Loud and louder.

Indians are loud and devoid of good taste, by and large, and I'm not being snooty. We speak loudly. We play gratingly loud music at home as well as in our cars and our discos and other gatherings. We install loudspeakers at the slightest pretext without a thought to the inconvenience they may cause the neighbours. We shout at the top of our voices to call attention to ourselves. We converse without caring to listen to the person we are supposed to be talking to. Our conversations are seldom dialogues, mostly monologues. We interrupt others all the while. Even our Parliamentarians who, in the Nehruvian era, were a well-behaved and well-spoken lot, have turned into hooligans who hurl abuse and shoes at their adversaries on camera. Our preference for loud noise is making us more and more prone to overstatement (look at most of our mainstream movies). Subtlety, suggestiveness, wit and irony are increasingly becoming alien to us. On our music-related reality television shows the participants make a loud show of humility by touching the feet of their mentors and judges. They in their turn make loud comments about the performances, good, bad or indifferent. Our clothes are becoming ridiculously loud and garish. So is our sense of design and décor. Even our commercial breaks are louder than the ambient show from which the break is being taken. If my anti-loudness lamentation does not please you, let me leave you the legacy of this advice on 'Rhetoric' in pulpit oration on page 308 of The Port folio, a US-based literary magazine in the times of Thomas Jefferson defunct since 1827: "For the same reasons that harshness of tone is to be guarded against, laboured loudness is to be avoided. This is not speaking, but bawling; it is not elocution, but vociferation, which some preachers aim at this painful and unnatural exertion of the lungs; they mistake loudness for force, and noise for oratory." http://tinyurl.com/5rnxut. A good preach, all told, methinks.

Mallika-e-tarrannum* and I.

Incredible as it may seem to you, I used to be a student of music as a child of ten. A music teacher used to come to 233 Khetwadi Main Road http://digbig.com/4xyxy to teach me to sing and to play the harmonium and the tabla. Incredible as it seems to me today, I abhorred those music lessons. I was fond enough of film songs of the era, though. I used to listen to them on a hand-cranked gramaphone and on the radio. I distinctly remember my poor hapless teacher once coyly singing Noor Jahan’s Aayee Ghadi Yeh Suhani from Dil (1946) – the film eclipsed by her super-hit released the same year, Anmol Ghadi – and Hum Khelenge Aankh Mein Choli from her 1942 hit, Khandaan – in which she co-starred with Pran. I also recall my music masterji trying to entice me with Tu Kaunsi Badli Mein, also from Khandaan. To no avail. I just did not make any progress in my singing or harmonium-playing. Using the desperate excuse that the music lessons and the (non-existent) riyaz were eating into my study and play time, I managed to wriggle out of the hated chore. This memory morsel came to me while listening to NJ’s old songs which I often do while working. My love for film music as a listener continued apace, though. Later on, goaded by snobbery no doubt, I began to listen to Western pop and classical music and – wonder of wonders! – even enjoy it. There’s something undefinably charming about old 78 rpm Indian film songs – specially from the 40s and 50s – that nothing done since seems to possess. Oh, I forgot to mention that the NJ oldies are on a CD that somehow came into my possession. Whoever sent it my way deserves a ton of thanks. Apart from the cream of Mallika-e-tarrannum’s pre-Independence repertoire, it has songs by Suraiya, Shamshad Begum, Suman Kalyanpur and Geeta Dutt. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2007/05/music-for-soul.html. I may not be able to make you understand the immense joy these 40s. 50s and 60s no- Lata, no-Asha musical feast gives me. Imagine Noor Jahan leisurely crooning raag-based poetic lyrics, as if she had all the time in the world, often repeating a line or two with complete command, confidence and authority. Imagine the range of her voice and style variations. And, the subtle nuances. One thing that really amazes me is how the music directors never went over the top. In other words, no overdramatization, no crescendos. All that crept into Hindi film music soon afterwards, though, after NJ's exit. Take her duet with Mohamed Rafi from Jugnu (Yehan Badla Wafa Da). There’s an eerie, chilly feel they convey by their quiet rendition, a sense of inevitable disaster ahead. Brrrrr! Listening to these songs stirs the pool of memory. For instance, I get the feeling that I’ve seen some of these movies in theatres (Majestic, Imperial, Central, Krishna). Anmol Ghadi and Jugnu for sure. Khandaan, I’m not so sure about. And, I somehow cannot get rid of the feeling that the song, Aayee Ghadi Yeh Suhani from Dil, is sung in the movie just before the interval. By the way, there’s a story, probably apocryphal, about how Noor Jahan met the young Lata and Asha when she was starring in Vinayak’s Badi Maa in which both the Mangeshkar sisters were playing supporting roles. During the breaks, Noor Jahan used to ask Lata (“Latto”) to sing with her. She sensed her new friend’s potential and told Vinayak about her discovery in no uncertain terms. They evidently continued their friendship even after NJ went to live across the border after partition. P.S.: Apart from learning music briefly, I also did a short stint in Urdu as a young kid. Which reminds me: *Mallika-e-tarrannum = Queen of Melody.

