Deadpan Talkies

It is genuinely hard to remember when, if ever, I last watched a movie that was two hours of an ideological debate. Of course, this wasn’t a mainstream film, how could it have been, even though the director was once at the centre of the Hindi film industry. 

Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Gandhi Godse: Ek Yudh is an almost unbelievable film just by virtue of its existence. No society in the world is ever prepared to debate such delicate and explosive matters, and we certainly are not passing through the best of all possible times. And yet this is when a film like this is required the most. Alas, or maybe thankfully, this film was nearly entirely wiped out by the parallel release of Pathan. This means hardly anyone watched it, but also that hardly anyone could be bothered to be outraged by it and let it complete its run in peace.

Based on a play by Asghar Wajahat, curiously titled Godse@Gandhi.com, the film imagines what would happen if the assassination attempt by Godse on Gandhi’s life failed, and allows both characters to play out their lives, and hence their ideologies, a little longer. Speculative historical fiction is not really something Indian cinema has ever had any interest in, given how attached we all are to certain versions of history. So there is bravery in the filmmaker to show either of these characters in a critical manner. Both sides are given a lot of time to speak their parts (of course, as imagined by the playwright) and to confront the limits of their beliefs. 

Gandhi is a much larger figure in history and his life and opinions are documented at an almost flabbergasting level, both by himself and his circle. Godse, on the other hand, is really only known for one thing, and thus erupted in and out of public life very rapidly. Therefore the representation of Godse is much more speculative than that of Gandhi.

While there was much to direct in Godse’s character as presented in the film, I will steer clear of speaking more about him. Instead I want to talk about the real gold nugget in the film, which is the big A. Anarchy.

And there you go, more petrol-soaked rags for your blazing out-of-control fire.

But it’s right there in the film. Gandhi, after India has won her independence, embarks on his next mission and that is to build a society where village self-help groups are the basic building blocks. This is a documented belief held by him, not speculation on the part of the writer. India needed to have a rural de-centralised economic system, and that would likely lead to decentralised governance. And what is a government without a centre? Nothing. 

This is where Gandhi becomes a threat to his own compatriots and successors who have formed the new Government of India from August 1947. When he turns his sights and the power of his political leadership on the new exploiters of society, he becomes (ahem) an anti-national. The man who once was a threat to the colonial government through his actions of non-cooperation is the same man who is a dangerous radical for the new, home-grown government. 

Though the word is never used in the film, Gandhi is an Anarchist. He prevents governmental development work, obstructs market forces from playing out, circumvents the judgements of courts, and draws the ire of all the powers protected by the constitution. There is no other word to describe him. 

It is not in the scope of a film essay to debate the relative merits or demerits of anarchy, but the indubitable fact is that someone like Gandhi, with such deep convictions about what path Indians should adopt, and backed by the reputation to convert millions to his cause, would become a threat to the very nation that he helped birth. 

In his essay on the film, Mayank Shekhar makes a powerful observation that, “The posthumous effect of his action/thoughts on other global movements, countering injustices, and speaking truth to power was such that if Gandhi didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.” Let me add my own bit to that – if Gandhi hadn’t been assassinated on 30th January 1948, the nation would have had to kill him. 

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Thanks for reading my essay. Your interest gives me enormous motivation to keep on writing. If you have any comments I’d love to read and respond to them. And if you want to read some of my other works then head over to www.amazon.in/Sumit-Ray/ where you can see some of my fiction writing, and also a book of essays on Satyajit Ray’s entire fiction filmography.

Violence and disgust are closely linked in our minds. Acts of violence are often disgusting to witness. A certain numbness can creep into the mind of a person who is repeatedly exposed to violence, but there are still times when even someone so far inured to violence can feel a bodily revulsion to it.

The act of retching seems to be endemic among the family of men in Titli’s life. At first there is no apparent reason for that to be depicted so frequently and viscerally, but by the end of the film, it feels like this has throughout been their bodies revolting against the violence in their minds.

Titli’s family is composed of small-time con-men who are incapable of rising above their worthless state in life. Even the acts of horrific crime they commit, leave them not much better off financially. The happiness of companionship, of togetherness, none of that seems to have ever crossed their threshold.

There are indications that generations of poverty have led to generations of violence. But it is also true that the fixative of violence on the canvas of their lives has been generations of apathy. The youngest is not protected by the elder, nor the elder by the eldest. Each has been exploited instead. It becomes a matter of perspective, that of each individual, to see violence as the solution or as the cause of everything they are missing in life.

