7 Days of the The 70s – Day Seven

Welcome to the concluding episode of The 70s Blog Mela in BollyLand! For the past seven days, your favorite Bollybloggers turned their back on The Golden Made- in-Bengal Age of Hindi Cinema and took time off from cribbing about modern cinema to focus on the era that taught us the true meaning of paisa vasool. Click on the link above or click here to catch up with all the fantastic posts you might have missed.

I want to thank BethLovesBollywood for all the work she’s put in and for always thinking up fun stuff to do. Hooray for our Bethy! Everybody should have a friend like her!

Thanks also go out to VLoveMovies for the cool badge (henceforth a handy link to all the posts, to be found in the widget area) and all of you, bloggers and readers alike, who participated. I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me.

Right, so on the last day, I thought I’d try my hand at a little awards love. Later this week I will bravely leave the internet behind for a bit of actual human companionship, which means I will not be here for one of my favorite annual rites: The Oscars. So I’m going to make up for it by celebrating my Alternate Awards.

As befits a lazy person, I found my list of movies off Wikipedia and then went to the Filmfare website to look for a list of nominees & winners for a spot of contrast. Which is when I found out things like – did you know Filmfare used to have only three nominees every year until they suddenly changed it to five in the 70s? Yes, you possibly did because you’re a better film buff than I. Of course, it could be that whoever they hired to update their databases got really tired and decided to shorten the list. Somebody knowledgeable, please advise.

Another thing I found out was that IMDB, Wikipedia and Filmfare all exist on parallel universes because none of them can agree when a movie was released. Or perhaps Filmfare nominates movies midyear? So confusing! Anyway, this is to let you know that if you see Filmfare has nominated a movie made in 1970 for an award in 1972, do not be surprised or think Amrita has been hitting the vodka bottle. This is how Indian Awards Time works.

Also since I haven’t actually seen all the movies that were released during these years (I only pretend!), and I don’t have overworked editorial assistants to lend a helping hand, I’m sure you’ve all got other choices. Do tell.

Amrita’s Amazingly Alliterative Alternate Awards

1970

Filmfare nominees: Do Raaste, Khilona, Pehchan

Filmfare winner: Khilona

Why: Sanjeev Kumar as a mentally disturbed man and Mumtaz as the prostitute with a heart of gold who cures him? It must have been catnip for the Filmfare cats.

Amrita’s nominees: Kati Patang, Khilona, Sachha Jhhutha

Amrita’s winner: Kati Patang

Why: Fine, so my choice doesn’t make you weep buckets and all poor Rajesh Khanna can offer you is his Alcoholic Lover persona as compared to Sanjeev Kumar frothing at the mouth and gnawing on the furniture. But I much prefer its story of redemption and second chances. And its music. Happiness is not overrated, people.

1971

Filmfare nominees: Anand, Mera Naam Joker, Naya Zamana

Filmfare winner: Anand

Why: It’s a heartwarming tale about a man with a terminal illness who teaches the people around him, especially his morose doctor, a thing or two about living life to its fullest.

Amrita’s nominees: Anand, Guddi, Mere Apne

Amrita’s winner: Mere Apne

Why: In many ways the anti-Anand, nearly forty years after it was made, Gulzar’s directorial debut still packs a powerful punch.

1972

Filmfare nominees: Anubhav, Be-Imaan, Pakeezah

Filmfare winner: Be-Imaan

Why: Um, they were huge Manoj Kumar fans? I have no idea.

Amrita’s nominees: Anubhav, Piya ka Ghar, Seeta aur Geeta

Amrita’s winner: Anubhav

Why: This was an amazing year for Hindi cinema. I’m not surprised that they upped the list of nominees to five hereafter. You can see the gap widening between the parallel movement and Bollywood by simply looking at the list of releases. I thought about giving it to Seeta aur Geeta for its enduring effect on Hindi cinema but Anubhav won – because I love it so.

1973

Filmfare nominees: Anurag, Aaj Ki Taaza Khabar, Bobby, Koshish, Zanjeer

Filmfare winner: Anurag

Why: They must have been smoking the good stuff.

Amrita’s nominees: Koshish, Zanjeer, Abhimaan, Blackmail, Saudagar

Amrita’s winner: Abhimaan

Why: Because it’s a story that’s gotten increasingly relevant.

1974

Filmfare nominees: Ankur, Garam Hawa, Kora Kagaz, Roti Kapada Aur Makaan, Rajnigandha

Filmfare winner: Rajnigandha

Why: It stands out till date as an exploration of a young woman’s mind.

Amrita’s nominees: Ankur, Garam Hawa, Kora Kagaz, Rajnigandha, 36 Ghante

Amrita’s winner: Garam Hawa

Why: To me, it’s not even a contest.

1975

Filmfare nominees: Aandhi, Amanush, Deewar, Sanyasi, Sholay

Filmfare winner: Deewar

Why: Sholay may have edged it out for the masala crown but Deewar is one of those movies that attempts to straddle that line of a masala movie with social relevance and gets away with it.

Amrita’s nominees: Aandhi, Rafoo Chakkar, Deewar, Sholay, Chupke Chupke

Amrita’s winner: Chupke Chupke

Why: It’s pure pleasure.

1976

Filmfare nominees: Chhotisi Baat, Chitchor, Kabhie Kabhie, Mausam, Tapasya

Filmfare winner: Mausam

Why: Fine performances by Sanjeev Kumar and Sharmila Tagore hold this movie together and keep it from turning into something skeezy.

Amrita’s nominees: Chhotisi Baat, Chitchor, Ballika Badhu, Mausam, Nishaant

Amrita’s winner: Chhotisi Baat

Why: Because I forgot all about it in my earlier list of romantic movies

1977

Filmfare nominees: Amar Akbar Anthony, Bhumika, Gharaonda, Manthan, Swami

Filmfare winner: Bhumika

Why: An amazing performance by Smita Patil and a talented cast.

Amrita’s nominees: Amar Akbar Anthony, Bhumika, Gharaonda, Manthan, Swami

Amrita’s winner: Bhumika

Why: If I’d been alive in 1977, Filmfare and I would have been BFFs! We’re so on page with each other!

1978

Filmfare nominees: Ankhiyon Ke Jharakhon Se, Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki, Muqaddar Ka Sikander, Shatranj Ke Khilari, Trishul

Filmfare winner: Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki

Why: o_O!!! Granted this year was slim pickings – I couldn’t even find a proper five for my list – but still!

Amrita’s nominees: Ankhiyon Ke Jharakhon Se, Don, Shatranj Ke Khilari, Trishul

Amrita’s winner: Shatranj Ke Khilari

Why: The best Hindi movie about impotence that you’ll ever see.

1979

Filmfare nominees: Amardeep, Junoon, Kala Patthar, Noorie, Sargam

Filmfare winner: Junoon

Why: It’s the second best Hindi movie about impotence that you’ll ever see!

Amrita’s nominees: Golmaal, Junoon, Kala Patthar, Baaton Baaton Mein, Griha Pravesh

Amrita’s winner: Golmaal

Why: To end the decade and 7 Days of the 70s on a happy note!

PS – first person to mention assonance gets a kick in the pants.

 

7 Days of the 70s: Day Five

Welcome to The 70s Blog Mela in BollyLand! For seven technicolor days, your favorite Bollybloggers turn their back on The Golden Made- in-Bengal Age of Hindi Cinema and take time off from cribbing about modern cinema to focus on the era that taught us the true meaning of paisa vasool. Click on the link above or click here to catch up with all the fantastic posts you might have missed.