Gruelling test.

I’m impressed, bro. Watching the kids going through a punishing regimen year after year to pass the Secondary School Certificate examination with flying colours is a truly humbling experience. In my times, I had neither such single-minded focus nor such persistence and stamina for studies. What’s more, I don’t remembering a rigorously planned study schedule. I vaguely remember, however, the shocking pink cover of a paperback book I had picked up around six months before my coming ordeal. That one was supposed to advice me on the best way to study, if memory serves. I guess I didn’t pay serious heed to its wise counsel and went about my studies haphazardedly and sporadically. I wasn’t a brilliant student by any manner of means. I managed to scrape my way through with a 70 per cent score and a school prize in English, though. In contrast, I see today’s kids – some of whom Ujwal tutors in English and Marathi – cheerfully slaving their lives in studies and in tuitions. In spite of having little free time for themselves, they are so well informed on what’s going on around them: the latest movies, the latest hits, the latest video releases, the latest restaurants and pizza parlours, the latest malls, the latest multiplexes, the latest cricket scores, the latest Bollywood gossip. When I was their age, I was hardly as knowledgeable. I must confess, though, that around the time I passed high school, there was not much happening except maybe Radio Ceylon, Binaca Hit Parade, Raj Kapoor and Nargis, Nat King Cole, The Platters, Gene Kelly and Lana Turner in The Three Musketeers and stuff like that. Being hip then was probably wearing jeans and reading comics and nibbling hot dogs and sipping coffee in the garden cafeteria of the Excelsior Cinema. How times have changed, bro?

The medicine cabinet.

In the third floor flat at 233 Khetwadi Main Road http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/07/morgue.html in the room behind the sitting room or ‘hall’ as we used to call it was the room separated from the former by a wood and glass partition. It served as the puja-dining-store space. On its eastern wall was our medicine cabinet, a miniscule walnut veneered wooden cupboard maybe 2 feet by 1 foot and 6 inches deep. All the Mankar family’s first-aid needs were stored there. Minor cuts, wounds and scrapes were treated with either tincture of iodine or benzine – both of which burned like hell and brought tears to the eyes – or else with Mercuryochrome – which didn’t. There was cotton wool to swab the wounds, boric powder and potassium permanganate to disinfect them and rolls of gauze dressing and a Johnson sticky tape roll in a blue tin case. I had my generous share of falls and scrapes on the knee and was a real cry baby at the time of dressing the wounds and all through the healing process. Glycerine acid tannic was the throat ‘paint’ of choice for treating my frequently recurring tonsils infection. I remember being offered the bribe of ice cream in order to undergo a tonsillectomy. Being the coward in constant dread of physical pain that I have always been, I somehow always managed to dodge the Damocles’ sword and eventually managed, as I grew up, to outgrow the menace. Towards the end of my childhood, when I was fifteen and poised to appear for my Secondary School Certificate exam in maybe a couple of months, I managed to burn the ring finger on my right hand on a Sunday afternoon while thoughtlessly doing a lab experiment in the south-western part of our terrace. My father and his friends were busy with their weekly session of bezique http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/07/playing-cards.html and they all rushed to my rescue with Burnol and sympathy. The same evening, I went with my sister to the Imperial Talkies on Lamington Road within easy waling distance from home to watch the hit musical, Albela. It was made by Bhagwan, a successful stunt movie star turned comedian, and Geeta Bali who was a big star already and a good sport apparently for having condescended to act with someone far below her own class. Coming back to my medical ordeals, the second major catastrophe was again just before my Bachelor of Commerce exam. This was when an inverted abscess on my butt had to be surgically removed in Dr Hiralal’s surgical clinic. It was situated on Queen’s Road halfway between the Royal Opera House and Charni Road Station. A few days later while I was recuperating and studying for my exam, my right hand index finger got infected and had to be operated on. This resulted in my ending up with a foreshortened index digit with a rather pointy round nail.

Midnight cowgirl.

