Neena Gupta – Back in action in Desh

-Manohar Khushalani

Secular Indian Cinema

                       -Manohar Khushalani

                                                                                        Above:- Shah Rukh Khan             (L) Salman Khan (R) Shah Rukh Khan

At a time when attempts are being made to divide the world and also the Indian society on the basis of religion, it becomes all the more relevant to emphasise the secular nature of this ancient civilisation. The great tolerance of our race and the concept of universal brotherhood that has awarded the Indians with International respectability. And what better way can there be than to examine the role of Muslims in the most popular of our art forms – Cinema. It just took a few television serial like Fauji and Circus, to bring the young, then scrawny looking, Shah Rukh Khan to limelight. After that, it became just a matter of time before he entered Bollywood. Today, Shahrukh has completed over a decade as the unchallenged monarch of the Indian Film Industry. After Amitabh Bachchan, he is the industry’s first super star. He is also one of the most highly awarded Indian actors of Bollywood. Besides a host of other awards, he got the Filmfare Best Actor Awards in 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2002 forBaazigar, Dilwaale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Devdas, respectively. Shah Rukh Khan is a Muslim, and like so many of his predecessors and contemporaries in Bollywood, he belongs to the largest minority community (110 million) in India. His not being a Hindu has not prevented him one bit from reaching the top of the ladder. His popularity is amply demonstrated by the fact, that, in a unique poll, he has been selected by Indians from all over the world, as only the second Bollywood actor, after Amitabh Bachchan, to join the select Wax World of Madame Tussad’s. Similarly, Shabana Azmi, a Muslim actress, who was earlier part of the parallel cinema movement of art films, was ultimately absorbed by the commercial cinema of Bollywood, primarily on the dint of her talent. Shabana was never a star, but, like Shah Rukh she has won a large number of accolades . She has acted in 117 films and won the National Awards for Ankur, Arth and Paar, Filmfare Awards for Arth, Bhaavana and Swami and the Screen Videocon Best Supporting Actress Award for Mrityudand Shabana belongs to a very illustrious family, which has contributed a lot to Indian Cinema. Her father Kaifi Azmi contributed as a lyricist and writer to 28 films. Some of his lyrics like “Jaane kyaa dhuundhatii rahatii hain ye aankhen mujhame” are all time classics. Shabana’s husband Javed Akhtar is also a highly celebrated and respected lyricist, writer and thinker who has contributed to over 36 films. Even Shabana’s niece Tabbu is doing exceedingly well in the box office and winning many awards. This is just a fragment of the contribution of Muslims to Bollywood, where entire families have been absorbed in every creative field possible.

The history of Bollywood itself is totally linked to the history of Indian Cinema. The first film ever shown in India was way back in 1896 by a representative of the Lumiere Brothers, since then there has been no looking back. Despite the fact that the Industry was evolving separately in Bombay, Calcutta & Madras, India was a large cauldron in which various regions interacted and used each other as a bouncing board. It is interesting therefore that the first major film on the Hindu-Muslim communal divide was made in Mumbai by Dhiren Ganguly, a product of Tagore’s Shantiniketan in Bengal. The film was called Razia Begum and was financed by the Muslim Nawab of Hyderabad. It was the story of a Muslim Queen of the slave dynasty who fell in love with a Hindu Subject. Yet another film, Mughal-e-Azam, on a similar subject, produced much later, in the sixties, by a Muslim producer, K. Asif, was an all time hit. It was the romantic story of a royal prince Salim, the son of the mighty emperor Akbar, who fell in love with a Hindu court dancer Anarkali. The film was a big budget extravaganza, studded with songs and dance. However the first film based on this historical event was by Charu Roy in 1928. It was called Loves of a Mughal Prince. In fact there was a remake of Razia Begum as well by another Muslim producer Kamal Amrohi in 1983 which did much better in the box office than its predecessor. Kamal Amrohi was married to a highly rated and admired Muslim actress Mahajabeen whose screen name was Meena Kumari. It was customary at that time for Muslim artists to use Hindu aliases, just as the highly awarded actor Dilip Kumar, the all time legend of Bollywood was actually Yusuf Khan in real life. After his debut in Jwar Bhata in 1944, Dilip played a variety of characters over a span of six decades; but nostalgiaphiles venerated him as the king of tragedy. His most successful films were Andaz, Aan, Daag, Madhumati, Ganga Jamuna and Ram Aur Shyam. However his performances in Oedipal dramas Deedar and Devdas are often considered his greatest performances. It is indeed poetic justice that Devdas achieved national acclaim half a century later again with a Muslim actor in the lead role – Shah Rukh Khan. The names of Muslims who have contributed to Indian Cinema would fill many pages like this one, but more of that later.

The partition play, YATRA, moves Bharangam audiences

Manohar Khushalani

One has been a great admirer of Kewal Dhaliwal’s work and when Madiha Gauhar, the theatre director and actor from Pakistan recommended it to me I realized that it would definitely be a momentous occasion with an intercontinental flavour. And sure enough it was. Like some of Kewal’s previous productions, this too was an intensely moving experience.

