Have you, like a million others, marvelled at the animation and special effects in movies like Beowulf, The Amazing Spider-Man, Watchmen, Hancock, Bewitched, The Smurfs 2, or Monster House? While watching these movies, it is hard for us to believe that the characters were developed in separate stages of production.
If you are a fan of these movies, the chances are that you are fawning over the work of Parag Havaldar—an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur from Pune, and an Oscar winner!
In 2017, Parag won the Academy Award for technical development. Speaking to the OC Register, Parag said,
“Typically, in the old days, the Academy gave out awards for cameras and film. But these days, because visual effects play such a big role in the film, they’re awarding technical advancement in the field.”
A release by the Academy said, “This pioneering system enabled the large-scale use of animation rig-based facial performance-capture for motion pictures, combining solutions for tracking, stabilisation, solving and animator-controllable curve editing.”
Parag’s vision in Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) brought down the production time of such films by a large margin, while also making the process more efficient.
He developed a technology that could read and replicate expression-based facial performances. Beowulf, which was directed by Robert Zemeckis with the help of Parag’s technology, could be filmed in just three weeks since the actors performed with sensors on their bodies. It was the post-production that took a long time.
Speaking to the Times of India, the Oscar-winner said, “Zemeckis is a visionary director. He was clear that he wanted only performances.
His idea was, ‘Why don’t we just capture the actors and get the emotions out? Everything else—clothing, make-up or lighting—can be done in post-production.'”
James Franco – (L) real and (R) digital double (2006 – SONY Imageworks) Source.
Parag worked as a lead software designer and technical developer (for Imagemotion) for Beowulf. “What we tried to accomplish with Beowulf was ahead of its time,” Parag says.
Parag was a four-year-old when his family, which is originally from Pune, moved to Zambia. He grew up listening to African languages and picked them up with ease. At the age of 11, he, along with his family, returned to Pune and Parag was admitted in St Vincent’s. He finished his primary education in 1987 and got admitted in IIT-Kharagpur. In 1996, he acquired a PhD in Computer Graphics and Computer Vision from the University of Southern California.
In the years to come, Parag developed a revolutionary technology that would ease the production of animation films.
“If you are in the artistic side of things, understanding technology and how to harness it is very crucial. Similarly, coming from the technology side, you have to understand artistic requirements. Only then can you write software or processes that can be used by artists to create the art form that they want,” Parag told the University of Southern California.
In 1967, it had been 20 years since India had achieved independence. In the decade before 1967, India had witnessed the first television service (1959), Goa’s liberation from the Portuguese (1961), the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru’s death (1964) and India’s wars with China (1962) and Pakistan (1965). The country was growing up – amidst several iconic moments.
To mark India’s 20th “birthday,” the Films Division of India (FDI) had commissioned SNS Sastry, a renowned filmmaker, to shoot a documentary film featuring the youth of India. The idea was unique—one that would genuinely show India’s present and future.
Sastry was to interview youth turning 20 with India. Samanth Subramanian, a writer and a journalist writes, “Sastry, it turned out, had been guilty of mild sleight of hand. Stymied by his original mission of finding Indians born on August 15th 1947—the date India became independent—he enlarged his ambit to 20-year-olds in general, then to anybody born in the vicinity of 1947.”
With that in mind, Sastry visited several places in India to interview young Indians from various backgrounds.
The resulting documentary, “I am 20,” features a young mother who was married off at the age of 8, an ambitious scientist who wished to study meteorites and a farmer in Punjab who loves films, among others.
Shuttling between optimistic sorts who could not wait to work for India and those who highlighted the issues being faced by the country at the time, the documentary is a delightful insight into the psyche of the young in India in 1967.
At first glance, the documentary is merely a collection of footages of landscapes and portraits. But a closer look will show you that Sastry has captured a story of India overall — of farmers, railways, pilots, nature and the general vibe in 1967.
After a brief welcome, we are introduced to someone who receives maximum screen time—TN Subramanian. The only person to get a full introduction, he kick-starts the film by saying, “Maybe I am talkative and very loquacious, and I make my presence felt.
Possibly, I talk like a preacher or a politician but then, I am entitled to my opinions, and as the Lord said unto Moses, I am who I am.”
TN Subramanian.
Perhaps a reflection of Sastry’s idea of India in 1967, the film begins not with a preamble to India or its youth but with this confident opinion by Subramanian. Through the 18 minutes and 46 seconds, Sastry then conveys, quite effortlessly, that India is a land full of ironies, diversity—not cultural, specifically, but more of situational—and certainly not a black or white image.
More than anything else, when you watch the film today, it showcases the fact that although India has experienced a massive change in the last 51 years, one thing remains intact— the psyche of its youth. Just like their counterparts in the 60s, Indians in their early 20s today are characterised by a mix of strong patriotism, healthy scepticism, an acceptance of things as they are, while also seeing the value in being an honest citizen.
Sastry’s questions don’t appear in the film, but from the answers he receives, you can certainly make an accurate guess. To what seems like a question about what India means to a 20-year-old, a pilot says,
“Well, I don’t know how you could ask me a question like that because I am an Indian and India means everything to me. I am part and parcel of India and India is a part of my life.”
The patriotic pilot.
This is immediately followed by a person saying in a straightforward fashion, “I don’t have any love for the country (you can hear Sastry exclaiming, ‘really?!’ in the background) and just that I don’t want to show off like other people that I’ve got love for the country. Whom shall I tell that I’ve got love? Shall I go on the streets and (say), ‘Oh I’ve got a love for the country?'”
If this doesn’t perfectly reflect the young energy in the country today, as well as 51 years ago, what else can?
While some, like the boy from Madhya Pradesh— who didn’t know who the Prime Minister or the President of India was but could correctly name the the collector of Ujjain—are happily living in their own bubble, there were others who proudly claimed that they have never so much as “bribed for a seat in a college or a school” and “only below average students resort to bribing.”
This student, like another in the frame preceding his, highlights the issue of corruption in the educational system. Corruption in a country where millions “have the freedom to starve, to go naked, to die of hunger and to go uneducated” and an industrial development that feeds off of the livelihood of farmers are some of the pressing issues that these young girls and boys of 20 years highlight in ‘I am 20.’ Sounds familiar, right?
It comes as a surprise then that the government released the film that was meant to celebrate India’s 20 years of freedom.
But that’s the beauty of Sastry’s spectacular documentary. It neither intends to be a paean to the greatness of India nor a critique.
“Let me put it this way,” says Subramanian, “our achievement is that we have a hopeful tomorrow. Our failure is that our today is very precarious.”
Perhaps what captures the viewers’ attention best is that Sastry builds on one idea of India and smashes it within the next 10 seconds, building an entirely different idea.
Two of the many faces of India.
A young man, who earlier confesses that he wished to be an IAS officer, says that he loves being rich.
“My needs, of course, they’re more,” he says adding “I have more money to buy things. I see more things in the market, so I buy them.” Just as we are convinced of this idea of an upper-middle-class India with a wealthy living, Sastry’s frame shows a farmer sitting on his tractor saying that all he needs is a couple of blankets and two or three dresses.
All in all, ‘I am 20’ portrays India to its best capacity—a diverse nation unsatisfied with its present, where some youth are willing to work for its betterment, while some are not. Except for the fashion, the accent (still more British than Indian) and technological development, the documentary seems to be of the current generation, providing a blurred answer to the question—what is the youth of India?
To those of us who abide by the thought that no nation can be perfect in itself, Sastry gives a fitting end— again through the voice of Subramanian.
“As Kennedy put it, I think it’s a question of not to what the country can do for you as much as what you can do for the country. Of course, frustration is in fashion today, but I think deep within every Indian, despite all this frustration, we are underestimating him. He has the capacity to work… Let me put it this way that if all the people in this country who didn’t fancy their prospects in it were asked… were allowed to quit, and I think I’d stay. Because it’s something big, it’s a huge experiment, and I would like to be a part of it,” he concludes.
Every once in a while there comes a movie with a storyline so simple and yet stunning, that it will leave you yearning for more.
‘Village Rockstars’, an Assamese film does just that. This coming-of-age movie has been written, produced, edited, designed and put together beautifully by Rima Das.
Rima moved to Mumbai with aspirations of becoming an actor.
Multi-talented Ms Das Photo Source: Rima Das/Facebook
But as luck would have it, she ended up directing ‘Man with the binoculars: Antardrishti’, her first feature film, which was released in 2016.
‘Village Rockstars’ tells the tale of a ten-year-old girl with dreams to form her own rock band, who goes in search of an electric guitar in her village.
This comes as a huge honour for Rima as this is the second film from Assam to be selected as India’s submission to the Oscars.
Director in action Photo Source: Rima Das/Facebook
In a report published by The Indian Express, Rima says, “It is a big deal because when you don’t receive recognition, you feel things are not possible. It stops people from trying. Such news makes me feel that things are possible.”
Here are seven things you ought to know about Village Rockstars:
1. Rima Das, the director of this movie, is a one-woman army. Besides being its director she is also the screenwriter, executive producer, editor, production designer and cinematographer.
2. Rima took over three-and-a-half years to script ‘Village Rockstars’, which was then shot over a period of 130 days. This feature film was shot on a handheld camera and has used a cast of non-actors, sourced almost wholly from the village of Kalardiya in Assam’s Chayagaon.
3. The film touches upon many scenarios that one continues to encounter in India’s villages. For example, it unflinchingly tackles the disturbing manner in which village elders force girls who reach puberty to suddenly sit at home and have little contact with the outside world. How the protagonist’s mother reacts to this is one of the highlights of the film.
4. The protagonist, played by child actor Bhanita Das, has also been awarded a National Award.
A still from the movie Photo Source: United News of India-UNI/Facebook
This makes her the first-ever Assamese child actor to receive this honour. Bhanita happens to be Rima’s cousin sister.
5. In 2017, ‘Village Rockstars’ was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. The natural elements in the movie – like the unseen locations, an authentic cast, and organic story-telling helped the movie win critical appreciation nationally and internationally.
6. ‘Village Rockstars’ is the second Assamese feature film to win the National Award.
The official movie poster
The first one was ‘Halodhia Choraye Baodhan Khai’ by Jahnu Barua, which bagged the award 29 years ago.
7. ‘Village Rockstars’ is India’s official nomination for the 2018 Academy Awards. 29 films – including blockbusters like Raazi, Padmaavat, Hichki, October, Love Sonia, Gulabjaam, Mahanati, Pihu, Kadvi Hawa, Bhogda, Revaa, Bioscopewala, Manto, 102 Not out, Padman, Bhayanakam, Ajji, Nude, Gali Guliiyan – were considered.
Here’s hoping that this movie from Assam makes us all proud. The Academy Awards are scheduled on February 24, 2019.
Kumudlal Ganguly was born in 1911 to a simple Bengali family in Bhagalpur in the Bengal Presidency of British India (now in Bihar). Kunjlal, his father, was a lawyer and wanted his eldest son to follow in his footsteps. However, destiny had far more glitzier plans for the young man!
Kumudlal’s younger sister, Sati Devi was the wife of Sashadar Mukherjee, who held a senior position in the technical department of Bombay Talkies. Thanks to him, Kumudlal was had become interested in the technical aspects of film-making.
However, owing to parental pressure, decided to appear for his law exams. After failing them, Kumudlal decided to live with his sister for a few months, to avoid conflict with his father.
This seemingly innocuous decision would prove to be a turning point in his life.
Kumudlal reached Mumbai, and once he was ensconced at his sister’s home, he requested his brother-in-law to find him a job in Bombay Talkies. Soon, Kumudlal, who was working as a laboratory assistant and enjoying his work. He even managed to convince his father to allow him to abandon his law studies.
