Saint on earth.

For reasons I cannot fathom, Sant Tukaram has always fascinated me. As a child, I saw V Shantaram's eponymous movie. I don't remember being too impressed by it at the time. My latter-day interest in Tukaram prompted me recently to read Mahipati's Tukaram, a part of his Bhaktalilamrita. Its English rendering by Dr Justin Edwards Abbott, an American scholar who lived in India in the early twentieth century and contributed to the development of Marathi literature in his own way, retains the flavour of the original. It reminded me of the pothis my mother used to read, Shivalilamrita being one of them, particularly the eleventh chapter on Mondays. I'm not sure if what I read is historically accurate. What struck me, though, was that Tukaram as an enlightened person insisted on possessing nothing. There are repeated instances in the story I read of Tukaram inviting brahmins, mendicants and poor people to "loot" his home. This reminded me of what I had written earlier: http://tinyurl.com/c4tw8y. In researching it, I had come across informed opinion that enlightenment ought to change a person for the better. Also, there is the Simony angle to the practice of sainthood, I reckon. Mahipati's account of Tukaram qua an avatar of Namdeo explicitly states that his protagonist was almost violently opposed to the Advaita way to enlightenment. He was all for bhakti. In other words, total devotion. This was a bit bewildering in that I could not imagine a gentle soul like him opposing any idea vigorously - especially if it had the sanction of the Vedas. The other puzzling bit is that, while all along Tukaram seems to be drifting away from his wife Avali who is cross with him for giving his total devotion to Vithoba and neglecting his family, at the time of his ascent to Vaikuntha, Vishnu's heavenly abode, he sends a message to her to join him. She, however, sends back a message that she is in the fifth month of pregnancy and cannot join him. How did it happen?

I’m curious. Yellow.

In my childhood and youth, I never could understand why RK Karanjia’s “Free, Frank & Fearless” Blitz – the tabloid weekly that invented stings, investigative exposés, scoops – even April Fool hoaxes – way, way before Tehlka – and Google respectively, DF Karaka’s Current and Baburao Patel’s Filmindia were called “yellow” journals. I used to read – at least browse through – all of them. I was too naïve to realise that the term referred to journalism that exploited, distorted or exaggerated the news to create sensation and lure readers, scandal-mongering being one of the favourite ruse in use. If this description is true, I guess all newspapers of today including The (erstwhile) Grand Old Lady of Bori Bunder qualify for inclusion as of now. I recall that I used to read Filmindia (later replaced by the political magazine, Mother India) at the house of my aunty who used to stay in Nowroji Street which is quite close to where I now stay. My cousins were quite keen on Hindi movies and used to get Screen which was principally a trade weekly as well. I’m sure I didn’t understand the point of the (what was then considered) naughty Filmindia stuff but still persisted in reading it. Recently, at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772751,00.html?promoid=googlep, I found an excerpt from his Q&A column. Here are a few examples of his wit and witticisms:

Q. Are there any raw-film manufacturers in India?
A. No. But we have directors who expose the film and make it look more raw than ever before.

Q. I hear bad rumors about Director Shantaram. Every man from Poona and Bombay says that Shantaram has done such & such a thing. I am sure that he is not a person to do such a thing. I think that Mr. Shantaram is aware of his fame and would not have done that thing. So you must tell the public that Shantaram is innocent by publishing his innocence in the next issue.
A. And I must also publish my innocence about what you are talking.

Q. Please tell me, which is the easiest way to get a job in a film company?
A. Get hold of the most attractive girl in your town and bring her to a film studio. . . . The other way is rather roundabout.

According to Bhawana Somaaya http://www.screenindia.com/old/fullstory.php?content_id=7760 Baburao Patel (née Patil), the self-taught son of a well-known lawyer, was “the most hated and also the most sought-after journalist in show business”. She writes: “It was said that Baburao’s column made and broke careers. Filmmakers dreaded his acid reviews of their films, for his comments invariably proved true at the box-office.” Dev Anand http://www.screenindia.com/old/fullstory.php?content_id=10237 reiterates Somaaya’s verdict on Patel’s power and influence. Prithviraj Kapoor whom Baburao called one of the “uncouth brawny Pathans who think they can make it as actors" and saw no place for him in the film industry http://www.junglee.org.in/pk.html proved him wrong. So did V Shantaram whose Navrang (1959) Baburao panned as “mental masturbation of a senile soul” http://www.upperstall.com/people/shantaram.html but which turned out to be a big box office hit. In retrospect, Patel’s comments in the excerpts quoted above seem trite and tame and jaundiced. His language seems stilted and jaded. Maybe because I’m trying to apply today’s standards to a journalist from the past.

