Uncertain and inconclusive

Recently, the town's cultural center featured an evening of "Bollywood" dance.  I refused to go anywhere near that.  Because, "Bollywood" is, as the current President might note, fake news.  As the late Shashi Kapoor put it, Bollywood is "pure escapism."  The escapism often playing on the base emotions like, yes, sex.

Of course I have watched a few "Bollywood" movies in my life.  As one who grew up in India, how could I have not?  But, anybody who is even remotely familiar with India knows that Bollywood is not India.  Instead, it is some kind of a fantasy world. A crazy invention.

As a young adult, I started turning away from those formulaic movies. And, thanks to the one-channel television that was introduced, I finally could watch movies that I had only read about in newspapers and magazines.  The movies that rarely ever played in cinema houses but won awards both at home and abroad.

Mrinal Sen was one of those movie makers, whose movies appealed to me.  As art, and as stories about the real world and its people, his was among the few movies that I remember and cherish even after all these years.

Sen became a seminal figure of India’s “parallel cinema,” which was less the counterpart that its name suggests than an utter refusal of the predominant model of filmmaking in the subcontinent, now colloquially known as Bollywood.

Source

The older I got, the more the Bollywood movies were unwatchable, like in the instances that I have blogged about.  (Here and here.)  Every visit to India has been even more disappointing than the previous ones on how far removed society seems to be from art and culture.

Sen's Ek Din Pratidin I vaguely remember--after all, it has been more than three decades and my memory isn't what it used to be.  Until I read that essay, I had no idea that Sen is still alive.  He is.

Now ninety-four, Sen grew up during the era of Gandhi’s protest against colonial rule, in rural Faridpur, “an unknown little town belonging to the ancient landmass of undivided India,” as the director describes it in a rambling but ultimately moving memoir

No doubt that a life experienced over all those changes would be reflected in the art that Sen created. In those art films, which did not cater to any set formula, the endings often left the viewer exploring the story and the characters because there was no real ending.  No bow tie to wrap up the box.  Sen was no different:

“Life itself is uncertain and inconclusive,” he has said. “Then why should I make a creation conclusive? Thus, all my films are open-ended.”

Uncertain and inconclusive, indeed.  Which is exactly how the latest art film that we watched also wrapped up--uncertain and inconclusive.  If only they made more such movies in the old country instead of the messed up Bollywood ones!

Flowers bloom on Chowringhee Lane

When my cousin asked me about movies that I had watched recently, I laughed and reminded her that our movie tastes do not always coincide.  I told her about two movies that we had watched, and strongly recommended them.

Right from a young age, I have gravitated towards the non-commercial, non-formulaic, movies. One of my greatest complaints when growing up was that the "art" movies were not shown in theatres near me.

Fortunately, television solved that problem.

One of those non-commercial movies that I watched and enjoyed, and one which made me think a lot, was 36 Chowringhee Lane.  I was impressed with every aspect of the movie.  About how the story was told. About the story itself.  And about the director being a woman!

The main character there was an Anglo-Indian woman.  Only because of that movie did I know that she was the wife of one of the big-time commercial Hindi actors--Shashi Kapoor.  I felt a personal loss when she, Jennifer Kendal, died soon after I came to know about her.

Now, more than three decades later, Shashi Kapoor is also dead.

Balbir Raj Kapoor was born on March 18, 1938, in what was then Calcutta (now Kolkata). He had no trouble breaking into the movie business: His father was Prithviraj Kapoor, a famous actor. His mother was the former Ramsarni Mehra.
Shashi, as he became known, was still a child when he appeared in his first films, in the 1940s and ’50s.

There is so much of a dynastic effect in some professions, especially in movies.

Shashi Kapoor, too, was more than a mere lip-syncing Bollywood actor:

In 1963 he played a teacher in the domestic comedy “The Householder,” directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, the first of a series of films Mr. Kapoor made for that production team.

Yep, that Ivory-Merchant team that gave us all those awesome movies in which nobody danced around trees!

But, as much as I loved the non-commercial movies, I loved the junk-food that the commercial ones were. Not because of any weighty stories that helped understand the human condition.  Nope, those Bollywood movies couldn't care about them. Shashi Kapoor himself talked about it:

“Of course, a lot of these films look silly,” he told The Times for an article about how movies had become a sort of balm for India’s poor. “But this is exactly what people want, pure escapism. You have people who are uneducated, poor, hungry — they want to escape from all that, they want and need some unreality.”

I couldn't understand the language too.  But, there was one thing that was awesome in those movies--the melodies of many of those film songs.

My favorite of the Shashi Kapoor film songs is this one, particularly because of the classical raaga that is the basis of the tune.

Yes, Shashi Kapoor did what was expected in the commercial Bollywood. Like life itself, it is all a part of the package.

An act of the great tamasha comes to an end. Thankfully!

"How come they are playing only two tests this time?" my mother asked me about the two match series between India and the West Indies.  "It is a Sachin special" I told her.  "To make his retirement happen."

Sachin Tendulka finally getting off the stage is consistent with the tamasha in all aspects of life in India--the principal actors just never quit!

Tamasha is a wonderfully unique word.  At one level it means entertainment. But, it is also more than entertainment.  It is a grand show. It is a spectacle. It is commotion.  It is noise.  It is tamasha.