In 1936, the shooting of the film, Jeevan Naiyya was under production when the lead lady, Devika Rani eloped with the male lead, Najmul Hassan. Devika Rani was already married to the studio head, Himanshu Rai. When she returned to her husband, Rai fired Hassan and decided to cast the lab assistant, Kumudlal in the lead role instead.
It was common for actors at that time to work under pseudonyms in the film industry, and this is how Kumudlal Ganguly became Ashok Kumar.
Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani in Achhut Kanya. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Although he was a reluctant actor, Kumar worked hard on his craft (even though this didn’t necessarily reflect on screen) and came to be widely regarded as the pioneer of ‘method’ or natural acting in the film industry. Jeevan Naiyya was followed by Acchut Kanya, in which he paired up with Devika Rani once again. The film went on to become one of the early blockbusters of Hindi cinema, and the duo became everyone’s new favourite on-screen couple.
Over the course of his career, Ashok Kumar worked in several hit films and even won the Dadasaheb Phalke Award—the highest honour presented to film personalities by the Government of India. In 1998, the veteran actor received the Padma Bhushan, given his contribution to the Indian film industry.
What was his contribution?
Besides being a legend himself, Ashok Kumar was responsible for introducing phenomenal talents like Madhubala, Kishore Kumar and Dev Anand, among others.
In 1948, writer Ismat Chughtai and her husband, Shaheed Latif were planning their movie, Ziddi, with Kumar in the lead role. But Kumar, who was also a producer with Bombay Talkies, insisted they replace him with Dev Anand—a one-film-old struggler at the time, who had trained at the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). Kumar had spotted Anand hanging around the Bombay Talkies studio and believed he would be better suited for the lead role than him. Chughtai and Latif agreed, and as they say, a star was born.
The same film had the legendary actor, Pran, essaying the role of the antagonist. Pran’s name was also suggested to the producers by Kumar.
Kishore Kumar, who is regarded as one of the most versatile and brilliant playback singers in the Indian film industry, also started his career with Ziddi. ‘Marne Ki Duayen Kyon Mangu’ became Kishore’s debut song, that later took him places.
It is interesting to note here that Kishore Kumar was Ashok’s younger brother (Abhas Ganguly).
In 1949, India’s first reincarnation thriller—Mahal—directed by Kamal Amrohi, which also starred Ashok Kumar and was made under his watch at Bombay Talkies, launched the careers of two legendary artistes—actor Madhubala, and singer, Lata Mangeshkar.
Apart from this, Ashok Kumar was also instrumental in welcoming SD Burman to the industry, and was the first actor to become a part of the “1-crore club,” when his film Kismet grossed Rs 1 crore at the box office.
In the 1980s, he anchored India’s first soap opera called Hum Log.
Be it stepping into the shoes of the male lead, reluctantly, or giving up a huge role when he became a seasoned actor, Ashok Kumar is a legend in his own right. An actor and mentor par excellence, a registered homoeopathy practitioner, and a talented painter, “Dadamoni” (jewel of an elder brother) spearheaded an incomparable legacy, and will forever be an inspiration to generations of actors.
“Mummy pregnant hai meri,” an embarrassed Nakul tells his girlfriend.
A 25-year-old man, well settled at his job, with a teenaged brother ten years younger, Nakul can be any one of us. His family, the Kaushiks, are as typical as can be.
The mother-in-law finds fault in everything that her bahu does but her precious son could not be better. The brothers barely talk to each other–they only taunt, provoke and show off.
But Badhaai Ho features another beautiful relationship–the love between parents that hides behind societal approval and the “norms” for a middle-aged couple IRL. This couple, cute as a button, would have been “goals” if they were any younger.
But how can they be, if all their love is displayed only in secret?
The focus of the film is that a 50-something mother of two gets pregnant. Badhaai Ho takes this highly “uncomfortable” subject of middle-aged people having sex and makes it light, fun even.
It opens us to the fact that sex is not a thing for the youth alone. The story has two couples, and both pairs are equally in love and sexually active.
The older couple, played by Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao decide that they don’t want to abort the child, even when they have a slight window of opportunity. A short 5-7 minute conversation between them seals their decision. The husband says, “It’s your body and your pain. If you wish to keep the baby, it’s your choice.”
It’s as simple as that.
But it’s everyone else who makes the pregnancy their own business–even when they speak about it in hushed tones, behind the couple’s backs or as an instruction to how they “should have thought about the relatives” before engaging in such a blasphemous act.
I booked the tickets for the movie because the trailer was promising. But what I saw left me wondering if we ever look at our parents as anything more than our birth-givers and guardians?
They are, after all, someone’s partners but the very thought can be discomforting for us. Add to that the idea that they have sex?
Even as we speak about the liberation of sex from its stigmatised misconception, aren’t we largely making it out to be an activity for the youth?
I remember when I was in class 4 and saw my mother crying in her room, all alone. When I asked her what happened, she could not stop herself and said that she needed to get operated “on her stomach”. I was a child, oblivious of sex and how babies are conceived. All I knew was that they “come from a mother’s belly”. So I casually asked her if that’s what it was.
She answered in the affirmative and told me “don’t speak about it to anyone.”
Only years later, when I finally understood sex that I connected the dots. That my father had returned home for a short vacation and that weeks later, my mother needed to get an abortion. I shut my ears and eyes and forced myself to think about something, anything, other than the knowledge that my parents had had sex.
If you watch Badhaai Ho, you’ll understand that it wasn’t. Not really.
My colleague Rinchen Norbu Wangchuk recalls the call he received at the boarding school from his parents. He was 13 and was told that parents were expecting a child. Albeit a teenager, this news did not sound embarrassing or awkward to him. He was just happy that he’ll finally get a sibling to play with!
The film is basically a lesson to go from how I reacted to how Norbu did.
Why must sex–in one’s youth, among middle-aged people, among unmarried couples be a taboo at all?
Everyone does it, whether in hotel rooms, tiny bedrooms or mansions. Then why must we live in the bubble that it is only us who are entitled to be free to have intercourse, to express our love?
This acceptance will have a ripple effect on conversations on sex.
If we, as a family, accept this as a natural expression between two loved ones, maybe parents will be able to communicate with their kids about sex much more easily.
Maybe then, subjects like contraceptives, safe sex, the consequences, wouldn’t be giggling topics that a straight-faced teacher recites to her students in a sex education class. Maybe then it will also be a normal discussion within a family.
And think about how empowering it will be for society as a whole. Teenagers wouldn’t have to hide their romantic interests from their parents, couples will be able to rent flats with ease, and kids will be able to help out their parents just as parents help their children.
A great example of this is Sanhita Agarwal, who at the age of 25, found love for her widowed mother and got them married. A heartwarming story that goes beyond finding love for a lonely lady; the more you read through it, the more inspiring it becomes.
Maybe Badhaai Ho will be that conversation starter (or at least eye-opener) that we as a societal unit need right now. I saw a mixed crowd of teenagers, young pregnant couples and old couples watch the movie with me. This is already a good sign.
Now all I hope is that they thought about this topic just like I did and allow it to come out of the closed, locked and sealed doors.
Movies are arguably one of the best options for entertainment that we have. They transcend the boundaries of age, cultural background and choices, and it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that watching a movie in a dimly-lit theatre is the favourite pastime for millions of people.
The tragedy is that while urban areas are teeming with multiplexes that run several shows in a single day, thousands of villages still wait for that one opportunity in several months to watch a movie.
Food, clothing and shelter might be the basic necessities of man, but entertainment should not be ignored. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, after all.
So, Sushil Chaudhary, an engineer by profession decided to fill this void through his initiative, PictureTime!
Courtesy: Mallika Kakra/ PictureTime.
Started in October 2015, PictureTime takes movies to the remote parts of India, through mobile movie theatres.
Speaking to The Better India, he says, “Cable television and the digital revolution definitely played a role in the decline of movie theatres in India. However, in my view, the main reason for the decline is that the single-screen cinema theatre business could not adapt itself to the changing times— particularly so in rural India. While multiplexes have taken over the market in the metros and mini metros, they have not penetrated rural India, as a result of which the people are deprived of a grand cinematic experience. I wanted a platform that was portable, independent of real-estate, low on regulatory compliances as well as ready to showcase the latest films. PictureTime, was thus, the perfect solution.”
For many people, an experience at a multiplex is a luxury in itself, thanks to the high prices and in many cases, the distance they have to travel to reach the theatre.
However, Chaudhary’s PictureTime entertains the masses at a fraction of the cost. The Mobile Digital Movie Theatre, called Digiplex, is completed with a Dolby surround sound system and an air-conditioned, inflated theatre room.
Under the project, Chaudhary and his team travel from Himachal Pradesh in the north to Andhra Pradesh in the south.
Courtesy: Mallika Kakra/ PictureTime.
“PictureTime provides unique dual benefits to the rural population of India—a state-of-the-art cinema experience as well as a medium of outreach for both social messaging and private advertising—all under a single umbrella. By offering low-cost mobile cinema halls, the venture will help address the severe cinema theatre crunch by increasing the screen count in remote parts of the country,” he told YourStory.
Tying up with film-industry experts like Satish Kaushik and Kulmeet Makkar, PictureTime is all set to go in the right direction.
“We have covered 14 states as of now like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and others. We do a maximum of 4 shows every day in the tier 3 cities of these states and use 2K and E-cinema projectors and Qube/UFO servers for cinema projection,” says Chaudhary.
Explaining how the mobile theatre works, he told the Daily News and Analysis, “Within two-and-a-half hours, the mobile Digiplex cinema theatre can be made fully functional, complete with seating arrangements and world-class high-definition digital projectors and 5.1 Dolby surround sound for a high-quality cinema experience.”
And the entire theatre (once deflated) can fit into one truck!
Courtesy: Mallika Kakra/ PictureTime.
What started as a source of entertainment, eventually became a tool to educate the masses. A mobile theatre with air-conditioning and high-quality visuals is bound to attract people, and Chaudhary used this curiosity to impart social awareness within the rural population.
“Our aim is to use technology to not only provide high-quality entertainment to rural India but to also use our mobile Digiplex cinema theatres as an outreach vehicle to generate awareness on educational and government schemes on initiatives around Digital India, Skill India and Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan,” he states.
With about four shows in 14 states in India currently, the founder and CEO hopes to increase the numbers by leaps and bounds, in the near future.
Speaking to the New Indian Express, he says, ” Most of the families are excited to see PT bringing new releases to their vicinity and offering multiplex par experience. Our milestone for this financial year is 120 units and the target for the next three years is 3,000 units up and running.”
With PictureTime, movies are no longer restricted to only the urban elites. With all the amenities of a multiplex but rates that are incredibly affordable, PictureTime is what you can call the perfect entertainment package!
Every now and then, there comes a film that hits the bull’s eye with every emotion it evokes. Whether an evergreen comedy, a thriller that has you sitting on the edge of your seat, or a drama which makes you wonder about the state of the world, a great film has the power to move you deeply.
2018, for example, was a barrier-shattering year for several Bollywood films that scored a perfect 10 with the audience and critics. Even as we believe that the movies churned out by Hindi-film industry are mass entertainers and one needs to forget the idea of logic while watching them, it is also true that it has produced gems that are recognised not just in India, but all over the world.
Here, we bring you a list of 10 such films that were recognised as some of the world’s best by international platforms.
Made between 1950 and 1959, Satyajit Ray’s trilogy won top prizes at Cannes, Venice and London.
