1980) eschew the ‘critique of society’ model in Indian art cinema and reintroduce (authorial/character) subjectivity as strategies… [Kerala] appears to have arrived at its own kind of modernity without the mediation of the West.” [5]. Among them, Adoor came up with arguably an innovation in form to depict a dual human personality in Anantaram. It would figure in the top 5 all-time great Indian films that rank high internationally although it is not as widely known as it should be. For, Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Anantaram is a monumental work in Indian cinema and has its place in world cinema as well.
References
Bordwell, David. “Narration in the Fiction Film”, New York, Routledge, 2014, pp 49-50.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics”, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 8th printing, 1999, p 6& p 220.
Bordwell, David. “Narration in the Fiction Film”, New York, Routledge, 2014, p 212.
In the present landscape of Indian cinematic productions, the ever-growing number of female authors brings a fresh breath of air that comes with interesting stories, powerful female characters, and challenging perspectives on various social, political, and cultural aspects. The great benefit brought about by the digitalization of the Indian film industry, mainly of the processes of production and distribution, is reflected in the availability of Indian films all around the world. The fact that new releases can reach an impressive number of people and that the marketing process is more efficient than ever mean that the stories written by women and, in many cases, directed /produced by women too, redefine Indian cinema and bring into discussion the other side of the coin. The viewers are thus offered a change of perspective in Indian cinema so far dominated by male voices and gazes, a change which does not necessarily imply a feminine representation of the world but, importantly, a different approach and a different gaze, which takes into account a number of social, domestic, and cultural issues, generally overlooked or poorly represented. The courage of breaking conventions; the boldness of representation, of subverting gender and genre stereotypes, and of portraying real women instead of prototypes; the highlighting of gender inequality and the creation of self-awareness; and poetic sensitivity are a few of the qualities displayed in the texts produced by these women scriptwriters.
In the early days of Indian cinema, presently one of the most prolific in the world, the presence of women as producers, directors, and screenwriters, though sparse and sporadic, was intentionally erased from film history. The works of women were engulfed by anonymity, and women’s voices were deliberately silenced. There is mention of this from as early as the first decade of the twentieth century (see Nelmes & Selbo, Women Screenwriters: An International Guide, 2015). Their stepping out of invisibility is a relatively recent movement that brought into the public’s attention the women screenwriters’ work. And their involvement in the change operated not only at the level of the film script but also at the level of public mentality.
The narratives in early Bollywood productions, by male filmmakers, featured over-boisterous masculinity; promoted male dominant attributes and specific behavioural patterns that normalized and legitimized women’s mistreatment; and established a set of gender roles and social stereotypes—the heroes were generally aggressive and callous, whereas the female characters were forever-oppressed and victimized damsels in distress. The new wave of narratives, by women screenwriters, come with a whole new breath of change. This change is brought about by little personal and domestic dramas with significant consequences upon the way in which women are perceived on the screen—tender, subtle stories of emancipation (Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick under my Burka); narratives of psychological insight (Konkana Sen Sharma’s A Death in the Gunj); poetical approach to childhood and adolescence (Rima Das’s Village Rockstars); complex parental-filial relationships (Zeena Lakhani’s Hindi Medium); unconventional stories tackling unconventional topics and featuring unconventional heroines (Vidhu Vincent’s Manhole); and unexpected gazes cast upon real stories (Nandita Das’s Manto). These are not “women’s stories” written by women, exclusively for women, and depicting larger-than-life female characters. These are slices of reality; episodes of life that cast an uncompromising light upon contemporary issues and upon events seen, felt, re-imagined, dreamt of, re-told, and re-written through the words of a woman.
Consecrated names in Indian cinema, such as Mira Nair, Deepta Mehta, and Aparna Sen have demonstrated that change is already happening. And representatives of the younger generation—Rima Das, Shibani Bathija, Alankrita Shrivastava, Juhi Chaturvedi, and Konkona Sen Sharma, to name only a few—tell us through their scripts that women authors not only have a voice that gets louder with each passing day but also have a lot of beautiful stories to tell; thus making way for new aspiring writers who might help us see the world through different eyes.
digital What has caused the death of single screen theatres? Unlike in the past when were they were the only platform for watching feature films, today a variety of alternative media are readily available. The technological wave has effectively ensured that the spectator isn’t required to travel any distance at all to watch their desired film. Additionally, they may do so at a very minimal cost and as per their convenience.