During my growing up years in India, the awesome tamasha in politics was wonderful entertainment for me.  Of course, it was nothing but heartache when I started identifying with any single actor.  But, I learnt to set aside any affinity for any individual and enjoy the spectacle, the entertainment, the commotion, the noise, the grand show.  It was the best possible theatre from across the street--literally--to what I could get from the radio and newspaper and the magazines and from the grownups' arguments.

Cricket was a lot more sober and sedate those days.  It became a tamasha only after I lost interest in the game, and certainly only in the last few years.  I was, thankfully, spared all that.

My mother, on the other hand, is thankful that cricket became a tamasha.  When I was a kid and passionately followed cricket, she had no choice but to listen to the commentary and report the scores to me when I returned from school.  And even send updates along with the lunch that the maid brought to school during our much younger days.

But, she found the five days of test playing to be a bore.  The tamasha that cricket is now she is very excited about.  "In the tests, they play a lot of 'dokku'" she complained once.  This tamasha engages her way more than movies or television shows do.

My guess is that my mother is not alone in this.  Ashis Nandy famously commented that cricket is an Indian game that was accidentally invented in England, and combine this with the Indian tamasha and you have hundreds of millions addicted to this cricket tamasha which is beyond the fascination for any other tamashas.  Compared to this, even the fabulous epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana are as slow and boring as War and Peace can be!

Of course, I am borrowing the tamasha description for cricket--from James Astill's The Great Tamasha.  In an interview with NPR, he commented:

When the IPL, the Indian Premier League, India's most popular domestic cricket tournament — it's worth several billion dollars, it's estimated — when that tournament runs for seven weeks in April and May each year, Bollywood stops releasing movies, because Indians just don't go to the cinema. They stay at home and they watch cricket on television.

When Bollywood stops being a tamasha, well, does one need a better metric!

In successful Indian tamashas the best actors hang on for a long time.  At Bollywood, everywhere you look, there is Amitabh Bhachchan, wearing his 1970s-style toupee.  You change the settings, and it is Rajinikanth.

In politics too.  One of the best in the tamasha business is Karunanidhi, whose gifted way of speaking was wonderful entertainment for the young me.  The fact that he is pushing 90 does not seem to affect the tamasha even one bit--in fact, it seems to make it all the more exciting!

It is against such a backdrop of tamasha and the actors hanging on for a very long time comes the retirement of Sachin.

 My mother, along with hundreds of millions of Indians, will watch this test match, however boring they might think the format is, only because one small aspect of the tamasha is coming to an end.  But, they know that the tamasha itself will continue on for a very, very long time to come.

I saw a beautiful woman during a painful train ride

"It has probably been 20 or 25 years since I watched any "Indian" movie" I replied to the visitor's question as we walked across the campus.

It is not that I was exaggerating--I had plainly forgotten the two movies that I watched in India during the sabbatical.  I suppose that by itself says a lot about how much those movies (this and this) made an impression on me!

Over the decades that I have been in the US, I have, of course, watched quite a few movies set in India.  The first of those was when I was in graduate school--Salaam Bombay. A long list of them, all the way to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  But then, these are not "Indian" movies.

Three (or more?) weeks ago when Netflix listed Chennai Express in its list of new additions, I was tempted.  Not because I wanted to watch an Indian movie, but because a while ago, when the sun's rays were warm here in Oregon, via Twitter I had read this scathing review of the movie. And then my friend was all gooey about it.  So, when I spotted it on Netflix, I decided to watch Chennai Express.

I had forgotten how incredibly long Indian movies are.  If a story is told in three acts, in the case of Chennai Express, I started fast-forwarding even a few minutes into the first act itself.  

I simply could not continue watching--it was  insanely formulaic and sophomoric.  The good thing about Netflix--I knew I could always continue at a later date from where I had hit pause.  If not for the beautiful woman that the lead female actor, Deepika Padukone, is, I would have even abandoned the movie!

A few days ago, when in Seattle, when the context came up, I shared with them my experience with Chennai Express.  I was glad that there was at least one other fellow-traveler in this atrocious train ride.  Unlike me, she had even paid five dollars to watch the movie, as if to confirm PT Barnum's acute observation ;)

Saturday night, with nothing else to do, I decided to continue with the movie.  There was no worry that I would have forgotten about the fine details of the story--there were no details to keep track anyway.  Thus, armed with the remote to fast-forward, I clicked on the resume option.

The movie reached the second act just about when a typical Hollywood movie would start tying up the loose ends of the story in the third act.

Yep, I watched the movie with the subtitles on.  As the sarcastic review noted, I don't speak "yindi" and without the subtitles it was just a whole bunch of gobbledygook!  Even stranger was how hard to understand it was when the characters spoke Tamil.  Not because I have lost my fluency in the language, but because of the horrible pronunciation by the lead female actor who was playing the role of a Tamil woman.  Well, at least she is one good looking woman--no Mallika, however!

Even with all the fast-forwarding, it seemed like a never ending movie with all the old Bollywood formula elements--a designated bad guy, the villain, who was out to claim the woman; fight scenes that were awfully choreographed; and comedic lines that were as painful as I remember them from years ago.  But, hot damn, the female actor is one beautiful woman! ;)

A lot more fast-forwarding and finally the scene when the man and the woman profess their love for each other.  All is well that ends well.

I was about to shut it off when I spotted what seemed like outtakes along with the credits.  I am glad I saw that.  Though they were not outtakes, what I watched when the credits rolled by was perhaps the best part of the movie--a song and dance routine that was a hilarious take on the superstar who is equally famous in Japan--"Thalaiva" Rajanikanth--and the Jai Ho sequence from Slumdog Millionaire:




It is beyond my imagination as to why such movies continue to be made and, more than that, how they rake in those huge amounts at the box offices around the world.