The estranged daughter of the Midnight Cowboy walks amongst us. Correction. Last sighted, she was riding in a scooter rickshaw in downtown Pune, hotly chased by paparazzi out to shoot her. Reading about her reminded me of the insanely funny moment from her dad’s debut movie when Ricco Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), better known to the world as Ratso, and Joe Buck are almost run over by a New York cab and Ratso bangs on its hood to declaim: “I’m walking here.” What cheek! Just like riding in a rickshaw in broad daylight and tempting the shoot-at-sight fraternity, eh? Why the sight of a celebrity triggers the intense desire to shoot in paparazzi is a mystery to me. Once you’ve seen Angelina once, you’ve seen her once for all as far as I’m concerned. What’s more, I’d rather see her as Lara Croft in reel life than as Angelina in real life. Show me every time something or someone I’ve not seen before, boys and girls. Talking of midnight, I cannot understand keeping a round-the-clock vigil just to catch a glimpse of someone – a trait shared by both paparazzi and star-struck fans in equal measure. In my books, it’s okay to hang around in a hotel lobby if you’re out to cover a war or a revolution. But a celebrity? Gimme a break. Also, what the unrelenting pursuit by paparazzi did to Lady Diana comes to mind. Come to think of it, though, you cannot really blame paparazzi for what happens to the celebrity who happens to be the target of the moment? The poor guy is sticking his nose and his camera lens in celebrity goings-on because the readers of his rag or the watchers of his TV channel expect to see the beloved mug over and over again wherever it happens to be in Paris or Pune, never you mind. Complain as they might about paparazzi attention, the celebrities need their stalkers as much as the latter need their ‘victims’. It’s mutual interdependence, I reckon. For the celebrities, it’s if you’ve got it, flaunt it and catch me if you can. For paparazzi, it’s I’ll get you sooner or later even if I’ve to risk my neck and my expensive camera. For some people, it’s always midnight, as someone so wisely said.

Malegaon Days.

I’ve never been to Malegaon and hopefully will never set foot in the unfortunate and miserable place. No, I’m not condescending. Not a bit. I can well imagine the pall of doom and forlornness that must be forever hovering over the town. To live there looking forward to nothing must be what inspired the locals to make movies spoofing the mainstream movies made in Mumbai. I find it ironical, considering that these movies used to be made for strictly local viewing in the video parlour, that they always had Malegaon in the title. Malegaon Ke Sholay, Malegaon Ke Karan-Arjun, Malegaon Ka Rangeela, Malegaon Ki Lagaan … you get the drift? Is it not like rubbing salt in the wound reminding it is about (and probably set in) miserable and grimy Malegaon? Equally ironical, Malegaon’s Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Dharmendra, Pran and other actors had to pay to act – and still did. Maybe, while the movie was being shot, they could feel they were who they claimed to be: one way out of their otherwise grimy everyday reality. Nonetheless, I’m amazed by the humour even the movie characters transformed names show. Gabbar Singh metamorphosed into Rubber Singh. Basanti became Basmati. (Equally revealing are the names of Malegaon's localities: Tension Chowk, Achanak Nagar, Rishwat Nagar, Raunakabad, Tashkent Nagar, Bajrangwadi, Ayodhya Nagar and Islamabad.) It seems the Malegaon movie making is no more. Because the unlicensed video parlours have been forced to shut down. In other words, there are no distribution outlets left. So, the one escape route for the chosen few is now no more. R.I.P. http://www.indianexpress.com/sunday/story/12821.html.

Strictly for voyeurs.

That’s correct. Watching movies is in essence a voyeuristic avocation. Not in the prurient but in the broad sense of the term. After all, when you’re watching a movie, you’re looking at or witnessing what’s happening or what someone is doing without (apparently) their knowledge and consent – in order to derive pleasure. Except, in those once-in-a-while asides, when the character actually addresses the camera, that is to say, (by proxy) you. In every voyeuristic encounter, the subject’s privacy is violated, intentionally or otherwise.. In the strictest psychological sense, voyeurism is a sexual disorder where “sexual arousal … involves the act of observing unsuspecting individuals, usually strangers, who may be naked or in the process of disrobing. Even engaging in sexual activity.” The so-called x-rated blue films meet this psychological definition of voyeurism. http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/voyerism_disorder.htm. (The other side of the voyeuristic coin is exhibitionism. In other words, the actors who perform for the camera are exhibitionists.) Voyeurism of the prurient variety is believed to be caused by childhood trauma such as sexual abuse or accidental sighting of naked adults, copulation, etc. Voyeurism of the movie-watching kind may be caused in the present times by the parents’ excessive addiction to television and movie watching on VCDs and DVDs as well as in the multiplexes. Once infected, seldom freed. It’s a lifetime addiction. And heaven help those victims who are abysmally devoid of taste and discrimination. They end up watching the worst kind of trash spewed by the film makers out to make a quick buck. [P.S.: Tangentially speaking, you’ve got to consider a real huge difference between real life and reel life. In the latter, you have close-ups, zooms (in and out), freezes, quick cuts and so on to help the story telling which the former lacks. So what you see on the screen cannot be compared strictly speaking with what you see – and ‘experience’ – in life. Even in dreams, for that matter. Have you noticed how far removed the dream sequences in movies are from dreams in real life? Keep all these things in mind, boys and girls, the next time you think of cinematic reality.]