Piracy too has a terrible impact on film business. Crores are being spent on making films, but leakage of original footage during post-production or preview screening or festival screening results in the availability of high-quality footage for audiences at a minimum cost or without any cost at all. This drastically minimizes footfalls at theatre and ruins the possibility of recovery of investment.
The third problem relates to the quality of the viewing experience. Lack of maintenance of the projection system, the seating areas, and the cooling system in the old single halls drove audiences toward the newly developed, properly-maintained multiplexes where they could live the movie experience on a screen with crystal clear images and Dolby digital 5.1/ 7.1 sound while lounging lazily in a recliner. At Kolkata, most of the single screen theatres had an average capacity of 800 seats and it was getting rather difficult to sell even five percent of the hall capacity on weekdays. Since costs such as electricity, maintenance, and manpower resource remained the same, the recovery of daily operational costs posed a major problem for the exhibitionists, and in the last half decade, most were compelled to permanently shut down. Currently, there are only four—yes, only four—single screen theatres in the whole of Kolkata.
In earlier times, people were habituated to celebrate any occasion by watching movies at the theatre, but in today’s fast-paced world, the joint family concept is obsolete. And almost every individual in the city has the power in their hands—the smart phone, in which most any movie is just a click away. As family get-togethers are rare, bulk booking of seats in theatres too is now rare. To add to this, television has captured the evening life of housewives so strongly that they have little wish to venture out of the comfort of their homes and their favourite daily soaps. On the occasions that they do, on the weekends, their first priority is for content similar to that of their daily soaps. This is why the weekend business of single screen theatres such as Navina, Star, Priya are successful. These single cinema halls have their own geographical benefit too as they are equipped with all modern facilities like their rival multiplexes.
Riding on the regular footfall of college students and corporate professionals especially on the weekends, multiplexes such as Inox, PVR, and Cinepolis used to enjoy good business in Kolkata. Comfortable and world-class experience of watching cinema is the main reason for this. However, there has been a drastic decline in recent times — before the pandemic made things even worse — primarily due to the hiking of ticket prices as well as those of food and water. After a survey, it was found that around INR 1,000 is spent for watching a movie at a multiplex, by a family or a couple who are working in a corporate setup; and that 1.5 times of the ticket was spent on food items and water. Many first timers prefer not to be repeat customers, and are opting instead to watch films on digital platforms such as Netflix, Zee5, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, and Hoichoi.
India experienced an internet revolution around half a decade ago. The launch of the mobile network ‘Jio’ drastically altered the distribution platform of content, especially films. It opened the doors for audiences to a theatre full of films on their Smartphone and Smart TV. Many young working professionals who used to be regulars at multiplexes are now loyal customers of digital streaming platforms. They are now required to pay only a relatively trifle sum, as monthly or yearly subscription fees. 2K and 4K Smart TV with home theatre offers them theatre-like experience at home, there is no need for them to wait for show time, and they are allowed too to pause at any point of time during the streaming.
It is thus boom time at the moment for digital platforms. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5, and Hotstar are busy acquiring digital rights before the theatrical release of films. And satellite channels have their own digital platforms — Hotstar is part of Star, Zee5 is the digital platform of Zee, and Voot is a platform of Colors (Viacom18). Channel owners are even uploading episodes of daily soaps on the net before they are telecast on their own channels. There is no need now for one to wait for the telecast of a favourite show or feature film on TV. The early availability of content as well as the option to watch content at any point of time makes digital platforms highly popular. This also puts a much-needed check on piracy in the digital market.
It would be very difficult to bring back the aura that the episodes of Ramayana and Mahabharat once had. The days when people wouldn’t dare miss an episode and/or its repeat screening as there was no other option of watching them ever again is long gone. Some might even argue that it would be impossible for theatres to ever again pull crowds the way films such as Sholay and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge once did. This of course isn’t entirely true. For, even though everybody knows that all such content would be available on alternative platforms within weeks, if not days, the thrill of watching films on the huge screen in a huge hall with a huge crowd is an altogether different experience.
But yes, perhaps that day is not too far off when the single screen theatre would be as rare as the tram or the yellow taxi in Kolkata.