Vikram, the eldest brother, has a daughter he loves, and a wife who he needs, but he cannot keep his base aggressiveness out of their lives. While trying to talk to his wife, and being pestered by a vendor demanding money, he tries for a bit to keep his attention on his family, but he loses patience and immediately responds with violence and loses his connection with family. Certainly the vendor was unpardonably rude, but to keep the home in order, more even reactions were required.

It would appear that not only money, but also love is quite a difficult commodity to acquire, even though both of these are quite basic necessities of happiness. The first is denied by the world at large, and the latter we deny ourselves.

Where Vikram and Pradeep, the middle brother, have the advantages of brawn, Titli uses the advantages of his brain. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the capacities of violence are not diminished. Titli is able to outmanoeuvre his brothers by having the ability to leave things unsaid and fight another day.

In all this, Neelu, Titli’s wife, is the only one who draws an uncompromising line in the sand. Threats of violence (never carried out) are only for self-preservation. She refuses to be party to their criminal acts and her loud protestations are the only reason the brothers ever have to rethink their plans. But where she clearly spots physical threats, she is unable to detect the mind games being played by her cheating lover. Prince Charming turns out to be Prince the betrayer. Even her parents, who forced her into this unwanted marriage with Titli, have inflicted cruelty on her and condemned her. Forced marriage becomes another form of violence.

When Titli plans to break Neelu’s hand with a hammer, he anaesthetises it first so she can go through it unflinchingly. It would appear that such anaesthesia is in the air Titli’s family breathes in their home, which is why the repeated acts of violence have become so easy. Action movies play on their television loudly, almost to remind us of the difference between the glamorous violence we are shown in fiction and how sickening it is when adopted in real life.

It really is pathetic that so much deception and aggression is deployed amongst relations for just the matter of a few hundred thousand rupees. This is not life-changing money for most viewers of the film, and yet it seems worth breaking some limbs, or even possibly committing murder, over. But what that does is speak to the desperation of those who have very little capital to build a life on. It’s because they have so little, that even a little more is enough for bloodshed. From where they stand, it would really seem like there is no other choice available to them. In the movie, the city is always serene when shown from the sky level, but riddled with jackhammer scars at the street level.

Where Titli finally makes a choice that can extract him from the cycle of endless violence, is to return to Neelu. The woman who didn’t love him was nonetheless the only good person who entered his life. He asks her to choose a life with him so they can try making something good of their lives. The way I see it, he would have to beg her because to get a second chance from her is not what he deserves. But also for Neelu it is a chance at starting a relationship with honesty, something she has not been able to find from anyone else.

This choice to break the cycle is a choice each member of the family before Titli could have made but did not. The choice is most hard when the bondage is that of family, one’s own brothers and father in this case. But perhaps that’s the final act of violence that releases the dreamers from their bondage.

Titli (whose name is the Hindi word for butterfly) is the only one from generations of his family who metamorphosed.

[There is one unsettling aspect to the movie which is not part of the story and may not have been intended at all by the film-makers. The disgusting factor in the movie is so high when we see the day-to-day lives of the characters that it doesn’t feel like a sympathetic look but a voyeuristic and almost leering look at the lives of the lower rungs of society. To see Titli and the others dripping phlegm so often is almost a needless cruelty on the characters. As mentioned above, it does serve a purpose in the story, but it also passes over into becoming gratuitous very early on.]

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Titli (2014)

Directed by Kanu Behl

Story by Kanu Behl

Language: Hindi

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Thanks for reading my essay. Your interest gives me enormous motivation to keep on writing. If you have any comments I’d love to read and respond to them. And if you want to read some of my other works then head over to www.amazon.in/Sumit-Ray/ where you can see some of my fiction writing, and also a book of essays on Satyajit Ray’s entire fiction filmography (which you can also read at www.raybyray.in).

There is a point in Eeb Allay Ooo! when Anjani Kumar’s (probably) girlfriend reaches the limits of her patience with his demands of an ideal job. He is not qualified for even a low-rung desk job and yet he refuses to make peace with his job as a professional monkey-controller.

Briefly, even I scold him for having outsize dreams despite having done nothing to bring himself closer to the appropriate levels of qualifications.

