Let's talk about Bollywood!

Mother India…That title resonates like everything a Bollywood-lover should pine for: aren’t we all somehow in love with Bharat mata? Aren’t we all her children up to some extent? As for me, I’d say that ever since I’ve been writing this blog (more than 2 years now), it’s been winding up to Mother India. First Nargis is one of my great heroines, and if I’ve come across Mehboob Khan’s movies only once so far, it’s enough to say he’s one of the greatest. This epic movie is like his final tribute to the Cinema: after a long career of about 100 films, and mastering his art to the full (we’ll detail this later), the master gives us his grandiose masterpiece.

Where do I start? Perhaps with this line: “How can a mother sacrifice her children?” wails Radha, at one point driven almost to insanity through poverty and humiliation, and almost forced to sell herself to feed them (we are spared that extreme, but the scene in the usurer’s house is tantalizing enough). And yet she will do it, she will kill her son, whose murderous frenzy obliges her at the end of the movie to choose social order over maternal love. The intensity and tragedy inherent to Mother India is contained in this contradiction. The Mother who has fought like only Life itself could struggle to survive and provide for its very existence, this mother will be the agent of Death, death of her own life, death of her own child. This Arch-Mother will become the mother Land, the Mother of Society, the mother of Culture. She will not flinch when her own blood, her own Nature has become corrupted by hate and craziness: she will choose order, the community, and the honour of the village. And out of her sacrifice a new Life will flow (the red tincture of the irrigation waters which she inaugurates at the end), a better life, a life where her children by the thousands can live in peace and prosperity.

But, what have we got here? Doesn’t that sound like a political platform? Or some naïve reformist propaganda? Is this 1957 film nothing but that? The movie’s opening tribute presents us with the communist Hammer and Sickle symbol… Well, we shall see that indeed, the political stance is overwhelming. But, but… so is the artist’s creativity, thank goodness, and so are its symbolic and allegorical values. So let the drums roll, here we go! Mother India!!

We start with the Brave New World of agrarian Progressism. Wow, now that’s what I call a message. That opening scene with Radha sitting on the clods, absurdly close to passing caterpillars and tractors and road-making engines, where dead serious Indian citizens are standing straight and looking towards their destiny! And then as the story unfolds, Radha’s family epic where she is no less than a Stakhanovist farmwoman (“we shall slog”, she tells Birju in the end, trying to make him understand – too late alas – the value of the socialist creed of redeeming Labour). Throughout this first part, she rises to Bolshevik statue-like proportions, a monument to the faith and courage of the People in the face of Adversity and Capitalist profiteers (well, Sakhilal the money-lender is hardly a fierce symbol of America, but I wanted to carry on with the rhetoric). We see her stride through the sun-drenched fields, sickle in hand, hair blowing and preceding her man, as in the best paintings of the collectivist era. At one stage (during the flood), she’s a modern Samson, a Pillar of Strength holding up the two sons of the Nation on her broad shoulders and unflinching character; later she’s a Christ-like Martyr of the people’s Revolution, as, eyes shut, tied to her Plough-Cross, she plods along the Calvary fields with her two boys behind looking up in awe…

These socialist icons in the film turn it into an amazing testimony of Communist propaganda, at a time when India was young and hopes were high after Independence. Strange to notice, perhaps, given the status of Mother India as a major work of art: one would have perhaps expected it to rise above allegiance, and influence, rather than be influenced… that much! Still, I think it transcends politics thanks to its sheer artistry. Not only does Mother India establish the defining epic of early Indian cinema, not only does it visualize the universality of the mother figure as a symbol of Life and Land: but it contains cinematography at its most creative, its most evocative. It doesn’t always avoid clichés (those flaming sunsets, the horizon shots), but what it does have – that’s visible from the start, it’s one of the movie’s great assets – is a masterful sense of framing and colouring. Mehboob Khan is a Painter.

Very often the scenes are intuitively balanced between volumes, lights, colours, movements; the composition of the action is great to watch, if you decide to do so. A keen sense of human bodies is also at work; Khan knows how to take advantage of them. The faces are a special subject which the director knows precisely how to use. He places an expressive face next to a half-hidden one, so that the “lit-up” one seems to comment on the shaded one (see above pic); sometimes close-ups of two or even three faces are filmed with an attention to their respective powers – we feel in the calculated distance separating them, or the closeness, something of the story happening on the screen.


And when Mehboob cuts a face so that it’s partly outside the screen, he does it with a precise purpose: the symbolism of the character is thus shown to exceed the narrowness of the movie itself (Radha carrying her Cross),


or its violence, expressed in such a way that it is only half suggested, giving it additional power because we must imagine the unseen part (Birju in the flames).

I would like to touch the question of feminism which some bloggers have already discussed (see on Carla’s). Is the film feminist? Is Radha the single mother a model of the liberation of women, or is she manipulated, and used as a figure of oppression, sacrificed to the gruelling chores that only women will do? Not to mention the use of her sex-appeal, surprisingly present in the movie at key moments.

 

Mehboob Khan doesn’t always shy from the escapist pleasures of representing his actress as a goddess with all her earthly charms. Radha is thus made into a satisfyingly complex character, she’s certainly virtuous, she’s loving, courageous, resistant, she has a sense of humour, a beautiful dignity. But she’s also shown to be a woman with her feelings and needs, her limits also.