Manch-Rangmanch’s  Yatra 1947, conceived without a script and structured through improvisations, was performed in the Bharangam Fest on 9^th January 2008. It draws its material from real life incidents, often from oral history—tales told by elderly relatives who had been through the trauma of the times—portraying the suffering of the people who had to undertake arduous journeys, most often, away from their homeland, to another country and milieu. The play consists of more than 40 poems, originating from both India and Pakistan, with theatre students from both sides of the borders taking part.

At the end of the show with audience applauding quite a few of them holding lighted candles of peace and brotherhood in their hands. When Madiha Gauhar asked them if they knew which actors were from India and which ones were from Pakistan, they all said in unison “we don’t even want to know.” Such was the extent to which the audience had been moved by the depth and emotions of the poetry and the fluidly conceived choreography.

As Kewal puts it; “All of us had heard of Partition through the various stories told by our elders. As the days went by in the theatre workshop, and we started to actually perform those stories, we gained profound insights into what those people would have gone through. Thus one of the purposes of this workshop was accomplished. We have taken small steps in making the younger generation aware of the tragedy of the Partition, making them value both the countries. The play does not try to rub salt into the wounds of Partition, but rather attempts to heal them, to transform the barbed wires of hatred into soft lines of life and love. The Punjabi Theatre group Manch-Rangmanch hails from Chandigarh and has also taken its plays to England, Canada, Germany, USA, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Cast and Credits

John Paruej, Bakht Arif, Zora Brar, Prabhjot Kaur, Amir Ismail, M Abid Hussain, Bharat Sadana, Jaskaran Singh Sahota, Ranjit Bansal, Rajwinder Kaur Deol, Rupinder Kaur, Gurjot Singh, Gurleen Kaur, Jagwinder Singh Sodhi, Shallu Arora, Vikramjit Singh, Nitin Singh, Varun Patel, Veerpal Kaur, Gurinder Kumar, Kanwal Nain Kaur, Kanwar Gurpartap Singh, Yadwinder Singh, Rahi Batra, Rajiv Jindal, Ranjit Tapiala, Khola Qureshi, Meena Sadiq, Shahzad Sadiq, Nirwan Nadeem, Bikramjit Ranjha, Muhammad Azaz Khalid, Shahid Zafar, Usmaan Zia, Humayun Pervez

 Music: Harinder Sohal Singer: Harinder Sohal, Misha Accompaniment: Jagjit Singh (sarangi), Sony (dholak) Properties: Rajiv Jindal, Gurinder Kumar Costume: Humayun Parvez, Kunwargur Partap Sets: Shallu, Shahid and Shahzad  Assistant Director: Zora Brar, Jajwinder SodhiStage Management: Varun Patel

Keval Arora’s Kolumn

Casting Discordance and Difference

When speaking to students about basic differences between written and performed narratives, I find their responses falling into mainly two categories. Some prefer the novel for the freedom it grants readers by virtue of the story being embodied purely as words on a page, as verbal stimuli that allow readers to visualise fictional worlds through their own imagination. Others argue in favour of the challenge posed by performed narratives in theatre and cinema because the non-verbalised quality of visual data permits considerable latitude (and difficulty) in ascribing meanings and words to that which is being shown. It is not possible or necessary to reconcile these responses because discovering greater pleasure in one over the other is a matter of temperament more than anything else.

As for the argument that data transmitted through visuality allows considerable latitude in interpretation, one needs to remember that interpretive latitude is not merely a consequence of the visual nature of performance. After all, words and speech are also vital factors in the stories that theatre and cinema offer us. It is the absence of an overarching perspective in the guise of an authorial voice that crucially produces our sensation of being left to our own devices when we watch a performance. Choices are of course exercised by the director, the actors and the several designers in shaping the performative text, but finally spectators respond to these choices after their own fashion, sifting, digesting and naming things according to their own proclivities and experience. The best plays facilitate such latitude; only the very worst thrust pre-digested meaning capsules down spectators’ gullets.

In most theatre, we see things happen on stage and find words for them as we go along, balancing and ordering information to fit into the overall scheme that gradually takes shape within us. It isn’t easy: rendering the inherent ambiguity of visual data into the grasping fixity of ideas and our words for these is troublesome, but we manage nonetheless to the best of our individual abilities. It’s when things don’t quite fit that matters become interesting. The discordant note is quickly checked for whether it is accidental or deliberate. If we conclude that it was unplanned, the matter is set aside or filed away. But, when the discordance appears to be deliberate, spectating becomes a difficult business.

By its very nature, discordance catches us unprepared and leaves us to fend for ourselves. But how do you do that when the signposts along the way suddenly appear in an unfamiliar language? It gets even more complicated if the play induces its discordant note not simply through a belying of audience expectations but also through entering terrains that challenge the audience’s sense of propriety and correctness. With one man’s meat being another man’s poison, spectators no longer react in contiguous fashion. The same show evokes a mixed response. Or, some performances are received with hostility, while others drum up applause beyond the performers’ own expectations.

One such instance of discordance is the way racial and regional difference – skin colour, speech and accent – are presented in the theatre. We’ve heard Asian actors who work in the West complain of racial prejudice in casting. Not simply in terms of a ghettoization of their talent – that is, of their being employed only for the few pronouncedly Asian roles that are available in local theatre – but also that they sometimes lose out in even this race when non-Asian actors are chosen to play Asian characters. (Remember our discontent when Attenborough preferred Ben Kingsley over our own Naseeruddin Shah for his Gandhi?) It is possible to seek legal redress when employers make workplace distinctions on the basis of racial or cultural identity. But actors are accustomed to being ousted or accommodated on the basis of whether they ‘look the part’. When Roysten Abel speaks of the genesis of his Othello: A Play in Black and White lying in his actress wife being rejected for a role because she ‘didn’t look Indian enough’, we are reminded that this can be an intra-cultural problem too.