But, the very next instant I question my ruffled feathers — why was I denying this man even the chance to imagine something better? And had he not been trying to make peace over and over again?

That is when I understood the film and saw Anjani clearly.

In many parts of India, and it would also certainly be true of the rest of the developing world, malls are built right across hovels, and luxury watch ads can be seen from the windows of overcrowded public buses. Desires are sold to us in bulk, and in similar bulk are they denied to us.

I, myself, am no greatly qualified person, but I occasionally dream of fabulous foreign holidays. An MBA, who may work for a company providing no real benefit to society, still demands and receives pay packages which would knock a small village senseless.

Some of us are encouraged to dream. Some are not.

But dreams are cruel and come uninvited, even into Anjani’s head.

His sister and brother-in-law, disciplined migrants without any great expectations from their station in life, advise him to be like them. And yet, even after making compromises willingly, they are made to submit to further demands just to get their very basic dues. Can compromise even be finalised, or it is a lifelong process? And somehow those with the humblest footprints in society are often the ones from whom we make the greatest demands (remember the great migrant march of 2020, during Covid?).

So it would appear a life of compromise does not guarantee stability or respect. It does not usher in happiness. In fact, have we not often seen that the most demanding individuals, those with towering egos and infinitely small conscience, are often given the most respect?

Anjani’s mentor, Mahendra, is extremely good at his job and even his bosses are happy with him. He is the one person who is always willing to give Anjani the chance to improve himself without criticising him. There is something unreal about a work colleague, a senior in fact, who is so compassionate and paternal, and perhaps he has been glorified just to make his fate hurt more.

He gets lynched during the course of his job by those who would rather protect a monkey god, than actual humans or monkeys (well, humans are monkeys). Collective fever-dreams, aka mythology, is sacred, but an individual’s dreams are trash. This was a man who fulfilled a valuable role in society, who brought real skills to his work, and yet his destiny was written by a cruel hand. Something similar could happen to Anjani’s sister or brother-in-law when they are forced to keep a work-rifle at home. We are always afraid some terrible accident is about to take place. And yet this is a perfectly acceptable demand made by the employers. Would we be similarly agreeable to keeping a gun at home if our employers set that as part of salary negotiations?

So what does it even mean for someone in their place to make smart choices?

In Satyajit Ray’s 1976 film Jana Aranya, Somnath is a young man in search of a job who is forced to make drastic moral choices once he decides to get into business for himself. Arbitrary twists of fate deny him his due exam results, which in turn deny him jobs, and lead him to bribery and even soliciting prostitutes; where he has been forced on to a path and from where he cannot see any turn that will set him free from this cycle; can this man free himself and will he be able to walk away from the compromises he is expected to make? And what of the prostitutes? They are also victims of a system where even an educated and professionally qualified individual has to turn to seedy work in order to make ends meet for themselves and their family.

The problem Anjani is expected to tackle, ridding central Delhi of wild monkeys and getting them relocated out of the city, is certainly absurd in itself. But what’s even more absurd is that while a powerless man like him is expected to solve this problem, many other powerful ones are abetting the same problem and getting in the way of him fulfilling his duty. It’s a trickle-down of shit that the higher-ups create and the lower-downs are expected to clean up.

Breaking out in an angry and psychotic dance at the end of the film is a tribute to this absurdity. Madness and frenzy are the only possible human responses to this situation. After every path is blocked, every idea is murdered, and every compromise has its back broken — after that what is Anjani left with?

Getting angry with Anjani may be natural, but so is his desire for a better, safer job. To dismiss his monumentally minute ambitions would be a mistake, and even a grave disservice to our idea of what a lucrative society we’ve been building.

Eeb Allay Ooo! (2019)

Directed by Prateek Vats

Screenplay by Shubham and Prateek Vats

Language: Hindi

Thanks for reading my essay! Your interest gives me enormous motivation to keep on writing. If you have any comments I’d love to read and respond to them. And if you want to read some of my other works then head over to www.amazon.in/Sumit-Ray/ where you can see some of my fiction writing, and also a book of essays on Satyajit Ray’s entire fiction filmography.

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (1914–1987) was, in more ways than one, at the beating heart of the Hindi film industry during what some may call its golden era. He had worked as a writer, and then as a director. But a new book, or rather, a new translation of one of his books, has re-introduced his primordial cinema avatar — film critic.

