Celluloid Marital Misadventures
The malicious tribe of film critics has discovered a
curious similarity between Sooraj Barjatya and Mira Nair. One is said to prefer
throwing a Pathani coat over his kurta–pajama, the other over her
salwar–kameez. A grey-bearded critic of ill repute went further, remarking that
both Nair and Barjatya share a fondness for the same noisy destination: the
boisterous wedding party, where liquor flows and licentiousness bursts forth
like a fountain.
I once heard that when news of his Nobel Prize arrived, the English poet (a second-rank one!) W. B. Yeats rode out in a horse carriage with half a dozen rowdy lads to make merry on the streets of London. In his hand he carried a megaphone of the old variety, through which he loudly beat his own drum. In similar fashion, when she received the “Venice Nobel(!),” the (third-rank) director Mira Nair staged a baraat on Delhi’s Rajpath. Her girlishly delighted face splashed across every channel of “Ha Bhookh TV.” And suddenly, she claimed that she alone bore the hereditary mantle of Indian womanhood and culture, carried upon her fragile shoulders through great suffering.
It is almost fifty years since Satyajit Ray’s Aparajito won the Golden Lion at Venice. Fifty years later, another Indian film, they proclaimed, has caught up with Aparajito! Yes, surely a matter for celebration! Nowadays, Bollywood’s Lagaan and Devdas regularly trot off to Cannes and Toronto. Cynics may say—why not? In these times, mafia dons, murderers, and rapists become prime ministers and chief ministers. Writers of fairy tales are now called “men of letters.” Perhaps we must accept it. Yet I say—no one, not even the most foolish critic of the first world, compares J. K. Rowling to Shakespeare or even James Joyce. Nor would anyone compare Kurosawa to some Hollywood director who has collected a dozen Oscars.
But our bedroom news channels—those that no longer deliver news, but broadcast news as if it were soap opera—promptly dethroned Aparajito and began comparing Satyajit Ray with Mira Nair. Thus Monsoon Wedding (which in Bengali would translate as Bristi-Bheja Biye), by Mira Nair, director garlanded abroad, “name-illuminator of the nation,” was equated with Satyajit Ray. Such an incongruous pairing of the moon and the abyss is possible only in India—a land blessed with such perverse intellectuals.
It is said India hastens to reject her own talented children. Without due trial. And yet, once those very children return garlanded by foreign praise, we anoint them at home with sentimental fervor. This tradition persists even today. But in the pre-globalization era, there was no secret alchemy behind it. Now, however, new alchemies abound. To seize the Indian market, every commodity—cinema, literature, sport—must be inflated a little.
If, every two years, India does not produce a Miss World, will a hundred million TV viewers abroad willingly watch this foreign “beauty contest”—which is in fact nothing but a sexual competition? And into this spectacle, through the veins of India, must be injected—like serum in a syringe—the “values” and “morality” of the First World, using India’s newest “talents” as the medium.
Thus, if you direct Kamasutra II and circulate it in English blue-film parlors, or if you raise the banner of “women’s liberation” by depicting, in explicit detail, a sexual act with a close kin in order to “reveal” the (un)real status of Indian womanhood—you will be crowned with laurels. You will be recognized as an Indian intellectual. Malicious critics may mutter otherwise, but who cares? After all, they no longer find space on TV channels.
Mira’s first feat, Kamasutra II (known in the English blue-film market under that very title), was more than what we actually saw. It was available only in the foreign market; here, one had to visit the parlors of blue cinema. After a long lecture against film piracy, someone—or some syndicate—released the original Kamasutra (banned in India) in the black market. Of this too, we remain ignorant.
All we know is this: after Mrinal Sen, she is now the first Indian to sit on the jury of the Venice Film Festival. Which means, yet again, that “Mrinal Sen equals Mira Nair.”
Those who failed to see the real Kamasutra—that is, Kamasutra II—on the big screen during the Seventh Kolkata Film Festival (the halls so crowded that brawls broke out outside), mourned for seven days in sighs and lament. Never before had the director of a blue film become so famous in India. Strange delight it was! We felt proud too—how near we had come to the First World!
Let us return to the cynics. They say a certain man sits afar and laughs. He, without ever making a porno, earned one hundred crores from a single film. An old acquaintance of Mira’s, he could, if he wished, file a case against her for piracy—given her stance against piracy itself. His name is Sooraj Barjatya. His claim: Mira’s Monsoon Wedding is nothing but an “intellectual version” of his Hum Aapke Hain Koun. Yet he trusts that, however much the Venice authorities may shower it with praise (for its sexual titillation), the Indian masses will box it up within days.
Here, the people may lack education in art cinema, but they prefer the blatant candor of triple-X to the intellectualized titillation of sex. Hence, Barjatya does not sue. He cannot speak well in TV interviews, nor does he aspire to intellectual status. He wishes to make profit from cinema, and to win the hearts of the common audience.
And yet, there is a darker truth. Certain third-rate commercial directors in Mumbai, who have failed at the box office, have begun to realize that if you sprinkle a little intellectual spice upon the orthodox Indian sex dish, you may not run a successful market film, but you can certainly fill your drawing-room shelf with Oscars, Venices, and Cannes trophies.