Attenborough’s response regarding his choice of actor for Gandhi – ‘I looked only at acting ability’ or something to that effect – seemed a tad too convenient at the time, but today when groups adopt the same method in reverse flow as they cast actors of colour in roles that were hitherto regarded the province of the great white male, do we not approve? However, we have to recognise the inadmissibility of regarding such levelling out simply as an equal-opportunity initiative. ‘Colour blindness’ is an undoubtedly progressive policy in employment offices, but I’m not sure it ought to be taken uncritically on board in the realm of performance. Directors may well deserve praise in declaring some roles to be colour neutral – not all; it would take considerable rewriting to have some roles, say, Othello, not played as a black man – but spectators cannot be expected to collude with such erasure when colour-neutral casting is made operative.

Take, for instance, the choice of an actor of Jamaican descent to play the king Creon in a production of Sophocles’ Antigone that the British Council had brought down here several years ago. Having a black Creon amidst a society of white Thebans inevitably drew attention to the skin tone of the actor and posed questions as to how ‘black’ was being ‘read’ in the portrayal of this despotic do-gooder. It is difficult to not see the actor’s colour as an articulation of the tyranny Creon practises over the citizens of his state. In which case, does not the director’s decision to have a ‘black’ actor play the role – especially as this decision seems an individualised departure from conventional practice ­– constitute a racial slur? The funny thing about this particular production was that everyone on both sides of the Kamani curtain seemed oblivious to Creon’s pigmentation, thereby reminding us that political correctness is a sly ophthalmic disease that can strike any time in the oddest of public spaces.

The instance of Peter Brook’s Mahabharata is slightly different. When the film version of his theatre production was screened in Delhi, most people seemed transfixed by the fact that the roles of Bhishma and Bhima had been assayed by black actors. At a discussion that followed the screening, the matter was repeatedly raised much to the bewilderment of Brook’s cast. Interestingly, the indignation provoked by the casting was not consensual. Those who were upset about Bhishma ‘Pitamah’ being ensconced in a black skin had little problem with Bhima’s coloration. On the other, those who were uneasy with the apparently racist conjunction of the Bhima actor’s colour and his playing of Bhima in a manner that bordered on minstrel clowning had no problems with the quiet dignity awarded to Bhishma, the actor’s colour notwithstanding.

A similar problem is ‘visible’ each year in the casting policy employed for student productions at the National School of Drama. In an attempt to honour the ‘National’ in its name, the NSD today offers acting roles in its Hindi language productions to all its acting students, regardless of their ability to speak the language comfortably. Here too, one can respect the policy of fairness that underlies this decision, but in no way does this obviate our discomfort as spectators when we are expected to ignore the aural discordance that ensues in performance. Little attempt is made to ground or ‘explain’ within the fiction the fact of such difference, so audiences take these productions at half-cock so to speak, responding to some and ignoring some other stimuli emanating from the stage.

In contrast stands a production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House that’s been impressing audiences wherever it has played. By showcasing a cast where the tallest male actor is merely 4ft 5in to the female actors who tower above them in height, the production DollHouse by the New York-based avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines embodies the questions discussed above as an unrelenting problematic. In this production, Ibsen’s theme of repressive gender inequality is heightened through a set design that is scaled to cater to the men’s heights, as a result of which the women find themselves constantly boxed in, cramped and ignored in a world insensitive to their needs.

Dwarfs (to deliberately use the D-word) have for long been staple figures of fun as circus clowns, and we have learnt as adults to not pander any more to the heightist prejudice inculcated in us as children. But, what does one do when a play unequivocally asks us to acknowledge dwarfism as the theatrical sign of a blustering patriarchy? Mark Povinelli who plays Torvald has said that any character he portrays always becomes “a little person”, that it would be ignoring the obvious to pretend otherwise, and that this is not a matter for audiences to decide. However, it is also an accepted proposition in activist politics that the victim’s concurrence is not cited to determine whether an atrocity has occurred. So, to what extent can the fact that the play’s politics is beyond reproach justify the calculated use of deformity to signal that politics? Do we castigate Mabou Mines for resorting to exploitative casting inDollHouse, or do we celebrate the courage of the theatre group and the actor in not persuading audiences to look at plays with eyes half-shut to undeniable fact?

The jury’s still out on that one.

.

 Keval Arora’s Kolumn

 Casting Discordance and Difference

When speaking to students about basic differences between written and performed narratives, I find their responses falling into mainly two categories. Some prefer the novel for the freedom it grants readers by virtue of the story being embodied purely as words on a page, as verbal stimuli that allow readers to visualise fictional worlds through their own imagination. Others argue in favour of the challenge posed by performed narratives in theatre and cinema because the non-verbalised quality of visual data permits considerable latitude (and difficulty) in ascribing meanings and words to that which is being shown. It is not possible or necessary to reconcile these responses because discovering greater pleasure in one over the other is a matter of temperament more than anything else.

