As soon as one pronounces the name “Akshaye Khanna”, a picture springs up, and one sees that curvy mouth, that dimpled chin, those square jaws and above all, the dark cunning eyes that half-smile, half gauge, as if to make sure the track is clear. Hmm, says one, he must be a warm, interesting fellow! He looks intelligent, reserved, unassuming, and…SEXY! (It’s the half-open, dark eyes that do the trick, they never miss).

Then there’s that negligently unbuttoned shirt with lots of bushy hair cropping out… probably for the ladies, or am I wrong? With Akshaye, there’s a style, a very carefully studied mixture of naturalness and sophistication, which works wonders. He’s selected a pose, a nonchalant, humorous, thoughtful pose which had not been so well blended before, I think (even though I don’t know much of Bollywood’s history). He’s just managed that trick. His physique of course has helped him tremendously, but look at the change between Taal and Dil chahta hai: in the former, it’s as if he’d been to the wrong hairdresser, wrong tailor, wrong everything. In the latter, well, somebody must have spoken to him!! (“OK Akshaye, you’re gonna do me a favour…”)

As an example of how he’s managed to make people fall for his careful appearance, he’s an extract of an appraisal written by pyara.com:

"We live in an age when the allure of many leading actors is all on the surface, with a bland, symmetrical, conventionally handsome face offering no hint of an intriguing mind or a complex history. Akshaye Khanna, on the other hand, is something else. Behind his teen-idol facade lies the soul of a thinking man. A talented actor, he knows his craft, and is very serious about his work. Indeed a rare quality amongst the current breed of newcomers. He may be a very instinctual actor but he also has an exacting technique. He likes to get everything right. He's also extremely attractive as an artiste. And quite remarkable and unique for a newcomer. He is one of the best actors to hit Bollywood in recent times - not to mention the most handsome, intriguing, talented and sexy.

Even before he has become a megastar which a lot of people feel is merely a matter of time, Akshaye has developed a mystique. He's an extremely private person. The most remarkable thing is he's savvy enough to recognize the danger of overexposure. Therefore, he's cleverly spaced out his interviews to avoid such a happening. What's more he refuses to let anyone into his private and personal matters. He is so damn nonchalant. He's a guy moving comfortably and gracefully in his own mystique, that's the sort of movie star he is. But he's very distant, very removed and that adds strength to his character. He seems like a private public man going by his reserve, but for him fame is no burden. We're talking about a movie star in the grand manner, an elusive presence. That probably sums up his screen charisma, which is proving to be a powerful box-office draw."

While what this person says is quite all right, one cannot but wonder at Akshaye’s masterful talent at passing over the information that he’s mysterious, magnetic, etc. As is written above, “he’s cleverly paced out his interviews”. And note how this writer shuttles back and forth between assessments of Akshaye’s merits, and looks. Where does it all come from? And why would it accrue to him, rather than, say, Salman? Is it because he keeps to himself more? Yes, and because he’s shyer, more reserved, less outward-going than others. Does that mean he’s more mysterious? You be the judge. But people like to think so.

What I especially enjoy is the connection that is made between “the teen-idol façade” and “the soul of a thinking man”: it’s the same contrast that we find between “moving comfortably and gracefully” and “in his own mystique”. Here’s an actor that makes people – fans, reviewers, whoever – read his attractive exterior appearance as a sign of a deeper interior. Quite a feat, because in the Bollywood mainstream culture of today, you normally have to fight to convince your audience that there is something behind your pretty face (or other parts). Somehow, you’re often the victim of the superficiality that you’re earnestly trying to avoid. Well, look, one guy at least just steps in, and everybody eyes him with envy: “Ooooh, he looks deep, he’s mystical, elusive”. (Hope you don’t mind all this Akshaye).

