Bad memories.

With all the "oust the outsiders" poison currently vitiating the atmosphere in Mumbai, I'm reminded of two sorry events from my childhood at 233 Khetwadi Main Road. http://tinyurl.com/48tnw4. The first one took place toward the end of World War II. There was strict rationing in force. The rationing administrative office nearest to our house was at Muzzffarabad Hall (aka The People's Jinnah Hall), on the Grant Road Bridge close to Novelty Cinema http://digbig.com/4xwdb, within easy strolling distance from our house. My sister http://digbig.com/4xwdc used to work there. She had learned Urdu in her spare time before taking up the job. She was an ardent movie goer and used to buy and listen to all the latest 78 rpm discs of the hit songs from the movies. With hindsight, it seems likely that she was deeply affected by the passionate love stories she witnessed on the silver screen in the companionable twilight of the movie hall. Those were probably the days when Ratan starring Swarna Lata and featuring the hit song Ankhiyan Milake had just been released. On Saturdays, my sister's office used to close an hour and a half after noon and she would be home by 2 pm. One fateful Saturday afternoon, she did not turn up at her usual arrival time. My mother was frantic with worry. As soon as my father returned home, they had a whispered confab. Phone calls were made and enquiries too all over the city with our relatives and her friends. That night, I was woken up by the weeping of my father and mother. It scared and saddened me no end. I don't recall being particularly saddened by my sister's disappearance, though. This was because, except for surface cordiality, she was not at all fond of me. She must have viewed the late arrival of a male heir on the family scene http://digbig.com/4xwdf when she was already 18 as a threat to her prospects of inheritance. I was in awe of her, even a bit afraid too. Eventually, my sister was traced to my aunt's house in Nowroji Street. She had made this defiant move to declare her intention of marrying a Muslim colleague. I am not aware of what transpired when my parents went to fetch her. In a couple of days, she returned home and resigned her job. Broad-minded as my parents were, the shock of their daughter wanting to marry a Muslim must have been way too much for them to bear. The other sad event occured some time later, maybe in the early fifties. It concerned a cousin of mine from Khar who married a Hindu girl not of our caste. My uncle and, more particularly, my aunt http://digbig.com/4xwdg made it a point to ostracize him from the clan. Although, in their heart of hearts, my parents who were rather fond of the boy, did not want to do it, they had to follow suit. I do not think I was much bothered by all the fuss that was being made. I had never been much concerned with caste and creed right from the beginning. It perturbed me to hear much later that one of my professors in Sydenham College who was also a favourite Marathi author of mine disowned his daughter for marrying a Muslim and went to the extent of taking in her name a purificatory bath that an orthodox Hindu takes after returning home from the crematorium or the burning grounds. In short, he declared to the world that, in his eyes, she was dead and gone. Later on, though, I discovered that malicious rumour mongering had inspired this vicious canard. That, at least, is a good memory to treasure.

Seminal imagery.

There’s one seminal image, in black and white yet, eked from the Hindi movies of the late fifties and early sixties, that’s embedded deep on my mental landscape. It’s Vyjayanthimala http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2002/may/06dinesh.htm standing in a field, shading her doe eyes from the harsh midday sun and scanning the horizon for her boy friend, most likely Dilip Kumar in Ganga Jamuna or Madhumati (remember “Aajaa Re Pardesi”?). I’m intrigued that I should call it ‘seminal’ which according to my Collins English Dictionary, 3rd Edition (p. 1407) means either “1. potentially capable of development”, “2. highly original, influential and important”, “3. rudimentary or unformed”, “4. of or relating to semen; seminal fluid” or the Biology-centric use of “5. of or relating to seed”. While I would not rule out the relevance of #4 entirely in that a screen image is dreamlike and fraught with Freudian possibilities, I would imagine I had sense #2 in mind most probably. This image is “2. highly original, influential and important” to me because in real life it is I who has stood waiting for others. The gender issue aside, Vyjayanthimala qua me, you’ll agree, would be a “highly original” casting coup because I for one thing cannot dance to save my life. (This rules out Hema Malini qua me in Sholay as well.) Coming to the “influential and important” part of the definition, the unforgettable image ought to teach me a very important life lesson. Never, never believe the other person will be as punctual as I am. Especially given the Mumbai traffic situation as also how seriously people take their own word.

Role model.