As for the argument that data transmitted through visuality allows considerable latitude in interpretation, one needs to remember that interpretive latitude is not merely a consequence of the visual nature of performance. After all, words and speech are also vital factors in the stories that theatre and cinema offer us. It is the absence of an overarching perspective in the guise of an authorial voice that crucially produces our sensation of being left to our own devices when we watch a performance. Choices are of course exercised by the director, the actors and the several designers in shaping the performative text, but finally spectators respond to these choices after their own fashion, sifting, digesting and naming things according to their own proclivities and experience. The best plays facilitate such latitude; only the very worst thrust pre-digested meaning capsules down spectators’ gullets.

In most theatre, we see things happen on stage and find words for them as we go along, balancing and ordering information to fit into the overall scheme that gradually takes shape within us. It isn’t easy: rendering the inherent ambiguity of visual data into the grasping fixity of ideas and our words for these is troublesome, but we manage nonetheless to the best of our individual abilities. It’s when things don’t quite fit that matters become interesting. The discordant note is quickly checked for whether it is accidental or deliberate. If we conclude that it was unplanned, the matter is set aside or filed away. But, when the discordance appears to be deliberate, spectating becomes a difficult business.

By its very nature, discordance catches us unprepared and leaves us to fend for ourselves. But how do you do that when the signposts along the way suddenly appear in an unfamiliar language? It gets even more complicated if the play induces its discordant note not simply through a belying of audience expectations but also through entering terrains that challenge the audience’s sense of propriety and correctness. With one man’s meat being another man’s poison, spectators no longer react in contiguous fashion. The same show evokes a mixed response. Or, some performances are received with hostility, while others drum up applause beyond the performers’ own expectations.

One such instance of discordance is the way racial and regional difference – skin colour, speech and accent – are presented in the theatre. We’ve heard Asian actors who work in the West complain of racial prejudice in casting. Not simply in terms of a ghettoization of their talent – that is, of their being employed only for the few pronouncedly Asian roles that are available in local theatre – but also that they sometimes lose out in even this race when non-Asian actors are chosen to play Asian characters. (Remember our discontent when Attenborough preferred Ben Kingsley over our own Naseeruddin Shah for his Gandhi?) It is possible to seek legal redress when employers make workplace distinctions on the basis of racial or cultural identity. But actors are accustomed to being ousted or accommodated on the basis of whether they ‘look the part’. When Roysten Abel speaks of the genesis of his Othello: A Play in Black and White lying in his actress wife being rejected for a role because she ‘didn’t look Indian enough’, we are reminded that this can be an intra-cultural problem too.

Attenborough’s response regarding his choice of actor for Gandhi – ‘I looked only at acting ability’ or something to that effect – seemed a tad too convenient at the time, but today when groups adopt the same method in reverse flow as they cast actors of colour in roles that were hitherto regarded the province of the great white male, do we not approve? However, we have to recognise the inadmissibility of regarding such levelling out simply as an equal-opportunity initiative. ‘Colour blindness’ is an undoubtedly progressive policy in employment offices, but I’m not sure it ought to be taken uncritically on board in the realm of performance. Directors may well deserve praise in declaring some roles to be colour neutral – not all; it would take considerable rewriting to have some roles, say, Othello, not played as a black man – but spectators cannot be expected to collude with such erasure when colour-neutral casting is made operative.

Take, for instance, the choice of an actor of Jamaican descent to play the king Creon in a production of Sophocles’ Antigone that the British Council had brought down here several years ago. Having a black Creon amidst a society of white Thebans inevitably drew attention to the skin tone of the actor and posed questions as to how ‘black’ was being ‘read’ in the portrayal of this despotic do-gooder. It is difficult to not see the actor’s colour as an articulation of the tyranny Creon practises over the citizens of his state. In which case, does not the director’s decision to have a ‘black’ actor play the role – especially as this decision seems an individualised departure from conventional practice ­– constitute a racial slur? The funny thing about this particular production was that everyone on both sides of the Kamani curtain seemed oblivious to Creon’s pigmentation, thereby reminding us that political correctness is a sly ophthalmic disease that can strike any time in the oddest of public spaces.

The instance of Peter Brook’s Mahabharata is slightly different. When the film version of his theatre production was screened in Delhi, most people seemed transfixed by the fact that the roles of Bhishma and Bhima had been assayed by black actors. At a discussion that followed the screening, the matter was repeatedly raised much to the bewilderment of Brook’s cast. Interestingly, the indignation provoked by the casting was not consensual. Those who were upset about Bhishma ‘Pitamah’ being ensconced in a black skin had little problem with Bhima’s coloration. On the other, those who were uneasy with the apparently racist conjunction of the Bhima actor’s colour and his playing of Bhima in a manner that bordered on minstrel clowning had no problems with the quiet dignity awarded to Bhishma, the actor’s colour notwithstanding.

A similar problem is ‘visible’ each year in the casting policy employed for student productions at the National School of Drama. In an attempt to honour the ‘National’ in its name, the NSD today offers acting roles in its Hindi language productions to all its acting students, regardless of their ability to speak the language comfortably. Here too, one can respect the policy of fairness that underlies this decision, but in no way does this obviate our discomfort as spectators when we are expected to ignore the aural discordance that ensues in performance. Little attempt is made to ground or ‘explain’ within the fiction the fact of such difference, so audiences take these productions at half-cock so to speak, responding to some and ignoring some other stimuli emanating from the stage.