Vamp Up the Volume

One of the enduring legacies of 70s cinema is what it did to the treasured tradition of the vamp in Bollywood. As the seductive dancing of the Bad Woman got more and more frenzied, the music got faster and the costumes progressively risque – until the more adventurous heroines began to wonder why they weren’t getting in on any of that fun action. By the time the 70s drew to a close, the iconic age of Helen, Aruna Irani, Bindu, Padma Khanna and Laxmi Chhaya was all but over and we were down to Simple Kapadia and Kalpana Iyer as the likes of Zeenat Aman and Rekha among others began to cut in.

Originally this post was going to be another listicle, but once I got started, there were just so many great songs that I wanted to include that it got progressively harder and harder to choose just ten. I could’ve filled most of the spots from 1971 alone. After all, the 70s were also an amazing decade for music in the Hindi film industry. Besides, I was bored with all the listicles.

Instead, as I trawled Youtube for videos, I was struck by how the Bollywood vamp had stories to tell that were often more compelling than that of the heroine’s.

Padma Khanna’s most famous song, for example, from Johnny Mera Naam might have been titillating but its context was truly sad: she was dancing for the life of her lover and herself. It does not end well.

The trope of vamps as girls who will do anything for the sake of their men is one that comes up again and again. Helen’s cat-eyed turn in Don comes to mind, in which Kamini not only goes to bed with her fiance’s killer but puts on one hell of a show in order to delay him long enough for the police to get there.

And then there was Laxmi Chhaya’s bravura performance in this song from Mera Gaon Mera Desh. Never has a Bollywood song begged harder for some fanfic. You know Dharmendra must truly love Asha Parekh if he’s giving up all that for her and her conical headgear. Dayum. (Get more Laxmi Chhaya goodness here.)

And then there is Bindu. When I was compiling my little listicle, I was sure how it was going to turn out: a huge list of Helen songs with a few others thrown in to break the monotony. Because Helen was the Queen. And yet, Bindu was the one I found really difficult to strike off my list.

The more videos I watched, the more it seemed to me that there were three broad tiers of vampdom to be seen:

The first one is occupied solely by Helen. She did the occasional seduction piece that involved one on one action in humdrum settings like the ones in Don and Mere Jeevan Saathi, but by and large her cabarets were works of art. The set pieces, the choreography, the costumes, the context – there is a very definite artistic vision about them. From all accounts she was very particular about her songs and was in a position to bargain with the producers of her films about the quality of her work. And it showed. Helen was very, very sexy but she wasn’t really selling sex – she was selling fantasy. Her most iconic performances are those in which she never steps off the stage or, if she does deign to mix with the hoi polloi, she does it as a mark of great favor. Helen does not beg for anyone’s attention; she commands it.

The second tier belongs to young ladies like Padma Khanna and Laxmi Chhaya. There’s a whiff of good girl gone bad about their performances. If they were strippers, they’d be doing it for college tuition. Their performances are so wild and unrestrained, that it seems to form its own natural barrier against the thoroughly male milieu in which they take place. It’s one thing to admire a chick in hotpants having a jiggly meltdown in front of you, it’s quite another to get your hands on her. Although there’s a fair bit of contact between the performers and the audience, the dances themselves suggest birds struggling to take flight.

And then there is the third tier: the woman of experience. When she walks into a room, she knows what you’re thinking, likes it and knows exactly how she likes it. Aruna Irani is a good contender for it with her performances in movies like Caravan, Mili and Bobby to mention just a few but Bindu was the one who seems born to play her.

When I was little and didn’t really understand the finer points of human plumbing, I couldn’t understand how Bindu got to be a famous vamp in the same era as Helen. There was my darling Helen with her ballerina figure and her deranged Broadway musical outfits, dancing on her tippy toes with feathers in her hair like she’d just gotten off the time machine from the Belle Epoque and there was Bindu with her generous figure barely contained in slinky bits of nothing, slithering all over the place like an auntie who’d had a couple glasses too many. What was that all about?

Sex. When Bindu works a room, she maintains excellent eye contact with the man (or woman as the case might be in movies like Kati Patang and Shaque) she’s chosen and her objective seems to invade their personal space. She might be the object of the audience’s gaze but she retains control by choosing her target and turning him into the object of her desire. It is absolutely fascinating.

The third tier threat isn’t that this is a Bad Woman who does Bad Things like drink and dance in front of men wearing clothes that display too much flesh. The third tier threat is that of a succubus. Mess with this woman and she might just consume you. She isn’t just immoral, she’s dangerously immoral. She promises you the ultimate sexual thrill where you might just lose control. And be happy to do so.

 

7 Days of the 70s: Day Four

Welcome to The 70s Blog Mela in BollyLand! For seven technicolor days, your favorite Bollybloggers turn their back on The Golden Made- in-Bengal Age of Hindi Cinema and take time off from cribbing about modern cinema to focus on the era that taught us the true meaning of paisa vasool. Click on the link above or click here to catch up with all the fantastic posts you might have missed.

Today on IQ, we break out the champagne, light the candles, strew the rose petals and settle back in our bubble bath for a bit of romance.

Romance in the Age of Masala

No matter the era – be it the violence soaked 80s or the bigger-is-better 70s, the mythological 40s or the earnest 50s – Hindi cinema’s greatest currency has always been love. His western counterparts might banter wittily on the phone or take the girl on a walk through mist-drenched Paris but such thakela stuff was never enough for your Hindi film hero. Dilip Kumar declared war on Daddy Akbar for his best slave girl, Shammi Kapoor hung out of helicopters, and Raj Kapoor came back from the dead (even though the girl really wished he’d have stayed dead).

Naturally, the masala 70s had to keep up. There is a post out there (hint, hint to some brave soul reading this) about all the grand romantic gestures the bravos from the 70s made in the name of love – from Amitabh Bachchan’s emergence from an enormous Easter Egg to Rishi Kapoor getting the shit kicked out of him in every other movie, but that’s not what I’d like to discuss today.

No, I’m thinking of something much more simpler and sweeter: the true blue romances of the 70s. The chick flicks, the movies that make you go awww, the ones all the boys say are really for the girls but like to watch all the same because they’re just so darn good!

Note: In the process of making my list, I noticed that it slowly turned into a post about Jaya Bhaduri’s movies. Hmmm. In alphabetical order:

1. Anamika – Jaya Bhaduri and Sanjeev Kumar are one of my all time favorite screen couples so this is an automatic mark in its favor. But this movie about a writer who rescues an unconscious girl one night only to have her wake up the next morning claiming to be his bride has a little bit of everything – mystery, romance, villainy, great songs and Helen.

2. Balika Badhu – Child marriage is creepy, yes. Especially when the lead characters are so convincingly childish. But if you can manage to throw your mind over that bit of matter (it helps a bit that the marriage is actually between two children, instead of a little girl to some old lech), the movie becomes a lovely little exploration of relationships conducted within a conservative joint family in another era. It’s a glimpse at another India.

3. Blackmail – Oh. Em. Gee. There’s this whole plot about a solar powered battery or something and Shatrughan Sinha wants to steal the phormoola for it. But what we care about is the growing love story between the shy and very handsome scientist played by Dharmendra and the mega beautiful Rakhee. Warning: you’ll never look at a woodpile the same way again! Read review here.