By the way, I found another gem of his cited at http://prem-sahajwala.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/06/ram-jethmalani-an-interesting-personality.htm:

Q. Why do you have two wives?
A. What is going of your father? Ram Jethmalani when asked by a person personally whether his first wife is happy despite his having a second wife. He answered – Yes my first wife is happier than your only wife.

The family car.

The first Mankar family car, a maroon and black Wolseley Wasp http://www.users.bigpond.com/jimjarron/car_pictures_files/wolseley_wasp.jpg used to be parked in the porch in the front part of the compound of 233 Khetwadi Main Road when I was, I’m guessing, five or so. So, it must have been purchased a few years earlier. I remember going for long evening drives with my mother up the Walkeshwar Road to the Malabar Hill Gardens, down the Marine Drive to the Chowpatty Sea Face and sometimes as far away as Cuffe Parade where now the Taj President stands. There used to be a raised pedestrian promenade along the Cuffe Parade Sea Face very similar to what you can still find at the Worli Sea Face. The other outings included visits to my two maternal uncles, my mother’s sister, two of her friends and a couple of shops where my mother used to shop regularly for sarees and silverware. The elder uncle used to reside on the ground floor of the house still extant opposite the Roxy Cinema on the Queen’s Road within walking distance of Royal Opera House, the cinema theatre of choice for V Shantaram and Raj Kapoor, that also used to double as a playhouse for Prithviraj Kapoor’s stage plays. (By the way, I was born in the Roxy-facing flat on a rain-drenched Janmashtami midnight in August.) Somewhere around 1948, the Wolseley made way for a brand new red Renault 4CV. This French car had just come into the market http://www.geocities.com/richardirl/oandd.html and had the distinction of being one of the few cars to reach the 1 million production mark in Europe. It was reputed to be the French retort to the German Volkswagen Beetle. It seemed more like flattery to me because it resembled the latter quite a bit. (That’s how I probably got infected with the Beetle bug. One of my youthful ambitions was to possess one.) I learned driving on the Renault and turned out to be an atrocious learner. I could just barely start and steer the vehicle but was very slovenly at parking. I once got a ticket for turning left at the traffic signal near the Church Gate Station from no less an officer than the Deputy Police Commissioner of Bombay (this was probably in 1954 or 1955). That worthy was under the impression that there was a traffic signal there. Fortunately for me, it was a free turn. I got acquitted in the Esplanade Court near the Victoria Terminus with my father defending me. My brush with the law was responsible, I guess, for the police putting a proper traffic signal at the Church Gate junction immediately afterwards. My father sold off the Renault around 1960 when it became almost impossible to maintain. Genuine spare parts were hard to come by. Also, I suspect, my father was not doing so well by then. Although I had a job in 1960, my salary could not have paid for a month’s petrol bill. The third family car which I bought came much later in the early 1980s. It was from the very first batch of Maruti Suzukis, s green and air conditioned Maruti 800. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki. Ashu and Abhi used to chauffer us around in it all over Mumbai and sometimes to Pune. Of the two, Abhi was the car connoisseur and really knew how to look after it well. (He had learned it, I reckon, taking care of the grey Fiat which his granny owned.) The Maruti was sold off around 1987 when Abhi went to the US for higher studies. Since then, the Mankar family car happens to be whichever black and yellow cab, mostly Fiat, I hail to go wherever I’m going at the time.

Are we like that only?

Imagine! A cursory Bollywood history (of sorts) tells you Kishore Kumar was “a relatively unknown actor” before Padosan (1968) – and banking on our willing suspension of disbelief against all hope! This sloppily written and shoddily edited paperback makes no mention whatsoever of Rajesh Khanna and V Shantaram. If memory serves, Kishore Kumar was a renowned comedian of long standing much earlier. Remember Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi released exactly a decade before Mehmood’s cult classic? The omission of Rajesh Khanna too is curious, almsot callous – especially considering his singing voice was Kishore Kumar in most of his movies. (RK scored eleven hits in a row followed by eight flops.) Shantaram’s Duniya Na Maney is considered a landmark in societal filmmaking. Could it be a case of selective amnesia, I wonder? Considering the high editorial standards of the book’s renowned publishers (after all, they’ve India’s No.1 print columnist-novelist on their marquee), it’s also irritating to come across such erratic but obvious blunders as “Dean Martin and Bing Crosby’s Road series”. Well, to err is human, I guess, and we all are like that only.