There’s something in hairy virility which just exudes what they call “magnetism”. To me there’s another word for that magnetism – pheromones. Now even though you can’t smell them through the internet, or on the screen, there are many ways to suggest they’re there! And probably Akshaye has them naturally! But there you go: a pleasing smile (warmth), twinkling eyes (intelligence), and strong jaws (sexuality), all this can easily be sublimated into charisma, mysticism and what have you. The stronger you suggest a distance between nature, or instinct, and a charming gallantry, the more exciting it is! Because in between lies the chasm of adventure and transgression which we feel is so important. Today, if you want to impress and be original, you have to mix the blend well: a sheer “natural” difference isn’t enough (only rare examples like Aishwarya Rai have had the luck of being able to bank on physical qualities alone), so you have to add cultural assets to your physical ones. Your persona must suggest a model, or an influence, and it must pass on the message (for example) that you have been a disciple of that model, but are now independent enough to have created a style of your own, something like that. 

And Akshaye has done just that. Instinctively, he’s found a niche that wasn’t really exploited in the Bollywood spectrum, and has fitted into it neatly. He’s not grandly self-assertive as is Shahruhk, not boisterously friendly like Salman; he remains coy enough, unlike Saif Ali Khan, who likes to play the fool. He’s less a womanizer than Vivek, more tender than Akshay Kumar, less aloof than Ajay Devgan, and less intense-looking than Arjun Rampal. Yet, he’s got a little from all of them. He lets a stubble grow to give him that extra virility, and his low cropped hair adds to his massive appearance. It seems the days of Aa ab laut chale or Taal are over ! There’s even been some pictures going around where he’s lost all of that scant hair!

Ah, and now this: Beth Loves Akshaye; I had laughed a great deal last year when watching the ladies rave about his… sandals! I just had to refer to it. Thanks Beth. What’s good about Aksahye is that you can imagine so much… He’s so unassuming! So, we assume things about him!

I have to finish by mentioning the little acting I’ve seen him in. From what I know, he’s certainly a keen guy, who’s learning fast. I haven’t seen the latest movies, though, especially Salaam-e-ishq, and Gandhi my father (very nice review from Amodini). Apparently these two are good ones, but I’ve read here and there that not all of his recent films were very good showcases, unfortunately. Akshaye has always interested me because of his quietness. Not surprising, you’ll say, after everything I’ve said. But that’s what I enjoy in him. He comes from an important film-making family, and knows he’s watched as heir to that family. That in itself would be banal. But I feel he’s a decent guy, who loves to be there on the screen, and has to deal with his image, his aura, his celebrity, the best he can. You can sense that in his slightly melancholic attitude. I think he wants to make good films, but he’s in a system that uses stars on perhaps a different basis than his. Okay, well, that’s all for now. I’ll try and come back to Akshaye when I’ve seen one of his latest films!

 
Satyajit Ray’s 1955 “Song of the little road” is a quiet picture of little big events within a rural Bengali family, where the little happenings of childhood occur, and form that most profound event of any life: growing up. The film is part of a trilogy, the Apu trilogy; but I haven’t (yet) seen the other two films. Still, you can of course see Pather Panchali independently. I hadn’t yet seen anything like it before.


It’s a sort of haiku, those short Japanese poems famous for their purity and density. As one watches it, one is struck by the timelessness, the unfathomable simplicity and emptiness of what is shown. The impression is that the action is “so long ago”, in a time when everything was young, when life was poignant and still, like the lilies on a puddle reflecting the grey sky. The grown-ups are in their fretful world, an old aunt is stuggling in hers, and the children with their eyes wide open observe this world.

There is Durga, the startling woman-child, and Apu her wide-eyed little brother, 11 and 5, perhaps. A frequent silence surrounds their lives, which is filled with humour and games. And nature is all around, vaguely threatening, and yet familiar, and playground-like. As one inspired commentator puts it: “Pather Panchali" turns everyday childhood occurrences into wondrous events, whether it is brother and sister crossing the fields filled with white feathery rushes to see a train in the distance, a pursuit of the candy man, a Hindu feast, the wonders of the natural world, an ancient aunt telling bedtime stories to children.” (erwan_ticheler from Amsterdam, link).