This is what I’d say: certainly for its time, Mother India is feminist. Imagine, Radha actually waits for her husband for the whole film! It would have so easy and so satisfying (from an escapist point of view) to have Shamu (Raj Kumar) come back, the desired male, the idol of the family, the focus of society. But he just doesn’t, and that’s one of the movie’s strengths: it doesn’t pander to the spectator’s desire in this respect. Radha remains alone, with her desire, her pain, her frustration, as the story says she should. Then there’s her denunciation of the religious support offered to women by “the goddess who carries the burden of the world”: Radha sneers at that fable, and taunts whatever goddess there is. She is indeed carrying everything, there is no goddess somewhere helping out. And finally, who knows whether the director’s tribute to Nargis’ wonderful features and figure (positively sultry at times) shouldn’t also be looked upon as a vindication of women? I don’t feel she is manipulated too much, and even if this last point is subjective, imagine what a modern-day director would have done…

There is another theme worth speaking about in Mother India, that of education and knowledge. I suppose you remember the scene when little Birju goes to the teacher’s class in the beginning; he’s sent by his mother in the hope that he can one day read the usurer’s books and perhaps reduce the injustice that his family has been subjected to. But what does he do? He fools around, and is sent back, and tied up to a post at home, without anything to eat. It looks like he doesn’t go back to school, because later, when he falls in love with the teacher’s daughter (whom as a dacoit, he sees married at the end), and tries to learn the alphabet in front of her, he cannot but criticise knowledge as cruel, since it has wreaked such misery on his mother and her sons. For Birju, knowledge enslaves; and deprived of it, he will have no choice but to resort to violence, which also enslaves. Clearly the film condemns usury and such immoral dealings, but rather ambiguously it makes no great effort to uphold Birju’s rebellion against this injustice. Instead, the rebel is killed to maintain peace and justice, a justice based on legal theft!

So what is upheld in Mother India? “Honour”, and the courageous acceptance of one’s destiny. That’s what Radha stands for, that’s what she is crowned for. That's also what her eldest son, Ramu (Rajendra Kumar) represents. So I’d say that’s where the film’s revolutionary stance stops. And where tradition steps in. According to the Russian/marxist model of revolution, women like men can take part in the overthrow of the feudal society; their motherhood doesn’t come into play. It seems the Indian model favours another role: a woman cannot change everything, a woman is praised first and foremost as a mother and defendant of social values, and only then can she, as a worker and element of economic and social change, improve society and the individual (you might check what Shweta has to say about the “Bhartiya naari”, in relation to this vision of the Indian woman). I wonder if that conservatism is why the film was so successful when it was made… and why it is perhaps less so now. Indeed, almost nobody, from what I’ve seen at least on the net, has taken the time to deal seriously with it. There are very few reviews, apart from Upperstall (short and doesn’t contain much except praise for Nargis’ performance) and Carla’s (good, but short). On Bollywhat, they’re busy figuring out why Birju’s face is so red.

Above, the greek goddess's profile                       And here, the socialist composition, with the red flag!


                                                         He's married... to his land.

The critical fame of Teesri Kasam, the 1966 film by Basu Bhattacharya, starring Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman, is absolutely justified; it’s a tale of love and sadness, of beauty and melancholy; it enchants you, it pulls you along, it arrests you: in short it’s a little jewel. The blend of simplicity, poignancy and musicality is unparalleled, I think. It has a charm only equalled by the best Indian movies, such as Shri 420.

The story is rather simple: Hiraman, a cart-driver who is involved in black-marketing is almost caught by the police, and, upon escaping, vows he’ll never trade smuggled goods any more. He then reverts to bamboo trafficking, but that’s also a failure, and similarly he vows not to deal with it: what will be his third vow (teesri kasam)? We learn about it as he sets off on a journey, loaded this time with a rightful cargo, even if the lawfulness of this consignment will have to be reconsidered along the way, and will in effect lead to that fateful third vow.

But for the moment, he leaves his village, and we are left to wonder who it is exactly that he is transporting (we have been granted nothing but a calf climbing in the carriage, whose curtains are drawn). The slight suspense enables us to follow the driver (an already middling Raj Kapoor, very convincing nevertheless) through villages and woods, as night sets on and serves to highlight his rusticity. It isn’t until the morning that we catch a glimpse of his charge, the “fairy” Hirabai (as he calls her) who immediately casts a spell on him. They exchange names, and are surprised to see them similar-sounding (Hira means diamond, as Philip points out, and indeed they are both gems in their own way). So they become meetas, dear friends, as a result. She discovers his straightforward nature, his joyfulness (he’s always singing), and he is fascinated by her accomplishments: not only can she sing too, but she knows scriptures, and her face “looks absolutely…”

At the fair, she would have liked to stay with him, but they soon have to go separate ways, he with his fellow carting friends, and she with the troupe who has arrived in town, ready for the next day’s “nautanki”, or traditional show, in which she is the main dancer. Hiraman is filled with the importance of having had her attention and more perhaps, and brags about it among his pals. There’s lots of nicely felt companionship here. Soon she calls him in her tent, and asks him to stay for the few days of the fair, in spite of his strict sister-in-law’s advice. “Just be quiet, says Hirabai, she won’t know of it”: and he buys his fellow admirers’ silence with the passes she gives him to attend the shows.

