Modern Times

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(First published on NewsYaps)

Yesterday, in a conversation with a colleague at lunch (I work in Bombay) I discovered she had recently been to Calcutta. I asked her what her impression of the city was. “Hated it,” she said, with some vehemence. “It’s like the city is stuck in the 19th century”. 

“Yep, glad you noticed. Calcuttans work very hard to keep it that way,” I quipped.

That very evening though, when in a conversation with my mother I discovered that Calcutta’s 106-year old Chaplin Cinema Hall was being razed to the ground, the inadvertent veracity of my wisecrack became rather apparent.

***

The history of Chaplin Cinema Hall is closely connected to the history of cinema in Calcutta and, indeed, in India.

While today, Bombay might stand head and shoulders above any other Indian city when it comes to cinema, things weren’t always that way. In the early 20th century, Calcutta was, arguably, a bigger centre for films than Bombay. In 1932, this led Wilford Deming, an American sound engineer to call Calcutta’s film industry Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge, a neighbourhood of Calcutta where most film studios are located, and Hollywood. He wanted a catchy term to refer to Calcutta as India’s Hollywood for an article he was writing. The name stuck and was then taken up by film industries across the country, with the one situated in Bombay, of course, being called Bollywood (which should now be renamed to Mollywood, really. Hello, Shiv Sena?).

The beginnings of Chaplin lie in 1902 when Jamshedji Madan, a Parsi theatre magnate who had made his money in the Bombay Parsi theatre moved to Calcutta. He started a bioscope show in the Maidan which was hugely successful. Egged on by his success, he went on to start the Elphinstone Picture Palace in 1907 (which would eventually be named Chaplin). This cinema hall is widely held to be the first permanent cinema hall in India. It also screened the first talkie in India—Universal Studio’s Melody of Love. Bad times led Madan to sell Elphinstone Picture Palace to a Sohrab Modi who renamed in Minerva, a name that many city old-timers would recognise. Later on, the CPI(M) government nationalised the hall, renaming it to Chaplin. If you think that’s a unique (but apt) name for a cinema hall, consider that Calcutta also has roads named after Shakespeare and Ghalib (the latter, ironically finds no place in his own city, Delhi). This is Calcutta, dada. Like the ketchup, it’s different.

***

As a child growing up in Calcutta, Chaplin was a familiar haunt. It was situated in the New Market area which housed almost all of Calcutta’s cinemas at the time. This area of the city was once the English quarter, the Black Town (or the Indian quarter) being what is now North Calcutta. Although this area has now gone to seed, the old single-screen theatres still remained till the 90s till they were replaced by the multiplexes which sprang up in the more posh areas of the city, mainly the South.

Roxy, Paradise, Hind, Jamuna, Jyoti, Elite, New Empire, Lighthouse and Globe were the some of the names which featured prominently as places to get away to on a hot weekend.  If you wanted to watch a movie, you looked up the listings in the newspaper. Timings were fixed and went by the quaint names of Afternoon, Matinee (3:00 PM), Evening (6:00 PM) and (the forbidden) Night Show (9:00 PM). The lack of say in timing was made up for by the choice in elevation. You could chose dress circle or stall in a single theatre hall. Since we mostly sat in the dress circle, I distinctly remember feeling cheated when I first went to a multiplex and, after paying a substantial sum of money, was made to sit in the “stalls”.

This was the heyday of the CPI(M) and Mamata was a far-away dream (nightmare?). Hence bourgeoisie luxuries such as movie-watching were heavily regulated. Ticket prices were capped at a piddling 35 bucks. However, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the USSR had collapsed. Communism wasn’t exactly killing it. Under these circumstances, even Calcutta felt like thumbing its nose, however subtly, at it. As a result of these ridiculous price controls, theatre owners would sell tickets in bulk to touts. Buying a “current” ticket (the other sort being “advance”) invariably meant seeking out a tout who’d be standing there furiously muttering "Dress Circle, 200" or some such to advertise his wares. You’d pay him the cash and he’d hand you the tickets with a surreptitiously stylish, Azharuddin-like flick of his wrists, making sure to not make eye-contact as he did. When I first started reading spy novels, my visual template for the spy was almost always the ticket touts of Calcutta.

Of all these cinema halls, Chaplin along with Elite were my favourites. This has nothing do with their cinema—Chaplin mainly played arty stuff (being run by the government) and Elite played Hindi blockbusters. This was to do with their location. Both halls were within a hundred metres of the legendary Nizam’s. At the interval (yep, “interval”; we're Calcuttans, we use only pukka British terms), a couple of us would rush out, buy the rolls from Nizam’s along with bottles of Thums-Up and rush back. No plastic bottles at the time, so we'd pay a deposit on the Thums-up to be returned if and when were returned the bottles. The first 15 minutes post-interval, as our whole family sat silhouetted against the light of the screen, munching their rolls while simultaneously passing and sipping their Thums-Ups is the visual image that defines my childhood.