Oh well ...  Jai Ho!

Masala movies in foreign locations are no less masalas

Last year, my brother compelled us to watch a favorite movie of his--Three Idiots.  This time, he went for a twofer: Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and English Vinglish.  Thankfully it was not a marathon, but spread over a couple of days is the best I can say about them :)

Perhaps because I have been away from the traditional Indian scene for an overwhelming majority of my adult life, I found it difficult to get connected with the two movies.

My first thought was that as much as Hollywood has been increasingly shying away from movies with lots of dialog because "talking" doesn't sell all that well in the rapidly growing foreign market where money is to be made, it appears that Bollywood is keen on tapping into the wallets of the Indian diaspora in the affluent countries.  Traditional formulas are, therefore, slightly tinkered around with in order to make it a lot more marketable especially in the US, UK and the Middle East, while appealing to the local population at the same time.  All these folks know how to make money--a strategy that simply does not fascinate me at all!

The Zindagi movie story unfolds in Spain, and throughout the movie I wondered whether the Spanish government had underwritten a part of the production costs for all the tourism advertising the movie seemed to promote.

The running of the bulls? Check.
The tomato festival? Check.
Fabulous beaches? Check.
Flamenco dances? Check. 

The movie reminded me of the contrast it made against a Hollywood movie from a few years ago, The Darjeeling Limited.  In the Hollywood movie, the focus was on the story telling, helping us understand the characters and empathizing with them, with the location merely as a backdrop.  Bollywood's focus was on locations and beautiful bodies.  Speaking of beautiful bodies, boy is Hrithik Roshan one good looking dude!  Too bad he can't act though; reminds me of Seinfeld's joke about "mambo"--male bimbo :)

English Vinglish, which I had consciously avoided even though it was an option in the in-flight movie options, seemed at times to be a painful remaking of the hilarious British sitcom, Mind Your Language.  A few minutes into the movie, I started to fidget around and re-position myself in the chair.  Finally, I simply walked away from the movie that had way too many cliches for my taste.

Later on, when a friend's daughter commented that she had hoped that the lead character, played by Sridevi, would ditch her husband in favor of the French chef who was totally into her, I agreed and added, "if she had done that, well, that would have been quite a movie."

But, the money-makers know all too well that a wife ditching her condescending and abusive husband would not appeal to the "traditional" value-minding Indians, even to the diaspora living in countries where such traditions of putting women down are considered bizarre and insulting.  Even the notoriously male chauvinist character, James Bond, has been transformed into a man with feelings and emotions, so much so that he could easily become the lead character in a sequel to Terms of Endearment!

English Vinglish at least had female characters in the story who were more than one-dimensional.  Unfortunately, the females seemed to be constrained by the walls of traditions.  Even in my teenage years, there seemed to be a lot more movies with strong female characters in the story.  But then they were in Tamil and Malayalam movies--not in the flashy Bollywood productions!

However, even my memories of old Tamil movies may be distorted after all; a cousin asked me a few days before my departure, "remember how you wanted us all to watch Kaadhalikka Neramillai last year and then fell off asleep a few minutes into the movie?"

Until the next trip, for yet another installment of Indian movies.

A strange math: GI Bill + Henry Mancini = Lata Mangeshkar!

It is the middle of the term, and I have way too many papers to read and grade.  If only I simplified my life and students' lives by not assigning so much of writing, and instead used bubbling-in testing, right?

Nah!  Never, ever!

But, I always seem to have a great deal of inertia when it comes to this task.  I then look for distractions so that I can put off the reading and commenting and grading that much longer, even as the pressure builds within me that I am delaying it.

Following political discussions, or anything related to higher education, is, therefore, very, very appealing right now.  In this essay, I read:

it was the G.I. Bill that really gave us the Mancini we love. Without its backing he would likely not have been able to afford to study at the Westlake School of Music. There he attended one-on-one theory and harmony classes with Alfred Sendry, a former classmate of Bartok, and orchestration with Mahler’s son-in-law, the romantic-turned-atonalist Ernst Krenek. Anyone who admires Mancini’s score for Stanley Donen’s Arabesque, with its thunderously unsettling chromatic bass riff and its double harmonic (Arabian) melody line that can never quite settle on either A minor or G minor, should be thankful for what he learned at Westlake—and doubly thankful that he wanted to share it with us. If Bernard Herrmann’s scores for Hitchcock served to introduce many people to the discordant ideas of late romanticism, Mancini’s functioned to popularize the yet harsher sounds of Viennese modernism. Even the lovely waltz-time theme he wrote for Donen’s Charade, which finds room for an astonishing diminished C sharp arpeggio in it’s A minor melody, can pain as much as it pleases.

As I continued reading, in the background my mind was bothered that it could not remember the Charade tune.

So, when done with the essay, I hopped over to YouTube, and easily tracked down Charade.

As the music started playing, I was immediately reminded of a Hindi film tune.  Another quick search; here is Lata Mangeshkar singing the tune that is pretty much the Charade theme. 

Now, about those papers ...

Thank Iran (Persia) for Bollywood!

There is a good chance that most of the buffoons who chant "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" don't care to know anything at all about the country's gloriously rich history.  The theocratic buffoons ruining running the country seem to be hell bent on making sure the world would understand Iran only as a country of nutcases.