Soon nevertheless, trouble is at hand: Hiraman has to face a first disillusionment; his beloved Hirabai is slandered in public, called a prostitute, and he causes a scandal by fighting with the impudent slanderer during a show. We understand she has trapped herself, by hiding her identity. She’s stuck in a “goddess” persona: he just thinks too high of her! The second problem is even more serious: the local thakur (zamindar) comes to the show and decides to buy her for one night. But she refuses, filled as she is with her new love for her “guru”. This will be her downfall, alas, because the lustful landowner has far more power than Hiraman: if she says no to him, the worst consequences will fall on her clan. The scene where she is surrounded by all her family, young and old, is really terrible, for she is given all the zamindar’s reasons through their mouths. She has to give in, and relinquish her poet and friend. Love is not for her in this world.

The songs of the movie perfectly match the action, in a way that only movies of that era knew how to, it seems to me. They is always a profound justification for them, they always comment upon the action in a true and meaningful way. More about this in a minute. Here is an excellent paragraph written by Upperstall about the musical dimension of Teesri Kasam:

Rarely does one see a film where music is so well integrated into the film. Shankar-Jaikishen have given an outstanding musical score in the film - simple melodies rooted in folk music. The music is much enhanced with the use of flutes, traditional string and percussion instruments. Sajanre Jhoot Mat Bolo, Sajanwa Bairi Ho Gaye Hamar, Duniya Bananewale all rendered by Mukesh and Pan Khaye Saiyan Humaro sung by Asha Bhosle stand out. It is interesting to see that in keeping with the realistic and human look of the film, Hiraman is just one of the revellers in the song Chalat Musafir and not the lead singer as is the case normally in our films.

Also delicate and bristling with life is the realistic filming: the lake water lapping the grass-studded banks, the undercover of branches as the cart moves away in the distance, the dusty roads filled with peasants of – it seemed – age-old Indian countryside, and the feeling of community shared by everyone. The photography is a treat too, viz those tricks with the lighting, which have been put to the best of their symbolical value: the oil-lamp inside the night confinement of the cart, lending its shadows to Hirabai’s thoughts; the backlighting when Hiraman crosses the village with the drunkard on the roof; and most magical of all, the sun-specked canvas behind Hirabai’s lovely head, imbedding it with sparkling diamonds as she smiles and listens to her friend the cart-driver.

But let’s now come to the core of the movie: why does Hirabai fall in love with Hiraman? Everything derives from there. Falling in love with her isn’t an issue, it must happen every minute, one would say. But the action of the movie is determined by her falling in love. The reasons usually given for Hirabai’s attraction towards Hiraman are “his innocence and simplicity” (Upperstall's review), or that “she is charmed by her driver’s blend of shyness, humility, and impassioned opinions” (Philip's fil-ums). PPCC declares that “Hiraman's naïveté and good nature charms Hira Bai”. All this is true, up to a certain extent, but I would like to indicate a more important reason, which has something to do with the meaning of the film, and will introduce its interpretation. Because the movie is not just a charmingly sad fable: it contains a message on attraction and destiny, even if it is perhaps banal, but the way it is blended with the story certainly isn’t.

What, indeed, happens during that cart-trip? True, the two discover the other one’s personality: Hiraman is refreshingly direct and simple; and the lady is a marvel of attention and delicacy. But the important is elsewhere: During the ride, Hirabai is reading her role for the next day, and the way she is shown pausing at the words indicates they have a special significance for her:

“There’s no one my own in this whole world; when separation is written in my destiny, why should I blame you?

There’s no one my own in this whole world, neither in my garden nor outside it…”

These words trigger a song on Hiraman’s lips, which she comes out to listen, musing deeply:

“My lover has become a foe, my deeds have become my enemies

If it is a letter, one can read it easily, but no one can read destiny.”

The way the young woman listens to these words indicates that she is listening to something else than just a song: she sees meaning in them, a meaning which clearly refers to herself.

A little later, they stop near the river, and Hiraman, singing, tells her Mahua Ghatwaran’s story, a beautiful virgin “who looked just like a fairy” (like Hirabai had appeared to him at first), and who had an unhappy life - “no one to call her own in the whole world” says the story-teller. She had fallen in love with a thirsty traveller, but her step-mother refused that union, and sold her to a trader: the pair was broken. The melancholy song is built along these questions:

“O maker of this world, what came into your mind, that you made this world?

Why have you made this play called life?”

You created love, and told us to live,

You made us to meet friends on the path of life

And awakened dreams…

After awakening dreams, why did you give us separation?”

After this song, Hirabai announces to her fellow-traveller that he’s her teacher, her guru. From him she has learnt a secret, and this secret is contained in the song she’s just heard. We understand Hiraman is now a sort of prophet for her, a sort of visionary; he has sung about her and her sad destiny, and has transmuted her intimate drama and longing into a song, a thing of beauty. He has taught her the words to express her interrogations and her desires. He has perhaps even lifted the guilt she was feeling about her profession, and turned it into an existential Question asked to the Creator. So there is the reason for the feeling of gratitude and wonder that overcomes her, as she sits next to her meeta: he’s worded her pain and desire, he’s reordered it within the wider perspective of the cosmos; he’s deflected that suffering thanks to his story, and included himself in it: because naturally, he has become the traveller, and she is now that young virgin girl who was prevented from living with her true love. Her new love is a passionate desire to start anew life’s journey, to protect and cherish the awakener of her dreams, and live next to him far from the defiling brutality of her profession’s beastly side.