Believe it or not (sorry, Ripley), my role model once upon a time happened to be an actor. I somehow instinctively started to admire him. He was a theatre and film actor and a Communist. He used to visit the Red Flag Hall on the first floor of 233 Khetwadi Main Road off and on. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/07/morgue.html. This morning, I happened to notice an excerpt from his autobiography translated into Marathi in a Sunday supplement. He writes in this segment (‘My first turn in prison’) about his early days in the Hindi film industry. In it, he mentions about how he used to be escorted from the Arthur Road Jail back in 1949 in order to fulfill his commitment to act in K Asif’s Hulchul. He had been arrested for participating in a morcha or protest march that had a rather bang-up climax in Parel. He recalls how his fellow inmates used to ask him to bring back signed photographs of Dilip Kumar and Nargis, bidis, specific brands of cigarettes, tea powder and so on. K Asif who had arranged for his daily trip to the Rooptara Studio used to obligingly instruct one of his assistants to do the shopping. Our first-time jailbird also recalls how Sahir Ludhianavi, a poet and fellow traveller under police surveillance, who dropped on the sets because he heard he was shooting for Hulchul, beat a hasty retreat when he saw our man dressed as a policeman (his role as jailor required it). He also writes about a totally self-absorbed Raj Kapoor dropping in one morning and talking only about himself and the film he was then shooting, Barsaat, without ever bothering to enquire about his friend’s predicament. What I admire about our guy is that he describes the incidence without any rancour or accusation – as a mere witness in the true Advaita sense. Every time I watched him on the screen I got that certain feeling about him that here was one human being who was sincere, simple, honest, forthright, humble and decent to the core. Even that biggest liar in the whole wide world – the movie camera – could not hide the truth about Balraj Sahani.

Calling Bollywood. May day. May day.

All of us owe a huge debt of gratitude to Hindi mainstream cinema. Or, what we middle-class urban desis (MUDs) with our umbilical cords firmly rooted in the Land of Milk and Honey, the home of Hollywood, insist on calling Bollywood. We ought to be grateful to it for the great heroines it gave us (Nargis, Madhubala, Geeta Bali, Waheeda Rehman, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Madhuri Dixit, Kajol, Kareena – forget Meena Kumari, there was something amiss there). And, for the world’s coolest villains who could double without exception – and with panache – as accomplished comedians. The Indian hero pantheon – barring all of Ashok Kumar, Guru Dutt, Balraj Sahani, Amol Palekar, Naseeruddin Shah and Sanjeev Kumar and some of the early Dilip Kumar – didn’t amount to much in my eyes in spite of male-oriented scripts. We ought also to be grateful for the great songs that age well and sound as good remixed. And, for dances that look like vintage Ken Ghosh in their Jurassic Age incarnation. And, oh! Such wonderful entertainment, too. And, such fun-filled opening weekend film reviews. (By the way, a while back, I noticed that a film reviewer had awarded the new but not remade Andaaz a ‘*½’ in his rating scale of ‘*****’= ‘Excellent’ to ‘*’ = ‘Poor’. Was he telling us it was ‘barely above the poverty line’?) Well, even the critics who pan Hindi mainstream cinema ought to be grateful to it. And, all those television folks who do Bollywood-based talent shows and quiz shows and gossip shows. And, all those cinema-centric rags – er, mags. And, the FM stations and the record (CD, DVD) companies. And, the crazy first-day-first-show fans. And, so on and so forth… because, pray tell, where would they all be sans Bollywood? [P.S.: I have it on good authority – read Aditi in New Jersey – that a certain one-hit (okay, maybe, two-hit) star in Bollywood records ‘Many happy returns’ greetings for his fans in his spare time. Others on the other hand are giving their respective best shots – in a beysharam and/or beyreham vein – to promote colas, fridges and cars seeking the much-needed push off the shelves. If that sounds like vintage Star Dust, Meow! As they say in Cannes, c’est la vie, ma cherie! Oo-la-la!] Stop Press: One more thing before I sign off. Aditi in NJ who will be here today to attend the premier of Kunal Kohli’s Fanna had a bone to pick with me. According to her, the one-movie (sorry, two-movie) wonder star did not send her a recorded message on her birthday but “it was an actual call from him... original… not a recorded message he even spoke to mom.” Those are her original words, punctuation included. I hope that kinda absolves me of tinkering with the truth or whatever you suspected me of attempting, eh, Aditi?