4. Chupke Chupke – What person does not love this movie? Show me your face so I might sneer at you! Everybody’s favorite romcom is about newlyweds Parimal and Sulekha starting off their marriage in grand style with a bit of subterfuge and hijinks. The majority of the movie is taken up with the central prank and the way it keeps threatening to go out of hand, but what grounds the whole enterprise is the flirtatious romance of the lead couple. There is a scene at the very beginning in which Sulekha sternly orders a sheepish Parimal to show her his face. I don’t think Dharmendra’s ever looked better in his life. if you haven’t watched this movie yet, you need to catch it stat – preferably as a double feature with Blackmail. Keep the oxygen handy!

5. Guddi – The story of a naive young woman who isn’t quite sure what she wants but rather likes the shiny stuff that’s out of her reach is such an old trope, I’m always shocked at how badly Hindi cinema botches it up. Usually the girl is some rich bitch and the shiny guy she likes is someone like Gulshan Grover or Shakti Kapoor and the nice guy is actually some lout with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel – the better to show off his hirsute chest. Versions multiply thereof. Do not want. Guddi is altogether different – little Guddi with her movie star obsession slowly falls for the steadfast young man approved by her family and learns a thing or two about fantasy and reality along the way without it all getting preachy. It’s lovely.

6. Mili – Hrishikesh Mukherjee had an amazing ability to take a cliche and make you fall desperately in love with it. This story of a terminally ill young woman who teaches a brusque and emotionally battered man to love is possibly my favorite Jaya-Amitabh romance. Oh, and my version has a happy ending, thanks very much.

7. Rafoo Chakkar – Who is the fairest, featheriest, shiniest, booteephoolest Kapoor of all? Rishi Kapoor, of course! Okay, so it’s more of a comedy than a romance but this remake of Some Like It Hot is utterly fabulous. Read review here and here.

8. Sharmeelee – Another movie of Rakhee in her doll phase (I mean that as a compliment – I don’t know how Katrina Kaif ended up as Bollywood Barbie when any fool who knew their Bollywood knows the title rightfully belongs to her! Maybe she can be Vintage Bollywood Barbie? I shall write a letter!), this one has the added benefit of the ever so beautiful Shashi Kapoor. Aiee! Of course, when Shashi is handed a romantic lead, some perverse impulse is automatically triggered in the fool director’s mind and the loveliest man in all the land immediately turns into a nasty piece of work with severe psychological problems (see Satyam Shivam Sundaram for more). But everything works out satisfactorily, complete with midair fights, evil twins, espionage and more! Read review here.

9. Trishul – This isn’t an automatic guess when you say “romance”, especially when it features The Bachchan in full He Man mode but it’s really one big love fest. It starts with Sanjeev Kumar’s betrayal of a pregnant Waheeda Rehman and continues with their son Amitabh Bachchan’s quest for revenge against the father he’s never known. There’s his half-brother Shashi Kapoor who’s got everything money can buy but can’t do what he really wants. Amitabh and Rakhee have another one of their intense relationships and Shashi and Hema Malini have a boisterous fling, while Poonam Dhillon and Sachin are the picture of earnest young love.

10. Uphaar – Jaya Bhaduri is incandescent in the Hindi remake of a Rabindranath Tagore story originally filmed by Satyajit Ray (the fascinating yet disturbing “Samapti” from Teen Kanya). It softens the edges of the Ray film (I haven’t read the story, so can’t speak as to Tagore’s version) which was a lot more brutal about the effects marriage and womanhood have on the free-spirited female lead but manages to retain the fey bits of the character.

Honorable Mention:

1. Amar Prem – The eternal love of the title is actually that of a mother for a child and vice versa. Sharmila Tagore spends an eternity in this movie getting ground into the dirt and shedding copious tears, only to find some semblance of happiness in the embrace of a client which just leads to even more despair. It elevates melodrama to the point of religious experience but its saving grace is that it never lets go of Sharmila’s mothering instinct. For days when you want to wallow. Oh, and one of the best soundtracks of the decade.

2. Andaz – Munchkins! It has adorable munchkins! And Hema Malini who looks like a doll. And Shammi Kapoor who’s just the right amount of madcap. And Rajesh Khanna in a flashback. Something for everybody.

3. Bobby – Young love, class war, you know the drill. Adolescents are not my thing but Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia are terribly sweet. And they glow! Literally, glow! Even my cold heart says aww. Read review here.

4. Caravan – I don’t want to lie to you: this is a Jeetendra movie. And yes, he does get pouty and sobby in the middle, and his pants are disturbing. But! He also has the wonderful Asha Parekh with him as well as Aruna Irani and Helen. And all of them dance and have a good time. I vote this the movie I’m most likely to bring out at a pajama party: fun enough to have a blast, not good enough to merit personal time. More here.

5. Dastan – This movie is an instant pick me up because you know exactly what’s going to happen from the moment you meet the unusually happily married Dilip Kumar. I mean, every movie-goer doth know that nobody is that in sync with his buxom wife unless an anvil is readying to drop itself on his head. For those days when you’d like a bit of self-righteous indignation to go with your cake.

6. Gharaonda – What I really love about this movie about love gone wrong is that you can truly feel Amol Palekar’s disbelief that Zarina Wahab could possibly prefer Shreeram Lagoo to him. It’s a complicated movie – the older man isn’t some heartthrob with a few dashes of silver paint in his hair, the younger man is more desperate than evil, and the girl’s idealism is well and good but when you think about it, she had one option more than her boyfriend. It’s fit for company and for alone time.

7. Heer Ranjha – Chetan Anand tried to do something truly different with his version of the iconic Punjabi starcrossed lovers. And then he carried it too far and cast Priya Rajvansh as Heer, creating an immortal romantic film about a man in love with a talking mannequin. Creepy fun but not for those rainy days when you want to believe in the power of love and Prince Charming.

8. Kasme Vaade – This movie isn’t really very good and comes with a masala element which features a hilariously hunchbacked Amjad Khan, but it has all the force of that smouldering Rakhee – Amitabh chemistry behind it. I know Rekha – Amitabh is supposed to be the Holy Grail or whatever, but I personally prefer this pair. Rakhee always appears to present a challenge to Amitabh when they team up and it’s especially potent in the second half of this movie as poor half-demented Suman struggles with the appearance of the befuddled Shankar who looks exactly like her genteel lost love, Amit (albeit with a pencil mustache and dirty clothes).

9. Laila Majnu – Romeo and Juliet in Arabia! Didn’t care when it was set in Italy, don’t care even if they traded in the doublets for some harem pants. The only time I liked this thing was when they staged it in Aaja Nachle and that’s because it got over in six minutes or so. But if you like to watch your romance with a hankie or ten in one hand, then this is the movie for you.

10. Rajnigandha – This isn’t really a “Bollywood” film but I can’t resist it. A quiet movie about the road not taken, it’s perfect for a Sunday afternoon. Read a review here.

PS – talking of romance, I just want to give a shoutout to Rajshri for actually taking the trouble to understand how the internet works and putting up an excellent Youtube channel. With the recent kudos going to Striker and the well-deserved bitterness that labels like Eros, Moser Baer, etc have earned with their unembeddable videos and their terrible DVDs, it’s worth pointing out that the original kings of the “family” romance were the first big production house in Bollywood to put up a downloadable version of their movie (Vivaah) and do audiences of Hindi cinema everywhere a great service by uploading their library.

 

7 Days of the The 70s – Day Three

Welcome to The 70s Blog Mela in BollyLand! For seven technicolor days, your favorite Bollybloggers turn their back on The Golden Made- in-Bengal Age of Hindi Cinema and take time off from cribbing about modern cinema to focus on the era that taught us the true meaning of paisa vasool. Click on the link above or click here to catch up with all the fantastic posts you might have missed.