Pather Panchali, Aparajito and The World of Apu follow the story of Apu, a poor boy from a Brahmin family. The films shifts focus between the family’s struggle to gather enough money to either repay their debt, repair their house or purchase clothes, and the difference in the upbringing of Apu and his sister Durga. Ray tries to portray the role of technology that improves life and the role of religion when Durga dies and the poverty-stricken family must cope with it.
Ranked number 2 on The Time Magazine’s All-time 100 movie list, the trilogy is a classic.
Another masterpiece by Satyajit Ray, the film is about Charu, a lonely woman whose husband, Bhupati, has time only for his work. Things turn controversial when Bhupati’s younger brother Amal comes home on a break and gets close to Charu. Soon enough, their conversations result in Charu falling in love with Amal.
The film set in the 1870s saw Ray introducing the western style of films to India. It scored 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, an American review-aggregation website for film and television, and was listed at number 56 in the Sight & Sound critic’s poll.
Scoring a full 100% on the Tomatometer, this drama set in the post-independent India, Pyaasa is about two outcasts—Vijay, whose talent in poetry is underappreciated and Gulabo, a prostitute.
Vijay is a sensitive poet who writes from his heart although no one, including his loved ones, appreciates his talent. When he is betrayed by his love, Vijay ends up meeting Gulabo—the prostitute with a heart of gold. The drama takes a twist when a dead beggar to whom Vijay gave his coat and whom he tries to save unsuccessfully from the path of a running train is mistaken for Vijay.
For the world, the poet is dead, and Gulabo takes this opportunity to publish his poetry as a book, which becomes a bestseller.
Directed by Guru Dutt and starring him as Vijay and Waheeda Rehman as Gulabo, the classic is listed at number 77 on The Time Magazine’s All-time 100 movie list.
Considered as India’s answer to ‘The Godfather’ and enlisted at number 65 on Time’s All time 100 movies, this Mani Ratnam film is based on a true story about the underworld.
Nayakan (or Nayagan) is Sakthivelu Nayakar’s (played by Kamal Hassan) story. Sakthivelu was born in a family of an activist, an anti-government union leader. He is arrested by corrupt police who make him believe that they are actually his friends and mean no harm. In reality, they are using the young boy to locate his father. When the police release him from custody, the innocent boy meets his father. The police, who are following him closely, kill the activist.
Betrayed and angry, Sakthivelu ends up killing the policeman and flees to Mumbai to become a Mafia don.
Scoring an average of 8.8 stars from over 22,000 reviews, Drishyam is a Malayalam crime drama about a simple, middle-class family.
Georgekutty’s elder daughter Anju is secretly filmed while changing her clothes and the culprit, Varun, comes to their house.
Varun, a confident, vile teenager is the son of a police inspector. He starts blackmailing Anju and her mother, Rani. Things escalate when the mother-daughter duo accidentally kill the boy.
When Rani tells Georgekutty about this incident, he must move heaven and earth to protect his beloved from the law. The story is about how the simple family goes about setting the perfect alibi, to show the investigating team that they weren’t at the place of murder at the time.
Remade in Hindi two years after the release in Malayalam, the movie is a roller coaster ride that has you sitting on the edge of your seat throughout. It is also listed as one of the world’s best crime dramas.
Six “good for nothing” friends find themselves in acting in a documentary written and directed by a British woman, Sue. Sue’s grandfather worked in British India and had documented the story of five freedom fighters—Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Shivaram Rajguru, Ashfaqulla Khan, and Ram Prasad Bismil.
While the friends believe that in this day and age, the country is not worth fighting or sacrificing for, Sue tries to change their mindsets through her documentary film.
When another one of their close friends, Flight Lieutenant Ajay Rathod, an Air Force pilot who genuinely believes in serving the country dies protecting hundreds of innocent villagers, the politicians brush off the incident as the pilot’s error as opposed to the fault in his MiG-21 plane.
That’s when the six friends decide that they must right this wrong and attempt to secure justice for their friend.
Scoring an 8.2 rating on IMDB, this comedy-drama ranks 99 on the globally popular movies database’s list of Top 250 movies.
Directed by Anurag Kashyap and starring the likes of Manoj Bajpayee, Pankaj Tripathi, Piyush Mishra and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Gangs of Wasseypur is an action comedy beloved by critics.
The story stretches from the 1940s to the 1990s. Kashyap has used semantics perfectly to define the era that the particular scene is based in without always having to specify it with text. Centred around the coal mafia in Jharkhand and the politics and power struggles that three criminal families get tied up in, GoW is a raw representation of the underworld in Bihar and Jharkhand.
An emotional whirlwind of a story, Taare Zameen Par is sure to make you feel differently about everything from the schooling system, the mental health of children, and the emotional bonding between parents and children.
Ishaan, a dyslexic child, is made fun of at school and is scolded frequently by his strict father. While his elder brother is everything that their parents dream of, Ishaan is a quiet boy who finds solace in art, imagination and all things creative.
When he is enrolled in a boarding school as a punishment for performing very poorly in his tests, Ishaan meets Ram Shankar Nikumbh—an art teacher who sees beyond the syllabus and encourages his students to explore the vast realm of their own imagination.
The film shows the power of art and imagination through the life of a dyslexic, misunderstood child. IMDb lists it as a must watch and 44th on its list of Top 250 movies.
Loosely based on the Phogat family, Dangal narrates the story of Mahavir Singh Phogat, an amateur wrestler, who trains his daughters Geeta and Babita to become India’s first world-class female wrestlers.
This is another one of Aamir Khan’s movies to be listed in IMDb’s Top 250 and this time, at number 24.
Still in the news for its sheer brilliance, Andhadhun is a gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller, that will also leave you in splits.
Akash, a blind pianist falls right in the middle of a murder plot purely by accident. The artist, who has a secret of his own, wants to report the crime but falls further down the rabbit hole when he discovers that the investigating officer was an accomplice in the murder.
From a relatively light plot where Akash’s young neighbour pranks him to check to see if he is, in fact, visually impaired, to an organ harvesting scam that the pianist becomes a part of, the story is all kinds of unimaginable.
A semi-blind rabbit, a seemingly sociopathic trophy wife, an innocent daughter of a cafe owner and a suspicious schoolboy—all unrelated characters come together in this movie to make a flawless crime drama that shot up to number 5 on IMDb’s best crime films.
For Veteran Bengali filmmaker Mrinal Sen, the personal was always political.
One of the forerunners of parallel cinema in India, Sen had the penchant for telling tales with a deep socio-political context.
Arrested at the age of eight for participating in a protest march, Sen’s bent on depicting the personal as political had its seeds sowed deep since his childhood. This was the same year when he watched his first film, Kid by Charlie Chaplin, and discovered his interest in cinema.
Although he never went on to make any Chaplin-esque films or any based on politics, his films, nevertheless, were always political.
And, Bhuvan Shome, one of his prominent works, which won him the National Award for Best Film and Director, recently came to light as a major influencer for the Oscar-nominated film, Lagaan by Ashutosh Gowariker.
Filmmaker Hardik Mehta, paying his tribute to Sen, recently shared a trivia on his Facebook page, elaborating on the relationship between the two films, and how Lagaan was a tribute to the veteran filmmaker.
Bhuvan Shome, featuring Utpal Dutt and Suhasini Mulay, not only initiated a new wave of cinema, but also brought to the fore the two prominent artists–the genius of a cinematographer K K Mahajan, and the baritone of Amitabh Bachchan, much before he began his career as an actor.
An influencer for many more directors and films to come, this film also ushered the New Wave of Indian cinema in the 1970s.
His first film in Hindi, it was made on a shoestring budget of less than Rs 2 lakh and was funded by the Film Finance Corporation, which was the predecessor of the National Film Development Corporation. It was a tale of a stout and proud widower Bhuvan (Utpal Dutt) whose tryst into the simple world shows him the reflection of his true self.
95-year-old Sen who breathed his last on Sunday, December 30, at 10:30 am, after 65 years of contributing to the merging of the reel and the real lives on celluloid, concretised the end of the golden age of Indian cinema.
From satires to socio-political critiques, Sen, much like his contemporaries, Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, has transformed the face of Indian cinema.
This eventually led him to a journey of pathbreaking films, sprinkled with another distinct feature–open-ended conclusions. He believed that much like life, cinematic narratives need not have all their knots tied up in the end.
And, today with yet another knot untied, we bid a heartfelt farewell to Mrinal Da.
From the streets to the celluloid, this rapper duo’s powerful socio-political verses are soon going to be adapted into a Bollywood film, Gully Boy, starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt.
Naezy and Divine, of the Mere Gully Meinfame, are two literally gully (lane)-grown local talents, whose rap-to-riches stories are truly inspiring.
This duo, together and individually, redefined Indian rap and hip-hop, dragging it out of the cliches around cars, girls and alcohol, to the real stories of the streets, dipped in politics and poverty.
A form of protest music/poetry, ‘rap’ emerged from violence, racism, discrimination and poverty in the West. And in India, the movement, through these artists, is bound for yet another resurrection.
26-year-old Divine, aka Vivian Fernandes, lives in the slums of Andheri’s JB Nagar, a place from where his angry and unrelenting music bubbled into the world in 2011. It led him to make history by becoming the first Indian rapper (in freestyle Hindi) for BBC 1 radio show host and celebrity rapper Charlie Sloth’s prominent Fire in the Booth series.
The award-winning rapper rose to fame after the collaborative track Mere Gully Mein with the other gully boy, Naezy aka Naved Sheikh.
Vivian’s solo Jungli Sher currently has 80 lakh views!
“It has been an interesting journey from the days when Indian hip-hop was underground, to now, where it is starting to become nationally known. However, we still have far to go,” Vivian told the Asian Age.
On the other hand, Naved Sheikh began his rapping journey at the age of 13 after being inspired by Sean Paul’s Temperature. He had heard the track for the first time during a DJ event in his Kurla chawl (locality) and soon found himself printing the lyrics to memorise them.
In 2014, Naved aka Naezy unleashed his musical wrath, Aafat shot on zero-budget on an iPad, amassing more than 30 lakh views on YouTube.
Naezy soon became the subject of a documentary Bombay 70, and he landed himself a deal with Only Much Louder, which is one of India’s most prominent alternative culture promoter and management agencies.
Now with Gully Boy, the film by Zoya Akhtar in place, Naezy is going to collaborate on the lyrics with poet and lyricist Gulzar, as reported by The Times of India.
Adding to the new wave of rap and hip-hop, Divine told TOI, “Delhi had a bustling Punjabi rap hip-hop scene. But they made songs about cars, alcohol, girls. We rapped about our gully, our city. It was genuine, authentic Indian hip-hop.”
With raw words in the local dialect, these young rappers have ushered in a strong Indian literature of bhasha (language) rap. They talk about the government, poverty, corruption, exploitation by the police, and family issues. These are topics that are understandable and relatable to everyone, be it a teen sitting behind his laptop screen, a rickshaw puller or a vegetable seller at the corner of a street.
“Hip-hop ek aisa zariya hai jo hamare desh main bhi badlav la sakta hai (Hip-hop is a way to bring about a change in our country). The masses think that hip-hop is about daaru (alcohol), nasha (intoxication), bling and swag, but if you really look at hip-hop’s antecedents, it was used to bring about a revolution. I want to remove people’s misconceptions and rewrite the history of Indian hip-hop,“ Naezy told TOI.
In the movie poster, the tagline Apna Time Ayega (Our time will come), depicts the tale of the gully boy, Ranveer Singh, who plays an underground Indian rapper and his journey to fame, with his earthy and authentic rapping style. The film is set to release on February 14, 2019.