The most endearing aspect of Shyam Benegal as an individual and a director is his unassuming demeanour. He is an ‘author’ without being authoritarian. His seemingly ordinary way of bearing himself simply belies his strength to give sustenance to the universe of stories that he carries within him. This facet of Benegal starkly contradicts the commonly perceived image of directors; that they are inseparable from their inherent authorship even while they are not all the time conscious of it.
What makes Shyam Benegal stand out is his turning away from the author’s persona as described by Roland Barthes; an “author” who is keener on ‘seeing’ things as they happen than on ‘showing’ them from the central perspective of a manipulating agent. This ‘author’ contradicts the auteur who emerged in the 1950s new wave cinema as the sole controlling figure. To be more precise, Benegal prefers to be among the anonymous audience rather than donning the role of a puppeteer who holds the strings and fastens the story to his fingers. For Benegal, the self-effacing author, the story unfolds itself, and speaks for itself.
In the conventional notion, an artist /author is synonymous with a creator, an inspired being—one who drinks the milk of Paradise, is guided by the “Heav’nly muse” (John Milton, Paradise Lost), sees things that others fail to, and is capable of creating life with masterstrokes. However, in the 1960s, this notion was radically replaced with the notion that the author is only a ‘translator’ and not a creator. This new incarnation or role of the “author” was ushered into the arena of critical theory by Roland Barthes in his path breaking essay ‘The Death of the Author’, in which he says that the author is merely the facilitator, the mediator or simply the ‘space’ where currents and cross currents of socio-cultural happenings cross their paths.
No doubt it has always been that way. As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality, but intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins. The sense of this phenomenon, however, has varied; in ethnographic societies the responsibility for a narrative is never assumed by a person but by a mediator, shaman or a relator whose ‘performance’—the mastery of the narrative code—may possibly be admired but never his ‘genius’. (Roland Barthes)1
In a similar manner, John Barth takes a survey of art forms and genres such as music, painting, pop art, intermedia art, and literature, and proposes that all art is repetitive by nature and that the ‘authors’, instead of creating, merely synthesize what went past and what they see around them in the present. Benegal, in spite of possessing a widely acclaimed oeuvre, appears not to believe in this proposed ‘myth’ of originality, in which the Aristotelian conscious agent is an “aristocratic notion” of which “the democratic West seems eager to have done with, not only the “omniscient” author of older fiction, but the very idea of the controlling artist has been condemned as politically reactionary, authoritarian, even fascist.”2
Benegal is said to have set out under the influence of Satyajit Ray, but his films are a class apart from Ray’s, for, unlike Ray, Benegal in his depiction of social realism prefers to be less suggestive and more straightforward, less dreamy and more harsh, raw and lifelike. Whether in his early films such as Ankur, Manthan, Bhumika, Mandi, and Junoon, or in his later films such as Mammo and Zubeidaa, he captures the political undercurrent that flows through all social relationships. Survival and self-fulfillment of individuals caught between the expectations of the society and their own, are the core issues that Benegal addresses in his movies that move in the domains of class/caste struggle, gender politics, psychic obsession, history and cultural anthropology.
In real life too, as in his films, there is no attempt to mystify or romanticize reality. While reflecting on his own works, Shyam Benegal assumes the ‘role’ of anything but the director that radiates a towering, all eclipsing and an all-knowing halo. He is careful not to let the author’s self take over his common man’s way of sitting relaxedly while talking. Even while giving background details of threshold moments, Benegal appears like one recounting the most mundane, ordinary happenings in the chain of everyday incidents of which we barely take any notice. In his description there is neither any trace of anxiety of searching nor the thrill of finding. Shyam Benegal is placidity personified.
References
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodernism: A Reader”, by Sean Burke, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1995, pp. 125-130. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctvxctrs61.21
Barth, John. “The Literature of Exhaustion.” The Friday Book: Essays and Other Non-Fiction. London. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1984
Girish Kasaravallii
I am not making a “perfect” film, I am making an “imperfect” film.
To me, cinema is a powerful tool for challenging existing notions.
-Girish Kasaravalli
True to his stated philosophy and approach to cinema, noted Padmashri Awardee Kannada Cinema auteur Girish Kasaravalli has been chiseling his cinema spotlighting on prevalent socio-political concerns, while crafting his own idioms and aesthetics.