A long time ago, I read somewhere (where? the older I get, the more I forget such details!) that even as Arabic gained currency in West Asia as the language of science, Persian reigned supreme as the language of culture.  Something like the comparison between French and German, I suppose.

It was a good thing that the Central Asians invading India brought along with them the Persian culture, which then filtered all the way down to memorable Bollywood stars who played memorable Muslim characters with memorable melodies.

Some of my favorites:

A porn star + Bollywood = Box office success?

Unlike an earlier post, this one is about sex in Hindi movies.  So, there!

In a way, perhaps it is a continuation of my recent posts on the 25 years that it has been since I left India.  Bollywood and sex are only props for me, eh!  Or, perhaps the idea that "sex" sells :)

Earlier today, a Wall Street Journal tweet caught my attention, which led me to read this piece there on Ekta Kapoor who "Pitches Dirtier Bollywood."

Her big-screen efforts display plenty of skin and sex, in contrast to the "no-kissing, song-and-dance-routine" Bollywood films that have dominated the box office for years.

Plenty of skin and sex?  That is quite a change from the India I left behind in 1987!  As I noted in that earlier post, "Women with a lot of skin exposed was not the way Indian movies were made." Even the poster for the notorious "Her Nights" had only the man all exposed--well, his upper body!

As the Guardian notes:

"It was only 25 years ago that you couldn't show a kiss on screen in Bollywood," said Pankaj Kothari, who runs a talent management agency in Mumbai. "They would show two flowers 'kissing' instead. If the director wanted to suggest a sex scene, they would include a shot of a bedside lamp going dark."

 Yep, that is how it was done then.  Symbolic representations.  No real stuff.  But, I was okay with that--it was like reading where one had to rely on on our own imaginations.  Often, it turns out that our imaginations are way more exciting than whatever is real.

The WSJ adds:

Ms. Kapoor has now signed up Sunny Leone, a Canadian porn actress of Indian origin, for an upcoming horror flick.
"For me, it's another branch and another expression of doing films without [mainstream] actors," said Ms. Kapoor. "That's why we've signed on Sunny Leone. Clearly she is not in the star bracket but definitely in the controversial bracket." She added: "I warn you, don't expect anything cerebral out of it."

At least there is one way in which Bollywood has not changed then: nothing cerebral in its movies!  I watched Bengali or Malayalam movies with subtitles, or the rare Tamil movie, to activate my brain cells.  Bollywood was only to look stare at good looking women--Hema Malini or Rekha or Zeenat Aman, back in my days.

Back to the Guardian:

Leone had to learn Hindi for the film but didn't have to dig too deep to research her character: she plays a porn actor who is tasked by the intelligence agencies with luring in a deadly assassin with her charms.
The film is due to open this weekend at 1,300 screens with the equivalent of an 18 certificate. But is India ready? Manish Dubey, editor at the Bollywood channel UTV Stars, thinks so. "The days of a bikini providing titillation are gone. We are now moving towards bold acts which include love making scenes, going semi-nude and bold dialogues," he said, adding: "Nothing can be deemed 'shocking' for today's audience."

Hmmmm, I am not sure whether this is particularly a good development.  Semi-nudity here in the US, for instance, is pretty much a boring pedestrian sight on hot summer days.  Public displays of affection don't even make us pause to look.  So, unless it is full frontal nudity, there is nothing to write home about.  But, in India, I would think that such depictions will be far removed from everyday life.  But then, in everyday life people don't go around singing and dancing and running from tree to tree either.  Oh well; not my problem!

So, will the new film with a porn actress break any new ground?

But does Jism 2 really offer anything new? It doesn't break any cinematic new ground, said Dubey – it has just capitalised on its unique selling point: having a porn star lead. "The bottom line is that flesh display in the film will be the same [as in other films] but the 'expectation' of getting more flesh would be high with the result that it might benefit them at the box office."

Aha, the good ol' bait and switch, it seems like--draw more attention by talking about sex and a porn actress in order to sell more tickets.  Hey, PT Barnum, you were right, yet again!

The WSJ notes that Ekta Kapoor's father was a movie star in his days--Jeetendra.  As Johnny Carson often quipped, "I did not know that!"

Here is one of my favorites from a Jeetendra movie (I didn't know it was a Jeetendra movie until I googled!)

On Mohammed Rafi, Heineken, and Auto-tuning

Trying to catch up on the Americana that I had missed out on by having been outside the country for a hundred days is impossible, I know.  But, I try :)

I read this piece about how Bollywood is slowly diffusing into the mainstream here in the US, and there I came across the following ad that apparently went viral:



So, naturally, I went after the original, which has Mohammed Rafi providing the vocals.  There is some high octane dancing--even without Shammi Kapoor, the actor whom I always imagine manically gyrating away whenever I hear such Hindi film music :)



Well, this is infinitely better than the auto-tuned "hits"--reading the New Yorker essay was one awfully depressing experience, to know that this is how the radio Top Forty hits are manufactured :(  In the Culture Desk blog, following up on the essay,  John Seabrook adds:

Almost all the music you hear on Top Forty radio these days is made on machines. You may hear a real guitar once in a while, but an actual drum sound is pretty rare. The singing is still done by humans, but the voices are never ever off pitch, thanks to Auto-Tuning. Is there a problem here?

Ahem, frankly I don't know if there is a problem here.  But, awfully depressing to think that a Rafi might not be necessary for the magic anymore.  Well, at least we have the gems, like the following one, from the past:

On watching an Indian movie in an Indian multiplex. After 26 years!