Nizam’s in itself is an institution, being founded in 1932. It claims to have invented the kathi roll, Calcutta’s most famous street food. The (apocryphal) story goes that an Englishman from the nearby Calcutta Municipal Corporation headquarters loved the kaathi kabaab (kathi meaning stick in Hindi or, in this case, skewer) and paraantha at Nizam’s. But being all propah and all, he couldn’t eat “native style” with his hands. So Nizam’s seeing as how the customer’s always right (even when he’s not), rolled up the kabaabs in a paraantha and voila: Roll!

Even before its closure, Chaplin had long since gone to seed. Jokes about rats scurrying about its floors were never funny given how the truth seldom us. Yet the building itself was a familiar sight, situated as it is just outside New Market in the Esplanade area. Its dilapidated two-storey frame with the word 'Chaplin' affixed onto the facade in red was just ‘there’ whenever we stopped by for rolls at Nizam's or popped into Nahoum's for cakes. The cinema hall was next to a park with a pavilion which had a roof shaped like a large bowler hat in homage to Chaplin. I wonder whether they'll do away with that too.

Goodbye, Chaplin. We had some good times.

Raanjhanaa: Thoughts, Flies, Ointment...and Soup

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(Since I'm a good person at heart, there are no spoilers here. You're welcome.)

There are many interesting things about Raanjhanaa.

Acting: Fantastic stuff by Dhanush (who owns Kundan and, by extension, the movie) as well as by Zeeshan Ayub and pretty much everyone else. Shout out for Asmita Theatre Group.

Its depiction of love: Raanjhanaa deals with obsessive love which, as things go, can be pretty OTT. But Raanjhanaa manages to keep it real. Dhanush’s love is the fanaa sorts but it’s also fucked up. It’s selfish and Dhanush, when it matters most, ends up thinking of himself over and above everything, even when it’s going to destroy his lady love's life (not a lot of ‘tumhari khushi main hi meri khushi hai’, no siree). But at the end of the day, it is love and it’s beautiful (Awww).

Class divide (vis-a-vis creed divide): That’s the real fault line in India today, says the film, overturning years of hard work by Bollywood. Zoya (Sonam) thinks Kundan’s (Dhanush) a bit of joke really. Never really looks at him as a person, you know, with feelings and stuff. Part of it is because she’s a bitch. The other is because she just can’t see herself marrying a person who, well, fixes the car or brings home the gas cylinder. She needs someone from her background. A pukka PLU. Well-read, English medium types, you know. Kinda ironic that she’s a commie in the film. Loved the dig at the JNU endless debate culture in a scene where JNU students discuss why someone would turn to burglary. Reminded me of the Judean People’s Front/People’s front Judea Scene from The Life of Brian. Zoya’s father’s: more simple. Hindus and poor people, keep offa my daughter, he screams. Silently. Cos he’s a chomu. He knows squat of what his daughter's up to, right from her her 15-year old self to when she's in JNU and he really needs to do more off a background check when agreeing to get his daughter married off.

Banaras: Depicted brilliantly in the first half without descending into any sort of cliché. Another thing’s that not clichéd: Muslims. None of them wear achkans or go about salaaming people. Also, almost (...) no namaaz! Woo!

The dialogue: Witty repartee delivered in some sort of faux Banaras accent? Yes, please! Pick of the lot: “Tumahara pyaar na ho gaya, UPSC ka exam ho gaya. 10 saal se paas hi nahi ho raha”.

The ending: More of the love-is-fucked-up-but beautiful shit. In other words, perfect. And also a bit of an unexpected twist plus it rounds of Sonam's character beautifully, her motivations clear as day and pretty kick ass. The metamorphosis of Sonam Kapoor’s character from innocent 15-year old, to oppressed woman, to liberated woman who woos her man with a public kiss to wronged woman is amazingly done. While Dhanush’s character is far more lovable and larger, it’s also a bit straightforward (just a little bit). Soman’s character, now there’s a whopper. So so well written.

A couple of dei ex machina act a bit like flies in the ointment. But really small, tiny little insignificant flies. Which you just flick out and carry on with drinking your soup, cos it’s just so good. Which is also a bit confusing cos the original idiom dealt with ointment so where did the soup come from?Any which way, Raanjhanaa is a pretty amazing film.