This “ancient aunt” is a creation of her own. She’s played by “80-year-old Chunibala Devi, a retired theatre performer who relished coming back into the limelight after 30 years of obscurity” (Link) Physically, she’s an old blind bird, a witch, a harpy. But in fact she’s a friendly old crackpot, which can never harm anyone. Doubled-up, her hair strangely cropped short, as if punished for some ancient collaboration with the enemy, her mumblings full of humour and dignity (“can’t an old woman have her own whims?”), she is admitted at the house, and needs only the bare minimum. But even that is sometimes a strain.

As opposed to the worried mother, she’s the spirit of the poor household, the element of permanence and liberation from want.. She shares with the children an essential simplicity. Gleefully happy when she’s given stolen fruit that unlike everybody else she doesn’t scold Durga for having pilfered, she knows from lifelong experience that the poor have a right to the fruit of the Earth, wherever they are. But the household is so poor that one day she is sent away, again, and must gather her pauper’s belongings, to seek refuge in another house. We watch her shuffle away with her carpet under her arm, a wizened old hag with her holed-out eye-sockets, and we understand that her hosts have lost their god. When she comes back, it’s to die. And one of the most stunning scenes of the film is when she gently falls on the side, and her head bumps against the ground, with the sound of an empty hazelnut. And as she lies there, in front of Durga’s stare, she’s nothing more than a little bird’s corpse, ever so light, ever so free.

There is something difficult and painful in Pather Panchali; I think it’s the poverty, the stricken life that these people are forced to live and that we are forced to witness. One would like to help them, to give them something, but all we can do is receive Apu’s wide stare, and accept his mother’s anger and tired grief. We cannot change Durga’s thieving and lying habits, which poverty has ingrained in her. We cannot keep the husband and father close to his wife. If he goes away, in his carefree way, we understand that he too is the victim of forces beyond their (and our) reach. One must bear that poverty all along the film. It is there in the broken-down house, the scarce food, the angry neighbour, the gaunt faces of the dwellers, the doomed mother’s concern, the squalor of the yard, the relentless desire of children to eat, all the time. And of course, Durga’s tragedy, her death so young because she stayed out in the rain and caught a simple cold… And finally, the mother’s wail when she can no longer hide the truth from the father, who finally comes back with a little money after six months’ absence, but too late. His little family’s lives were too fragile to wait for him.

Yet there is something immensely joyful and serene in Ray’s film. I think it’s because of the children, the world of childhood, its innocence, its charm, its connection with nature. I enjoyed especially those scenes where the children in the woods, in the fields, on the country roads, with nature so much part of them, a nature that they know intimately, immediately. Another reviewer on Imdb writes:

“The film's structure seems to embody this duality between realism and the figurative. The first half is nearer to social realism, setting out the social hierarchies, introducing characters and their social or family role, defining them against other people, their home and nature. It is full of rich characterisation, even comedy, and full of set-pieces that reveal character and society.

The second half, however, becomes more abstract, even mystical. There is less reliance on words as characters go through strange rites where the emphasis is on observation or action. The nature that had been encroaching on civilisation spills over in these sequences, with stunning montages that recall Dovzhenko. The whole film feels slower, more meaningful and monumental (and sometimes duller). My favourite sequences are in this half, the discovery of the road and railway, the possibility of another life; the silent roaming through a beautiful, dwarfing landscape that recalls the mysticism of the Archers' 'A Canterbury Tale'.

(Alice Liddel (-darragh@excite.com) from Dublin, link)

Indeed the delicate (and at the same time powerful) portrayal of childhood, and the feeling of timelessness, of natural eternity which it evokes, the fact that this eternity is nevertheless steeped in death and loss, the mystery of pain and poverty, all this so powerfully (yet simply) brought to our observation that one wonders: where has Ray “seen” all of it? How has he guessed at all that? All the more so as the film was his first! He has painted childhood, the way Sri Aurobindo evokes it: “After all, what is God? An eternal Child playing an eternal game in the eternal garden.” (link). Those of you who have seen the film, wouldn’t you say that we witness that mystical activity of an invisible godhead, present in the various characters, the fretful mother, the wily children, the old aunt, the dreaming father? I love the title of the film: Pather Panchali, Song of the little road: even if I don’t know why Bibhutibhushan Banerjee (who wrote the book that Ray has used) has chosen this title, for me it is full of the lightness, the gravity and the grace that the film and its music (Ravi Shankar) contain. In Apu’s eyes, I see that little song, in Durga’s revolt and sensuality, in the old aunt’s empty eyes and humourous remarks, and in the simple games of life shown as on the first day of Creation.