In contrast stands a production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House that’s been impressing audiences wherever it has played. By showcasing a cast where the tallest male actor is merely 4ft 5in to the female actors who tower above them in height, the production DollHouse by the New York-based avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines embodies the questions discussed above as an unrelenting problematic. In this production, Ibsen’s theme of repressive gender inequality is heightened through a set design that is scaled to cater to the men’s heights, as a result of which the women find themselves constantly boxed in, cramped and ignored in a world insensitive to their needs.

Dwarfs (to deliberately use the D-word) have for long been staple figures of fun as circus clowns, and we have learnt as adults to not pander any more to the heightist prejudice inculcated in us as children. But, what does one do when a play unequivocally asks us to acknowledge dwarfism as the theatrical sign of a blustering patriarchy? Mark Povinelli who plays Torvald has said that any character he portrays always becomes “a little person”, that it would be ignoring the obvious to pretend otherwise, and that this is not a matter for audiences to decide. However, it is also an accepted proposition in activist politics that the victim’s concurrence is not cited to determine whether an atrocity has occurred. So, to what extent can the fact that the play’s politics is beyond reproach justify the calculated use of deformity to signal that politics? Do we castigate Mabou Mines for resorting to exploitative casting inDollHouse, or do we celebrate the courage of the theatre group and the actor in not persuading audiences to look at plays with eyes half-shut to undeniable fact?

The jury’s still out on that one.

Shiela Bhatia – A legend of Indian Operas passes away

  An Orbituary by  Smita Vats

               Artists of Delhi Art Theatre remembering Sheila Bhatia                    Shiela Bhatia

Sobbing actors and singers bid Sheila Bhatia Farewell at a Memorial Ceremony on the 22^nd February, at the National School of Drama. A Theatre Legend of all times she had passed away peacefully after breakfast on 17^th February 2008.  Shiela Bhatia was born in Sialkot. While she had no formal training in Punjabi folk music, the only music she had learnt was till class 8, her knowledge of Punjabi folk, some say, even surpassed Bulle Shah. She drew from this knowledge all her life. She would have been 90 on the 1^st of March.

Once in Delhi, she along with Hali began the Delhi Art Theatre. With Shiela Bhatia, was born Punjabi Opera. Shiela wrote and directed plays in Urdu and Punjabi. During her lifetime she wrote and produced 29 original Punjabi operas. The first wasCall of the Valley which was based on her experiences in Kashmir (pre-partion) Heer Ranjha was the first full length musical that she wrote as well as directed. That play is known for the mark it left on audiences at that time. Some other plays she wrote are Chann Badla Da, Ghalib Kaun tha, Nadir Shah and Dard Ayega Dabe Paon.

She lived all her life in Lahore, Kashmir and Delhi , which she finally made her home. Despite her best efforts, the Delhi Art Theatre  had to be shut down due to a lack of funds and loosing artists to radio and TV. This was a huge loss to Punjabi Opera and to the nation.

Thadi Times
A Short Story
By
Dr. Ravi  Bhatia 

Having spent the majority of my 28 years in the hospital campus it wasn’t unusual for me to be quite familiar with the surroundings. As a young child I used to accompany my father to the fruit vendor across the road, often I would find medical students clad in their aprons with their stethoscopes hung carelessly around the shoulder clustered around the teashop. On further enquiry I came to know the teashop was called Thadi. As I grew up, my interactions with medical students increased and slowly the word Thadi found a place in my jargon.

I would often dream of sitting on the Thadi and having a cup of tea. My father would rebuke me by saying that one has to burn a lot of midnight oil to be eligible for that rustic charm. I did burn midnight oil but as luck would have I had to go Poona for doing my medical studies as a result of which I was deprived of this rustic charm.

AFMC being a defence establishment there wasn’t anything like a Thadi instead we had a huge canteen with well-lined chairs and uniformed waiters. A distant cry from the roadside Thadi. Canteen was quite often a misnomer in AFMC as one had the CSD wherein one could buy everything sundry, the wet canteen wherein one could gossip over a cup of tea, the cafeteria where one  could get a hot cup of coffee and a delicious bun bhurji even in the wee hours of morning.

As the clock used to strike four, hordes of students used to make a beeline towards the canteen.  What better was than a cup of steaming coffee to relieve one of postprandial somnolence!  The discussions in the canteen used to be as varied as Sachin’s cover drive to our Professor of Surgery’s going abdominal girth. Our canteenwala had a very strong sixth sense and he somehow could guess that the monthly allowance had come from home and would promptly catch shirkers to settle their long overdue monthly bills. It is said that this man could smell money in our pockets even in presence of pungent smell of onions & garlic. Well exactly he was not a Jew, but the man could take care of money, as no other living mortal was known to have taken care. There was strong rumour that a few renowned industrialists of Pune used to visit him after dark for consultation.

Whether the rumour is true or false does not concern me or for that matter to readers of this treatise.