Homosexuality is not new in Bollywood in the broad sense. In films like ‘Fire’, ‘Margarita with a Straw’, ‘Fashion’, ‘Aligarh’ and ‘Kapoor and Sons’, homosexual characters are played in a positive or neutral light.
Movies about overtly-excited Punjabi families, grand scenes from the heartland of Punjab, a girl being stalked by her hero, a one-sided love story, a love triangle, and even a love story between a Hindu and a Muslim are as old as Bollywood itself.
So what makes ‘Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aida Laga’, by director Shelly Chopra Dhar and screenplay writer Gazal Dhaliwal, unique?
Note: Dhaliwal, a transwoman, has had an inspiring journey to becoming a screenplay writer and you can read all about her here.
The latest Sonam Kapoor Ahuja and Rajkummar Rao starrer movie kicks off with a narrative not too different from what Bollywood film fans love.
Sonam’s character, Sweety, is a Punjabi girl in love with the idea of love and marriage from a very young age. Her family is equally obsessed with getting her married.
There are enough ‘normal’ (read: stereotypical) scenes to make the mainstream Bollywood fan comfortable. While for some this is a deal breaker, for most it is the perfect opportunity to leave stress outside the theatre halls and enjoy the drama.
Most moviegoers are comfortable with this idea. And that’s why they come to watch it over and over again. And it is precisely this aspect that I wish to highlight about ELKDTAL.
The normality aside, from the very first trailer, we all knew there was something unique about this. The end of the trailer featured a shot of Sweety running, offering her hand to a girl running with her.
This shot, and a few other subtle dots scattered throughout the film hint at the actual plot. This isn’t a story about a loud Punjabi family and a shy Sikh girl eventually falling in love with a Muslim playwright.
It’s a lesbian love story—packaged within precisely the kind of setting, style and drama that appeals to so many millions of India’s filmgoers.
So ELKDTAL, in its simplest sense, will attract the attention of tens of thousands (if not lakhs) of mainstream Bollywood fans to the lives and challenges of the LGBTQ+ community – and the perfectly relatable stigma they face looking for love.
And if packaged ‘right’, there is nothing Indians love more than a love story against the odds.
Films that are based on social issues like gender and sexuality are important for sure. But they mainly attract an audience that already supports the cause. This is due to many factors – low budget, a tone that appropriately reflects the dire seriousness of the subject matter and a general style that is at odds with the usual fare on offer.
While this in no way undermines the importance of such films, ELKDTAL is one of the few (along with than the recent ‘Kapoor and Sons’) that has the potential of spreading this crucial message to non-supporters or those on the fence – by simply making it fun to watch.
You watch it because it seems fun and you learn something while having fun. It is not a classroom lecture. It is just ‘recreation’ that has the potential of going very far indeed.
Interestingly, beneath this, the movie has another message for movie makers and filmgoers as well.
We spoke to 25-year-old Siddhant Kodlekere who identifies as a cis-gendered gay man about the film. “I feel if the entire topic of homosexuality is taken up like this, maybe there are chances of it coming into the mainstream popular cinema, without making it awkward for everyone else, or without shoving it in their faces.
But if you bring the entire topic of LGBTQIA+ into the mainstream perspective, it will just put it one step forward that ‘this is as normal as any other film you watch’.
I think the stellar cast of the movie, also with someone of Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla stature and respect related to this, will surely help the industry in relation to the upcoming movies for the LGBTQ+ community,” he told us.
Bollywood fans have already been treated to gems like Badhaai Ho, Manto, Raazi, Hichki etc. in 2018 – subtle yet powerful in their messages.
With ELKDTAL, 2019 seems to be a promising year as well, with inspiring movies that you must watch- whether for its masala or its message.
(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)
Like this story? Or have something to share? Write to us: contact@thebetterindia.com, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
Some of the greatest love stories go unseen, unheard and undocumented, simply because they’re ordinary couples living their lives. The Better India is showcasing such stories— everyday people and their extraordinary love!
The story of Pankaj Tripathi’s road to recognition is like that of an uncut diamond, whose real value is appreciated only after plenty of grinding.
One of the finest actors in the Hindi film industry, Tripathi aces every role with such intensity and finesse that we wish he had tasted success much earlier.
Over the years, through all the ups and downs and the seemingly endless wait for his career to take off, if there was one constant in Tripathi’s life, it was his wife, Mridula.
“If you ask me about my struggle, I don’t have any sad details like sleeping on a footpath or starving for days. That’s because my wife, Mridula, had taken over the entire responsibility of the house. In fact, I tell everyone that she is the man of the house,” the actor had told The Better India in a conversation last year.
Intrigued with this declaration, we reached out to Mridula to know more. What unfolded was a beautiful love story.
May 24, 1993. Mridula clearly remembers the day when she laid eyes on Tripathi for the very first time, and it was indeed ‘love at first sight.’
“It was my elder brother’s Tilak (engagement ceremony). I was on my way to a tiny room on the terrace to get dressed when this boy with hazel eyes, brown hair and a beard crossed me. Those eyes would go on to follow me during the entire function,” recalls Mridula.
Mridula would later find out that the boy was the bride’s younger brother. She was in class 9 at the time, while Pankaj was two years her senior. While he also felt an instant connection with her, little did they know that the road to their ‘happily ever after’ was a long one ahead.
While couples today have all the privacy and ease of communication they could possibly want thanks to smartphones and instant messengers, these options were non-existent back then.
It was tough for Pankaj and Mridula to interact with each other, and writing letters was out of the question.
Fortunately, Pankaj would come visiting his sister once every five months, and that would give them the freedom to spend some quality time together.
“I would leave for school in the morning and could meet him only after dinner. That was our time. We would sit and talk, sometimes till early morning. We both loved reading and had so much to talk about the books, novels, characters, stories, and the writers,” says Mridula, with a smile.
Their relationship rarely went beyond conversations, and they had discussed practically every topic under the sun.
However, in all this time, they had managed to carefully avoid the one subject that mattered the most—the love between them.
This went on till the day Mridula’s parents found a marriage alliance for her. By then, eight years had passed since their first meeting.
“Pankaj accompanied my brother and sister-in-law to the prospective groom’s place. He came and told me that it was a good match for me and I would surely get much of ‘bhautik sukh.’ I did not know so much Hindi back then and asked what that meant, and he said ‘material happiness.’ That’s when I felt that I was losing something very precious,” she says.
While Pankaj went away with a heavy heart to study at the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD), Mridula hatched a grand scheme to break up the marriage.
“Only I know the lengths that I’d gone to break that marriage. And now the most important dilemma was communicating this news to Pankaj,” she says.
Landline phones were all that they had, and Mridula desperately hoped that Pankaj would call her someday.
And he finally did on December 24—just a day before her birthday.
Pankaj spoke to all the members of the family, and finally, Mridula got the chance to speak to him after months of waiting.
“He wished me, and I reminded him that it was the next day. I tried really hard to convey my feelings to him, but he didn’t understand. It took a long explanation for him to finally get the drift,” says Mridula, continuing to laugh while reminiscing those early days of love.
Following this, Pankaj gave Mridula the number of the telephone booth at NSD and asked her to call every night between 8 and 9 pm.
“Everyone knew it was me on the call and so instead of a ‘Hello,’ I would hear ‘Tripathi tera call hai!’” she adds.
Two years flew by. Mridula had completed her B.Ed. course and her parents wanted to get her married.
However, Pankaj still had a year to finish at NSD. So, the wedding was put on hold.
Interestingly, Mridula received an interview letter around this time.
“It was typed in a very formal way on plain paper. The letter did not have any official seal or the name of the school but came along with a train ticket to Delhi. It didn’t take me long to understand that it was Pankaj,” says Mridula.
She informed her parents that she was taking up the job, and left for Delhi where for the next few months, she stayed at the same boys’ hostel where Pankaj was living.
“Those boys still bully me by saying that I was the ‘Bhabhi’ of Satte pe Satta who came in all of a sudden and made them wear clothes,” she adds.
Mridula got a job by the time Pankaj finished his course and couple finally got married on January 15, 2004.
A short while later, they moved to Mumbai.
Their daughter, Aashi, was born in 2006 and with her stable teaching career, Mridula took it upon herself to take care of all the expenses so that Pankaj could pursue his dreams, unhindered.
Their life together saw many tough days, but they have no regrets.
“Yes, it was a tough time, but neither of us ever felt that we were doing anything unusual or anything extra for the other one. It’s just like if one of your hand is hurt, you use the other hand and vice-versa,” she adds.
It was finally in 2009 when Pankaj finally got a break thanks to the television series ‘Powder,’ and there has been no looking back ever since.
With their daughter, Aashi.
“We had purchased a small car, and the three of us were out and about when I saw a poster in front of the Inorbit mall with Pankaj on it. That was the most memorable moment of my life, and I was so overwhelmed that I began to cry,” remembers Mridula.
On being asked if the fame has changed anything, she says, “Yes, I do miss those trips to Big Bazaar where we would go happily and fight over buying anything and come back fighting. Somehow people don’t let us enjoy that personal space now. But it’s okay. Whatever Pankaj is today, is because of his fans, and I want to request each one of them to keep showering him with their love and blessings. The gratitude that we feel cannot be expressed in words.”
Pankaj and Mridula Tripathi’s story of love at first sight, is a beautiful testimony to the sort of love that blossoms slowly, but withstands the test of time and space and emerges stronger than ever.
We wish them the very best.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra. With inputs by Manabi Katoch)
This International Women’s Day, we introduce you to some truly incredible Indian women whose stories define resilience, courage and inspiration. #BalanceForBetter
If there is one film that has transcended generations of Hindi film buffs, it is Sholay.
Its iconic dialogues and a memorable cast make the film a true classic which continues to amuse and enthral us even today. After all, who can forget the shawl-clad Thakur saab or evil-incarnate, Gabbar Singh?
The film redefined the quintessential villain, introduced some epic action sequences, and its depiction of male friendship (Jai-Veeru) created one of the most popular duos in the Hindi film industry.
And then, there was Basanti, the feisty village girl who rode a tonga and talked a mile a minute.
Immortalised by the actor, Hema Malini, this remarkable and fearless character, was a part of several action sequences that left the audience in awe.
But what we all saw was the face on the screen, never the one who performed each stunt—some even life-threatening.
We are talking about Reshma Pathan, the stuntwoman or body double for not just Hema Malini in Sholay but almost all actresses through the seventies and eighties in the Hindi film industry.
Like many of her peers, Pathan’s contribution to the industry remained behind the scenes all these years. Now, that is all set to change, and she will finally receive the recognition she deserves—through a biopic!
‘The Sholay Girl’ is an original web film by Zee5, which stars actor, Bidita Bag, as Reshma Pathan. The film has been produced by Shrabani and Sai Deodhar, a mother-daughter duo, and is gearing up for release on March 8, International Women’s Day.
Pathan was barely 14 when she entered the field, to support her impoverished family, and initially faced a lot of opposition, mostly from male stunt artists.
“At that time, there were hardly any women taking up the role of even body doubles, let alone those requiring stunts. So, she earned the wrath of stuntmen; they accused her of stealing her job!” says Bidita.
Pathan joined the industry in 1968, but it wasn’t until the early-seventies that she gained recognition for her work.
Speaking with The Better India, she shares, “Between 1971-72, I began getting more work, but these would rarely stretch beyond ten days in a month. Slowly, that began to change with more work coming along my way. But the real break came in 1975—with Sholay,” Pathan remembers.
That one film made Pathan an overnight celebrity amidst the industry bigwigs. So much so, that she began to be even known as ‘Sholay Girl’.