Sone Chandi Ke Buth, or Idols of Gold and Silver, has been translated by Syeda Hamid and Sukhpreet Kahlon, from their “tattered…dirty purple” copy. In the preface they point out an incredible fact about the man, which is that he wrote 74 books (in a lifetime of 73 years) consisting largely of the 3000 pieces of journalese written for Blitz magazine across 46 years. This was in addition to nearly 40 films that he wrote for and often directed.

This was a man who had found his life’s purpose in truly divine fashion and who pursued it quite like a prize horse in a race. And why horse and not jockey? Because the gentleman Abbas would appear to be designed to run, but wasn’t given to competitiveness. He believed that the purpose of his pen and his art was to uplift and encourage, and not to build distractions and self-aggrandise.

What then are the reasons I feel this book calls out to Indian cinema lovers? There are three.

First, this book itself is a historical artefact. While not much can be found in the translation about when the original was published, the essays themselves range from the 1940s to the 1970s. As a result, one can suddenly be surprised to hear that there was a time when two hundred thousand (two lakh) rupees was a big budget to make a film. A wonderful essay ‘From Harishchandra to Adhikar’ charts the first quarter-century of Indian cinema (1913–1939) as it takes a broad look at all regional achievements in the art form. As an insider and close observer, Abbas also brings out the people who make up the industry. There are humanising pen sketches of towering figures like Meena Kumari and Prithviraj Kapoor, as well as a look at the forms of hierarchy that unnecessarily percolated into the crew. As a committed socialist, Abbas was against these proxy class divisions and his essay on the welfare of stunt artists brings to fore the respect he directed towards all members of the industry.

Second, this book is a good study for film critics and film journalists. In an era where reviews are only a couple of hundred words and rise only to the most superficial levels of analyses, Abbas takes us back to an era of purposeful writing. His film essays, written for the Bombay Chronicle, are deep explorations, and mix praise and criticism to bring out complexity. He was certainly bold in the manner that he called out the excesses of the industry, even criticising Dilip Kapoor, a man with an outsize presence in cinema. In ‘Durga — Portrait of a Village’, Abbas reviews the 1939 film featuring Devika Rani, and takes time to look at three separate characters and what they represent to the audience, before condemning a tame ending that did not do justice to the rest of the film. Even then, he goes on to give a final word of praise to the work done by Rani in elevating the titular character. Such is the balance that few critics, or even audience members, are capable of today.

Finally, there is something for lovers of short stories. As a writer for cinema, Abbas certainly would have had many ideas that never made it to the big screen. A handful of them are presented in this book. The style will be familiar and welcome to those who admire the works of Manto, Chughtai, and Premchand. These are searing and tragic tales, but full of poetry. They are marked by pain but alleviated by heroism. What’s especially appealing is that all of the six short stories take place within the world of film-making, allowing us another chance to enter this liminal zone between reality and make-believe.

After giving you all these reasons, I feel I must also add that the book is not an entirely consistent read. I cannot tell you that every page is informative or eye-opening, or even interesting. The book works at the level of the woods and not the trees. A patient approach is required, and without that this book may not be a satisfying read. Given how much film-making and audience expectations have changed, this book, unfortunately, is a relic of a distant past and must be approached as such.

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Thanks for reading my essay. Your interest gives me enormous motivation to keep on writing. If you have any comments I’d love to read and respond to them. And if you want to read some of my other works then head over to www.amazon.in/Sumit-Ray/ where you can see some of my fiction writing, and also a book of essays on Satyajit Ray’s entire fiction filmography (you can also read those at www.raybyray.in).

“Night grinds on and the huge decrepit mansion continues talking in unceasing whispers…” — Ek Din Pratidin (1980)

“From Baishey Shravan in 1960 … ‘ruins’ have played an important role in many of my films.” — Always Being Born

All of us have, at some time or another, imbued the houses we have lived in with a range of emotions. A childhood home can be remembered with as much warmth as a family member. A house where we encountered trauma can trigger feelings of misery. Thoughts about a ramshackle house can make us feel trapped.

Houses, although lifeless shapes made of very base ingredients, are strong receptacles of thoughts and emotions, and can even become part of our collective consciousness.

Think of the Taj Mahal, of Rabindranath Tagore’s house, Arundhati Roy’s house, or Shah Rukh Khan’s house. Whether or not you’ve seen these in person, you certainly have some reaction to what each of these represents. Most likely, they take on the persona of their famous residents and your association with the house is the same as your association with the resident.