Here at IQ, Day Three is Ladies Night.

The Roles Women Play

You’ll often find critics of the 70s talking about the downturn in the quality of women’s roles during this period: the Bachchan juggernaut, “liberal” heroines like Parveen Babi and Zeenat Aman who were comfortable playing vampy and demure in the course of the same film, and the slow march to splitsville that saw Hindi cinema bifurcate into Bollywood fantasy and parallel reality (where women still had roles to play in movies like Bhumika, Nishant, Ankur, etc) had a lot to do with it.

However, there are still a few female characters from Bollywood proper who survived the long years of drought. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Roma – Kamini (Don) – Although she puts on a sundress and practically disappears in the second half, the vengeful martial-arts trained Roma is perhaps the best role Zeenat Aman ever played. Unlike the majority of her other roles, it had nothing to do with her jaw-dropping figure and everything to do with her ability to look like she meant business.

And Helen’s Kamini, the heartbroken fiance of Roma’s murdered brother, is simply iconic as the woman who will go to any lengths to get justice for her lover. Even if it includes getting into bed with his killer.

2. Sulekha (Chupke Chupke) – Hrishikesh Mukherjee gave mainstream Hindi cinema a number of interesting female leads in the 1970s including the wonderful Jaya Bhaduri trio of Mili (Mili), Guddi (Guddi) and Uma (Abhimaan). But Sharmila Tagore’s Sulekha is my favorite.

With an impish, gleeful humor spilling out of her eyes, her chola-tastic eyebrows, nylon sarees, and crackling chemistry with co-star Dharmendra, I wanted to be Sulekha with her effortless chic, her taste in men and what looked like a really fun family. I mean, Mili has a fatal disease, Guddi is a naive infant and Uma has a terrible husband. Sulekha wins!

3. Basanti (Sholay) – Okay, so she made you want to stuff your fingers in your ear (I don’t care how many times I’ve heard it, but “Tumhara naam kya hai, Basanti?” still makes me roar with laughter when I hear it. Yes, I am a simpleton).

But not only is she an independent woman and proud of it despite living in a dusty village in the middle of nowhere, she’s clearly literate, kind and helpful, can spot a lech when she meets him, has a glare that could emasculate at ten paces, is sensible enough to weigh her boyfriend’s ego against the chances of them getting out alive from a den full of armed blackguards and make the right call, and goes after her man when he tries to slink away to wallow in his grief. Whew. You go, girl!

4. Seeta – Geeta (Seeta aur Geeta) – Geeta is, of course, an easy choice for this list. She’s a fearless smartass who drives the police mad, is handy with a whip, can sock it to the cretins who want to beat up on her and soon sets her household to rights.

Poor little Seeta who’s been raised to be a scaredy cat by their horrible uncle and aunt, in my opinion, does something harder. She makes her way into the outside world despite it scaring the bejesus out of her and gamely gives Geeta’s acrobatic and very public life a shot even though she knows the outcome will not be pretty. She also manages to tame the drunken wildebeest played by Dharmendra whereas all Geeta has to do is skate down a highway with the portly but courteous Sanjeev Kumar. I’m sold!

5. Nagin (Nagin) – The B-movie that sent Reena Roy’s career skyrocketing for a time. I explain the finer points in great detail here.

6. Chanda (Khoon Pasina) – The first time we meet Chanda, Rekha is swinging those impressive hips down the street and some lout is unable to hold his feelings in check and sends a wolf-whistle her way. The scene that follows is classic. If it were remade in this day and age, I’m sure the language would have been a lot more colorful.

Impressed by her chutzpah, Tiger (Amitabh Bachchan) is convinced he’s found a girl worthy of his lordly time and kindly informs her of this fact. So Chanda sends him off to fight with a stuffed tiger. Thus is movie history made.

7. Saudamani (Lal Patthar) – Hema Malini says this is her favorite performance. I agree here.

8. Neetu – Shabu (Parvarish) – Our second sister act features a couple of thieves who hide a deeper purpose behind their outwardly free-wheeling lifestyle. They might spend their days cutting purses, but their attention is really focused on finding the man who left them orphaned at a young age.

Neetu (Neetu Singh) and Shabu (Shabana Azmi) might make for unlikely siblings, but there’s nothing wrong with their spirited performances. They chase their men and aren’t afraid to buttonhole their parents-in-law-to-be in their own home when there’s no one else to plead their case for them. And finding love doesn’t put a dampener on their plans for vengeance either – the boys might get to lurk around the lair but the girls give it a good go first.

9. Geeta (Trishul) – Rakhee’s performance as Geeta is one of my favorites. She’s remarkably low-key and just pitch perfect as the efficient secretary-cum-voice of conscience.

The scene in which Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan at his sexiest broodingest) symbolically stretches out a hand and asks for a little love and friendship from a quietly introspective Geeta is perhaps Hindi cinema’s most underappreciated romantic scene.

10. Salma (Amar Akbar Anthony) – You just gotta love a burkha clad doctor who literally listens to an expectant mother’s heartbeat by pressing her wrist to her ear.

AAA was a boys fest through and through even if a pouty Shabana and a sexy Parveen Babi did their best to liven things up. But Neetu Singh’s Dr. Salma, as the object of Rishi Kapoor’s overwhelming obsession, was the best kind of poster girl – sweet enough to fall for the boy next door even though she’s way out of his league, and smart enough to pull one over the villains by penning a letter in Urdu disguised as a doctor’s note at just the right moment.

 

7 Days of the The 70s – Day Two

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Welcome to The 70s Blog Mela in BollyLand! For the next seven days, your favorite Bollybloggers turn their back on The Golden Made- in-Bengal Age of Hindi Cinema and take time off from cribbing about modern cinema to focus on the era that taught us the true meaning of paisa vasool. Click on the link above or click here to catch up with all the fantastic posts you might have missed.

Meanwhile, Day Two on IQ is all about poster love.

A Very Angry Decade

Everybody was very angry in the 70s. Amitabh Bachchan merely walked off with the title. I think it was because of those tight pants – cut off circulation in the crotch area and watch people turn crotchety. Sunil Dutt suffered terribly as you can see. Dharmendra provided a photo finish; Dutt might have needed dacoit gear to get the proper amount of Yargh on his face but Garam Dharam did it just for the practice.

The only exception was the beauteous Shashi Kapoor: even the posterwallahs agreed that it would be a crime to paste anything resembling a scowl or a sneer on that pretty face. Usually he looked rather surprised if not downright shocked; when confronted by Shatrughan Sinha’s armpits or the nostrils of yet another smitten lady, he looked resigned.

Pran and other lords of villainy spent the 70s screaming out of posters. Villains apparently never spoke or smouldered when they could yell and contort their face. If you were losing your voice every other day thanks to all that unnecessary stress on your vocal chords, your face would be all twisted up in pain too!

Feroz Khan and Shatrughan Sinha are an unexpectedly strong presence. Given the remarkably scary look of him (once as a rather tubby person who looks ready to munch on his costars) in all his posters, Sinha apparently pissed off the posterwallah union at some point or else they just didn’t take to his face. Khan was doing so many horror movies, he just confused the posterwallahs who didn’t know whether he was supposed to be terrified or angry in this one or the next. So they appear to have just given him a Standard Scream Face and left it at that. Lazy!

Scattered in between are several people of an older vintage. These refugees from the 60s and 70s seem to be mainly venting their anger at the lack of innovative hairstyling techniques / talented toupee makers.