But nothing came without hard work, and Pathan’s chosen profession often jeopardised her health.
Reel and Real: Bidita Bag with Reshma Pathan on the sets of The Sholay Girl.
“While it is the job of a stuntman to overcome any fear and put their life at risk, not many know that during the shooting of Sholay, Reshmaji had once suffered a serious injury. Everyone on the set was anxious, but such was her commitment to the work that she only went to the hospital after completing her scenes. And this was not a standalone incident. Throughout her career, Reshmaji has faced many life-threatening situations during shooting and each time, she bravely went ahead doing her work,” shares Bidita.
Even while she was pregnant with her son, Pathan went on doing stunts. Only when a jumping sequence in a movie almost put the life of her baby at risk, did she decide to take a break. But, she returned to work right shortly after delivering her son.
“The doctors had advised me to take good rest and care, but I had to support my family. After three months, I resumed my work as everything I’d saved until then had almost finished,” the sexagenarian remembers.
An interesting fact about Pathan is that she was the first stuntwoman who officially got a membership in the Movie Stunt Artists Association.
“By then, more and more stuntwomen began to enter the industry but it was Reshmaji, who received this membership first,” adds Bidita.
Now that the world is finally getting to see the face behind all the stars and hear her story, Pathan cannot help but feel elated.
Pathan and Bag on the premier of The Sholay Girl.
“There never was any form of recognition by the outside world. People like us have risked our lives so many times for the sake of doing stunts, but no one gave awards for stunts. Though I always wished that stunt men and women should also get due recognition, something even better came along my way—a film on my life. My happiness knew no bounds when I came to know about the film!” she adds.
What is more, Bidita even got a chance to closely work with Pathan, while reenacting scenes for the film.
“Working with someone as fearless and brave like Reshmaji was indeed a great learning experience. I was so scared while re-enacting some of the scenes and then there was this woman, who had lived through them all! There are so many people like her who never get any form of recognition for their work, and I feel honoured to bring the story of her life to the world,” she concludes.
As a tribute to the first Indian stuntwoman of Bollywood, The Sholay Girl is releasing on March 8. You can check out the trailer below:
In a recent podcast, Javed Akhtar recited these lines from a song in the 1959 film Dhool ka Phool, directed by the legendary BR Chopra and sung by Mohammad Rafi:
Tu Hindu Banega Na Musalmaan Banega, Insaan Ki Aulad Hai Insaan Banega
(You will not become a Hindu nor a Muslim, A Human’s child will be a Human)
These revolutionary words, which are a reminder that before we are either Hindu or Muslim, we are human beings first, were penned by none other than Abdul Hayee, who is famously known by his pen name Sahir Ludhianvi.
Sahir was a legendary 20th century Hindi and Urdu poet-film lyricist who wasn’t afraid to question society and its many ills.
His words are as relevant as they were in 1959, because we still live in an era where communal strife remains an everyday reality, and politicians cynically foment further divisions between Hindus and Muslims to further their political objectives.
Born on March 8, 1921, into a wealthy family of zamindars in Ludhiana, Sahir’s childhood was marked by fear and trauma.
“He had a very traumatic childhood. His father was a depraved and despotic zamindar who married multiple times. Sahir’s own mother was his 12th wife,” says Akshay Manwani, the author of ‘Sahir Ludhianvi: The People’s Poet,’ speaking to The Better India.
Unable to suffer his tyranny, Sahir’s mother, Sardar Begum, left her husband and forfeited any claim to financial assets from the marriage.
In 1934, Sahir’s father remarried and sued for custody of his son. The entire exchange was acrimonious but ultimately unsuccessful.
“All these experiences were a part of his childhood. Sahir had to live with the constant fear of his father abducting him even after the court had allowed his parents to separate. Unsurprisingly, these experiences found an outlet in his poetry. His non-film poems like ‘Jaagir’ are severe indictments of the zamindar class, articulating how they exploited the oppressed classes, particularly poor farmers,” says Manwani.
Sahir’s immense talent for poetry was evident, particularly during his college days at the Government College, Ludhiana. Today, the auditorium there is named after him.
In 1943, Sahir moved to Lahore, where he wrote ‘Talkhiyaan,’ (Bitterness) his first published work in Urdu, in 1945, while working as an editor in a whole host of Urdu publications.
During this time, he also became a member of the famous Progressive Writers’ Association, which included almost every literary giant in the Indian subcontinent from Munshi Premchand to Saadat Hasan Manto.
“The Progressive Writers’ Movement (PWM) through the 1940s and 50s believed that art could not be for art’s sake alone. These writers were very determined to write about the issues that face the oppressed classes, the common man,” says Manwani.
However, his attraction to the ideals of an egalitarian society, which found an outlet in his writings got him into trouble. Following the horrors of partition, the Pakistani government issued a warrant for his arrest, and in 1949 Sahir fled to Bombay (Mumbai).
In the 1940s and 50s, the city became a haven for many poets and writers like Ismat Chugtai, Rajender Singh Bedi, Sadat Manto, Kishan Chander, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Kaifi Azmi of the PWM, who came in droves to further their craft or work in the Hindi film industry.
What their arrival did was define Indian cinema for the forthcoming decades.
“Till the 1970s, the main protagonist of any film was from the working class—rickshaw puller, tonga puller, teacher, unemployed youth, a government clerk, student, farmer and mill worker, etc. These protagonists either came from poor or middle-class communities. Meanwhile, the wealthy—moneylender, mill owner and company owners—were often cast in negative roles,” says Javed Akhtar, in the podcast mentioned above.
These were poets and writers who experienced a period of great struggle, who wrote against fascist forces both local and foreign. There was a definitive collective conscience at that time.
“Their writings espoused a hope for a better India, a better society. Writers of the PWM were not happy with the outcome of this Independence, which they believed further accentuated divisions across religious lines with partition. As legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz once said, “Yeh woh sehar toh nahin” (this is not the dawn we hoped for). Their confidence in aspiring for a better tomorrow came from a collective struggle first against British fascist forces, and then class, caste, and communal forces,” says Manwani.
Sahir expressed those aspirations in the evergreen song of Pyaasa (1957)—Ye Mahlon Ye Takhton Ye Tajon Ki Duniya—which is laden with expectations of a beautiful tomorrow.
However, in the same film, he wrote the song ‘Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye Toh Kya Hai,’ which means “even if I get the entire world, what difference does it make,” speaking out against the dangers of materialism at a time when millions were struggling under the brutal weight of poverty.
Even among his contemporaries, Sahir stood out for the clarity and directness of his writings. Expressing his pain at the societal repression women suffer in the film Sadhna (1958) starring Vyjayanthimala and Sunil Dutt, Sahir writes in the song, ‘Aurat Ne Janam Diya Mardon Ko,’
Mardon ke liye har zulm ravaan Aurat ke liye rona bhi khataa Mardon ke liye laakhon sejein Aurat ke liye bas ek chita Mardon ke liye har aish ka haq Aurat ke liye jeena bhi sazaa Aurat ne janam diya mardon ko…
(For men, every torment is acceptable For a woman, even weeping is a crime For men, there are a million beds For a woman, there is just one pyre For men, there is a right to every depravity For a woman, even to live is a punishment But it is women who give birth to men…)
“Before and after him, people have written political songs, but you have to read between the lines and identify the underlying theme. Sahir’s writings, on the other hand, are anything but subtle and this why he stands alone among his peers. He would raise a straightforward thought, and you, as a reader, would immediately grasp the subtext. Sahir’s work is candid and exceedingly profound, which is why he is unique. Even today if there is any kind of injustice, we go back to his songs,” informs Manwani.
All through his interactions with the media, Sahir maintained the refrain that his writings were a product of his experiences, which is why he could write about them.
In fact, in one interview, somebody asked him, “do you need to be a ‘communist’ to write about these experiences?”
His response was, “No, I don’t need to be a communist to write about these experiences. If anyone writes about what one has experienced honestly then this is what will come out. I need not be branded a communist for this kind of writing.”
Moreover, unlike his fellow contemporary lyricists, who approached their writing depending on the premise of the film, Sahir never lost sight of his politics.
Usually, if the premise did not require for song writers to pen a political song, they wouldn’t. But Sahir was different.
Irrespective of which film he was writing for, there would always be a political angle in his songs. Even when he wrote a fun song for Mehmood in Neel Kamal (1968) ‘Khali Dabba, Khali Botal,’ you couldn’t escape his politics.
You can also take the example of the song ‘Aasman Pe Hai Khuda’ for the film Phir Subah Hogi (1958) where he writes,
Aasmaan pe hai khuda, aur zamin pe hum Aajkal woh is taraf dekhta hai kam
(God is in the skies, and we are on the ground However, these days God doesn’t look at us as much)
“Today, you can’t even think of writing songs like these, saying ‘what use is this God when he doesn’t even care about the issues facing the common man.’ They will be considered blasphemous,” remarks Marwani.
The oft-repeated complaint against songwriters and film celebrities today is that they are afraid to take political positions on contentious subjects.
Besides the economics, lack of legal cover and the judiciary’s poor track record in protecting free speech, there is another element that Manwani feels adds to the seeming lack of political content in film songs today.
“It’s not as if the likes of Manto weren’t slapped with court cases on various charges for their writings, but today’s writers don’t share those kinds of experiences. Those were different times,” says Manwani.
Yes, the challenges today are very different, but the dial is ever-shifting, albeit slowly, in mainstream Hindi cinema. Movies now attempt to reflect the aspirations of ordinary people from small towns.
If Sahir were alive today, he would recognise this, but also urge his fellow songwriters to take more risks than they are today.
Ladakh officially opened itself to the world in 1974 when the Government of India first allowed tourists into this strategically sensitive high-altitude region.
However, in 1972, a young and ambitious 19-year-old Phonsok Tsering Dimbir, popularly known as Phonsok Ladakhi, decided to plunge into the world of cinema, seeking admission into the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). It was a time when Ladakh didn’t even have a cinema hall with the good old Radio as the only source of entertainment. Many of you may not have ever heard of him, but Phonsok was Ladakh’s first true representative in mainstream Indian popular culture.
Performing across a host of minor roles in Bollywood movies through the late 1970s like Khel Khel Mai, Uchi Udaan, Shalimar and Kachhey Herai, Phonsok would go onto become a household name in the late 1980s, acting in Doordarshan-sponsored television shows like Intezaar and Paramveer Chakra.
Phonsok would later become a pioneer of popular Ladakhi music, produce his own television series, craft numerous documentaries on Ladakh, compose the regimental song for the Ladakh Scouts and eventually dedicate his life to spreading the gospel of yoga and meditation.
A young Phonsok Ladakhi on the right. (Source: Facebook)
Born on November 14, 1953, in Chemrey village of Leh district, Phonsok spent the first 12 years of his life there. Subsequently, he went to the famous C.M.S Tyndale Biscoe Memorial High School in Srinagar, where he passed his matriculation.
“In those days, we didn’t have cinema halls in Ladakh, just the radio but I devoured the radio, listening to all the popular Bollywood songs of the day, particularly those composed by SD Burman saab. That’s what drew me to the arts early on, and helped me realise there is more to this world than becoming a doctor or an engineer,” he says, in an exclusive conversation with The Better India.
“All people from the mountains have an innate sense of rhythm,” he adds. Following his matriculation, he went to college in Jammu, where his passion for cinema and desire for stardom first took shape. One of the first movies that really inspired him was the 1969 film, Aradhna, starring the megastar Rajesh Khanna.