Well it reminds me of the marathon runner Sardar Gurmeet Singh. His hobby was to give a feast to his fellow cadets without spending a single paise from his own pocket. It is a different thing that his pocket was always empty. To foot the lavish feasts he would lure the cricket crazy canteenwala into laying a bet over some obscure cricket record.   Yours truly, who was considered a walking encyclopedia on sports, would often referee the bets. As a result of which I always had my share of mouth-watering omelets for free.

Canteen used to be a great place to study humanity. The jovial Jat, bulky surd, the god fearing tam bram, the nervous wreck, in fact, almost everyone used to be there. If there were a place, wherein one wanted to study human character, canteen was the place to be. Canteen used to also serve as a rendezvous for many of the young lovebirds, wherein they could sit for hours undisturbed. Come the exam season and the canteenwala used to be a happy man. For it meant an endless supply of bun bhurjis and cups of steaming coffees. During the exam times a visit to the canteen was mandatory for not only did it provide one with the necessary dose of caffeine but one could also discuss something important with other batch mates.

The cafeteria owner at AFMC was a pot bellied gentlemen called Laloo, one had to see him to believe how popular he was. From playing the role of agony aunt to posing as a model for the portrait competition – he had done it all. Laloo had this strong sixth sense wherein he could guess correctly as to whether the monthly allowance had arrived or not. Promptly he would ask for the dues to be settled. Laloo did help many of us in need. For those of us who were weak hearted Laloo was always there to provide us with words of encouragement and oily bun bhurjis.

 For many of my friends bunking a daily visit to the canteen was considered a sin. Canteens were visited with the same religious fervor as holy shrines were. Canteens also provided us with the necessary break one so often needed after going through the bulky harrisons and baileys.

The cosmopolitan nature of AFMC was also reflected in the nature of dishes available at the various canteens on the campus. From mouth watering medhu vadas to the steaming rajma chawals the canteen had it all. It was an assortment of dishes suited entirely for the palate.

The innovative amongst us found the canteen a great place to study. Unmindful of the clattering of cups, shouting of the seth we would immerse ourselves headlong into our Bailey’s with just one motive of beating the Final MBBS exam. Café Coffee Day’s punch line “ A lot can happen over a cup of coffee” often used to come true in the canteen. Many great love stories started and ended over a cup of coffee.

With multiple canteens being the rule of the day at AFMC many of my friends had a fixed schedule wherein they would give a flying visit to all the three ones. The mid way canteen was one popular joint with the Girls hostel being a mere 100 meters away it did provide one with a great vantage point. For all those of us interested in bird watching midway was the place to be in. It was a feast for the eyes as well (Pun intended).

Canteens used to help a lot in increasing camaraderie between the under grads and the post graduate students. Many of our seniors would invite us for a cup of coffee and share their college days with us. Nothing had changed, only time had flown. It was over to the canteen once again.

My experience with the Thadi is quite limited as it was only during my internship that I was a part of RNT Medical College. During this period Thadi was a place one looked to for getting some valuable tips from seniors who had made it in the P.G. Entrance. The focus had shifted from one of joyful escapades to that of serious business – the P.G entrance. One would also devise new ways of maroing Furlough so as to study for the exam. Majority of the discussions used to be regarding the P.G exam. How times had changed. Thadis used to serve as place for the seniors to indulge in a friendly ragging encounter with the freshers. After the ragging session was over the seniors used to throw a party for the fresher students.

Residency brought with it’s own share of newer experiences, the hurried gulping of coffee so that one didn’t get late for the morning rounds. Jodhpur was one place wherein one could get really spicy mirchibadas enough to open up all the faculties of the body. The steamingly hot mirchibadas and the sugary jalebis did provide the first year resident with all the necessary dose of carbhohydrates and proteins one needed to survive the tiring travails of residency.

 Since I have always been an early riser in my life it wasn’t unusual for me to visit the canteen for a cup of coffee at six in the morning.  Coffee with two Khari biscuits was the breakfast many a times. Very often or not I found myself surrounded by relatives of patients trying to enquire about the child’s health. At times I used to get flustered at this invasion of my privacy but slowly I could see their point of view as well and started enjoying the morning conversations with them. I was sometimes embarrassed at the attention showered on me by the attendants. Remember the houseman is one who remains in the ward the maximum, so it wasn’t quite long before the attendants used to look up to me as the knight in shining armor. Canteen also served as place to break the ice between residents in pediatrics and gynecology. It wasn’t long before having a cup of coffee with our counterparts in the gynae dept became a routine.

Time has flown by, the rustic charm of the Thadi being replaced by the hot coffee in the doctors duty room. The canteen is not merely a building but is an entity. Many medical students have spent their time in the canteen and many would do so in the future. It’s more than structure it’s an entity by itself.

Long live the Thadi!!!

(The writer is an alumnus of Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, currently working as a pediatrician in Udaipur, Rajasthan)

For an interesting interpretation of tam bram click the URL below:

Tam Bram I am!