 

R.K. Narayan’s novel, The Guide, written in 1958, is recognised as one of the author’s best. (It’s selected within a collection of “1000 books to read during your lifetime” collection which some French publishers were selling over Christmas). It tells the story of Raju, whose father was lucky to own a shop near a spot where a railway station was going to be built. Raju was then a boy who enjoyed his life outside, and when the tracks and station were built, the shop in the station was entrusted to his father. The boy soon started helping him, pleased at not having to be sent to school any more. But the father died accidentally, and Raju who must have been 12 or so, took over, and over the years cleverly understood the interest of the railway, because not only did he see the importance of the shop for travellers, but also that of the travellers’ needs. He became a tourist guide, and is so keen and scruple-free that his business flourishes.

Then comes the day when a special tourist arrives in Malgudi (Narayan’s fictitious pet town situated in the South): he’s a historian, a lover of old inscriptions and engravings. He wants Raju to take him to some caves in the mountains where archaeological treasures have to be surveyed. Along with him is Raju’s destiny, in the form of his wife, Rosie. She’s as different from him as Raju’s quick practicality is from old stone inscriptions. The husband, called Marco by Raju (because of some connection with Marco Polo the discoverer) is a bespectaled intellectual who seems to drag his wife around like so much baggage. She’s an educated young woman, but belonging to a caste of dancers which condemns her to accepting whatever her husband decides for her. Among which, no dance. When she meets Raju, who is staggered by her beauty and dancing skills, he quickly enters her life, and looks at her in a way that wins her over to him, in spite of her wife’s principles. In fact, the trio settles in the mountain, near the caves, even if it means for Raju to leave his shop and guide business unattended.

A story of self-deception begins. Narayan suggests that Raju has been bitten by the “snake-lady”, has been bewitched, and that in his mind, instead of the astute self-made money-maker, a “saithan” now rules supreme. He cannot leave Rosie, who makes him lose appetite for everything except her. Classic situation indeed. Of course, in time the husband gets to know about the liaison, and sends Raju away, with Rosie concurring. A month elapses, and one morning she arrives at his little hut where he lives with his mother. This time, it’s as if she’s been thrown out. I pass some events, but their life together, fragile as it is in middle-century India, prospers because Raju’s flair for business surfaces again; he manages to turn Rosie into a traditional dance diva, and acting as her impresario, soon reaches a style of living which he had never before attained. But there’s something wrong in their enterprise. Raju has big debts, a distant enemy in the shape of Marco who hasn’t divorced Rosie, and a habit of spending, lying and procrastinating which the reader understands will lead to his downfall.

This would all be rather banal, if the structure of the novel wasn’t in fact quite different from the way I have told the story. We start with a forlorn Raju who has just left prison, and is resting on the steps of some abandoned temple, when a peasant stops by, and starts conversing with him. Narayan hints that, perhaps of his “disciple-like nature”, he mistakes Raju for the temple-priest, and little by little the aimless and hungry Raju is looked after. The chapter closes and we are plunged into his old life near the future railway. One more chapter, and we come back to the temple, and Raju’s increasing success as adviser, sage and eventually swami, when a drought threatens, the villagers believe he might help them though prayer and fasting to bring the rain.