You will notice a singular lack of Amitabh Bachchan love in my choices – well, that’s because it was the rare film in which the posterwallahs gave him Anger Face. Mostly, AB posters are of him leaning against the frame and looking lanky or staring thoughtfully into the distance. It’s a wonder anyone went to see his movies.

And then there are the wimminz! Oh dear, the wimminz. Take a look-see for yourself.

Source: If you’ve enjoyed the vintage posters in this post, click on over to The Hot Spot Online where extended galleries await you. You could even have them printed onto merchandise. Very cool.

 

7 Days of The 70s – Day One

Welcome to The 70s Blog Mela in BollyLand! For the next seven days, your favorite Bollybloggers turn their back on The Golden Made- in-Bengal Age of Hindi Cinema and take time off from cribbing about modern cinema to focus on the era that taught us the true meaning of paisa vasool.

On the first day of the madness, I thought I’d kick things off with IndieQuill’s missing link… Rajesh Khanna! The man who was king for a glorious few years before The Lanky One set fire to his crown. Everybody else gets the love, why shouldn’t he?

There are those who are frightened off by his later performances (one word: yeeowtch), and others who live in fear of the outraged howls of his dedicated fan base in case they mention they don’t care for all the melodrama (of which there is plenty!).

To which I say: pooh! The Super Star (Original) is for everyone.

Eagle-eyed nitpickers will note that while this list is comprised of ten movies, it contains multiple entries from various years, skips a couple, and stops short in 1976. This is because I’ve only seen about five of the movies he made from 1977 – 79 and from what I remember of them, I wish I had not seen them. Perhaps one of the films I have not seen is a forgotten masterpiece but Chalta Purza (1977), Chhaila Babu (1977), Bhola Bhala (1978), Amar Deep (1979) and Janata Havaldar (1979) are definitely not “essential” to anybody save the dedicated Rajesh Khanna fan. Although Chhaila Babu does have sequences like the above for the twisted (I love the !sexy!cough!).

In chronological order:

The Essential Rajesh Khanna

Khamoshi (1970) – Rajesh Khanna acted in any number of melodramas. I don’t care how many times he told Pushpa in Amar Prem that “I hate tears!” – the tear duct is an important component of the RK-viewing experience. I remind you of this because I wish for you to pay attention when I say this is the saddest movie he ever acted in. An air of gentle melancholia infuses every frame of this movie as it builds to its hopeless climax.

Sachcha Jhutha (1970) – The basis for any number of Bolly-insider jokes about lame sisters and lookalikes, this early Manmohan Desai film is just building up to his later zaniness but there’s Vinod Khanna skulking around in shades, Mumtaaz in pretty outfits, a loyal hound, lookalikes, crimes, capers and fun.

Kati Patang (1971) – Madhu is a girl who gloriously gives it all up for love… only to discover that Prince Charming is a full blown toad. Next come The Consequences which take the form of cute babies, impersonations, in-laws, drunken exes, blackmailing vamps, social issues, jail and finally – true love! When I think about it, it’s pretty annoying. But thinking about it is akin to thinking about chicken soup – who wants to remember what goes into it when it feels so comforting?

Anand (1971) – Personally, I can’t stand Pollyannas so this kind of gets me down in half an hour flat but I can see why other people love it so.

Dushman (1971) – This is one of my mother’s favorite movies. The story of a man who does a terrible thing and is then forced to look it in the face everyday instead of taking the “easy” option and going to jail, Rajesh Khanna is rather un-Super Star in this.

Bawarchi (1972) – Vintage Hrishikesh Mukherjee fare about a mysterious man who shows up one day at a fractured household claiming to be a gifted cook who’ll work for a pittance. What dark secrets does he hide and can a movie this happy possibly have a happy ending?

Dil Daulat Duniya (1972) – The real stars of this movie are Om Prakash as the tramp with a heart of gold and Ashok Kumar as the millionaire with a teeny tiny heart. The two of them are hilarious. RK mainly plays the good looking youngster part but he does win points by turning into a devoted pooch-lover.

Joroo ka Ghulam (1972) – Fans of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Chupke Chupke will love this comedy about a woman who lies outrageously to her disapproving parents about her husband’s financial success and then is forced to put her mansion where her mouth is. RK as the hapless husband who silently bears the burden of his wife’s mountain of lies is hilariously heartwarming although Om Prakash steals the show per usual.

Aap ki Kasam (1974) – It takes a brave man to make his audience despise him at the height of his stardom and RK does that very well in this weepie about a man who suspects his wife of having an adulterous affair with his best friend. Mumtaaz and Sanjeev Kumar don’t get to do much other than look scornfully outraged and thoroughly decent respectively, but Rajesh Khanna not only take the role and runs with it but also succeeds in running it into the ground and stomping on its grave in the third act. Hmm.

Mehbooba (1976) – Yes, it’s terrible. And you really do want to give both of them a good shove. But look! Ghosts! Reincarnation! Haunted tanpuras! Music! It doesn’t get more essential than that when it comes to Rajesh Khanna movies. What? I never promised “good”; I said “essential”.

Honorable Mention

The Train (1970) – A good time is had by all when there is murder on a train. More filmmakers should understand this. Plus you have Nanda and Helen!

Haathi Mere Saathi (1971) – Let me be honest. I can’t stand a good portion of this film, mainly thanks to its heroine who is more than borderline cuckoo and the inexplicable love the hero has for her. The reason it finds itself on this list then is because it has some serious recall value if one of my cousins is anything to go by: the only Bollywood movie he ever saw, he not only remembers its name but the main song thirty-odd years after he’d seen it last, to his mother’s astonishment and my applause. Also, elephants! ELEPHANTS! What more do you want, you Grinch?

Mere Jeevan Saathi (1972) – “Movies like these come by only once in a lifetime,” raves one IMDB user. Yes! Yes, they do! Let us all bow our heads and pray in gratitude.

Namak Haraam (1973) – Watch the torch pass as Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan team up once more for Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

Prem Kahani – still seething about the way he treated Mumtaaz in Aap ki Kasam? Well, then this is the movie for you – Mumtaaz not only kicks him over for a delicious looking Shashi Kapoor (his natural state, obvs) but nails him in other ways as well.

For the Noob

In addition to the above, there are a few movies that will inevitably come up in every conversation about Rajesh Khanna. People will ask you again and again if you have seen them and recommend them to you if you haven’t. They are:

• Amar Prem – Cynical, unhappily married drunk falls for religious, weepy prostitute; miserable people are miserable.
• Safar – An emo opera waiting to happen.
• Daag – Never marry a pretty girl. Or chivalrous men.
• Chhoti Bahu – Immaculate conception is the medical need of the hour. Where’s Jesus when you need Him?
• Andaaz – This is actually a Shammi Kapoor movie, but that never stopped anyone from plonking it in the middle of a Rajesh Khanna discussion. He sang a song in it, you know.
• Maalik – Atheism is very, very bad. At least when God does you wrong, you can nag Him into doing something better.
• Avishkaar – Some people should never get married. Two of them form the couple at the crux of this story.
• Roti – Tales of a hungry man. Do not watch on an empty stomach.
• Anurodh – The uplifting tale of a man whose father is horrified both by his singing and his consumptive friend. Musicians are rebellious even if they’re on AIR, kids!

The good thing about almost all these movies is that they come with excellent soundtracks. So even if you pick a dud, chances are you’re crying and cribbing along to a great tune.

 

Orally Complicated

I brush my teeth like it’s the last time I’ll ever be allowed to do it. Each and every tooth deserves individualized attention of at least five seconds duration (I timed it once) and it never feels clean enough until I’ve got to those hard-to-reach places at the upper corners. If it frequently takes me more than the recommended two minutes – well, I do have great big, horse teeth that take up a tremendous amount of space in my mouth.