In Teesri Kasam, there is a belief in the power of poetry and music to transform life and purify it: Hirabai’s bath or cleansing (at the riverside scene) is symbolical of her desire to be renewed and reborn thanks to love and purity. Yet as she sings Hiraman’s song, we cannot but wander at the words too: they speak of a separation, of a destiny that cannot be changed. Even if it might be a consolation to know that God is the one answerable for our fate, and not us, still fate is fate, and the freedom to change it will not be granted. Hiraman has been singing to her like the Greek Chorus, foreseeing things which have not yet happened, but which in their unchangeable logic belong to the necessity of fatality. The transformation which Hirabai dreams of is doomed to remain a dream, and that wistful reality is one of the film’s magical charms.

Waheeda Rehman’s beauty has never been more stupendous and breathtaking than it is here. Her striking softness, her incredible grace and tenderness, the perfect mould of her face makes watching her a sort of ecstasy. The way her caressing eyes look at Raj Kapoor, how she smiles at him, and searches his face for a confirmation of her love is like a baptism: she has been purified and awakened, as the song says, and her face radiates the morning sun, its warmth, its security. It’s almost embarrassing to watch her so much in love, so attentive and happy. The smiles the smiles, the eyes she shuts, the chin she lifts: all reveal so much more than what an ordinary actress might do, it’s amazing. I think she and Guru Dutt had been life companions (he committed suicide in 1964): well it’s a good thing he didn’t see her in this film: jealousy would have killed him again! I cannot thank enough Indian cinema for stopping actors and actresses from throwing themselves into one another’s arms. The kind of distilled eroticism that exudes from the couple’s calculated closeness is worth a hundred embraces. And B&W suits her perfectly too, it brings out the contrast of her dark hair and eyebrows in a way colour movies have forgotten all about (e.g. in Guide, a year before).

Raj Kapoor as has been said pleases the eyes, even if his latter-year chubbiness is showing a lot. Somebody has suggested on Bollywhat (link) that he was a miscast, being that old already. But he isn’t supposed to be a young man; and what we have said about the importance of Hirabai’s recognition of him as her guru makes him on the contrary a very good choice. We still enjoy that highly expressive face, his wide range of emotions, joyfulness, shame, fear, anger, as well as his pensive moments when he is beaten by events too great for him. His perpetual “Iss” is a great invention; I don’t know if it is a local word (probably for “come on!”), but it touches our hearts with its sincere-sounding simplicity.

All in all, Teesri Kasam is a delightful tale, full of many little and big treasures. It charms thanks to its original sadness, thus going against the facile shift of happy endings, and remains in the memory all the more.

Well! I’m pleased to announce that I too have escalated the Everest… Er, I mean I finally read Vikram Seth’s 1472 page novel “A suitable boy”, and that it has been a fascinating experience: thanks M. Seth! Such a length is said to be unparalleled in English literature, and indeed the length in itself is amazing. Fancy actually writing that incredibly long story, and controlling it from beginning to end. It took him seven years to complete, he said (and three to recover). Some people actually complained it strained their wrists, LOL. But there you are, if you are a lover of classic writing (some have said Austenian), if you love reading beautifully well developed prose, you’re the one for A suitable boy.

Now if you haven’t read the book and you are planning on reading it, come back when you’re through, because what I want to discuss needs looking at the plot and the narrative choices which Vikram Seth has made (so unavoidable spoilers!). But before I do that, I’ll quote what Steven Wu has written about the style, and which I find myself unable to express better:

A suitable boy is a superbly well-written book. Although I thought at first that Seth's tone was far too flippant, [our one disagreement here, I found no flippancy at all] I soon came to appreciate the simple, unpresuming, but eminently readable style that Seth adopts from the first page to the last. It's really remarkable that in over 1,300 pages of densely spaced text, Seth at no point wrote a single sentence that I found awkward, melodramatic, or out of place. Nor does Seth sacrifice content to maintain such a high quality of writing--the book includes everything from straight-up action to long brooding descriptions, from fast-paced dialogue to moody soliloquies, from lovely portrayals of India and its landmarks to involving emotional moments.

Do you know (I am now assuming my readers have now read the book. And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? What are you doing here? Aren’t you a lover of literature?) that some readers actually thought the novel was too long??? Yes, look at this:

“And it's so long. I love long books as I read fast - I generally finish a book in a few days or less, so having a substantial tome to work through is pleasant. But seriously, A suitable boy is just a beast, I have been slogging through for about 6 months now with no sign of the end.” I'm about halfway through at the moment, and am undecided whether to carry on. Who here has read it? Is it worth continuing? Does it progress beyond endlessly recounting of the minutia of the lives of its characters?” (link)

(Because on the contrary some people have “read the book for the fourth time early this year”!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Interestingly, I’m busy doing the same thing as this remarkable person: he’s also involved proving wrong another bored reader of the book! – the one with the weak wrists!)

SO: here’s the answer to the question “is the book too long for its own good?”

ANSWER: NO. The book is just amazingly readable, so it’s not too long, it’s too short, one is hankering for a sequel! (This is exactly what Mystic wanderer says:

“However, patience is richly rewarded as the people and locales grow on you and upon completion, there is a longing to surmise what could possibly happen next. In other words, a wish (no, I’m not kidding) for it to be even longer.”

(OK the truth is that it is a little long. If the novel was a straightforward escapist succession of social and romantic events, yes, it would rather be filled with unnecessary material.)