Naturally, because the book is called The guide, the reader is quickly led to make the link between the various meanings of the word: tourist guide, spiritual guide. And when Raju watches Rosie and encourages her (even if with mixed intentions), one might say he’s a guide there too, because he does indeed guide her towards her self-fulfilment. The problem of the book is what to make of the reflection about this guide figure. Raju is evidently not a guide in the sense of a political or moral guide who leads a community towards his destiny. Everything he does is self-centred. He guides people, but with his own interest in mind all the time. R.K. Narayan is making a satirical point here: the guide that people look up to is himself the one most in need of a guide. This is clear when Raju reflects upon what his friend Gaffur the taxi-driver advises him: to leave Rosie and all the stress connected with the false situation he has let himself enslaved by, and go back to his old joyful, carefree life. Raju says that, at the time, this was excellent advice, but he also that he was incapable of following it.

In fact he is constantly running away from his responsibilities. For example when he knows he has all those debts, and prefers taking a cheap lawyer rather than face the problems, and go through the uncomfortable but real world of responsibility. As a lover also, he lives from day to day, never wondering who the person he shares his life is, really is. He has drunk her blood, so to speak, gorged on her, but he’s lived with a stranger. Even when he decides at the end to go ahead with the abhorred fast to bring back the rains, as the crowds of villagers have asked him, he adopts an attitude which he hopes will make the decision forgetful:

“With a sort of vindictive resolution he told himself “I’ll chase away all thought of food. For the next ten days, I’ll eradicate all thoughts of tongue and stomach from my mind”. The resolution gave him a particular strength…”

But then something he had perhaps not foreseen happens:

“He developed on those lines: “if by avoiding food I should help the trees bloom, and the grass grow, why not do it thoroughly?” For the first time in his life, he was making an earnest effort; for the first time he was learning the thrill of full application, outside money and love; for the first time he was doing a thing in which he was not personally interested.” (p. 188-89)

So the question is: is this salvation? Has Raju learnt the lesson? Has he finally passed on the other side, where selfishness yields to selflessness? Have circumstances been his master, and has he found the Guide he had been needing all his life? If the answer is yes, then the book is a moral or religious parable, telling us that there is a meaning, a balance of right or wrong on earth, no matter how ill-advised men live, their dharma will one day be forced on them. But if it’s no, then everything must be considered maya, illusion, and life on earth is one big farce. I would personally opt for the second solution, because nothing really in the book prepares us for salvation. On the contrary, RK Narayan stresses continuously his character’s thoughtlessness. No salvation for Raju then, as far as I’m concerned, in spite of the quotation above which one can read as the statement of his punishment.

But on the other hand, what the book might be saying is “something” (or somebody) guides the guide. Thanks to Raju, Rosie has found her way. Thanks to his love and determination (even though self-interested), she has been given a freedom she probably would never have been given otherwise. It is just that Raju is punished the way he is, and just that Rosie is freed. Destiny (or the order of things) has utilised Raju as an instrument of liberation for her, and has punished him for his self-centredness. In that respect, the title “The guide” might well refer, not to Raju, but to this other Guide above, which uses our human choices in order to make his own justice come to fruition.

I have ordered the movie which was made in 1965 with Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman. I’ll let you know what I have thought of it. From some opinions expressed on Imdb, it seems it’s very good. Philip and Carla have interesting summaries and evaluations.

3 Dewaarein by Nagesh Kukunoor is a very good entertainer. Its construction is very clever, its rhythm flawless, the actors are truly first class, the suspense is exciting, the photography is excellent… One spends a very rewarding 120 minutes. But…it’s only entertainment. Now you’re going to tell me, what more do you expect from films? That’s what they’re for! Yes, but I have been used, at that level of excellence, to find a little bit more than entertainment. Let’s say, a certain amount of moral or social reflection, or a political statement, the director’s commitment to something else, precisely, than pure virtuosity and emotionality. Instead, I have that strange (even if enjoyable!) feeling of having watched a package which Bollywood is rather alien to, it seems to me: a psychologically brilliant entertainer but without any profound commitment. Like a good many Hollywood products, in fact. You leave the film almost unable to find anything to say about M. Kukunoor’s position concerning the problems of prisons, of justice, of the death penalty, of women, of violence in couples, etc. all of which are alluded to, but would have called for much more position-taking, especially in today’s India. 