My upper wisdom teeth are a particular obsession: I practically unhinge my jaw every night, trying to make sure I’ve brushed behind it. One of them broke in half sometime after they came in and I didn’t feel a thing. I have a memory of biting down on something hard and faintly powdery in the middle of a meal and swallowing it without inspection because we were at a formal event and I’m used to horrible food they serve at occasions like those, but I’m also very prone to false memories after the fact so I could be just making it up.

This specific memory suggested itself after a nasty trip to the dentist who inspected the broken tooth and then looked at me as though I were a rhinoceros who hadn’t yet realized it was missing its horn.

“You don’t feel anything?” he asked me with mounting disbelief, tapping it with increasing amounts of firmness.

“G-Unh,” I said, my mouth wide open and draining into that contraption by his side.

“Nothing at all?” Tap-tap-TAP. Well, if he was going to try and knock out the remaining half without anesthesia…

“G-Unh?” I said again, rolling my eyes for emphasis.

“Amazing,” he murmured.

I hate young dentists. Evil potheads. [Actually, this is an impression gleaned from my college years and might not be strictly true. Every single student dentist I ever met during that time was in school on the "Satisfy the Damn Parent with a Goddamn Medical Degree" quota and making up for it in their off time by partying it up like nobody's business. Not that I'm in any position to throw stones but at least when I had a hangover in the morning, I wasn't pulling out people's teeth.]

But my broken tooth, which the dentist helpfully filed down and left alone because he admired its pain-free existence, is not my only bugbear. I also have these giant upper teeth that look like they’d appreciate a steady diet of fresh hay and apples with the occasional sugar cube for a treat. They’re not quite Sarah Jessica Parker teeth, but by the time I’m her age, I bet they’ll look exactly the same. Because the awful truth about teeth is that they grow. And grow. And keep growing. In directions you wish they didn’t. And then people are going to laugh and point.

“I’m going to file them down when I grow up,” I informed my mother when I was twelve and saw the writing on the wall. She guffawed. Then she found out about capped teeth and the laughter died and trepidation took its place. Ha! But then I heard those things chip and break rather easily, so she feels much less threatened. Boo! Given my general clumsiness, I’m deathly afraid that I’ll get them and then one day I’ll look up from my delicious meal of ribs or somesuch and find myself with gargoyle dentures. Help of that kind, my looks can not take.

Dear God who art in Heaven: I know I do not look like Vivien Leigh but could I not at least have had her teeth? It would have made up for much. (I suppose I shouldn’t have cared then, in the way I do not care about other facial features. Hmm.)

But this is not about my oral shortcomings. [We will not touch the pun implicit in that sentence with so much as a barge pole, please. This is a family blog. Or so we will pretend for today.] What has often disturbed me in the midst of all this physician-approved dental hygiene is the… um, mess of it.

Have you ever seen people brush in the movies? Just as making love in the movies looks divine, brushing teeth in the movies looks so much neater than what I do. My process does not involve minimal amounts of foam, discreetly spit into the basin and rinsed out with one mouthful of water.

My process involves a great deal of foam and spit, sometimes dribbling down my chin, frequently hanging by thick threads of toothpaste coated saliva, and requires several mouthfuls of water. Gross, yes? But clean, my friends, clean. When I go to bed at night, I know that all the microscopic evildoers in my mouth have been terrified into paralysis at least for the time being. Most of them are probably dead.

Yet, it occurs to me that I’ve never actually seen another person brush so I don’t know if this is normal. I look the other way when I find myself sharing a sink with another person, be it my best friend or my mother. When I’m at a public bathroom (on a train, at the airport) and somebody is cleaning out their mouth, I politely look elsewhere. I’d love to say this is because I’m just that icily well bred, but actually, it’s because I’ve never felt the need to check out somebody’s cleaning rituals in case they’re just as gross as mine. I don’t think I could look at my near and dear ones the same way if I had to see them with toothpaste-y drool running down their face.

This might have a mistake in strategy because I just realized I really have no idea if I’m an offense waiting to happen. Does everybody else brush like the movies?

 

My Name is Khan & I’m Spoileriffic

Note: I’m not kidding about that title, so consider yourself warned.

The trend in Bollywood these days appears to be the well-made indie movie that slips so smoothly past the viewer, it’s all but impossible to find an interestingly gnarled corner to catch and react to. My Name is Khan is the extreme opposite with all the things it manages to pack in, not always happily, so that I came away thinking I’d seen several movies in the span of one and wasn’t particularly thrilled with any of them.

Odd as it seems, My Name is Khan is merely Karan Johar’s fourth outing as a director. It has turned into an event. It is a cause celebre, a media circus, an expression of public sentiment, a celebration of our democracy and anything else you want to throw at it. Unfortunately for all of us, it is all these things due to the moronic actions of a bunch of self-styled “patriots” who don’t think twice about terrorizing their fellow citizens in the name of national pride, rather than any cinematic merit the movie itself might possess. Somewhere in Mumbai, Aamir Khan takes a moment off from needling Javed Akhtar to stick a few pins into his SRK voodoo doll.

The Good Will Bring a Tear to Your Eye

I’m not one of those people maddened by the sight of a movie star acting like a movie star. There are people from whom I expect art and craft, and others from whom I expect craft and charisma. A happy few will give me both but I’ve never understood why I ought to sneer at those who will give me only one of the two. If artistry takes a considerable amount of effort, so does stardom – you have to earn your audience the same as anything else. Consequently, the thing I was dreading the most in MNIK was Rizwan Khan (Shahrukh Khan) and his Autism! Face!

SRK also happens to be one of the few actors we have today with a really distinctive voice and command of language. He doesn’t lisp his way through his dialogues in carefully neutral urbanized accents – he has a cadence to his speech (insert your favorite K-K-Kiran joke here) that sticks in your mind and knows how to enunciate without making it sound like a painful lesson he memorized for class. So by the time Autism! Face! was followed in the promos with Autism! Voice! I was looking forward to this movie about as much as getting syphilis.

And for the first twenty minutes or so, I found it fairly difficult. It wasn’t as cringe inducing as I’d feared but nor was it particularly good. It was SRK talking funny. And that’s where he deployed his movie stardom to good effect because all of a sudden, as he bantered with various women onscreen the way he’s done a million times before, he managed to transform himself into SRK with a speech defect. Then came the moment in which the object of Rizwan’s affection turns around and asks him to marry her and Rizwan blushes, giggles and hides his face.

The sheer charm of that moment is why SRK is a movie star. It was also the moment in which I saw the character rather than the actor. It didn’t last (more on that below) but if ever a single scene elevated a movie, that was it.

The other scene that left me shattered was when Rizwan’s stepson gets the shit kicked out of him. Mere seene mein bhi dil hai – black, withered and three parts concrete but it is still a dil and occasionally it goes splat. Especially at the movies. Johar’s greatest flair is not for romance, it is melodrama; in MNIK, he really goes the distance with an extended sequence that manages to harness the audience’s natural aversion to watching a child get fatally hurt and hitch it to outrage sparked by the bigotry that set it in motion.

The tragedy of MNIK is that it could have been a lovely little intimate drama about a family coping with the butterfly effect of world events. A bunch of rotten apples fly a plane into a building on one coast and across the country it costs a little boy his best friend, his innocence and his life – how does a family pick up from there? When Mandira (Kajol, bringing tons of natural charm to an underwritten role) tells her friend that she simply doesn’t have the time to be Rizwan’s wife because she’s consumed by the urgency of being her son’s mother, you see that most useless and terrible thing a viewer can see – the movie that could have been.