Mrinal Sen was known to have a fondness for situating his films in expansive but decrepit houses out of his ‘love for ruins’. One of his early films, Baishey Shravana (1960), was close to his heart not just because it brought him success and respect, but also because he felt he had gotten very lucky by chancing upon the mansion that featured in the film.

In the film, a young bride is leading her husband on a playful chase through their village home when she finds she has run into the courtyard of an old, abandoned, yet awe-inspiring mansion that belonged to his forebears. Her husband tells her of the mansion’s glory days and how it collapsed from there. In a sequence that lasts only a few minutes, we see how the mansion is an entire period’s history frozen in one architectural unit. In its form, it contains stories of prosperity and atrocity, generations of family history, and social history in the form of parties and festivals. Once an abode for the living, the tales of the dead are all that remain among the bricks. The grandeur has ‘evaporated like camphor’.

Years later, Sen made something of a meta-film about his experience shooting Baishey Shrabon. This was Akaler Sandhaney (1980) for which he used an even larger house as the setting. In the movie, the film crew takes up residence in this former mansion and their days of shooting get a much-needed warm communal feel. By living together, the cast and crew become more close to the theme of the film they are working on. They speak to the locals who crowd the set. They even become witnesses to a death in the family and mourn as family members would. Somehow, the group of strangers becomes connected like inmates in a hostel. A house brings together strangers who had no shared history previously. Living under the same roof collapses differences and forms a familial unit.

But the reverse can also happen, as in Ek Din Pratidin (1979). Even before we are introduced to any of the main characters of the film, a voice-over introduces us to the house where the film is situated. We are told when and by whom it was built and how it passed hands through generations till the current owner, much poorer than his ancestor, is forced to give the rooms out on rent. Like the famous Mumbai chawls, here too we find families living with no real sense of privacy. One never knows on which days this may help strengthen bonds among the neighbours, or when it may lead to confrontations. A missing woman from one household becomes a cause for concern, a subject of derision, a source of inspiration, and a trigger for anger. Everything happens within a huge house where words and lives flow without barriers. Tensions flare up among the inmates and the landlord, and the mansion consumes it all without flinching.

Our final example is Sen’s Hindi film Khandhar (1983). The house in this film is probably the most remote (within the fictional world) of all the ones Sen depicted. It takes an inordinately long journey by bus and bullock cart to reach there. Once revealed, it is more a ruin than a house, and fit for photography but not inhabitation. And yet there are inhabitants, a mother and daughter duo, and their father-daughter domestic staff. The mother is bedridden and feels entombed within the structure even as she has a few breaths remaining. The daughter, however, is trapped like a forgotten bird in a cage. She aches to belong to the world outside but her mother has nobody else to look after her. As the world has moved on without her, the daughter has become a human ruin, like the house she lives in. Without attention, and wracked by loneliness, nothing remains of the original beauty and strength. Those who visit, see the pain and suffering, but go away after capturing a few photographs, as a ruin, once it has collapsed in on itself, cannot be reconstructed.

Dipankar Mukhopadhyay’s excellent biography of Sen has the following passage that best sums up how the imagery of old mansions influenced Sen’s filmmaking choices. It is about the time when Sen and his team were scouting for locations for Baishey Shravana.

“One hot summer afternoon, when they were driving around Burdwan district without much luck, the famous nor-wester of Bengal struck them in full fury. They had to stop the car and wait for the storm to pass by. It was an awe-inspiring sight. As they watched the beauty of the storm spellbound, Bansi Chandragupta spotted the ruins of an old mansion. When the storm subsided, the building looked magnificent against the last rays of the sun. Looking at it, Sen first got the idea of the famous storm sequence. Such a sequence was neither part of the original story nor of the script already written by him. The storm brought back memories of his distant childhood when he was mortally scared of rain and thunder. He remembered how he would cling to his mother and close his eyes, terrified that the world was coming to an end, as monsoon winds and rain lashed his home in Faridpur. Sen thought of making his irrational fear of childhood an integral part of the script.”

We must be thankful to that mansion for braving the storm.

References

Mrinal Sen, Always Being Born — A Memoir, Steller Publishers, 2006

Dipankar Mukhopadhyay, Mrinal Sen — Sixty Years in Search of Cinema, Harper Collins, 2009

Originally published at https://indigenousweb.com.