But let me explain: the long bits were delicious moments of patient rapture as one the most elegant prose unfolds, and the bonus at the end of the effort (if one doesn’t skip these long passages) is that you discover they were in fact fascinating! For instance at one stage we follow Haresh the shoe-maker and the detailed procedure necessary to make a certain type of shoe: certain people might not like reading about that, but I think that this is what literature is all about: the reinvention of reality. A suitable boy is long because the reality which Vikram Seth is awake to is so full! (one might say: and India is after a [sub]continent) The book opens your eyes to the miracle of reality, which is in fact a creation. Reality is a creation, and the writer of such novels (Balzac, Dickens, Hugo, Tolstoy) sees that SO MUCH is happening before his very eyes. There is an incessant creation going on every second, and they have seen it. Others haven’t, they are blind to this continued creation happening before them. How, why, I don’t know, but these writers have the gift of open eyes, and they make us see it, hurray!

I think that this comes from the fact the Vikram Seth is a poet. People just don’t know what a poet is nowadays. Or let us say that so painfully few people do! Can you imagine that I’ve read people actually criticizing him for having rhymed his table of contents! Yes, that delightful bonus, that free gift to the reader, they just thought it was to show off! I was stunned, I was so grateful! I showed it to the people around me, and beamed at the gratuitous bonanza of bathing in that type of crazy luxury! And then you have the sheer constant virtuosity, all that poetry, eg the witty, ludicrous Kakoli couplets that some readers find so bad – ha, they’ve never tried to write poetry! Let them have a go, let them just write “silly” couplets. It takes a good poet to forge idiotic-sounding stanzas! Well, anyway, I just want to say that I was filled with the gratifying readability of the text. And it isn’t impersonal – you feel the presence of the author, in a very satisfying way, because he’s on your side, he tells you the things he knows and which characters do not know, he’s another, slightly better informed, you!

A poet Vikram Seth really is: the more I realize it, the more it explains things. It explains why so much happens in the book that doesn’t directly make the plot move forward, because he’s so preoccupied by the recreation (poiêsis) of the world, in its delicate and fragrant nostalgia-feel, as well as in its fascinating technical minuteness. The inflamed speech of an angry politician, for example, offers the poet a terrain of unparalleled exploration of the language he loves, it turns him into a director of a symphonic orchestra! He can summon all the rhetoric, all the oratorical powers that exist, all the effects he likes, and recreate the rise and fall of empires through the unique power of the Word. Compared to that intoxicating experience, that of feeding the reader’s expectation with a few tidbits of romance is poor play.

Okay, so now, the story…

But, I don’t know whether I should tell you the story. You’ll find it on Mystic wanderer’s page, for example. There isn’t ONE story in A suitable boy. I’d say there are at least four: Lata’s story, Maan’s story, Haresh’s story, and Mahesh Kapoor’s story. Naturally the four are interconnected, but they are also sufficiently independent to have an interest which is completely their own, and owes little to the other three. One might add also Dipankar’s story, and that of the Nawab sahib of Baithar. Then there are some sub-plots, of course related to each of the main strands. For example Pran’s section, revolving around Brahmpur University; the events here are connected to the Lata main strand through her sister, Savita, married to Pran (the book starts by their wedding and ends with Lata’s).

In Haresh’s story, there are many sub-stories, which we follow as he goes from job to job, revealing for us the surprising realities of shoe-making in India during the post-war period. Mahesh Kapoor’s plot revolves around politics, and thanks to that strand, we discover the life of ministers and their aides, the subtle intricacies of law-making, the strategies of elections, etc. A complete historical perspective is laid out before us, Northern India in 1952. Dipankar is our guide to the religious dimension which is explored in the book (the Kumbh Mela notably), and connected to him is the Chatterji family from Calcutta, an eccentric upper middle-class of flashy beauties and idle young males, completely opposite to Haresh’s practical and matter of fact world of entrepreneurship, for example, and of course an easy target to criticize anglo-Indianness.

Maan’s strand, together with Haresh’s, was perhaps the one I most appreciated: it tells the story of this rich politician’s son, made idle by Papa’s fortune and power, and it serves as an introduction to the world of tawaifs, those courtesan-singers we’ve already spoken about several times, as well as music and singing (ghazals), urdu poetry (Mast), urdu spelling (Saaeda Bai, his enchantress, makes him learn the language), myths and legends connected to the heroes mentioned in the songs, the rise and fall of singing masters and disciples… Maan also takes us in the country (he’s banned there by reasons too long to describe), where we get to know the village people, and this spoilt brat becomes a keen observer of the folk he thought he despised. All these passages are packed with insights on country customs and stories, crowded with unforgettable characters (amazing Moazzam, spellbinding Mr. Biscuit, for instance), and, among so many other impressions, the feel of the night breeze blowing freely as the voices and noises of the village are heard to rise and fall.

Lata’s strand is naturally presented as the core of the book, probably because of its title, but also because it connects most of the actors and events. But not all! (a few examples: Meenakshi’s infidelity, Maan’s love affair, Tapan’s schooling…) Nevertheless, she’s at the center, together with her inimitable mother, Mrs Rupa Mehra, a extraordinary character that you and I will from now on remember all our lives. That’s really one of the book’s particular strengths, the vividness of the characterization. I just have to open the book any page, and see a name, and immediately a complete picture springs up, not only a physical portrait, but a social background, a story with its various causes and consequences… So in fact the book is less striking for its story than for its gallery of characters (and of course its remarkable style): of course we follow what happens to them, but that’s because they’re so close to us.