M as in ‘mule’. T as in ‘talking’.

And, F as in ‘Francis’. Because that was the name of the smart talking Army mule who used to upstage (after six appearances with Francis, the mule got more fan mail than the actor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_the_Talking_Mule) and land into trouble his GI sidekick, Peter Stirling (Donald O’Connor), in movie after movie. I think I first met Francis in 1952 at the Eros Theatre, opposite the Church Gate Station, just after appearing for my SSC Board examination. It was good fun once you willingly suspended your disbelief which was easy to do after you listened to Francis’s cynical and sardonic smart talk in the screen voice of Chill Willis. The pivot of the comedy was that Francis only spoke to Peter and when Peter followed his advice and acted in a manner beyond his competence, he had to tell his bosses that his source of information was a talking mule. This landed him into a psychoanalyst’s couch for analysis. I was taken aback when I came across a long-faced and solemn 693-word review of the first Francis flick in the New York Times (16 March 1950) by Bosley Crowther via http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?%5EFrancis+the+Talking+Mule (Movie Review Query Engine). I didn’t know Francis inspired such awe among movie critics when he made his debut. BC called 1950 the year of the mule, bitched about “the animal's limited histrionics” and didn’t seem to relish the hypothesis that mule could be superior to man. Famous last words? “In short, we can't say that ‘Francis,’ a Universal-International film, offers comedy of rich and subtle nature. But it holds a few good laughs – especially for mules.” I rest my case.

[Note on New Learning about the Good Ol’ Days: Even in 1950, on the stage at the Paramount, there were live performers: the King Cole Trio, Larry Storch, Johnny Coy and Ray McKinley and his orchestra. Did Francis ask for all those props?]

“Where can the wife of Stalin go?”

That’s what Nadya asks Olga in Stalin, the made-for-television HBO movie (1992), before committing suicide. Translation: If you’re in the public eye, there’s nowhere to hide. Right. But look at the upside of celebrity. Movie makers pay big name actors big bucks because they know they’re an audience magnet. “Yahoo!’s home page almost always leads with a celebrity. Google gets more searches for Johnny Depp than for any of your neighbors.” Celebrity endorsements in ads are worth big fees. At conferences, celebrities – even those with nothing much to say – are used to draw a big crowd. Also, book readings and art exhibitions increasingly invite celebrities from show biz. In our idle moments, we chat about celebrities. “Tournament organizers groan when the big names get ousted or withdrawal (sic) due to injury.” [17 July 2006 post]. http://www.willatworklearning.com/ There’s an interesting analysis of celebrity presence and its repercussions at Yahoo! Answers in The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/opinion/13thur4.html. (Register to read.) By the way, celebrities includes celebrity institutions as well. Like the Harvard Business School, for instance.

Cinema meets India. India meets cinema.

By a strange twist of fate, Salon Indien happened to be the name of the venue for the very first public show of Cinématographe Lumière at one franc a head on 28 December 1895. It was a tiny hall with a sitting capacity of one hundred located in the basement of the Grand Café at 14 Boulevard des Capuchines, Paris. The first show of the Lumière Brothers’ six short films (Entry of Cinematographe, The Sea Bath, Arrival of a Train, A Demolition, Ladies & Soldiers on Wheels and Leaving the Factory) – each 17 metres long – was held on 7 July 1896, a night of thunder and lightning, in South Mumbai at the Watson Hotel opposite Kala Ghoda and the Jehangir Art Gallery, within walking distance of the Gateway of India. Seven days later, the venue was shifted to the Novelty Theatre where the show had twenty four features including A Stormy Sea and The Thames at Waterloo Bridge. The 32-day Mumbai run of the Cinématographe Lumière at both the venues, described by The Times of India as "Living Photographic Pictures in Life-Size Reproductions by Mssrs. Lumiere Brotheres" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_India ended on 15 August 1896. http://www.indiaheritage.org/perform/cinema/history/inscene.htm. But certainly not India’s tryst with cinema. Or, mine for that matter. I remember making magic lanterns and, later, even movie projectors out of shoe boxes and reels and drawing pictures on stiff tracing paper to make my childish movies. I also recall visiting most movie houses in my neighbourhood – there were at least a dozen within easy walking distance – for zanana (women and children only) shows with my sister. The ticket prices then were one rupee and five annas for stalls and two rupees and ten annas for a seat in the balcony or in a box. Those days, you could buy a garishly printed booklet containing the story of the movie in outline and the songs in their entirety for the princely sum of 4 annas or a quarter of a rupee. Or, you could buy for just 1 anna a crudely printed booklet with songs only in Hindi as well as Urdu scripts. I’m not quite sure when they stopped printing and selling these booklets. It was probably some time in the late sixties. Now they try to palm off on you lavishly produced books about the making of the movie you’re about to watch, often written by firang writers who claim to be teachers and/or researchers in a film faculty abroad but sound like publicists on the payroll of the producer.