A few months ago, my cousin "V" recalled a movie experience and asked if I remembered it.  I, of course, drew a complete blank.  She was surprised that I didn't remember how "we went to watch a movie in thiruvalam and came out because of bedbugs in our seats!!!!!!!"

Perhaps that is why I never went to movies in India that much :)

The bedbug experience was before I left for the US.  To the best of my recollection, over the last 25 years, I haven't been to any Indian movie--neither in the US nor during my visits to India.  Of course, I don't count films by people like Mira Nair as truly Indian.

This time around, I thought it might be a fun experience to watch one.  A friend, "S," recommended a Tamizh movie.  But, I chickened out at the thought of three-plus hours of movie watching.

Eventually, I took the plunge when "X" and "Y" seemed enthused enough. They assured me that it would be a good one, especially because Irfan was in it.

I had no idea about Irfan.  And it was a Hindi movie at that.  But, I was game for it, and off we went.

The movie was Paan Singh Tomar. 

As we walked into the hall, the larger seating capacity itself was a reminder that I was not in the US.  I made sure I didn't lose my footing in the dim lighting.

When the movie started and Irfan appeared on the screen, I recognized him from The Namesake and Slumdog Millionaire.  I liked his acting in both those films, and I could now sense why "X" and "Y" were confident about an Irfan movie. 

As the story developed, I got even more excited.  Not because I followed the dialogs.  The excitement was because a good chunk of the story is set in the Chambal Valley, where I was only a month ago.  A sense of "I know this place" made me sit up even straighter.  I recalled driving over a river a little outside of Gwalior and wondered aloud whether that was the Chambal, and it was.  I hurriedly took a photo:

 

And then I thought that perhaps I might even get to see men walking around with huge shotguns on their backs.  Sure enough, soon there was one.  He was pedaling away on his bicycle, with an automatic rifle tied around his back and a magazine across his shoulder.  I didn't dare to take a photo of him, however, lest he unloaded a few bullets on me.

Anyway, in the movie, in one context, a character referred to the place Bhind.  I couldn't control my excitement; I turned to "X" and said, "Oh my god, Bhind!"

My thanks to "X," "Y," and "Z" for all the excitement related to this movie, and for the experience of watching an Indian movie after all these years.

Oh, about the movie itself?  It was definitely not your stereotypical Bollywood product, with mindless singing and dancing and running around in the Alps.  There is, of course, a lot of melodrama, which could have been easily eliminated for a much tighter storytelling at within 100 minutes.  I would rate Paan Singh Tomar a B+.  And an A- it will be if I factor in all my excitement :)

Sex and the Indian movies. Nope, not about Bollywood

As Shikha Dalmia wrote recently, the "suggestive eroticism" in Indian, especially Bollywood, movies, to go with the typical story line of constrained social relationships across the genders, add up to a formula that finds a receptive audience not only in India, but in the Middle East too.  Hollywood movies are alien to this huge population belt, compared to the social norms.

The movies were even tamer, way tamer, back when I was a kid.  I remember feeling that I had attained nirvana of sorts, as a teenager, when I watched Barbara Bach as the sexy Russian spy in The Spy Who Loved Me--my first ever James Bond experience.  Women with a lot of skin exposed was not the way Indian movies were made.

This particular Bond movie was fantastic for a memorable movie experience: as the movie ended and the credits started rolling, the middle aged man in the adjacent seat asked me, in Tamil, what the movie's story was, making it explicit that he had other reasons to come to the theatre :)

There was one genre of movies that were considered risque, and they were all Malayalam movies, some of which were then remade in other languages.  One of the biggest success of them all was "Avalude Ravukal," which means "Her Nights" and this was the title of the movie in the Hindi remake as well.

I recall the posters splashed all over, and it was the talk among the boys, who, as boys often did, exaggerated a great deal about the movie because, well, I doubt any of us had actually watched it!

The reality, as I later understood from an academic exploration, was far from anything we had imagined as teenagers.  It was even considered "soft porn" material at that time only because the movie had pushed the theme of "suggestive eroticism" a little more than what people were used to.  There was no nudity--not even partial--and, as this poster shows, the man shows a lot more skin than the woman does!

What I didn't know, until I read this BBC report, is this: there were special "morning shows" of this genre of movies:

Back in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s so-called "morning shows" were hugely popular - their all-male audiences consisted largely of schoolboys and bachelors seeking a rare glimpse of female flesh.
Because they dealt with the taboo subject of sex in a conservative India, the films were considered soft porn here.
But despite their suggestive titles and racy posters, the films were really pretty tame by international standards.

Every single day it is something new about India!

Anyway, these posters, apparently, are the theme of an exhibit in New Delhi.  Strange how something that happened in my short life has become aged and quaint enough to morph into exhibits.  Boy, am I getting old then!

"Morning shows" - and their hand-painted posters - did a thriving business until the advent of 24-hour television, cheap videos and DVDs and the internet began their downward slide. ...
The exhibition, Morning Show, is perhaps the first time such posters have gone on display in India.
"The morning show culture is almost gone now," says V Sunil, the curator of the exhibition.
"In the pre-internet and television era, a whole generation of Indian men learnt their birds and bees from these films," he says.
The shows usually began at 10am and finished before the hordes descended on the cinemas to see mainstream Bollywood offerings.
Mr Sunil is the creative director at Wieden+Kennedy, a US-based advertising firm, and the show at the swish art gallery at their office in south Delhi's Sheikh Sarai area has 23 posters on display.
The gallery, rated the city's best by Delhi Time Out magazine last year, might seem an unlikely venue to show posters about films which were regarded as a bit sleazy. No woman was ever seen queuing to get into a morning show.
But organisers say the exhibition has attracted a steady stream of visitors - and a surprisingly large number of them have been women.