How can Barjatyas endure that directors of lower grade than themselves should become intellectuals, hanging Venice plaques on their walls? God save Indian cinema.
I once heard that when news of his Nobel Prize arrived, the English poet (a second-rank one!) W. B. Yeats rode out in a horse carriage with half a dozen rowdy lads to make merry on the streets of London. In his hand he carried a megaphone of the old variety, through which he loudly beat his own drum. In similar fashion, when she received the “Venice Nobel(!),” the (third-rank) director Mira Nair staged a baraat on Delhi’s Rajpath. Her girlishly delighted face splashed across every channel of “Ha Bhookh TV.” And suddenly, she claimed that she alone bore the hereditary mantle of Indian womanhood and culture, carried upon her fragile shoulders through great suffering.
It is almost fifty years since Satyajit Ray’s Aparajito won the Golden Lion at Venice. Fifty years later, another Indian film, they proclaimed, has caught up with Aparajito! Yes, surely a matter for celebration! Nowadays, Bollywood’s Lagaan and Devdas regularly trot off to Cannes and Toronto. Cynics may say—why not? In these times, mafia dons, murderers, and rapists become prime ministers and chief ministers. Writers of fairy tales are now called “men of letters.” Perhaps we must accept it. Yet I say—no one, not even the most foolish critic of the first world, compares J. K. Rowling to Shakespeare or even James Joyce. Nor would anyone compare Kurosawa to some Hollywood director who has collected a dozen Oscars.
But our bedroom news channels—those that no longer deliver news, but broadcast news as if it were soap opera—promptly dethroned Aparajito and began comparing Satyajit Ray with Mira Nair. Thus Monsoon Wedding (which in Bengali would translate as Bristi-Bheja Biye), by Mira Nair, director garlanded abroad, “name-illuminator of the nation,” was equated with Satyajit Ray. Such an incongruous pairing of the moon and the abyss is possible only in India—a land blessed with such perverse intellectuals.
It is said India hastens to reject her own talented children. Without due trial. And yet, once those very children return garlanded by foreign praise, we anoint them at home with sentimental fervor. This tradition persists even today. But in the pre-globalization era, there was no secret alchemy behind it. Now, however, new alchemies abound. To seize the Indian market, every commodity—cinema, literature, sport—must be inflated a little.
If, every two years, India does not produce a Miss World, will a hundred million TV viewers abroad willingly watch this foreign “beauty contest”—which is in fact nothing but a sexual competition? And into this spectacle, through the veins of India, must be injected—like serum in a syringe—the “values” and “morality” of the First World, using India’s newest “talents” as the medium.
Thus, if you direct Kamasutra II and circulate it in English blue-film parlors, or if you raise the banner of “women’s liberation” by depicting, in explicit detail, a sexual act with a close kin in order to “reveal” the (un)real status of Indian womanhood—you will be crowned with laurels. You will be recognized as an Indian intellectual. Malicious critics may mutter otherwise, but who cares? After all, they no longer find space on TV channels.
Mira’s first feat, Kamasutra II (known in the English blue-film market under that very title), was more than what we actually saw. It was available only in the foreign market; here, one had to visit the parlors of blue cinema. After a long lecture against film piracy, someone—or some syndicate—released the original Kamasutra (banned in India) in the black market. Of this too, we remain ignorant.
All we know is this: after Mrinal Sen, she is now the first Indian to sit on the jury of the Venice Film Festival. Which means, yet again, that “Mrinal Sen equals Mira Nair.”
Those who failed to see the real Kamasutra—that is, Kamasutra II—on the big screen during the Seventh Kolkata Film Festival (the halls so crowded that brawls broke out outside), mourned for seven days in sighs and lament. Never before had the director of a blue film become so famous in India. Strange delight it was! We felt proud too—how near we had come to the First World!
Let us return to the cynics. They say a certain man sits afar and laughs. He, without ever making a porno, earned one hundred crores from a single film. An old acquaintance of Mira’s, he could, if he wished, file a case against her for piracy—given her stance against piracy itself. His name is Sooraj Barjatya. His claim: Mira’s Monsoon Wedding is nothing but an “intellectual version” of his Hum Aapke Hain Koun. Yet he trusts that, however much the Venice authorities may shower it with praise (for its sexual titillation), the Indian masses will box it up within days.
Here, the people may lack education in art cinema, but they prefer the blatant candor of triple-X to the intellectualized titillation of sex. Hence, Barjatya does not sue. He cannot speak well in TV interviews, nor does he aspire to intellectual status. He wishes to make profit from cinema, and to win the hearts of the common audience.
And yet, there is a darker truth. Certain third-rate commercial directors in Mumbai, who have failed at the box office, have begun to realize that if you sprinkle a little intellectual spice upon the orthodox Indian sex dish, you may not run a successful market film, but you can certainly fill your drawing-room shelf with Oscars, Venices, and Cannes trophies.
How can Barjatyas endure that directors of lower grade than themselves should become intellectuals, hanging Venice plaques on their walls? God save Indian cinema.
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