A suitable boy does not have a reformist ambition; it is a social book, but there are no revolutionary ideas, no ideological denunciation. It has ironical and satirical aspects, but its main intention is descriptive and evocative. So the issue that we have at hand, the question which makes the book flower and bear fruit, is a psychological one, which borders on the aesthetic: why does Lata choose Haresh? We have of course the book’s own answers: Kabir is too passionate, indeed she herself is too passionate, and she decides that she doesn’t want passion: she wants the other type of love, the “calmer, less frantic love, which helps to grow where you were already growing…” (p.1420 – end of section 18.21). That’s what she explains to Malati, her confidente and fellow-student. She doesn’t want a love that will lift her off her feet and dispossess her of herself. “Haresh’s feet touch the ground; and he has dust, and sweat and a shadow. The other two ethereal are a bit too God-like and to be any good for me”, she says.

Now that’s an important question, believe it or not. Today passion, or romantic love, is almost always considered as a transforming force which contains its own justification. One rushes headlong into it, trusting it to contain its own value and meaning. One yearns for and relishes the head-over-heels feeling it brings. Its craziness is considered rational and its childishness a maturing process. Cool-headedness sounds strange when speaking about love. When you are “in” love, goes the popular notion, you cannot do wrong, because somehow love contains its own morality, it is oriented towards the good and it humanizes its beneficiaries. The common belief is that one becomes a better person when one loves or has loved. I realize that there is a distinction to be made between love and passion, and that only passion might be considered dangerous: but who can really distinguish love and passion? Isn’t true love a passion, a dispossession, a loss of the drop of water which is your identity into an ocean of bliss?

The 1400 pages of Vikram Seth’s book are telling us that this overriding experience at the core of human values, this love at all cost, this pot of gold, this life-fulfilling passion can and must be resisted. If the book has one message, that’s it. A writer of  Escapist literature (and the same works for a movie director) would have enabled, through some trick or other, the reunion of Kabir and Lata, which every reader needed so much to happen. But with A suitable boy we have a different outlook on passion and love. Look at this (link):   

“Upon reaching the last page, I tried carefully to analyse my own feelings, but my disappointment was inseparable from my admiration. On one hand, I detested the girl - I was seething with fury - because she had chosen a nice boy over a gorgeous boy. Why do writers do this to their characters (and to their readers, for that matter)? Why must literature echo the cold brutality of life? Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, in Pygmalion; Laurie and Jo, in Little Women; Edmund and Mercedes in The Count of Monte Cristo.

But here’s what this reader says next :

On the other hand, I admired Lata for being so well-grounded in reality. She was able to understand that her love for Khabir would not necessarily translate into a successful marriage, and she was also able to distinguish the man who could bring her happiness. In short, Lata chose to follow her head over her heart, and it was a decision that displayed maturity. Far too many novels romanticize reckless relationships without depicting the consequences (i.e. life after the happy - and, in many cases, abrupt - ending).

There, the lesson is learnt ! What is strange is that Vikram Seth himself says he is not completely ready to support Lata’s decision:

Miss Lata Mehra: Why did Lata marry Haresh and not Kabir... why why why...

Mr Vikram Seth: Now, now, you know better than to give the plot away for those who haven't read it yet. As for why, do you think I decided the matter? Lata decided for herself, and I'm not sure I approve of her decision. (Rediff On The NeT: Transcript of the Vikram Seth Chat)

Perhaps he didn’t want to elaborate, or appear, as a person, to be distinguished from the choices of himself as an author… But yes, so many Bollywood films (and other forms of art choosing to tell Love’s story) opt for the happy jump into the trap that nature has laid for us: charm and beauty, intoxication and wonder… But what about what comes after? Well, our civilization behaves as if it doesn’t really care, and it has equipped itself with the means to do just that, enable people to go from one love to another, and hope for the drug to work its magic each time. Lata’s frustrating choice flies in the face of romantic presuppositions, such as: “passion is the only thing worth living for”. And Vikram Seth achieves a far more original result with this choice than if he had somehow made the two predestined lovers help create the foundation for a better understanding of cross-cultural relationships. For his point about the choice of a reasonable love over a more dispossessing passion, but which is normally thought to be more fulfilling, goes aesthetically, psychologically, and anthropologically further. Even if this means upholding the traditional views of arranged marriages!

Because that is of course the risk he has run. Lata does what her mother, Mrs Rupa Mehra, wanted her to do, and has always thought best for her. It isn’t just a coincidence. Lata’s choice is a conscious decision that includes her mother, her family and the type of society which upholds that model. She doesn’t see herself in any future severed from her family, something the romantic orthodoxy would relish, the lovers shutting out the rest of the world, or at least finding it impossible to sacrifice their new worldview on the altar of family ties and any other interests. On the contrary, the common assumption is that traditional ties based on outdated ideas such as social and religious suitability need the groundswell renewal of experience and feelings which will bring it closer to the essence of life. And it’s up to the new generations to regenerate society in such a way. Such ideas can be read in the message of a number of Bollywood movies, which perhaps also use them to bolster their romantic choices. In short, in Desire lies Truth.