Let’s take the example of the pressure Chandrika (Juhi Chawla, very lovely and pleasant) undergoes from the Minister of Justice, whose daughter was allegedly killed by Nagya (nice job from Nagesh Kukunoor, both actor and director here), who is her low-class boyfriend, and one of the three death-row prisoners which she comes to interview for a documentary. The minister comes to see her to ask for her footage of the prisoners, hoping to get an avowal which the court would need. In return, she’ll have an easy divorce, he says. His blackmail could have been the basis of an interesting criticism of the way justice works in India. It is, of course, but the episode doesn’t play a big role in the film; I’d say it’s a way to side-track the spectator, and prepare him for the surprise at the end.

Another (connected) sub-plot is the one that deals with the relations between Chandrika and her ruthless and machistic husband. There again, one could have expected a better treatment of this important question. She’s bullied by this man, and we understand that because of her long talks with Ishaan [1] (who is accused of having killed a bank-clerk pregnant with twins, and who theorises about the necessary respect a man owes his wife), that he has been inspirational when she finds the strength to stand up against her husband. Her empowerment grows with her understanding of Ishaan’s philosophy of life. Yet the end of the film seems to contradict this (rather scandalous, but in fact realistic) rapprochement. And we don’t know whether she has succeeded as far as her divorce is concerned. I have the feeling this is all done to create a complex psychological situation where what is important for the film-maker is this sheen of complexity, where his plot is steeped, and not the real social issue of violence in Indian couples (or elsewhere).

Entertainers which entertain and do nothing more are in general popular movies where the level of psychological realism is rather low. Countless love-stories and comedies have no other aim than to supply the spectator with the emotions he’s paid to be supplied with. But the conventionality of these movies is a signal that you aren’t to expect anything more. The goodies are good, the baddies bad, the plot is more or less clever, the humour, or the violence, more or less adapted. It’s escapism. If you can top it with a pleasantly-looking actress and/or hero, well, all the better. You know what you’re in for: and you’re not going to ask any commitment from such films.

What is surprising here is that Nagesh Kukunoor’s movie (and I wonder whether the same couldn’t be said for Dor, the other one by him I’ve seen) is narratively and psychologically very challenging, but one wonders what one will retain of it: sheer cinematographic quality (by which I mean plot, acting, and filming) is not enough. With such films, one would need to be fed at other levels too. I know it isn’t the case in many Western films, but I’ve been accustomed that Indian films do not separate the aesthetic stance and the moral/social one. And anyway, for me the artist should accept to have a social and a moral role. I think the best entertainers are those which succeed in joining a gripping story with an important teaching or an interesting message. Films by Ashutosh Gowariker, for instance, or Mani Ratnam, do that (to name two among the present directors). Of course I would respect artists that don’t share my point of view, but I can’t help regretting it!

I wonder if 3 Dewaarein doesn’t in fact use its own references to social and moral problems in order to give more weight to its cinematographic ambitions. Perhaps I shouldn’t go as far as to say that Kukunoor hasn’t any moral or social concerns. But these concerns are secondary compared to his cinematographic purposes. He is using an environment, a “reformation” prison, and a problem, that of innocent people condemned to the death penalty, but they are only ingredients of his plot: they don’t rise to the level of issues which he could have dealt with in a committed way (not necessarily forgetting the story-telling, of course). He does his films in order to entertain, and hardly to educate or to question the system.

One last example to illustrate my point: during his talks with Chandrika, Ishaan the charmer makes clever allusions to the fact that he is being filmed and that everybody is always more or less acting in life; this resonates with his pragmatic attitude towards honesty and responsibility: it sounds more profound than Nagya’s attitude that “truth will prevail”, or the third death-row’s inmate, Jaggu (Jackie Shroff, quite convincing), who has a romantic poet’s perspective on everything and is a fatalist. But I can’t really connect this clever simile to any message that the film would offer me. I have to be content with this cleverness, and accept not to put it to any practical purpose.

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[1] A mesmerizing – as always – Naseeruddin Shah, fantastic job.