India has come quite some ways since those days, but "sex" continues to be a highly delicate topic, in contrast to the rather mundane nature in this part of the world.

Sexual relations take on entirely different dynamics there.  When an actor, Kushboo championed sex education and even remarked that “no educated man would expect his [bride] to be a virgin," criminal proceedings against her were litigated all the way to India's highest court, which ruled that:

[Unmarried couples] have the right to live together after hearing a case involving a Tamil actress accused of corrupting young minds by promoting premarital sex.
The judges pointed out that even the Hindu gods, Lord Krishna and Radha, were co-habiting lovers rather than man and wife. “When two adult people want to live together, what is the offence?” they said. “Living together is not an offence. Living together is a right to life.”

India is one heck of a complicated country, to say the least.

A recent incident further illustrates how institutions are having a tough time in these contexts:

The Kannada Film Producers' Association imposed the three-year ban earlier this week, saying Ms Thukral had spoiled the "domestic harmony of a fellow actor".
But opposition within the film industry convinced producers to reverse the ban.
Ms Thukral denies having an affair with the actor, known as Darshan, a popular action hero in south India.
"Looking back it was a hasty decision. We have written to her expressing regret," the president of the Karnataka Film Producers' Association, Munirathnam, told reporters.
The association initially said the ban would be reconsidered only if she apologised but Ms Thukral refused, insisting she had had no inappropriate relationship with Darshan.

From here, we would wonder why the movie producers have to even remotely think about penalizing an actor even if she had had sexual liaisons with a married actor.

The unequal gender treatment becomes clear when one reads this:

The ban was imposed after Darshan was arrested on charges of domestic violence last week, following a complaint from his wife, Vijaylakshmi.
She alleged that he had beaten her and threatened her with a gun but she later withdrew the complaint, a police official told the BBC. The argument was reportedly over the alleged affair with Ms Thukral.

So, the married male actor may or may not have had an affair with a female actor.  The female actor was banned from the industry.  The male actor is reported to have physically assaulted his wife and threatened her with a gun and no action was taken against him?  Strange are the ways, I suppose.

Remembrance of things past: Navin Nischol

Navin Nischol, the "poor man's Rajesh Khanna," died of a massive heart attack.

Never on Sunday--the crazy Bollywood style!

Obama's post-election healing ... in India

Earlier today, as I was exiting the restroom, a much senior faculty colleague remarked "Obama is going to your country" ...

I have been a citizen for quite a while, and this colleague knows that I vote and participate in the civic affairs of the US, which is my country now. He has even let me know how an op-ed was not the best way to win friends!

But, no point arguing about it, I thought. 

I said, "yes, he is going to India." But, then as I reached for the door, I thought I ought to correct his statement even more.  So, I added, "My country is the US"

Life being a strange drama, a few hours later I am exiting the same restroom when the same colleague comes in.  This time he says, "I am sorry, I was not commenting on you being an American."  Better late than never, I suppose.

But, this is merely yet another episode in a long-running series of how often I feel I am viewed as an "Indian" and not as an American who happens to be from India.  Funnily enough, even my students, to many of whom I am probably the first ever non-white-American instructor when they come to my classes, seem to recognize that I am American--despite my accent!.  Their conversations with me are about a whole lot of Americana--from South Park to football to politics to Hollywood. Yet, there are faculty colleagues who think that the only common conversation topic between me and them is all things India?

Anyway, back to the President heading to India.  It is a big event, of course.  I am not sure if the daughters will accompany their father; I hope they will because it will be one awesome experience for them.

The Indian population, the business and political leaders, are all awaiting the visit.  Here is one of the leading entrepreneurs who is now leading the government effort for a national ID card, talking about the significance of this visit:


And, yes, BTW, Diwali is on November 5th, and Obama will reach Bombay the day after that.  So, when he is India, Obama will be viewed by the nutcases here as a secret Hindu, and later when the President is in Indonesia, his secret Muslim identity will be confirmed.  Why isn't he suspected of being a Buddhist, eh!

The WSJ has a suggestion of five Indian movies for in-flight entertainment as a way to also understand a few issues related to India.  The first two recommendations:

The first movie is India’s nominee for the Oscars this year: “Peepli Live.” If nothing else, this movie will prepare the President for India’s rambunctious press corp. While the U.S. has three cable general news channels, India has more than 20 and they compete fiercely for news stories.
Peepli Live explores how Indian news channels manufacture news to gain ratings. In the movie, a farmer contemplates suicide as the only way out of his family’s crushing debt. Unfortunately, the story is familiar to Indian audiences, as there has been a scourge of farmer suicides because of mountains of debt.
It’s the flip side of emerging India, the India that used to be written about: poor, hungry and destitute. That India still exists. And Mr. Obama will probably miss most of it visiting Mumbai and Delhi. Hundreds of millions of Indians still live on less than $1.25 a day and many have a hand to mouth existence.
For many Indians — and potentially Mr. Obama — Peepli Live was a vivid reminder of how far India still has to go and how important it is that the Indian economic miracle succeed.
The next is “3 Idiots.” Based loosely on a book, 3 Idiots explores the lives of three engineering students at an Indian Institute of Technology-like institution. It puts a human face on the experience of the workers that populate the Bangalore of American myth.

