They say that a story has three versions: mine, yours and the truth. And that is the reason why what I see is, like a critic would say when in a positive frame of mind, dynamic. There is a memory from my childhood which is vivid even today because it was comical, but philosophically engaging. The incident happened in a tea garden in Assam. Every Friday there were movie shows (I know the purist does not like the word ‘movie’ and prefers cinema, but I am just that - a movie goer). At around four o clock, a giant white bedsheet discarded by the burra sahib’s housekeeper would be stretched from the posts of the volleyball court. And then, at around five, the audience would roll in.
First the children: clothes in tatters, sandals eaten up by dusty roads, teeth by cheap sugar candies, snotty-nosed and screaming, with full-moon size smiles. Fridays were special for them.
Then the women: loud, whiny, sweaty with work and happy in their sad little lives; wearing gaudy clothes, which suit them in an unusual way.
Then the old people file in: 60 degrees at the waist, wizened like a dry leaf and face almost licking the earth. They are so ancient and washed out that you don’t even feel sorry for them.
Then the men troop in: Wearing dead fashion and ridiculous sunglasses, clapping because every second guy is preparing the ubiquitous tobacco-lime mix, hair oiled to ugly perfection.
Finally, the most important lot trudges in: The drunks. Their walk has no logic, their words have no logic, their desires have no logic, their joy and sorrow have no logic. They are, in fact, appropriate material for study by logicians with high taste who hide in library furnitures. But these drunks keep the tea garden going during the day. They are, in effect, the heroes of their situation.
The movies shown at such tea garden screenings did not, as you may have guessed, seek to elevate their lot intellectually. It was just to keep them a little entertained so that exploiting them wasn’t a problem. Also, keeping them at the open air talkies meant less women would get impregnated because labourers had sex when they had nothing else to do (the privilege of the acutely underprivileged).
The movies shown at these keep-them-occupied screenings were, generally, kitsch masala movies where the hero is as upright as a beanstalk, the heroine’s as helpless as a dove flying over smoky skies during the holocaust and the bad guys were bad to the hilt. The villians were black (a smooth injection of racism that the British Raj had given before they left) and so bad that they were comical. I remember one screening that showed an Amitabh Bachchan starrer called Andha Kanoon (Blind Justice) which had Prem Chopra in the role of a soda-glass wearing drunk who loved to rape. When he came on screen and ravaged a family, the drunks in the crowd were extremely agitated. They threw their bottles at the screen with great virulence. The women were crying, the children were wailing and the guys who were not drinking were turned on because they were used to seeing sex portrayed in a violent manner in most Bollywood films of that time. When I look back, I find the behaviour of this open air labourer audience far more interesting than the film itself. What I call the story within the story.
I felt a strangely melancholic gratitude when I saw these miserable underpaid lot dancing to the mobster’s moll’s raunchy song. It was absurd in many ways. Some of the mothers used their sarees to cover their kids’ eyes when the raunchy song came on -- a practical way of exercising censorship. And the struggle of some kids to overcome this censorship was a metaphorical reflection of the war against censorship in general.
Before I sign off, I must recount a small anecdote. This guy called Mohan worked with my father. He was the quintessential tea garden offspring: he never missed the Friday screening. Usually, every evening there were two to three movies screened, with the first too being clean films in general (by the time the first two films got over, the kids were asleep and the women had to go back home). The third film would either be softcore stuff or a ‘meaningful’ film. Needless to say, the softcore stuff gelled well with the drunk crowd. One evening, the third movie was one of those happy low-budget 1980s flicks featuring Deepti Naval, Vivek Baswani and Farooq Shaikh. Next day when Mohan came to work, I asked him about the shows. "The first two shows were fun like anything. But after that it was a documentary that comes before the trailer."
While some of you might not see the point and think of this as the observation of the uneducated mind, I prefer to give much more credit to Mohan. He is a classic victim of social inequities. Most of what we call meaningful cinema is actually watched by those of us who are privileged. They are our intellectual indulgence. For cinema to make a real impact, it has to reach people like Mohan with greater ease. I think he has the intelligence to appreciate good cinema. But he needs a chance.