The Bad Will Enrage Your Tear Ducts Dry

But this is a movie that has higher aspirations! Which forces you to think that if Johar really wanted to kick his game up a notch, maybe he ought to have looked into hiring a research assistant or perhaps a culture consultant as Beth (read her review here) suggested. That would have been the smart thing to do. If you’re going to set your movie in someone else’s country, against a backdrop of events that have a deep and ongoing cultural and political significance to them, then maybe you ought to know what you’re talking about. Even if you don’t particularly care about that country’s feelings, it might help your film in the long run.

From the strange sight of San Francisco, California doubling up as Hicksville, USA – the kind of cheery place where people get off the tram and scream in unison at a man clearly having some sort of psychotic episode in the middle of the street – to the creepy environs of Wilhelmina, Georgia aka the Town That Time Lifted Its Leg On, Johar’s Amreeka is a troubling mishmash of ugly stereotypes that does not pause to acquaint itself with its surroundings.

I’m sure there are federal agents who make you want to pop them one, it is a universally acknowledged truth that the TSA is terrible, and perhaps there even exist federal judges who get relevant info from the BBC (the fuck?) but do any of them address brownies as “bloody Pakis” is the question.

Lest you think I’m nitpicking, this is the sort of relentlessly casual acquaintance with ground reality that Johar continues to build up throughout the movie. A couple of lapses here and there, and the viewer can rise above it; when the entire movie is stacked from top to bottom with lazy stereotypes flung in wherever they can find a space, you start to hold your nose.

Who on earth is the audience for this movie? is the question that kept occurring to me as we exploded gracelessly into the third act. SRK fans and those of us who have a nostalgic fondness for Ye Olde SRK-Kajol Romance, I guess – but if this is a movie about More, about Ideas, and Important Things, the way we were informed all through its making and marketing, surely it speaks to others?

Who are these others?

If it’s people like myself who’ve actually had an opportunity to travel to some of the places and meet some of the people this movie portrays and stereotypes, we’re hardly going to emerge from the theater brimming with fondness for it or its badly espoused ideas. And if this is a movie for people who’ve never been to these places or met these people and expects them to retain a message about the power of love and understanding – do you expect them to get it in a movie whose makers seem to have made no effort whatsoever to understand the country in which it was set?

The most incredible thing about MNIK’s trainwreck bits is that it got made. The Anil Sharma set get plenty of snark about the way they portray the world but at least they’re honest about who they are and how they view it. Johar & Co. on the other hand are supposed to be the very opposite – and come up with this caricature. There’s a reason why Fox Searchlight chose to premiere this out of competition at the Berlinale. And it’s not because it’s a Bollywood film. Thank you, Fox Searchlight!

The Fugly Makes You Wonder: Was The Shiv Sena Unwittingly Doing Us a Service?

Depending on who you are, there is plenty in this movie to push your buttons. Sometimes several of them at once. The one that everyone talks about is the sequence in which Rizwan journeys back to the weird black hamlet where he’d once happily commandeered an Iraq war veteran’s memorial service to air his grief, to save it from nature’s fury.

It’s terrible for a number of reasons but I find myself less angered by its elevation of Rizwan as a savior and Wilhelmina’s general creepiness (if they wanted to go Southern Gothic, couldn’t they have at least chosen something vaguely contemporary like True Blood as their model? Just erase the vampires and leave their lairs intact and presto!) than the truly stupid thing that the movie manages to uphold as a virtue:

The last thing a catastrophe-stricken area needs is a deluge of well-meaning volunteers. Unless you have specific skills like those of a doctor or a nurse or work for an aid agency that knows what it’s doing, land up at a disaster site with a heart brimful of human kindness and all you’ll be is a useless drain on scarce local resources. Rizwan and his flood-mojo might have worked out but all those people he attracted in his wake? Terrible.

The problem with making a movie about massive real world problems is that they actually exist and they’re… well, massive problems affecting real people. They demand at least a little bit of respect. I’m all for growth and kudos to Johar and his team for trying out something hatke – but they should know better than anyone that different styles of cinema require different approaches. You could create a half-British fantasyland in the middle of New York City for Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and get away with it, because that’s the kind of movie it was. But My Name is Khan is just sufficiently different for that kind of fantasy to go terribly wrong.

PS – Also? Stop trying to make that “My Name is…” meme happen. I’ve got Eminem on the brain now.

 

Mixed Bag

The house was teeming with relatives gathered from far and wide to meet the new American daughter-in-law. One little chubub was especially fascinated by her blonde hair and wanted desperately to touch it. He followed her around for a while with shiny eyes rounded in hope until she simply had to pick him up and let him grab a handful with a crow of delight.

“Hmmm,” said the aged auntie to my right. “So the white girl knows how to hold children.”

Yeah: o.O

I would have understood it if she’d said it to be catty or mean. She didn’t. She sounded sincerely surprised and glad that white girls know how to hold babies. It’s not like I haven’t heard plenty of ignorant shit about how white people just don’t care for their kids or are given to rampant neglect (all the more deliciously hilarious when they land up next to the Park Slope stereotype in my head) – and I’m sure they think even worse stuff about black people and Chinese people and everyone else who is not Indian. But it somehow never struck me before that day that it arose out of a genuine feeling that these people lack this most common of human emotions.

Perhaps it comes out of the colonial experience. The English system of nannies certainly found fruitful soil in India where generations of ayahs appear to have fallen in love with their white-skinned, rosy-cheeked, pleasingly plump baba log. And the sight of watching a couple of centuries worth of English parents pack off their children to vilayat and a boarding school education has apparently left a very deep impression about their familial attachments in Indian minds indeed.

I was all ready for outdated concerns about the mixing of sacred bloodlines and horrified questions about what kind of unnatural beast would spring from their zebra loins. I got neither. Instead, a haze of relief hung in the air: she might be blonde and American but she could eat Indian food and liked children. Huzzah!

My dilemma on that day was twofold: one, the auntie making the comment had no idea that there was anything wrong at all with what she was saying; two, not having been brought up to say boo to an elder, I had no idea how to approach something like this.

There was nothing I could do about the first. When race is discussed in India, it generally stops at “everybody hates us coz we’re teh browniez” because for a lot of people that is still their only real world experience. Of course, it leads to things like this which tries to speak to that demographic and ends up saying things about the copywriter instead:

But when I think of that same ad, if it were repurposed for a white family in suburban Connecticut, and at the mention of the son’s girlfriend’s name, the grandmother were to wrinkle her nose in disgust and say “Black?” (but use a slangier word for it), some folks would be rather perturbed and offended.

As the recent dust up with John Mayer’s exceptionally insane interview proved this past week, in fact! Although I don’t think any auntie out there is going to describe her son’s twigs & berries as Balasaheb Thackeray any time soon.

But when it comes to the second part, I’m sure there was a way I could have expressed my objections. Once I got over my shock, the first things that came to mind were sarcastic rejoinders that might have given me great satisfaction as I repeated them in my head but would never be actually said because the lady is ancient. As well as a relative. And my mother would hear about it and kick my ass.

It occurs to me now, however, that if I can find a way to call my parents on their occasional lapses in judgment in a perfectly respectful and reasonable manner, then there is no reason why I can’t find a polite way to say, “Excuse me, but her race has nothing to do with how she holds a baby.” Don’t ask me why this never struck me before.