Often the best man. Never the bridegroom.

How movies change the way we behave is both amusing and annoying. Ever since the three-and-a-half hour ‘wedding video', Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, became a smash hit, mehendi, sangeet and baraat with traffic-stopping street dancing – invariably with a video crew in attendance – became a sine qua non of nearly every (not necessarily Punjabi) affluent wedding in Mumbai. Even if the groom's and the bride's families were sharing the wedding hall, the make-believe baraat would start a little distance away just so that the baraatis and their spouses or fiancées got a video op to have themselves digitally immortalized as the pseudo-HAHK couple. That those on the road inconvenienced by this hankering after fifteen minutes of fame may be wishing fervently for a ‘shoot' of a very different kind won't even enter their HAHK-besotted brains. We can see this "Smile. You're on Candid Camera" mindset in operation in Indian studio audiences and sports fans in stadia too. Speaking of weddings, do you remember the often-cited phrase ‘Often a bridesmaid but never a bride'? In the Listerine mouthwash (halitosis) ad which ran without a break from 1923 for a decade, it summed up the sorry plight of the graceful but foul-breathed Edna. It is also an ‘original' addition to the English language? The copywriter, Milton Feasley, invented it and the mainstream lingo accepted it with open arms. http://www.amusingfacts.com/facts/Arts_and_Literature/more13.html. Also see http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/whoinventedbo.html.

Take the promos with a pinch of salt. Preferably large.

One of my stupidest blunders in either the first or the second year of my college career was to almost forcibly take my father and mother to the Regal Cinema in Colaba to see The Robe. It was a dull and listless movie, as I now recall, with a wooden Richard Burton performance that was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar nevertheless. Victor Mature as his slave, Demetrius, was far better and even got rewarded for it with a starring role in a sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators. (That too was a bomb. End of digression.) The reason I did what I did was because The Robe was the first film photographed in CinemaScope – badly, I admit (the newly developed lens was still full of flaws like an MS beta) – and I thought I was taking them to watch a major technological innovation in movie-making. (The ads said: “The first motion picture in CinemaScope – the modern miracle you see without glasses!” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046247/taglines.) I used to be rather naïve and trusting about Hollywood in those days. I thought all that came from the West was best. One thing I distinctly remember, though, and am thankful for. Neither my father nor my mother enjoyed the ‘experience’ (as the promos put it) – my father, I suspect, loathed going to movies – and yet they accompanied me meekly and didn’t protest my impertinence even after returning home. What reminded me of this incidence is probably all the fuss that’s going on about Fanna. These days, my attitude is, cease and desist. It’s only a movie, for Pete’s sake. Even if Kunal Kohli whom we all love made it.

Whose reality? What reality?

Why do we take offence at the drop of a hat? Is it because, like the proverbial spoilt brat, we want the world to run according to our bidding? Of late, so many films have been in the eye of the storm for one reason or the other. For instance: the (erroneous?) depiction of police personnel and practices or lesbianism, to cite a couple of not so recent examples. Why cannot moviegoers (or, couch potatoes for that matter) realise that what they pay good money and spend hours to watch is not reality but fiction attempting to approximate reality at the most. So why impute dark motives and evil intentions to the auteur when (s)he’s offering what (s)he hopes will be an entertainer and a money-spinner? And, even if the movie is claimed to be ‘realistic’, whose reality do you think it portrays? Surely, neither the viewer’s nor the critic’s. There’s an insightful article (Reality Check) on ‘reality television and movies’ at http://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/09.27.00/filmfest1-0039.html you may like to read. A quotable excerpt: "We are bombarded by fantasy," says Sharon Simpson, co-founder of the Santa Cruz Documentary Film and Video Festival. "The popularity of shows like Survivor, which really have nothing to do with 'reality,' still show (sic!) that people are interested in what is supposedly 'real'."