In any case, this is a my story of that screening. And it is not the complete truth because it cannot be. Like I said initially, every story has three versions: mine, yours and the truth. But I think I have come a little closer to the truth because the ‘third’ world has a lot of Mohans in it.
First the children: clothes in tatters, sandals eaten up by dusty roads, teeth by cheap sugar candies, snotty-nosed and screaming, with full-moon size smiles. Fridays were special for them.
Then the women: loud, whiny, sweaty with work and happy in their sad little lives; wearing gaudy clothes, which suit them in an unusual way.
Then the old people file in: 60 degrees at the waist, wizened like a dry leaf and face almost licking the earth. They are so ancient and washed out that you don’t even feel sorry for them.
Then the men troop in: Wearing dead fashion and ridiculous sunglasses, clapping because every second guy is preparing the ubiquitous tobacco-lime mix, hair oiled to ugly perfection.
Finally, the most important lot trudges in: The drunks. Their walk has no logic, their words have no logic, their desires have no logic, their joy and sorrow have no logic. They are, in fact, appropriate material for study by logicians with high taste who hide in library furnitures. But these drunks keep the tea garden going during the day. They are, in effect, the heroes of their situation.
The movies shown at such tea garden screenings did not, as you may have guessed, seek to elevate their lot intellectually. It was just to keep them a little entertained so that exploiting them wasn’t a problem. Also, keeping them at the open air talkies meant less women would get impregnated because labourers had sex when they had nothing else to do (the privilege of the acutely underprivileged).
The movies shown at these keep-them-occupied screenings were, generally, kitsch masala movies where the hero is as upright as a beanstalk, the heroine’s as helpless as a dove flying over smoky skies during the holocaust and the bad guys were bad to the hilt. The villians were black (a smooth injection of racism that the British Raj had given before they left) and so bad that they were comical. I remember one screening that showed an Amitabh Bachchan starrer called Andha Kanoon (Blind Justice) which had Prem Chopra in the role of a soda-glass wearing drunk who loved to rape. When he came on screen and ravaged a family, the drunks in the crowd were extremely agitated. They threw their bottles at the screen with great virulence. The women were crying, the children were wailing and the guys who were not drinking were turned on because they were used to seeing sex portrayed in a violent manner in most Bollywood films of that time. When I look back, I find the behaviour of this open air labourer audience far more interesting than the film itself. What I call the story within the story.
I felt a strangely melancholic gratitude when I saw these miserable underpaid lot dancing to the mobster’s moll’s raunchy song. It was absurd in many ways. Some of the mothers used their sarees to cover their kids’ eyes when the raunchy song came on -- a practical way of exercising censorship. And the struggle of some kids to overcome this censorship was a metaphorical reflection of the war against censorship in general.
Before I sign off, I must recount a small anecdote. This guy called Mohan worked with my father. He was the quintessential tea garden offspring: he never missed the Friday screening. Usually, every evening there were two to three movies screened, with the first too being clean films in general (by the time the first two films got over, the kids were asleep and the women had to go back home). The third film would either be softcore stuff or a ‘meaningful’ film. Needless to say, the softcore stuff gelled well with the drunk crowd. One evening, the third movie was one of those happy low-budget 1980s flicks featuring Deepti Naval, Vivek Baswani and Farooq Shaikh. Next day when Mohan came to work, I asked him about the shows. "The first two shows were fun like anything. But after that it was a documentary that comes before the trailer."
While some of you might not see the point and think of this as the observation of the uneducated mind, I prefer to give much more credit to Mohan. He is a classic victim of social inequities. Most of what we call meaningful cinema is actually watched by those of us who are privileged. They are our intellectual indulgence. For cinema to make a real impact, it has to reach people like Mohan with greater ease. I think he has the intelligence to appreciate good cinema. But he needs a chance.
In any case, this is a my story of that screening. And it is not the complete truth because it cannot be. Like I said initially, every story has three versions: mine, yours and the truth. But I think I have come a little closer to the truth because the ‘third’ world has a lot of Mohans in it.
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