The big Three Oh is just a couple of years away now and I think the time has come for me to lay my default Zombie at the Family Party avatar to rest.

 

Striker: A Tactical Punk

In the game of carrom, an indoor game much beloved across the Indian subcontinent, a “striker” is the piece a player uses to manipulate the rest of the “men” on the board. In writer-director Chandan Arora’s (Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon; Main, Meri Patni… Aur Woh) film, the striker is our largely stoic narrator who makes an unlikely hero.

Striker opens in 1992 in a (pre-renaming) Bombay on the cusp of communal riots. A young man is trying to get home under curfew conditions, hitching a ride where possible, getting snagged by the police where it’s not. His name is Suryakant, Surya (Siddharth) for short, and his home is in Malvani, a poor neighborhood with a mixed population that’s mostly Muslim – the police fear it might well go up in flames ere dawn breaks.

He manages to slip away from the well-meaning police officer Farooque (Anupam Kher) who cautions him to stay out of Malvani for the night and almost makes it home, dodging groups of malcontents on the way, before a chance remark by a passing acquaintance sends him running. He’s been playing against fate all his life, and everytime he thinks he’s got it cornered, it delivers a coup de grace. Today is no different.

The bulk of the movie is told via flashback – a young Surya coming of age in a city that is about as foreign to him as it would be for someone from outside it; the strange world of competitive carrom playing in scenes reminiscent of mahjong films; the intricacies of relationships in the close confines of Bombay’s chawls; the constant struggle to be a winner at least once in his life – and the price he must pay for that vain dream.

There are three people integral to his story and one who leaves you all at sea:

The first is Zaid (Ankur Vikal), his best friend. A junkie to the core, if there’s anything Zaid is capable of loving, it is Surya: the kid with whom he imagined owning Bombay in the days of long ago. A liar, a cheat, a hustler and, worst of all, bad at all three, Zaid is the guy who not only gets into trouble but gets Surya into it as well. It pisses him off and he’s not slow to give Zaid the back of his hand for it, but Zaid is still a part of Surya. It’s true love. The kind that doesn’t pack up in the middle of the night and vanish when found out, the way Surya’s first crush, the burqa-clad Noorie (Nicolette Bird), does. No, it’s love of the kind that could get you butchered in the middle of the street. The first time you see Surya spiraling out of control is for Zaid.

The second is Jaleel (Aditya Panscholi), the small-time gangster who taught his brother Chandra (Anoop Soni) a valuable lesson about betting beyond your means and paying your debts. By the time Surya bumps into him through the ‘helpful’ hand of Zaid, Jaleel is no longer playing for penny ante stakes in local carrom halls; he’s laying out a “casino” instead and wants Surya, a junior level champion, to come play for him. Surya isn’t keen – Jaleel’s the real player in Malvani and it’s not always beneficial to become his striker – but the stakes keep getting bigger and bigger and he can’t help but think that maybe this really is his turn to win.

The third pivotal character in Surya’s life is his sister Devi (Vidya Malvade). Brought up in a kholi where they shared a room all their life, Devi is the sister who henpecks him, berates him in public, cries when she can’t have him attend her wedding because she fears for his safety, teases him when she finds out he’s fallen for the girl across the street, and even gets him married. She is his confidante, his better half, the beautiful sister who did everything right including an education and a good marriage. Even the thought of her loss is too much for him to take.

In the middle of all this, Striker does a marvelous job of creating context. The crowded spaces of Malvani with the houses looking into each other and the lanes too narrow to allow more than a pushcart through create a perfect compare and contrast scenario for the 1992 sections of the movie which feature an unsettlingly deserted cityscape that seems to be holding its collective breath behind shuttered shop windows and tightly barred doors. The mysterious Bombay that Zaid and Surya spy through a haze of smog from their vantage point on top of an abandoned building is a sprawling area that looks deceptively peaceful when compared to the hustle and bustle of their own neighborhood. But on the ground, it teems with the same tensions, hundreds of Malvanis all packed together.

The championship games that Surya wins to applause from his family are held in vaguely dusty, bureaucratic-looking spaces that appear to be the gathering ground of Dorks R Us. In sharp contrast, the betting games that energize the local underworld are held in dingy, cramped spaces where the games come closest to revealing their tactical nature; thinly veiled metaphors of the uncertain urban warfare that occupies the attention of most of these men. You get the attraction even if the games themselves are not exactly keeping you on the edge of your seat. Maybe real carrom fanatics fare better on that front?

Not that it matters because the climax is thrown seriously out of whack by one scene – in which Surya manhandles Madhu (Padmapriya), his landlady/toddyshop owner, onto a table and rapes her.

***Spoiler***

Contextually, Madhu’s is not an arc that makes or breaks the film. But in terms of content, it’s such a weird little scene, you don’t know what to make of it. Madhu is clearly attracted in some way to Surya – had he been one of her other regulars, like Zaid for example with his junkie teeth, I sincerely doubt she would ever have rescued him from his night amongst the fishing boats or found his subsequent blackout funny. One of the things Surya has going for him is that he’s cute. Or at least cuter than most of the people he hangs out with (I forgive him the baby mullet because this is supposed to be the 80s).

As Madhu struggles with Surya, her face changes from anger to shock to what looks like resignation. She’s a young woman who caters to drunks in an unsavory part of Bombay – you have to wonder if this is the first time she’s ever been assaulted. It could just be bad acting on the actor’s part, but there’s definitely something more to this scene than one man raping a woman because he feels his life spinning out of control.

When it’s over, for example, all she has to say to an ashamed Surya is that he knows what he did was wrong and they’re going to put it behind them. There is so much subtext to what she says that you wish it came with a manual of some kind. Is she really that phlegmatic? Is the movie saying something about the 80s or about the neighborhood or about Madhu and Surya?

You have to wonder if this was an attempt at one of those 80s-style rapetastic sex scenes – from Hollywood movies to Mills&Boon novels, there was a definite trend in the 80s for The Forceful Man and the Woman Who Loves Him Helplessly. And Surya is definitely the kind of guy who gets his dating advice from Bollywood potboilers.

The reason why this really rankles in your mind is because Surya eventually ends up marrying Madhu. Which is a mindfuck of a whole another sort. It’s pretty clear that he likes strong women – Devi is one and his mother is played by Seema Biswas, which is code for such in Indian cinema by now – and he doesn’t seem to be marrying her in a fit of repentance or something. Definitely, Madhu’s expression as she marries him doesn’t reflect the face of a woman promising her life over to her rapist.

Maybe the whole thing was an exercise in Shit is Complicated. Which works for me. This is a movie that could easily leave you frustrated because of the jealous way it tends to guard nuggets of information as the story unspools. I’d have been a lot more creeped out if the context remained ambiguous while the rape itself was titillating. If it was meant to be a homage to the 80s, I’m glad Arora didn’t take it that far.

*** Spoiler End***

The performances, almost uniformly good (they’re puzzling/not-good rather than outright bad when not), are what really tie Striker together. Siddharth is almost shockingly good, as is Ankur Vikal. The two of them carry the bulk of this movie and do it better than any duo in similar circumstances since Chakravarti and Manoj Bajpai in Satya – except one of them isn’t nearly catatonic and the other isn’t spitting out bits of scenery. Aditya Panscholi actually made a difference to a movie after a very long time. And Vidya Malvade was a complete natural.

A movie about the deep, dark underbelly of carrom games seems like a far-fetched idea, but it’s one of the more interesting movies I’ve seen of late. And Chandan Arora is the man responsible for it.