“Back in the day, I thought I looked like Rajesh Khanna. I would spend less time in college and more in the cinema halls watching all his films. Also, at the same time, the legendary Danny Denzongpa had also made his mark in the film industry after graduating from FTII, Pune. This drove my desire to become not just an actor, but a star,” says Phonsok.
Phonsok also says that though many want to become an actor, yet few have the courage to follow through on their impulse.
“Acting is a very uncertain profession, and people would rather take the safe way out. But I jumped into the profession, and took a chance,” he adds.
Hard struggle
In 1972, he applied for FTII and was lucky enough to be accepted into the Institute alongside the legendary Tom Alter and Benjamin Gilani. Phonsok claims that they were the only three among 1,200 people who had applied for FTII in Delhi to get admission.
Learning acting from veteran theatre personalities like Roshan Taneja, he finally graduated from FTII in 1975. Initially, he landed a few minor roles, but it was a hard struggle.
“Getting roles was challenging, and I struggled a lot in Bombay (Mumbai) working side by side as an assistant teacher in a local acting school. My struggles in Bombay, however, turned me into a more resilient person. I saw hunger, difficult challenges, and days when there was no work forthcoming. There was one year, where I changed my place of residence nine times, got evicted by my landlords on each occasion because of my inability to pay the rent,” he recalls.
The first role he landed was in the 1977 film Khel Khilari Ka, starring Dharmendra. It was a small part, where he played Shakti Kapoor’s brother on screen.
“However, I never quite clicked as a star in the industry. At some level, I always had an intuition that I wouldn’t become a star, and that, coming from Ladakh, I would do something for the region, and the people of the Himalayas. Despite my struggles, I never lost faith. I took recourse to yoga and meditation, and surrounded myself with great friends like Tom Alter, who was very dear to me,” reminisces Phonsok.
Moreover, during this intense period of struggle, at no point did he feel discriminated against or suffered at the hands of racial prejudice.
Phonsok Ladakhi: A still from the film Ramu To Diwana Hai (1980).
Danny Denzongpa was a star when I came to Bombay. When he became famous no one doubted people who looked like me. He liberated us. When Danny’s fame was rising, nobody took my desire to become an actor as a joke. I never felt discriminated against, but at some level, my features did stand in the way to getting roles. For example, I could not play the role of a blood relative. No one would cast me as Hema Malini’s brother, he recalls.
Left: Phonsok Ladakhi with Danny Denzongpa circa 1984. Right: Phonsok Ladakhi at FTII Pune campus (1973).
“As Danny grew in stature playing negative roles, people also thought I’d reach those heights, and they treated me that way. Unfortunately, it never quite worked out for me.
“After struggling for nearly a decade in the film industry, it was television that saved me,” he adds.
Things really picked up for him with the advent of television in India, starring in Doordarshan sponsored serials like Intezaar in 1989, where he played a Ladakhi and even had the opportunity to sing a couple of Ladakhi songs.
“With the arrival of television, my frustrations came to an end and found a different medium to express my talents. The TV offered us struggling actors with another avenue to express our talents. These avenues brought my insecurities to an end,” says Phonsok.
A few years later another show called Paramveer Chakra happened, where he played the role of Dhan Singh Thapa, a recipient of the gallantry award. Following this, he acted in a few more TV serials, working with luminaries like Saeed Mirza.
From here on, Phonsok came into his own, producing his television serial, making a 10-episode series on the Ladakh Scouts, government-sponsored films and multiple documentaries on Ladakh.
For Phonsok, acting isn’t merely a performance, but a source of spiritual regeneration.
“Through acting, I learnt to tap into my subconscious. Within that subconsciousness, our fears, plus points and weaknesses are hidden. If you can break the shackles there, you can become a better actor. Through acting, I learnt how you can tackle the source of all your fears that are seeped within your subconscious and deliver a good performance on screen. Not only does that make you a better actor, but a better person as well,” he says.
From acting and filmmaking, he also made his mark in popular regional music, which resonated with both the Ladakhi and Tibetan community in India. He was indeed a pioneer of modern Ladakhi music.
“He [Phonsok] is known for an influential style of popular song that incorporated the film-style ghazal with either Ladakhi language lyrics or with Hindi lyrics and Tibetan Buddhist themes,” writes Noé Dinnerstein for Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies.
“His Hindi-language songs ‘Om mani padme hum‘ and ‘Namo namo‘ (the latter praising the Dalai Lama) are perennial favourites and are accessible to both communities in Hindi, the lingua franca of North India. Hence, there is an assertion of a common Tibetan Buddhist culture,” the paper goes onto add.
He would even go onto compose the regimental song for the Ladakh Scouts called Zinda Kaum, for which received a letter of commendation from the Chief of Army Staff in 2017. “Every war India has fought, soldiers from Ladakh have always stood tall. With these thoughts, I had composed a song and would sing it to the regiment boys,” he says.
Phonsok Ladakhi with Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat. (Source: Facebook)
However, his foray into music was an accident.
“When I had no work as an actor in Bombay, I was lucky enough to meet a friend, who took me to a music teacher. Those lessons honed my talents in music, learning various vocal techniques like Sargam. Besides learning how to sing, I was also an assistant to Professor Roshan Taneja, who was a very well known instructor at FTII and would, later on, open his own school of acting. I learnt music by accident when I had nothing to do,” he says.
Today, he is a visiting faculty at FTII, teaching acting to aspiring actors. He also travels around the country teaching the craft in places ranging from Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand to Goa. Meanwhile, back home in Leh, he runs a hotel, which also doubles up as a yoga centre.
Practising Vipassana for the past three decades, he is also a founder member of a Vipassana meditation centre in the Saboo area of Leh. However, his wish is to open an FTII-like school in Ladakh.
Teaching yoga at the Ladakh Scouts Centre in 2016. (Source: Facebook)
Even though real stardom in Bollywood eluded him, Phonsok remains a very content man. That feeling of contentment does not merely come from the diverse range of work he has done since but also from a deep-seated sense of inner peace.
Teaching the craft to aspiring actors.
“Any profession you take up, you must be honest. At no point, you must resort to deception or take shortcuts. If you stay on the path of truth, you will attain true happiness. Irrespective of your circumstances, you will excel in your profession provided you maintain an honest, moral core. That’s my message to all youngsters,” he says.
(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)
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What could three different films—about a doctor on a white revolution mission; an insomniac and an unemployed youngster—possibly have in common?
Well, all these movies saw the light of the day, only because they were crowdfunded.
Crowdfunding is a concept where people from society allocate funds to aid the filmmaking process and has gained popularity as the go-to method for budding and independent filmmakers who want their voices heard.
Although the Hindi film industry is known for the money it makes nationally and internationally, several films fail to see the light of the day due to the shortage of funds.
Fed up of going from one producer’s office to another, many independent movie makers are now relying on crowdfunding projects.
Here are five films in India that were financed by the aam janta:
As an agitated Bhola (Naseeruddin Shah) reminds a group of villagers about the benefits of forming a co-operative society for milk on a 70 mm screen, audiences in Mumbai’s Regal cinema let out a huge applause.
The dialogue which translates to ‘society is ours’ is from filmmaker Shyam Benegal’s masterpiece Manthan that was released in 1976. This powerful dialogue motivates the characters in the movie to accomplish their mission.
Besides, it was Benegal’s way of thanking the farmers who turned his vision into a full-fledged movie.
Manthan was the first crowdfunded movie in India, and also demonstrated the power of “collective might” as it was entirely crowdfunded by 500,000 farmers who donated Rs 2, each.
The film is set amidst the backdrop of the White Revolution of India, pioneered by Verghese Kurien, and revolves around Dr Rao (Girish Karnad) who heads to a village in Gujarat’s Kheda district, intending to establish a Milk Co-operative society.
Other actors include Smita Patil, Amrish Puri and Kulbhushan Kharbanda.
Interestingly, its title sequence includes the line’ 500,000 farmers of Gujarat present.’
When Selvakannan quit his well-paying engineering job to enter the world of light, camera and action, his major concern was money. Though it unleashes the creative side of people, filmmaking is a costly affair.
That was when his friends from college came forward and pitched in.
I had a script, which was very close to my heart. About thirty of us, all engineering diploma graduates based out of Nellai, knowing my passion, came together to make my dream a reality, he told The New Indian Express.
The Tamil drama revolves an unemployed youngster who is torn between his family and love. The movie, subtly, also addresses the issue of daughters who are unable to inherit property.
With a rating of 7.6 on IMDb, the movie garnered applause from both critics and audiences.
A recipient of the National Award for Best Feature Film in Assamese (2016) and Asian Cinema Fund Post Production, Kothanodi set a trend of crowdfunding movies in North East.
It encouraged many independent filmmakers like Kenny Basumatary and Reema Borah to pursue their film projects.
The film, which stars stalwarts like Seema Biswas and Adil Hussain was directed by Bhaskar Hazarika. It is based on characters and events described in Burhi Aair Sadhu (Grandma’s Tales), a popular compendium of folk stories compiled by Assamese literary giant, Lakshminath Bezbaroa.
Crowdfunding is definitely a viable option for independent filmmakers. If you look at it, cheaper film technology and expanding social media have converged to create perfect conditions for indie filmmakers to get off their couch do something about their script, said Bhaskar to TOI.
Taking advantage of the rising popularity of social media, former IT professional Pawan Kumar started a crowdfunding blog and used Facebook to finance his film.
As per The Economic Times, the filmmaker was able to raise close to 50 lakhs within ten days from 100 investors for his psychological thriller that was released in 2013. It was remade in Tamil as ‘Enakkul Oruvan’ in 2015.
A thin line between fantasy and reality, this Kannada film with a non-linear plot, follows a man who has insomnia and is desperate for good sleep. The plotline moves forward when he consumes a unique type of pill.
The film went on to premiere at the London Indian Film Festival 2013, where it won the ‘Audience Choice Award.’
Released in 2012, this black comedy is about finding a purpose in life. It involves a mahout who has lost his elephant, a devil who has lost his teeth, a god who has lost his identity, a theatre owner who has lost her god and a constable who has lost his faith.
Ordinary people crowdfunded the distribution of the movie as director Srinivas Sunderrajan fell short of money.
Crowdfunding is a novel platform that’s just found its way into India after finding success in the western countries. It’s a process in which we involve cinephiles to invest in a film and thereby getting to be part of the film’s crew, he said in a conversation with The Hindu.
A deep baritone erupts into thunderous laughter and out of the darkness, enters a towering figure, piercing through the mist with a pair of glowing bulbous eyes, chilling enough to stare down generations into submission.
‘Mogambo Khush Hua’- a low voice ushers the calm before the storm
This is a man who etched an eternal image of villainy in the minds of thousands of Indian cinema-lovers. With fearfully elaborate roles and spine-chilling performances, he, Amrish Puri, showed the world that he was indeed the best bad guy on celluloid.
Puri’s unique ability to intimidate was a prominent reason why directors like Shyam Benegal (Nishant, Bhumika, Zubeidaa), Subhash Ghai (Pardes, Meri Jung, Taal), Yash Chopra (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Mashal), or even Steven Speilberg (Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom) pursued him with memorable roles.
He was a man who could garner a multitude of emotions—hate, fear and love—all at the same time, from his audience, while striking the perfect balance in art.
From Mogambo in Bollywood to Mola Ram in Hollywood, this legend became a paragon of immorality on one hand, while on the other, he emerged as a sphinx-headed custodian of virtue and integrity as Chaudhry Baldev Singh (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge) and Brig Sarfaroz Khan (Dil Pardesi Ho Gayaa).