Have a good time, Mr. President.  The best thing to heal from the election bruising.

"Peepli" ... and on the death of theatre in India?

Thanks to Spiked, I ended up watching this trailer for Peepli:

The storyline, as Spiked summarizes it, is:

The film, a comic satire, tells the story of Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri), a poor farmer in the fictional state of Mukhya Pradesh. Faced with the prospect of losing his ancestral land, Natha is convinced by his brother to commit suicide so that his family will receive a compensatory 100,000 rupees from the state government. As Mukhya Pradesh is preparing for elections, Natha’s story is picked up by the media and quickly becomes the focus of political debate and of competing media outfits. Eventually, the humble farmer, his family and their goats are virtually imprisoned in their shabby house, surrounded by raving flocks of TV reporters, while politicians show up bearing gifts of hand pumps and TVs for which there is no well or electricity.

Sounds promising.

It so reminds me of a Tamil film from three decades ago, called "Thanneer Thanneer", which in English would translate to "Water, Water."  Adapted from a play, the movie was one sarcastic tragic-comedy on the plight of the poor, the bureaucracy, and the self-promoting and self-aggrandizing politicians.  It was brilliant.

There are wonderful stories to be told, given the vastness of the country.  It doesn't always have to be about poverty and politics either.  Even the lives of the millions of middle class are ripe with stories.  I can't understand why instead the movie folks churn out the same old formulaic movies over and over.

More than the formulaic movies themselves, I am concerned about what comes across as the death of the arts in India.  The last couple of times when I was in Chennai for extended periods of time, everyday I scanned the paper for listings of plays and off-beat films.  It can't be that the paper systematically did not list such.  It was rare.  I couldn't believe, and still cannot believe, that a city and a culture with a rich history of literature can be so devoid of live performances.  Movies and television have completely taken over.  Perhaps the education system too does not encourage the arts, with its focus on promoting science and technology?

Even in the small town of Neyveli, I have watched Tamil plays--at the "Sangeetha Sabha."  That was more than thirty years ago, and before the age of television.  I still crack-up when I think about the clever and punny dialogs in one of those plays that capitalized on the slang and near-dialects in Tamil in different parts of the state, including the "Tirunelveli Tamil" with which I could easily identify.  Perhaps even Neyveli's cultural life has changed since then. 

Anyway, last year in Chennai, one day I spotted something interesting in the paper--about an Italian film that would be screened.  For free! It was not at a movie hall, and I had a tough time locating the venue off Anna Salai.  Finally, I reached the place.

I walked up to the door, and the older gent at the table there asked me whether I was a member.  I explained to him about me visiting from America and having seen the note in the paper. He clarified that the movie was being screened for members of the Film Chamber or some professional group that was involved in the movie-making industry!  He suggested that I wait and talk to the boss to see if I could watch the movie.

A few minutes later, the boss appeared, and he half-heartedly okayed my request.  The movie itself was nothing to write about.  But, the experience was strangely surreal.  Sitting in a darkened movie hall in Chennai, with a whole bunch of strangers who were whispering in Tamil, while watching an Italian movie with English subtitles.  It was the experience that was fantastic.

I continued to scan the paper for Tamil plays, or English plays.  But, nothing.  Then, one day I read in the paper about the publication of a book by an IIT professor--translation of poems from Tamil.  Selections included from the very old to the contemporary.  I was hoping that there would be some kind of a book reading that I could attend.

A few minutes on Google, and I had the email address of that professor.  She replied that there would be a book-reading and invited me to that.

It was truly an O'Henry moment of irony--the event was to be held the weekend after I was scheduled to return home to America!

Indian? Persian? Bollywood? Afghan?

In noting the death of a dear friend, Shahab, I recalled how apparently his mother loved going to Indian movies in Tehran during the days before the Shah was kicked out (which was a good thing) and Khomeini descended down from the plane (worst thing!).  I have also blogged about the influence of Persian music and culture in India and in Hindi movies.  And, about Afghanistan's influence as well.  Time to bring all those together :)
First, this song/dance from a Hindi movie:

And now compare that song with this Persian one:

Instead of enjoying such blissful entertainment, we would rather go to war and kill each other? And, why would the mullahs in Iran and Afghanistan hate them? What is wrong with people? or, in simpler terms, WTF!

The travelling Indians .. in Switzerland, too :)

The Roma set the trend in trotting around the world, starting from India.  For a while, I think people from India lost their wanderlust--perhaps that coincided with the European colonialism and then, to quote from my graduate school days, the systematic development of underdevelopment. 

Now, once again, we are wandering around, sometimes as tourists and other times as immigrants.  Sometimes, it is both--as immigrant tourists--which is what happened over the Fourth of July weekend when my cousin, her husband, and I went to Crater Lake.  The three were in three different political categories: he is an American by birth to parents who immigrated from India.  She is an immigrant who is a permanent resident.  And I am a naturalized American.