Girish Kasaravalli’s approach though is not dogmatic or didactic. Neither is it viciously violent or a virulent answer to the ills of a hidebound society that fails to see reason in its failings and the repercussions of its draconian practices on the various diaspora that people it.
The cinema of Girish Kasaravalli holds up a reflective mirror to that which afflicts the people due to traditional dogmas. Benign, humanistic, subtle and provocatively persuasive, Girish Kasaravalli’s films engage his audiences in a dialectical dialogue, cajoling them to see reason, and to reform for the greater good of themselves as individuals as well as for society at large.
Treading a lonely furrow, the flag bearing Kannada art cinema right from 1977 with his eponymous celluloid treatise Ghatashraddha, Girish Kasaravalli has never veered off his creative aesthetics or cinematic vision, but instead steadfastly adheres to his idea of cinema.
Girish Kasaravalli’s celluloid canvas captures the quintessential moral, ethical, cultural and political dilemmas we live in, providing a metaphorical context to them; acts as a possible change agent, though not necessarily; and creates an inner churning and introspective reflection among the viewers of his films.
Kannada litterateur UR Ananthamurthy once said, “Girish Kasaravalli is an imaginative film maker. He provides a metaphorical depth to his vivid narratives. We are made to meditate on them.”
Never one to consciously and creatively push his cinematic envelope to aesthetic levels lest they become inaccessible to lay, discerning audiences, Girish believes in forgoing the esoteric for a simpler and easier to grasp form of cinema, one that is at a much mundane narrative level.
Consequently, while Girish Kasaravalli’s films triumph as soulful, sensitive sagas of human foibles and their aftermath on the subjects concerned, they fall short of much more aesthetic appreciation of cinema in its pure art form, as the auteur seeks to consciously and deliberately eschew these elements for the greater purpose of reaching his intended audiences, the masses.
Girish Kasaravalli has never resorted to loud and preachy statements in his films. Instead, he subtly, sensitively, and profoundly conveys the homily of the film while ensuring that the underlying undercurrent in his thematic treatise drives home the point as unobtrusively as possible. Each of his films pulsate, resonate and abound in a multitude of meanings and with multifarious strands of metaphors that bespeak of our lives.
A cursory walk through all his works since those halcyon FTII and much feted debutant Ghatashraddha days to his latest foray with Illiralare Allige Hogalare (Can’t Stay Here, Can’t Go There) offers one a glimpse of the inner workings of Girish Kasaravalli’s cinema of serious engagement as well as of where he has drawn the Lakshman Rekha, the line that he never crosses lest it dilutes the larger purpose of his cinematic discourses. The only time he did so with Kanasemba Kudureyaneri one felt it did not bear the necessary fruition he had sought in his experimentation of the much-coveted film form.
As a critical insider, Girish Kasaravalli, in a filming career spanning over half a century, has been holding a searing mirror to the harsh socio-cultural realities of our society, and has ensured that the cinema of Kannada Cinema is talked about, and looked upon, as among the best in the global cinema amphitheatre.
Right from his debut short film as a student at FTII, Avasesha, which fetched him a Gold medal, Girish Kasaravalli has shown where his creative cinema disposition lay, and despite the onerous struggle that his films go through to find an audience, he has struck to the principled path he has traversed all along.
The reasons for this are not far to see. A pharma graduate, he found his true calling in cinema thanks to the rich cultural moorings at his homestead in maternal uncle Magsaysay Award winner KV Subbanna, the founder of Neenasam, in Heggodu, and a Yakshagana patron in father Ganesh Rao, who also ensured his son gorged on the best of Kannada literature at that early impressionable age.
The touring talkies of the times that pitched tent in his village every once a while when he was a child, and the film magazines and books that he had access to, sowed the seeds of celluloid dreams in the young Girish Kasaravalli. This was indeed fortuitous for Indian Cinema and in particular Kannada cinema in that it ensured the regional language cinema would always be in the forefront of any discussion on cinema both within India and abroad.
Girish Kasaravalli’s early love for literature and cinema, and his intimate relationship with all art forms, can be witnessed in the individualistic, intuitive and insightful ways in which he adapted novels and short stories for the silver screen.