Jodha Akbar – The Film
Seema Bawa analyses this highly controversial film with a historical perspective

The historian in me could not resist having a dekko at a historical romance based on a character such as Akbar, who indeed is a larger than life figure of world history. A man of vision, statesmanship and great depth Akbar was the Insaan-e-Kamaal of his era. Hrithik Roshan as the young Akbar indeed does not disappoint even though in terms of physique he does not match the descriptions of the historical Akbar. The scenes depicting his valour, strength and prowess in battle, though competently performed are not exceptional. It is the sheer regalness of his bearing and the small details such as the fluid and effortless movements with which he sits on the throne, an act which requires immense theatrical perfection, that help him make the character his own. The scene showing Akbar getting into a trance while listening to mystical music of Sufi dervishes is authentic to the sources and enacted with great felicity. Aishwarya Rai as Jodhaa is right out of Mughal-Rajput miniatures paintings in her stance, apparel, ornaments and indeed her entire external persona.

The character of Akbar is better delineated because of the wealth of source material available, much of which is hagiographic in nature. That is not to say that the counterview was not available as is seen from the killing of Adham Khan Akbar’s foster brother. Other aspects of Akbar’s prowess such as his exceptional skill as a bare-hand fighter, his dueling an elephant, his consulting philosophers of other faiths; all having basis in historical sources ring quite true in the film.

Jodhaa, on the other hand, being largely a figment of the writer-director’s imagination, has been conceptualized with less depth. The single character trait that has been reiterated is her spirit, and her spirited resistance to patriarchal values which while anachronistic to the period depicted, is also quite tedious. Her depiction as a Rajput woman of honour and integrity is overstressed.

As for the characterization of secondary characters, unlike Lagaan, in Jodhaa Akbar this aspect has been largely ignored. Instead we have stereotypes paraded as Rajput Ranas, and good and faithful courtiers such as the Khan-i-khanan and Todar Mal versus fanatical ulema and scheming relatives. The entire structure of Mughal aristocracy, the mansabdars, so significant for the actual and visual construction of the Mughal era, is overlooked.

The film succeeds in reconstructing the sense of architectural spaces of the grand Mughal era, especially the Diwan-i-Aam. The battles and the epic scale are well done even though the armies rush towards each other rather than in formation.

The music of AR Rahman goes well with the film but does not stand out. The background score though is excellent.

The film is at one level an elaborate seduction of the spirited though mono-dimensional Jodhaa by a rather desirable Akbar. The plot is entirely based on coitus-interuptus, which is interrupted ad-nauseum where the consummation is heartily to be wished for so that one can finally go home. The sexual tension is very well structured and indeed works very well but for the length it has been stretched out. The political intrigues and the romance appear to be yoked together by violence and are not linked organically. Indeed they should have been two separate films.

Perhaps the entire relationship of Jodhaa and Akbar should have been read within the context of sexual politics that underlay the harem of the Mughals, which could have served as an interesting back drop to the delineation of Emperor Akbar, arguably the greatest monarch and statesman this land has seen. We know that Akbar had at least two wives (besides many concubines) before he married the Rajput princess. The Rajput princess, whatever her real name may have been, would have been competing with them for her Emperor’s favours and allusions to the same may have made interesting viewing. Instead the harem intrigues center around her conflict with Maham Anaga Akbar’s foster mother whose importance had waned by the time Akbar attained adulthood.

The film is largely didactic in that it addresses issues of shared cultural heritage and communal harmony without appearing to preach. The historicity of Jodhaa/ Harka or Jia Bai is irrelevant to the film.

Keval Arora’s Kolumn

who’s afraid of the documentary film

Remember the cynical manoeuvring by which the Film Federation of India had, some years ago, denied entry to video documentaries in their festival? And how this had brought home the threat that this medium can pose to vested interests? After initially denying space to video films in its international film festivals, ostensibly because these were ‘in a different format’, the Federation had inserted a censorship clause for all Indian entries to the festival. The row that ensued had been extensively reported in the media, so a bald re-iteration should do for now. Film-makers had come together to form an organisation named VIKALP with the aim pf safeguarding the rights of documentary film-makers. Launching a Campaign Against Censorship (CAC), they had run a widely attended ‘Films for Freedom’ programme of screenings and discussions at educational institutes.

This proactive initiative has had an interesting spin-off. It has placed the agenda of activism and its methods on the front-burner for a generation that is often written off as a self-absorbed ‘I’ rather than a ‘why’ generation. (By the way, what is this generation’s current alphabetic habitation? Is it still Generation Y, or is it now staging its last stand as Gen-Z?) The video documentary has, as a result, been so comfortably privileged as the conscience keeper of the nation that I’m tempted to play the devil’s advocate and ask if theatre isn’t a better mode of communication through which activist agendas can be carried out. However, before outlining crucial differences between the video documentary and theatre, let’s identify some strengths that both share.

The video documentary and theatre performance have, unfortunately, often been disparagingly prized as no more than a handmaiden to other activisms — as techniques by which grass-root actions extend or advertise their interventions. Such a view has treated video and theatre as little more than a courier service, as blandly variable vehicles of a relentless messaging. Put another way, the medium has been equated with its message; and has therefore been valued, from its aims to its achievements, for the literal directness of its effort. NGOs have been particularly susceptible to this lure of social advertising, perhaps in the belief that generating the same message through a variety of formats extends its effectiveness, even though all it really does is relieve the tedium. If Doordarshan was obsessed years ago with televised puppet theatre as its favoured mode of disseminating advice to farmers and pregnant women, it’s the NGOs’ turn now to patronise street theatre with a similarly deprecatory optimism.