Well, Lata’s choice disproves this. Because she knows what it is to feel the burning of passion, to bask in its pleasure and its magic. She has felt the intoxication of dispossession. Lata knows how deeply this love fits who she is, what she likes, what she needs. Such a love is for her like blood in her veins. It fits her body and it fits her brain. As her friend Malati so forcefully says, Kabir and Lata are made for each other, like the two halves of the complete being they would be if she had chosen him. But she renounces him, and this really recalls the hero’s choice in Corneille’s plays. For Corneille, the hero is never more glorious than when he lifts love so high because he renounces it. But Lata (and Vikram Seth) have perhaps beaten Corneille: Lata actually chooses love, she doesn’t renounce it! She sacrifices love because it is too passionate, but embraces another more reasonable version: what a marvelous compromise to the old aesthetic dilemma! Romantic heroes in Corneille’s tragedies have to cut the strings of their heart because of their duty, and the beauty of their gesture is that they magnify tenfold the love which they renounce. Lata sacrifices Kabir and the corresponding fulfillment of her youth. But she bets on the fulfillment of her maturity, and the bonus is – who knows – that she might this way regain a love which she thought she had sacrificed. For such is love that it springs out of realities one had no idea contained it. So finally, this betting of hers (she isn’t happy with it, there is an element of uncertainty) makes her go beyond the tragedy of love seen as passion, into the reality and humanity of love understood as a gift. The love she chooses is indeed more given than received: there is more love, in a way, in her type of love.

One last word concerning what V.S. suggests as the modus operandi of Lata’s choice: she starts to give in at the moment when her sister’s baby is born. This birth acts as a confirmation of marriages or settlements which have been agreed upon by the community one belongs to. The baby is the proof that life and joy are at the heart of traditional customs which are the foundations of a given community. This comes to weigh as much, if not more, in Lata’s mind, as her love of Kabir. Then there is also Haresh’s sacrifice. The suitable boy she chooses has, like her, been forced to sacrifice a love for a girl from another religion (Simran, a sikh). This theme is shown as bringing them closer together. And then finally there’s Lata’s rejection of dispossession, which on the surface only might appear selfish and worldly. Lata doesn’t own much, but she possesses a self which is the core of her strong-willed being. She would perhaps have accepted to lose part of it if Kabir’s gate had been open for her. But it is shut, shut by the widowed mother she loves and won’t disappoint. So she now knows she will be able to keep a self she feels eminently comfortable with. She’ll be Haresh’s equal, in a rather satisfyingly feminist way, whereas as Kabir’s lover and wife she would have had to settle down for a relationship with him as a Lata she couldn’t control completely. She would have owed him a part of herself which she can now decide either to give or to keep. As it is, her choice makes a natural leader, an independent decider of her fate, and this autonomy corresponds to her personality down deep.

The movie which could be made with A suitable boy would have to be split up between several episodes, so long and dense is the story. In fact the BBC had been thinking of such a serialization, but so far it hasn’t seen the light. It wouldn’t be very difficult to pick good actors for this or that character. So let’s have a bit of fun! Could Tabu be Lata? Preity Zinta (or Vidya Balan?) and Raima Sen could be Kakoli and Meenakshi; perhaps Mann could be played by Vivek Oberoi and Kabir by Atul Kulkarni? Mahesh Kapoor could, I’m sure, be Anil Kapoor. Perhaps Haresh could be taken by Shiney Ahuja?! I think Rani Mukherji would be a good Savita, and I still need a Mrs Rupa Mehra… Let’s think… well, after all, you tell me!

Yash Chopra… Say this name and immediately vast landscapes appear, green slopes where lovers mirror their gaze in the other’s eyes, enchanting music lifts up a crowd of spring birds, dark men march towards their destiny, violence smoulders in the heart, suffering mothers obey their dharma, and love reigns supreme in spite of all odds. Mr Chopra’s reputation as an incurable romantic is so ingrained that it’s difficult to start with something very different! You might as well adore him or hate him, in fact. YC is Bollywood at its best, or at its worst. And love, melodrama… with so banal a theme, such a typically Bollywoodian feature, why does the man stand out? Where does the legend (and the money) come from?

What’s interesting in his profile is the relatively limited number of films, and the stupendous number of blockbusters. This Indian director, born in 1932, has done only 21 movies? How come such a sparse output – yet over such a long timespan - has been so successful? I know of a few other such directors, Stanley Kubrick, for example. But Indian film directors? In the prolific Bollywood culture, there can’t be that many. Yash Chopra has the rare gift of making a landmark film out of every opus he directs, or nearly. One might say he’s managed to find the mix of story and spectacle his audience was ready for. One might add he’s got that skill to be as true and evocative with social-political films as well as with love movies. He’s also associated with the greatest actors of the moment, mainly Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan for the men; and Sridevi, Rekha, Waheeda Rehman, Madhuri Dixit, among others, for the ladies. I would also add that he’s associated with the greatest musicians, Sanjeev Kholi, Hariprasad Chaurasia and ShivKumar Sharma, notably.

All this would be true. But I think it’s basically a knack for passionate stories. Stories that work. Yash Chopra knows how to exploit and tell stories in such a way that he meets the public that’s here to appreciate them. Good stories that are going to be successful need to deal with people’s main interests in life: the passions and desires which everybody feels or wants to feel. Rebellion and courage, virtue and sacrifice, love and duty. And the romantic dimension is perhaps not so much in the privileged choice of love – even though one can’t deny the place of that type of story – but in the intensity of the passions shown to transform the protagonists’ lives. Passion: does that word summarise Yash Chopra? Idlebain.com (here) says that “tradition” is a very important determination with Yash Chopra. Passion can of course be traditional, and dealt with in a traditional way. The author of that review contends that Lamhe (1991) was his only iconoclastic film. Having not seen all YC’s movies, I couldn’t say he’s wrong, but somehow tradition carries a certain conservatism which doesn’t exactly fit with passion. There is a violence and a revolutionary spirit in passion which doesn’t care about tradition. Yash Chopra has successfully innovated in ways that might have helped define tradition (that’s his classicism), but certainly he’s recreated this tradition to the point of challenging it.