At Crater Lake, it seemed as if every third tourist had Indian blood.  I helped a couple (both Indians) take photos with the lake as the background, and the wife seemed like she was relatively new in the country.  Vans and cars of traveling Indian families ... A chai wallah could have made quite a few dollars there :)

Apparently, Indians are crisscrossing all over, and up in the Swiss mountains too, as this NY Times story reports (ht).  However, the Indo-Swiss tourist connection is thanks to Bollywood:

For years, Bollywood’s producers and directors have favored the pristine backdrop of Switzerland for their films. The greatest of the Bollywood filmmakers, Yash Chopra, is a self-professed romantic who has made a point of including in virtually all his films scenes shot on location in this country’s high Alpine meadows, around its serene lakes, and in its charming towns and cities to convey an ideal of sunshine, happiness and tranquillity.
In the process, they have created an enormous curiosity about things Swiss in generations of middle-class Indians, who are now earning enough to travel here in search of their dreams.
“The moment you cross the border it is something else,” Mr. Purohit said, “where the scenario changes.”
“No noise, no pollution, no crowds,” said Kamalakar Tarkasband, 72, a retired army officer.
Swiss tourism officials and their Indian counterparts are capitalizing on this obsession. The number of nights spent by Indian tourists, who come mostly in summer (few ski), has doubled in the last decade to 325,000, and the numbers continue to grow.

It is a similar story with people from China too.  As the Chinese gain disposable incomes, they too are exploring the planet.  Good for all of them, I say.  It is a sign of growing affluence in countries that were once depressingly poor (though, as I noted even earlier in the day, poverty persists!)

Anyway, as the Roma know well, "different" could also mean trouble, as even that NY Times piece reports:

In June, the Zurich newspaper Tages-Anzeiger featured an article with the headline “Into the Luxury Hotel with a Gas Cooker,” noting that “in some hotels an entire caste of guests is no longer desired: the Indians.”
The article catalogued the complaints of hotel managers: guests who cook curry dishes on camping stoves in their rooms; guests who use bath oils that blacken tubs; guests who book for a husband and wife, only to show up with the entire family.
In Engelberg, where a visitor is more likely to encounter a woman in a sari than hear the clang of a cowbell, some European tourists are unsettled.

Well, here is a song/dance clip from one of the movies mentioned in the NY Times piece--Sangam:

Yes, the songs from this movie are all classics.  An uncle had a record player, and when I was a kid I recall him playing another song from this movie for me because he said it was dad's favorite ... and that one is:

Bollywood takes over Hollywood?

Interesting report from The Hindu:

Anil Ambani plans a takeover of the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer Hollywood studio in an attempt to become one of the world’s most powerful film bosses, the Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday.

When contacted, a spokesperson from the Anil Ambani Group declined to comment.

Anil Ambani already owns a controlling stake in Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studio and has struck a series of deals with stars including Brad Pitt, Jim Carrey, Julia Roberts and George Clooney to develop their films.

Anil Ambani-led Reliance Big Pictures produced two most successful films last year while its current blockbuster ‘The 3 Idiots’ has broken Indian box office records.

According to the report, he hopes to expand his influence with an ambitious bid for MGM, the Hollywood studio which owns the James Bond franchise.

Sources close to Ambani confirmed his interest in acquiring MGM and it would help him achieve his ambition to become the world’s most powerful film mogul, the report said.

It also happens that Anil Ambani's wife is a former Bollywood star, Tina Munim :)
Here is a clip from an old movie starring Munim:

Shah Rukh Khan on The Daily Show :-)

Who better than the folks at The Daily Show to comment on the Shah Rukh Khan incident, eh!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Shah Rukh Khan Detained at Newark
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

America upsets India :-(

So, soon after Hillary Clinton's visit to India, I wrote that the US, Clinton, and Obama were hugely popular in that country. Apparently we know how to mess things up, even if unintentionally.

First, there was all the news about how India's former president, Dr. Abdul Kalam, was not given the clearance that apparently people like him--former heads of states and governments--are given at US airports, and was frisked.

Messing up with Dr. Kalam is one thing. But, then detaining the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan takes the issue to a whole new level. First, what happened?

Sharing his “ordeal” which he underwent as he landed at the Newark International Liberty Airport on a British Airways flight, with his fans, the 43-year-old actor said he was grilled by immigration officials.

“It was very unprofessional of the airport security staff of not allowing me to use my cell phone to contact my local organisers,” he told the audience, who were literally taken aback by what they heard from their superstar.

A visibly shattered Mr. Khan said: “I have travelled throughout the world for my shooting and also as brand ambassador for major products, but I have never been treated like this before.”

The irony, which makes this worse?

But to make matters worse, the trip was also to promote a new film, “My Name is Khan,” which is about racial profiling of Muslims after the Sept. 11 attacks.

According to the NY Times:

Kevin Corsaro, a spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security, said on Sunday that Mr. Khan was selected for an in-depth interview, known as a “secondary inspection,” during a routine process that lasted just over an hour. He said that Mr. Khan’s checked luggage was lost by the airline, which prolonged the process.
Mr. Corsaro said that while he could not discuss Mr. Khan’s specific case because of privacy issues, passengers are selected for a variety of reasons: for instance, to verify their identity and purpose of travel. He said that they are not selected because of their religion.

So, what happens when people in a developing country get pissed off? Burning of the US flag, of course! I suppose there are factories all over supplying American flags only for this reason :-)

Angry fans burned a U.S. flag in protest Sunday, a Cabinet minister suggested searching visiting Americans and an actress tweeted her outrage after Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan said he was detained for questioning at a U.S. airport.

Though U.S. immigration officials denied he was formally held, fellow Indian film stars and political leaders condemned what they called "humiliating" treatment given to Khan, a Muslim who is well-loved in a largely Hindu country. One Cabinet minister suggested a "tit-for-tat" policy toward Americans traveling to India.

Angry fans in the northern city of Allahabad shouted anti-U.S. slogans and burned an American flag.