But we only know him as he was presented on the silver screen with a long line of landmark films that set an everlasting legacy, not how he was beyond it. On his 87th birth anniversary (he was born on 22 June 1932), we look back at the varied roles he lived while off-screen.
He led a dual life, travelling from one place to another on his motorbike, selling life insurance, and another on stage.
The latter was all that mattered—his heart and soul.
One of the most prominent actors in Satyadev Dubey’s theatre group, Theatre Unit, Puri’s tryst with cinema was yet to unfold.
He already had two brothers, who were acting in films. The eldest, Madan Puri, was successful as a character actor and had worked on several films in the 1940s to the 1970s.
Somewhere in the 1950s, he did veer into trying his luck in cinema but was rejected for the lead roles. Much like on-screen, he was uncompromising in personal life as well and did not settle for minor roles. His work in Prithvi Theatre gained him prominence as a stage actor, and he won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1979. It was his theatre recognition that led him to more work in television ads and eventually, Hindi cinema at the age of 40.
Through the 1970s he continued to work in supporting roles mostly as the henchman of the lead villain (Prem Pujari in 1970, Aahat-Ek Ajeeb Kahani and Reshma Aur Shera in 1971).
Puri’s continued work in theatre soon led him to meet Shyam Benegal, who was at the time, working on his first film, Ankur (1974).
“I had an actor I thought would be good because his physical presence was good. But he couldn’t speak a line of the dialogue properly. So I got Amrish to dub for him. After that, I felt, ‘Why am I doing this?’ So, when I made my next film Nishant, I got Amrish to act. From then on, he acted in practically everything I did,” the director shares.
This eventually grew into a strong friendship between the two, earning Amrish Puri wide appreciation in Nishant and Bhumika, and opening doors to success.
Between 1967 to 2005, Amrish worked in almost 400 films in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, and as well as English.
However, it was only in 1980 that the commercial hit Hum Paanch positioned him as a promising villain in Indian cinema and the rest became history.
A sensitive mentor, thorough professional and disciplinarian
From mentoring young actors off-screen to helping out friends in need, in his personal life, Amrish is remembered as a gentle and sensitive individual with the attributes of a hero—a welcome contrast.
Much like his on-screen character, Chaudhry Baldev Singh (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge), Amrish was known to be prepared and organised.
Recalling one such experience, Shyam Benegal adds, “The great thing about Amrish, like Om Puri also, was that when he worked on a film, he brought a lot of order into the unit. He had extremely disciplined ways. I remember, when we were doing Manthan, we were shooting in a village called Sanganva, which was about 45 kilometres from Rajkot. He would wake the unit up at 5:30 in the morning in the winter of January and take them all on a run. This was to keep everyone in good shape. He always had a wonderful presence in the unit because he maintained discipline, which flowed to other people. This also included his food habits.”
He is an actor, who for over 30 years and beyond, has shocked, frightened, and inspired generations to embrace negative roles with refreshing appreciation, setting a benchmark for the future!
“This is our only chance to make men feel the same fear that women feel every day.”
This line of dialogue from the film ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’ is perhaps reflective of similar desires inside many a woman who faces harassment every day.
The raw need for revenge is not gender-centric, though. Fiction-based cinema is full of male-centric, blood-soaked murder fests undertaken in celebration of revenge.
However, even revenge can be shown differently. And to highlight that, The Better India (TBI) spoke to someone who still retains a unique vision in these post-‘Kabir Singh’ days.
“Whenever you hear or read about a heinous rape in the media, the standard responses one hears from people is ‘let’s beat up the assailants’, ‘hang them to death, ‘castrate them’, etc. The power of fiction is that you can depict all these things without going to jail,” says screenwriter, author and award-winning Mumbai-based independent filmmaker Aditya Kripalani.
“So, the narrative of making a man understand the fear a woman goes through is, in many ways, an extension of this creative freedom (that) fiction gives,” Kripalani says.
Aditya Kripalani
Kripalani’s second feature film feeds from that precise creative instinct. ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’ released on 25 June, stars Shalini Vatsa, Chitrangada Chakraborty, Sonal Joshi, Kritika Pande and Vinay Sharma and you can catch it on Netflix.
The film, set in the Delhi-NCR region, delves into the minds of four working women who live in constant trepidation when travelling in public spaces – facing constant harassment, sexual and physical, from entitled men.
One night, they take matters into their own hands, when yet another man begins another cycle of harassment against them. Thus, begins a journey of breaking the person down – physically and mentally.
It’s one thing to read a headline or ascertain gruesome details, but another thing altogether to understand what it feels like to walk in a woman’s shoes. In ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’, this is why the women feel compelled to make a man understand their fear of sexual assault, says Kripalani.
However, the movie isn’t merely a revenge fantasy film about a terrible man getting his due, but also an exploration into the similarities that exist between both genders in their engagement with power.
This movie, and such topics, are perfectly in line with Kripalani’s desire to make films centred around ordinary women.
Screenwriter, author, filmmaker & coming full circle
Graduating from the Film and Television Institute of India with a degree in screenplay writing, the early days saw Kripalani writing for mainstream cinema audiences.
However, he found no satisfaction in writing for someone else in a disorganised and chaotic Mumbai market which didn’t pay on time. Eventually, he pivoted to writing novels. Since 2008 he has written three bestselling novels, ‘Back Seat’, ‘Front Seat’ and ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’.
It was his third novel ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’ which became his first feature film, garnering a whole host of international awards. And it is also streaming on Netflix, a platform Kriplani relishes.
“Thanks to Netflix today, you can make whatever you want once you create some amount of buzz like winning international awards. There is no censorship, and this allows for an unabashed conversation with your audience,” he says.
Aditya Kripalani
But why is an author so attracted to moving pictures?
“Everything I’ve written has been a dialogue with society. But barriers stood in terms of audience reach because of literacy, language and the fact that people prefer the visual medium. While my books are in English, the films are set in their specific vernacular demographic. With cinema, it’s about reaching a larger audience,” argues Kripalani, when asked why he liked cinema as a medium.
“Once, I started engaging with cinema as a medium, I fell in love with it. There is no way I couldn’t,” he says.
Women-centric narratives
Although the push for gender equality has made real progress in India, the scales are still heavily tipped against women. This is probably why my stories take a strong feminist line. These movies target misogyny, push for equality and seek to shatter the status quo, but they are also about the human condition as well, says Kripalani.
“As an outsider in Delhi, seeing women look at their watches when the clock struck 8, 7 or even 6 pm during winters was a new thing for me. This wanted me to say something about it as a filmmaker. I made ‘Tikli And Laxmi Bomb’ for Mumbai. Something needed to be made for Delhi which would resonate with a tone that was a lot harsher,” he says when asked about this film in particular.
In ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’, sex workers on the streets on Mumbai seek to take control of their ‘business’ by forming an autonomous co-operative and push their abusive male pimps out.
“For Tikli and Laxmi Bomb, the intention was to do an Indian version of the Hollywood classic Thelma and Lousie. Yes, the stories are wildly different with two sex workers in Mumbai at the heart of my film, but it was about exploring the dynamic between an older and younger woman, where women are seen having fun and wanting to make a change. In some ways, ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’ is my tribute to Thelma and Louise,” says Aditya.
Their assertion of gender identity comes in the form of taking ownership of their work and the reclamation of public spaces at night, a time considered unsafe for women to venture out. In ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’, that assertion takes the form of rage.
Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal poster
But the film does not go down the ‘we are taking revenge, so we are the better ones,’ route so favoured by mainstream cinema.
“The protagonists in the film keep saying, ‘we’re women, and we don’t act like men’, but the consequences of their actions are the same. Yes, men have not endured the sort of institutional suffering women have, but human nature is a lot more pervasive. Irrespective of gender, our response to power is the same,” claims Kripalani, while explaining some creative decisions with the film’s unexpected plotline.
From writing his first book 13 years ago, which he and his wife sold on local trains and outside restaurants in Mumbai, to raising Rs 25 lakh through crowdfunding for ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’ to promoting ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’ by handing out fliers and showing the trailer to over 200 people every day, Kripalani has always been unconventional.
One hopes he has many more tales within him.
(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)
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While growing up, the majority of the movies I was exposed to, despite their different titles, actors, directors and to some extent story-lines, had a common thread running through them.
Most of them portrayed the idea of a woman being someone’s ‘dream girl’. The heroine was a girl who talks non-stop, is sanskari enough to make unrealistic compromises and is looking for someone who can rescue her from the “shackles” of the society, sometimes literally!
My fascination for the 70 mm wide high-resolution ran so high that for the longest time I tried to mould my personality according to such “filmy” notions that were far from reality.
Even now, the scripts clearly mirror the patriarchal society we continue to live in and the established roles women are supposed to lead even now.
Now imagine acting in movies that revolved around an elderly woman having an affair with a young man (Parama,1985), portraying someone who has a series of relationships and is prioritising her own happiness (Bhumika, 1977) or having an orgasm onscreen (Lipstick Under my Burkha, 2017).
Irrespective of which era they were released, what remained the same was the flak that these movies drew from the society. How can women be shown to be so flawed . . . so human, perhaps?
So how did women first charter into these male-dominated waters, to dip their toes in each and every medium that the entertainment industry has to offer, and found popularity?
Here are five women who challenged the bizarre conventions for their love of cinema:
1) First Female Director
Image Source: 100+ Years of Indian Cinema/Facebook
The director is the creative force that binds the film together. Movie geeks strongly believe that it is the director’s vision that determines how well the script is transformed into a feeling on screen.
This held true for Fatma Begum back in the 1900s. Having written the script about an epic fantasy, she refused to trust anyone with its outcome and directed it herself in 1926. With ‘Bulbul-e-Paristan, the trained theatre artist became India’s first ever female director in Indian cinema. Fatma unlocked the doorway to the world of moving pictures for other female directors.
Not stopping there, she went on to direct many films like Goddess of Love (1927), Chandrawali (1928), Heer Ranjha (1928) and Shakuntala (1929). She even started her own production ‘Fatma Films’ breaking yet another stereotype.
Did you know that India’s first feature film ‘Raja Harishchandra’ has a man playing the female lead?
The Father of Indian Cinema, Dada Saheb Phalke, did everything to convince women to act in this film. He published advertisements in several newspapers for the cast and crew and even approached the nautch girls, but to no avail. Ultimately, he had to cast a man in the role of the female lead.
In Phalke’s second film ‘Mohini Bhasmasur’, Durgabai Kamat braved the conservative society and became India’s first female actor to act on the silver screen. Interestingly, her daughter Kamlabai Gokhale became the first female child actress by acting in the same movie.
The reason why English comic actor Charlie Chaplin is celebrated worldwide is his ability to make people laugh without uttering a single dialogue. Umadevi Khatri also banked on the comedy genre that does not adhere to the societal norms of how a woman should be.
Fondly known as Tun Tun, she became the first female comedian of Hindi cinema and later on, a playback singer. She worked in more than 190 films alongside renowned comedians like Johnny Walker, Bhagvan Dada and Dhumal.
While she did attain success as a comedian, unfortunately the roles that she played were mostly of an obese lady who is a nightmare for men. She was that lady who everyone despised and was considered to be the opposite of how an ‘Indian lady’ should be.
Khatri is a classic example of a talent that was underrated and to some extent even misused. Wish we had better roles and scripts back then!
Fun Fact: Her Birth Anniversary is celebrated today, i.e. 11 July.
Born in Allahabad, Jaddan Bai was a daughter of Daleepabai, a tawaif (courtesan). She was trained in classical music under famous singers including thumri maestro Moujjudin Khan. Genes and training, both played a huge role in perfecting Jaddan’s talent to compose music. After making her debut as an actor, she became India’s first music director and composed music for Talashe Haq (1935) and Madam Fashion (1936). Interestingly, she gave birth to a daughter who turned out to be one of the greatest gifts Indian cinema has ever got – the legendary actress, Nargis!