He’s not a total inventor. No artist ever is, in fact. In order to be judged innovative (hip and trendy are qualifications you often read concerning YC), you have to understand the traditions, and depart from them: do something sufficiently powerful that will redefine them and set a style which others will in turn take as a basis. So if for example, Deewar takes up the “angry young man” theme from Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer (1973), Yash Chopra has created a trendsetter which critics don’t attribute to his forerunner. I haven’t seen any other Bollywood mine-films, but certainly Kaala Patthar has the depth and guts of any competitor.

Sometimes his stories are artificial to the point of straining the belief of his spectators: Darr deals with such an obsessive lover that one wonders if they really exist in real life. And In Lamhe, the basis of the plot is very thin: you have to accept that a daughter can look exactly like her mother to make the story credible: a very rare situation, I’d say. Coincidences occur rather frequently in YC’s cinema, and I’d say, they’re often romantic coincidences, which are only one type of coincidence. A coincidence is in itself rare (otherwise it wouldn’t attract attention to itself that much), so a romantic one… But I think the director couldn’t car less. What he’s doing is using a plot, perhaps artificially created to work under the circumstances, and draw on the potential created by that plot. He doesn’t hesitate to add meaning thanks to coincidences which elevate the story to the level of myth, or legend. Veer’s prisoner number (786) in Veer-Zaara (it’s also Vijay’s dockworker plate number In Deewar) is an example everyone has noticed. It’s Allah’s holy number, and the film is about the need to unite Muslims and Hindus.

In stories of passion, says the director, anything can happen. It’s like tragedy, or mythology: we are no longer really in the everyday reality (movie-goers don’t mind suspending their disbelief we know that): passion justifies a level of experience which has its own uniqueness. Symbols flare up in such stories, whereas in realty, you’d probably have to draw other people’s attention to them, and to you, the decipherer. On this blog I’ve developed the symbol of water in Kaala Patthar: making a film enables you to weave together bits and pieces of experience and occurrences in such a way that the meaning it displays will depend on that assortment. Yash Chopra knows how to do that task with particular skill. His choice of characters, drawing from world myths and legends give his best films an interest and a lasting effect. So if he forgets that dimension, he quickly becomes manipulated by the fickleness of passing taste. For me, that’s what happened with Dil to pagal hai.

There is another structural element which YC implements in his best movies. Let’s let him explain:

"Relationships interest me because man is one creature who is capable of sane as well as insane behaviour. It's this nature of human beings that inspires and gives room for innumerable plots. Like in Daag (1973), Raakhee, who played the other woman, created all the drama, as did Rekha in Silsila (1981). In Aaina (1993) it was the jealous sister while in Darr (1993) it was the obsessive lover. So unlike other movies where a villain is added to create the problems, in my films villainy is substituted by a third angle." (reference)

Ah, here’s something Bollywood has to learn from the master: “a third angle”. I have in effect rarely seen mainstream Bollywood movies adopt that technique. Of course many Indian films have, but they were often socially oriented, fringe-type movies. Yash Chopra has succeeded in bringing this third angle into commercial hits. What’s a third angle? It’s a pole of interest which is neither good or evil, black or white, and is sufficiently developed to tilt the standard Manichaeism towards or more all-encompassing rendition of human experience. In Deewar, for instance, the third angle is Vijay’s swerving (and therefore very human) fight to reach self-justification. In Darr, it’s the unclassifiable obsession of the crazy lover. In Kaala Patthar, it could be Mangal’s course from utter villainy to sacrifice. All these diversions from easily identifiable Good & Evil create a third angle which adds the depth and the richness to the best of YC’s movies. And this notwithstanding a hero structure which is more three-polar and dual. Veer-Zaara gives us perhaps the best example of this structure. Not only do we really have three essential characters (Veer, Zaara, and Saamiya), but these characters are themselves included in a wider generational structure where elders shape the role and life of their “descendants”. The third angle, brilliantly personified by Rani Mukherjee’s woman lawyer character introduces a last item of reflection which Yash Chopra’s films have been recognised for.

Indeed, despite the formidable stature which YC possesses today, he has not always seemed recommendable and acceptable to all publics. We’ve already alluded to that commentator who declared Lamhe iconoclastic, because of the supposedly incestual nature of the main love concern. But that commentator has forgotten that Deewar was deemed as scandalous when it came out. The famous scenes including Amitabh and Parveen Babi in bed, for example. But Vijay’s character itself must have been difficult to deal with: he’s a vindicator of rights who turns bad, a victim as well as a perverted hero. And seen from a certain westernised angle, Yash Chopra’s stance in Veer-Zaara to reconcile India and Pakistan is politically-correct; but I wonder if all Indians agree. Finally, his decision to impersonate in Pooja (from Lamhe) a free woman who does not care about the possible incestuous undertones of her love interest was brave indeed given the financial costs of a YC film. So Tradition is not that welcome in his films, as we can see. Yash Chopra is more a maker of traditions than a follower. And yet he remains mainstream, he is recognised as one of the reigning kings of the masala type. No little feat.

PS: I have decided to say next to nothing about YC the producer, but naturally that aspect would have to be taken into consideration. Not to mention his father’s role in the Aditya phenomenon.

PS2: Sorry for the long delay at looking after this blog! And this after so many readers asked to "keep it up"! But I'm a teacher, and the back to school period has been particularly demanding this year...