Girish Kasaravalli was intuitively drawn to the neo-realistic school of cinema whose avowed practitioners were Kurosawa, Ozu, Fellini and Antonioni, besides India’s very own Satyajit Ray; all of whom greatly influenced him. Girish Kasaravalli himself has confessed to his unabashed influence and appreciation of Ozu and Ray’s kind of films on his very own cinematic schooling and approach to film making.
The cinema of Kannada has a wide spectrum. While at one end, Dr Rajkumar, thespian and flagbearer of all things Kannada and its regional and linguistic identity, ensured that there was a modicum of meaningfulness in mainstream films and family audiences visited the theatres without being squeamish about what lay in store, at the other end, realistically portrayed issues that were tearing society apart, Girish Kasaravalli emerged as the lone beacon holder for the other kind of cinema, where aesthetics, idioms and craft of cinema dominated the narrative structure.
Though the nouvelle vogue off beat cinema movement had begun much before Girish Kasaravalli’s own sojourn into that less trodden path, in 1970, with the likes of peers such as Pattabhirama Reddy, Girish Karnad, BV Karanath (with whom Girish Kasaravalli was an understudy), P Lankesh, and TS, it was Girish Kasaravalli who continued to pursue it diligently.
Tirelessly and singularly Girish Kasaravalli has been singularly capturing the cataclysmic changes around us through his captivating cinema, reminding us each and every time where we are and where we are headed as a society and as a nation.
In Geeta Dutt’s warbling voice, subdued smile and shy glances we find the nymph and the muse being fused together and nothing comes as close to her life and art as does [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]the immortal bird of Keats’ famous ode. [/highlight]Hers is a tale of extreme experiences that life can offer to an individual. While destiny endowed her with the rarest ability to conjure up a gush of fresh air and a soothing shower to a parched land and a thirsty clime, the same destiny took away all her powers and left her feeble and lonely, as if administered by some unalterable nemesis. Geeta Dutt’s life was tarnished as much by love and deceit as by despair and longing. But her timeless voice makes her the immortal Dryad of the evergreen bower in which the short-lived summer is celebrated with ‘sunburnt mirth’.
Geeta Dutt with Talat Mahmood, Mohd Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, GM Durrani, Meena Kapoor, Kamal Barot, Mubarak Begum, et al.
Geeta Dutt’s oeuvre of playback singing remains an inseparable part of the golden days of Hindi cinema and from sad musings to playful jingling, everywhere she was at the best of her full-throated ease. Coincidentally, it so happened that her songs were neither purely romantic, nor tragic, nor seductive. Her forte lies in those songs that were half jesting and half sceptic, with a detached, quizzical vision of love and life; of an accultured, neo-urbanized neo-hybridized society imbibing the cultural milieu of the early phase of a globalized culture. For someone with a very conventional upbringing, being born and having spent her childhood in rural East Bengal, it is a wonder how she instilled such a lively spirit to that ethos as far back as the early 1950s. How Geeta Dutt succeeded in finely attuning her voice to the beats and rhythm of those songs will always remain a mystery. In ‘Tadbir se bigdi huyee’, the stop and go movement of e he he he, he he/ ehe he, he he throws us into a thrill of anticipation, and being true to itself, the song does make us tap, clap, sway and move all the way.
She pitched her feet firmly in that arena, usually discreetly avoided by mainstream singers, and [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]created a genre all by herself and trod a solitary path with nobody to look up to and none to walk behind. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that this genre began and ended with Geeta Dutt.[/highlight] All attempts to revive her joie de vivre merely ended with sloppy songs spilling all over.
Even in her plaintive numbers, Geeta Dutt portrays that stoic indifference and is not swamped by sorrows. In ‘Waqt ne kiya’, she is overladen with sighs, but she negotiates with them, without veering off on the verge of sentiment. And when she is not detached or in a mood to negotiate, she is the most spontaneous. ‘Mujhe jaa na kaho, meri jaan’ and ‘Na jo saiya’ are songs of starkly different moods—her voice is choked with laughter and ecstasy in one, and trails off with desperation in the other. This combination of spontaneity, detachment, playful coyness and joyful quirkiness makes Geeta Dutt the artiste extraordinaire, and, arguably, one of the most inimitable singers of the erstwhile Bombay Talkies.