5) First Female Cinematographer
B R Vijaylaxmi was not only India’s but also Asia’s first woman to handle the camera and light crews in a film. She was born to B R Panthulu, a director and producer in South Indian films.
At a time when only men handled the technical side of making a movie, she donned the hat of Director of Photography in the 1980s. She worked as an assistant to cinematographer Ashok Kumar in the 1980 Tamil film ‘Nenjathai Killathe’.
Since then she has shot 22 films and in 2018 made a directorial debut ‘Abhiyude Katha Anuvinteyum’
Thanks to these fierce women who smashed stereotypes on multiple levels and challenged the status quo, the film industry is now celebrating the works of filmmakers like Zoya Akhtar and Gauri Shinde, cinematographers like Priya Seth and actresses like Vidya Balan and Alia Bhatt!
Before Madhubala, Nargis, and Meena Kumari, there was Devika Rani, a star actor and film producer, who co-founded Bombay Talkies, India’s first self-contained film studio, alongside her first husband Himanshu Rai in 1934, and later became its sole boss after Rai’s untimely death.
She donned these roles at a time when the very concept of working women wasn’t celebrated with fanfare in mainstream society.
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A pioneer in the truest sense, Devika played a fundamental role in bringing Indian cinema to the world. She acted in 15 movies in 10 years, and headed Bombay Talkies for 5 years, before abruptly quitting the film business altogether in 1945 following a business dispute, according to this Indian Express profile.
Born on March 30, 1908, Rani grew up in affluence. Her father, Manmathanath Chaudhuri, was the first Indian surgeon-general of Madras Presidency, and Rabindranath Tagore was her granduncle.
Sent to a private school in London, she earned a scholarship from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in the United Kingdom to pursue her dreams of acting at the age of 16.
In addition to acting, she also studied textile design, décor and architecture. She met her first husband Himanshu Rai in 1928 while assisting with costume design and art direction for his experimental silent film ‘A Throw of Dice’ in 1929.
Rai was 16 years her senior, but the fact hardly bothered Rani, and the couple wed the same year. Soon, they shifted base to Berlin, where they worked at the UFA studios, a once-legendary German motion-picture production company, where Rani received training in several aspects of filmmaking under various luminaries like director GW Pabst and Eric Pommer.
“I first entered as an ordinary worker and was an apprentice in the make-up, costume and sets departments. I worked under their most famous make-up man. And yet, after two years of intensive general training and tests, you were asked to forget it all, because you had become too mechanical! You were asked to become yourself,” she said in an interview to Filmfare after receiving the first Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1958.
Devika Rani with Ashok Kumar in Achut Kanya. (Source: Twitter/NFAI)
Rani eventually made her on-screen debut in 1933 alongside Rai in his bilingual film, Karma.
The film was premiered in England and received excellent reviews with Rani’s performance coming in for special mention. The movie was particularly known for its nearly four-minute-long kissing scene between Rani and Rai, which unfortunately did not endear Indian audiences when it was re-released in India as Nagin Ki Ragini the following year.
However, it did not stop them from setting up Bombay Talkies the same year on an 18-acre plot in Malad, Mumbai, alongside Bengali screenwriter Niranjan Pal. The studio released its first film Jawani Ki Hawa (1935), a crime thriller, starring Rani and Najm-ul-Hassan.
But it was during the shooting for the next film Jeevan Naiya when the relationship between Rai and Rani fell apart with the latter eloping with Najm-ul-Hassan.
Sashadhar Mukherjee, an assistant sound-engineer, helped the couple come to a truce which held among other things that Rani would have sole control of her finances and the firing of Najm-ul-Hassan from the studio.
For the remainder of the film, Mukherjee’s brother-in-law, the legendary Ashok Kumar, who was a laboratory assistant at the time, was hired and cast opposite Rani. The following year, the Rani and Ashok Kumar were paired together in Achhut Kanya (1936), portraying the roles of an untouchable girl and Brahmin boy who fall in love.
It was a remarkable film for its time, depicting the caste system in all its ugliness. The pair would go onto act in nearly ten films that were largely based on strong women characters with a heavy dose of social realism.
The reputation of Bombay Talkies as India’s premier film studio was largely down to Rani’s charismatic performances on-screen and her ability to pitch these films to financiers.
In 1940, Rai died after a “nervous breakdown,” and subsequently, the board of directors at Bombay Talkies selected Rani to take up the top job and run the studio.
In the following five years, the studio produced hits like Naya Sansar (1941) and Kismet (1943), a noir film and “one of the early blockbusters of Indian cinema”which ran for three straight years at Kolkata’s Roxy theatre.
Rani also gave Dilip Kumar his first major break in the film industry with Jwar Bhata (1944), casting him as the lead.
Despite her success, the film industry was an arena dominated by men where sexism reigned supreme. In 1943, Mukherjee led an exodus of talent from Bombay Talkies, which included among other people, Ashok Kumar, to establish Filmistan.
After a string of films which failed to break the bank, the knives were out for her exit. Instead of suffering the indignity of being ousted, she resigned herself and quit the business altogether. Suffice to say, Bombay Talkies never recovered from her resignation.
She would go onto marry Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich, the son of legendary Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, and move to an estate in the Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh, before retiring altogether at the 468-acre Tataguni Estate on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
She passed away on March 9, 1994, in Bengaluru.
In a world where women would endure several hard knocks for even contemplating these measures in the film industry, Devika Rani walked a path that few women in Indian cinema have managed to, and showed them what it means to take ownership of their craft and finances.
Yahan se pachas pachas kos door gaon mein … jab bachcha raat ko rota hai, toh maa kehti hai bete so ja … so ja nahi toh Gabbar Singh aa jayega.
Dressed in a khaki suit and armed with a belt, when the most dreaded dacoit of the country with curly hair and black teeth delivered this dialogue on a 70 mm screen, it sent shivers down my father’s spine who was then barely eight.
“While Sholay had several racy dialogues, this threatening dialogue stayed with me as I walked out of Bombay’s Capitol Theatre. For the next couple of days, I started sleeping without making a fuss fearing Gabbar Singh would appear. Till this date, Amjad Khan’s tone makes me uneasy,” says my father.
The ‘Gabar fever’ went beyond my father and seized millions of cinemagoers, leaving an ever-lasting impact and of course, setting an almost unsurpassable bar for many actors.
With the most simple and not-so-profound dialogues like Kitne Aadmi The, Jo Darr Gaya Samjo Marr Gaya and Tera kya Hoga Kalia, Khan had arrived on the Bollywood scene, giving life to one of the most celebrated and iconic characters in Hindi cinema.
On his 79th birth anniversary, here are five amazing tales of actor Amjad Khan, probably the only actor who could go from sets to sets playing nine different characters in one day!
1) Life Before Movies
Born to actor Jayant (Zakaria Khan) in undivided India’s Peshawar, in 1940, Khan belonged to a Pashtun family.
Khan was a bright student who completed his schooling from St Andrew’s High School in Mumbai and got into R D National College. While at college, Khan was active in his college’s political scene, getting elected as a Student Body President.
A still from Lekin. Source: Film History Pics/Twitter
He loved reading English poets like Wordsworth and Keats and eagerly engaged in political theories or philosophies of Plato, Socrates and S. Radhakrishnan.
After completing hisMastersin Philosophy from Bombay University (now Mumbai University), Khan joined the world of theatre to give a chance to his passion for acting that he had imbibed from his father.
2) Khan was Not the First Choice In Sholay
Can you imagine anyone else ace those dialogues while chewing tobacco in the magnum opus? Though actor Danny Denzongpa had bagged the role of Gabbar, another commitment forced him to give the role up.
BTS from Sholay. Source: Sholay The Movie/Facebook
It is said that the film’s writers, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, developed a new lingo or the character of Gabbar. No wonder both, Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan were ready to shed their ‘hero’ image to play the vicious villian.
But destiny had different plans.
Watch Gabbar Singh’s famous dialogues:
Salim and Javed had spotted Khan on stage plays. Once they arranged a meeting with Khan and director Ramesh Sippy, they wrote Bollywood history.
3) The Family Man
As hard as it may seem to believe, Bollywood’s legendary villain lived a quintessential love story.
Khan and his love interest Shehla, daughter of the late writer and lyricist Akhtar-ul-Iman, lived in the same building in Bandra, Mumbai.
She was merely fourteen when Khan, who was then doing his Bachelors, fell for her. According to Filmfare, he even sent a marriage proposal which was rejected as she was too young.
Their romance continued in true movie fashion through letters when Shehla was sent to Aligarh for studies. And, this particular love story saw a happy fate when the two lovebirds got married in 1972.
Amjad Khan with his wife, son and Father-in-law. Source: Film History Pics/Twitter
Khan and Shehla had three children and the day their eldest son, Shadaab, was born, Khan signed Sholay. Despite being busy with movies, sometimes shooting multiple movies in one day, Khan always made time for his children just like any doting father.
“Obviously, while growing up, kids my age would think that my father’s real-life nature was similar to his on-screen persona, but once they’d meet him they would become very fond of him because in real life he was a fun-loving and gentle person who was particularly good with children,” Khan’s son and actor ShadaabtellsMan’s World India magazine.
Though Khan passed away before Shadaab made his onscreen debut in the movie Raja ki Aayegi Baarat, Khan made sure his son did not become a product of nepotism. He always encouraged Shadaab to write his own destiny and leave his ‘ego’ at home.
4) The Versatile Actor
Throughout his professional journey, Amjad Khan portrayed many roles with panache and ease.
Whether it was risking his business and family life as Bishan for his childhood friend Kishan (played by Bachchan) in the superhit movie Yaarana or playing the funny policeman in Kumar Gaurav’s Love Story, Khan never shied away from stepping outside his comfort zone.
One of his most powerful and memorable performances was in Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977), where he plays Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, an artist, poet, and a sympathetic character.
Shatranj Ke Khiladi poster. Source: Indo Islamic Culture/Twtitter
Khan received several chances to play interesting and colourful roles and he credits his directors and writers for seeing him beyond ‘Gabbar’ and giving him platforms to explore himself.
“They saved me from getting typecast, always keeping an element of surprise for the audiences,” hesaidan interview.
He also, unsuccessfully, tried his hand at producing and direction but gave up after a few failed attempts.
5) Being the Right Kind of Senior Colleague
Being a President of the Cine and Television Artists Association, Khan was a benevolent leader who would go out of his way to sort issues in the film industry like demands for fair wages and better working conditions. He was also known for helping his juniors and other industry people in tight spots.
A still from Suhaag/ Source: Film History Pics/Twitter
“He helped his friends in turning producers and friends from his theatre days by encouraging them to be directors and actors in films. He helped two of his ordinary tailor friends to start designer outfit shops which are still doing well,”writesveteran film journalist Ali Peter John in Bollywood Hungama.
In a career spanning two decades, Khan went on to do over 130 movies, some of which will always be evergreen classics.
It was in 1976 that Khan met with a serious accident on the Mumbai-Goa highway, on his way to shoot for the film The Great Gambler. It is said that the drugs he was administered during recovery caused him to gain weight very quickly. This led to Khan developing heart complications. And in 1992, at the mere age of 51, Khan died due to heart failure.
A versatile actor still remembered for his portrayals of ruthless antagonist and on point comic timing, Amjad Khan will always live in the collective memory of colleagues, friends, and admirers for his reel and real persona.