Why puppet theatre and street theatre is anybody’s guess. I don’t think the social sector’s preference for these two forms is based on any insight into their potential. Rather, these forms are trivialised when used as a platter for pre-digested data and handed-down attitudes, as a dressing-up that goes hand in hand with a dumbing-down. Obviously, state television and the NGO sector rate the urban proscenium stage as the ‘true’ theatre, and puppet theatre or street theatre as cute country cousins suitable for rustic and other under-developed tastes. (Not that its performers have seemed to mind: in a shrinking market, even wrong attention is welcome as preferable to none.)

Yet, it must be pointed out that there is a faint glimmer of wisdom in the social sector’s choice of theatre and documentary film for carrying out its activist agendas. This wisdom is hinged on two features common to all performance: greater accessibility, and the affective power of story-telling. Performative cultural modes are accessible to audiences in a special way because they circumvent the barriers of literacy and the drudgery of reading. Such accessibility is then magnified through the affective power of stories that theatre and film usually place at their centre. To the extent that the theatre and the documentary film tell stories, they can never be reduced to mere data transcription codes. It is immaterial whether their stories are real or fictional, or whether these are particular instances or typical cases, because performative modes that tell stories irradiate even simple statements with a penumbra that deepens, authenticates and often problematises the business of a literal messaging. Clearly, the potential of theatre and film for activist causes remains unrealizable if these are used merely to sugar-coat mundane fare.

It is when we define accessibility in physical terms that differences crop up in the respective potential of film and theatre as activist space. Film is unrivalled in its ability to reach out to vast numbers of people. There is no gainsaying the seduction of spread: if maximising contact with people is vital to the activist impulse, the medium that reaches out more effortlessly will obviously be regarded as the more enabling one. In contrast, theatre performances exist in the singular and have to be re-constituted afresh for each act of viewing. Not only does this call for much more forward planning, it also implies that there can be no guarantee that later shows will work exactly like the earlier ones. Films, on the other hand, travel to venues more rapidly than do theatre troupes and offer an assurance of stable replication (every spectator gets to see exactly the same thing as created by its crew, give or take some transmission loss on account of projection equipment).

Of course, problems of technology and finance do cramp film-makers, sometimes so severely that I think ‘accessibility’ should be defined not just in terms of audience comprehension and taste, but also in terms of the artist’s access to the tools of her art. However, recent developments in video technology have ensured that these twin pressures are less burdensome to today’s film-maker — high-end digital cameras have become cheap enough for independent film makers to acquire their own hardware; sophisticated editing software, faster computer processors and capacious storage disks now enable footage to be processed at home. The result: a fresh impetus to the documentary film movement which is evident in the range and number of films being made today.

It is interesting to note that if this celebration of accessible technology and reduced expenditure were to be taken to a logical conclusion, it is theatre rather than the video film that would shine in an advantageous light. It’s cheaper to make plays than films, and it’s possible to make them without recourse to equipment of any kind other than the human body. Most theatre performances can be designed without technological fuss in a way that even the barest film cannot. Such a theatre gains a quality of outreach that far outstrips the reach of film. For, what technology can ever hope to compete with the affordability and the portability of the body and the voice? Sure, this isn’t true of all theatre productions. But I would argue that productions which depend on technological assists for their effects (take, for instance, the romance with projected images that most plays glory in nowadays) end up shackling themselves in ways that erase their fundamental nature. I say this fully aware that some of us believe that the facility which technology brings in some ways is well worth the price that has to be paid in others.

Take another difference between film and theatre. Films possess a huge advantage in terms of authenticity in reportage. They have no peer if the business of activism is to disseminate images and narratives of actuality, to show things as they actually are. But, if the primary purpose of activism is to persuade and engage with people, then the advantage that film enjoys over theatre is considerably neutralised. The very attractions of the film medium – stability, replication, transportability – become limitations from this point of view.

It is a truism worth repeating that the uniqueness of theatre performance is that it is a live event. People come together at a particular time, to a particular place, for a transaction where some people show things to others who watch. In film, there is no equivalent scope for interaction and therefore no lively relation between actor and spectator. The idea of a collective spectatorship – where the audience becomes a prototypical community – is of course common to both film and theatre. But, in the latter, this ‘community’ includes the actor as well. It is not just the audience that watches the actor, but the actor too who ‘reads’ his audience and subtly alters his performance accordingly., Interaction, engagement and persuasion between the performers and audience is so central to theatre that it is often the richest source of dialogue in the performance event.

Where, pray, is any of this possible during a film screening? The film spectator remains more or less a passive recipient of a fixed structure. The film may well ‘play’ with the spectator’s responses, but even such playing is welded to a grid that is frozen unalterably on videotape or celluloid. Interactions in the theatre between performer and spectator are, in contrast, dynamically dependent on the particulars of that performance. In other words, the fragile instability of theatrical performance becomes a powerful opportunity for an activist intervention, as is evident in the way Augusto Boal has actors interrupt the performance and address audiences directly in his Theatre of the Oppressed. Techniques used in Theatre-in-Education methodologies (‘Hot-seating’, for instance, where spectators talk back to ‘characters’ in the play and offer their comments) is another case in point.

As I said, where, pray, is any of this possible with film?

An earlier version of this article was first published in FIRST CITY (November 2004)

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