In her enduring songs, [highlight background=”#f79126″ color=”#ffffff”]Geeta Dutt is no less than the “hammered gold and gold enamelling” nightingale of W.B. Yeats’s celebrated poem ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ seated on a golden bough and singing of “what is past or passing, or to come”.[/highlight] Geeta Dutt has been long gone, engulfed by the perplexities of life. But her songs have become ever more resonating. In them, we inhale the whiff of the first rain in the days of cultural draught.
The book explores and extrapolates through arguments and illustrations, “the way to understand Indian cinema, since that would help distinguish it from cinema outside of India,” with specific and contextual examples of popular films by noted Indian filmmakers from all over India, down the ages. The author enumerates that unlike what is understood in the Western context of philosophy “in terms of professional intellectual pursuit that can, be set aside at the end of the working day,” in Indian films, the term is more directly “associated with one’s personal destiny,” and “as an attempt to understand the true nature of reality in terms of an inner or spiritual quest.”
When one writes about so many different yet allied subjects which involve hundreds of much-loved and admired people, one is bound to miss out many truly talented achievers. For such omissions, some deliberate, but more on account of space constraints, I can only apologize. I have tried to be objective and give the reader a kind of a bird’s-eye view with an occasional deep dive. Sometimes if it reads like a book of lists, I crave your indulgence. A research team helped me for three years to gather material from various sources, which I then distilled and interpreted. Most of the facts are culled out from different sources, not any one source, hence not attributed. Besides, a large part is based on personal knowledge of people and events since the 1960s.
Such an approach will lead to yet another interpretation: Unravelling the mystery of one’s psyche and searching for one’s identity may lead to one’s self-destruction. In this view, Ajayan’s search for identity starts right from when we see him crying as a child for mother’s milk. Questions on who are his mother and father haunt him. True to the meaning of his name Ajayan (the invincible one), his performance is extraordinary in studies, sports etc. but he excels in everything perhaps to make up for his lack of identity. The film makes an acute observation that super competence may end up as a failure. Yearning for a caring woman, Ajayan develops a liking for an elder girl Lata which is thwarted by a couple of senior boys. He gets attracted to his foster brother Balu’s sensuous wife Suma which ruins his studies. Curiously, the meaning of Suma’s full name, Sumangali, is “a married woman whose husband is alive”. He confesses his feeling of guilt for his forbidden feelings for Suma which apparently leads to his suicide. The second version is clearly in a different voice, making us recognize that there are in fact multiple voices in one person which may come into conflict. Perhaps the voice in the first version overstated his ability as the voice in the second one doesn’t portray him as gifted. “Ajayan” turns out to be an ironical name. The two versions view the servants differently. The three caring servants in the first are made to look iconic like the male counterparts of the three witches in Macbeth, inflicting pain on him perhaps because they know that he is the foster son of their employer. Later Ajayan comes to know that his foster father whom he has been calling as “uncle” and the yogini could be his real parents. He must have been very much disappointed that he was denied his identity. While the love for Suma is forbidden, the love for Nalini cannot be materialized. When he goes to meet her in her house, she is called Malini which is the name of a yakshi (seductive spirit). His identity as a lover is in question. Ajayan doesn’t find the world knowable. In the end he says that there are some more things that he hasn’t told us and some he has forgotten, hinting that there could be more versions. But he is nowhere near fathoming his psyche. The ending is unresolved. Ajayan’s problem is that he is very sensitive and he is aware of the futility of his search which torments him and leads him to his self-destruction.
Even in her plaintive numbers, Geeta Dutt portrays that stoic indifference and is not swamped by sorrows. In ‘Waqt ne kiya’, she is overladen with sighs, but she negotiates with them, without veering off on the verge of sentiment. And when she is not detached or in a mood to negotiate, she is the most spontaneous. ‘Mujhe jaa na kaho, meri jaan’ and ‘Na jo saiya’ are songs of starkly different moods—her voice is choked with laughter and ecstasy in one, and trails off with desperation in the other. This combination of spontaneity, detachment, playful coyness and joyful quirkiness makes Geeta Dutt the artiste extraordinaire, and, arguably, one of the most inimitable singers of the erstwhile Bombay Talkies.