P.S: Wonder what Raanjhanaa means. "Like Raanjhaa"? The parallels with Heer Ranjha are more than a bit obvious. Other than the fact that it's a pretty sardonic take on it, almost a caricature. A bit like Paranjpe's Katha was to the Hare and the Tortoise.

P.P.S: I've just been reliably informed that Raanjhanaa is just a corrupted/informal form of Raanjhaa.

Hindi-Turki Bhai Bhai

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(First published on NewYaps)

In an ancient capital, its people protest for, what could only be called, their legitimate rights. What’s more, the protests are largely peaceful and, at least initially, small. The government though reacts in an extremely high-handed manner. It takes the protestors to task, assaulting them violently. Water cannons, baton charges and even tear gas­—it’s fairly brutal.

You might be forgiven for thinking the picture I just painted is from one of the Arab ‘Springs’; Cairo, maybe or some other dictatorship where peaceful protests are as alien as sanity is to Mamata Banerjee. The “ancient capital” I described, though, is Istanbul, rocked by protests since last week. Ironically, this “ancient capital” could even be Delhi during the Nirbhaya protests.

Indeed, the similarities between the Turkey protests and the spate of urban protests that have rocked India since 2011 are quite a bit more than skin deep and represent striking parallels between two ancient societies as they adapt themselves to electoral democracy and all its bamboozling twists and turns.

Both protests have been led and, indeed, constituted by people who could be called urban elites. In both, the protestors have sneered at a properly elected democratic government and even questioned its legitimacy. And in both countries, the government has responded with force against largely peaceful protestors.

To understand why the urban elites in both Istanbul and Delhi are so peeved with their democracies, it’s instructive to take a step back and look at that term: “democracy”.

Democracy has historically been a tool for a country’s elites to share power amongst themselves. The origins of democracy in Britain, for example, are traced back to the Magna Carta of 1215. Unlike what is popularly understood to be democracy, all the document did was to force the King to share power with a small group of feudal barons. This is, of course, not to discount the historical importance of the document but just to illustrate how far away from the modern concept of one-man-one-vote democracy it is. In Britain, the concept of democracy as a rich man’s game was to persevere for some time. In the early 1800s very few Britons—less than 2%—had the right to vote. Till 1832, only landowners could vote and right up till the early 20^th century there were various restrictions based on sex and income which had to be satisfied if you wanted to have a say in who ruled over you. It was only in 1928 that all British adults achieved the right to vote. To put that in perspective, the concept of an egalitarian democracy (can there be any other sort?) is only 85 years old in the country that’s widely considered a model for modern democracy worldwide. Even in India, the electorate for our Constituent Assembly only consisted of 10% of the country’s population since there were income restrictions in place at the time if you wanted to vote. In effect, the representatives who framed our constitution only represented the elite classes of our country. In 1947, if you were an aam aadmi, you literally had no representation, no voice in that august body. Which is why the assembly consisted primarily of rich, upper caste members. In fact, 75% of the assembly consisted of upper caste members when upper castes make up less than 15% of the population—that’s how elitist the House was.

The beginnings of the republic in Turkey were similarly elitist. Set up by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and a clique of westernised revolutionaries in 1923, the state was dominated by a small elite with Ataturk being a father-figure for the country much like Nehru till 1962. Ataturk was in favour of mass democracy but placed it on the back-burner in favour of carrying out radical reforms such as strict, French-style secularism and language reform (Turkish is today written in the Roman script as a result). After Ataturk, the army took it upon itself to defend the interests of Turkey’s elites, often deposing popularly elected governments in coups and maintains a strict often surreal form of secularism. In Turkey, for example, it is illegal to wear a fez since the dress was seen by Ataturk as Islamic and Ottoman.

In effect, throughout the history of what is called democratic rule, it’s been the rich and well-off that have called the shots: government of the elites, by the elites and for the elites.

In old, established polities like the UK, the transition from elite rule to a more broad-based power base has been gradual and taken its own time. In developing societies like India and Turkey, though, that transition was a bit more abrupt and, consequently, bumpier.

In India, even after the introduction of universal adult franchise in 1952, the elite castes dominated politics. But this changed with the introduction of the Mandal factor in Indian politics. Suddenly Indian politics, once the preserve of genteel, upper-caste folk, was invaded by rustic OBC and even SC leaders as their electorates strained for their voices to be heard in the corridors of power. This is the period which saw the rise of the bucolic Laloo and the irrepressible Mayawati. Many of these leaders were ridiculed, even hated, by the urban elites who despised their invasion into what was “once such a nice neighbourhood”.

Interestingly, something similar happened in Turkey with the election of the AKP (the current ruling party) in 2002. The army, mouthpiece of the elites, was mostly shut out of power as rustic “Anatolians” (the Turkish equivalent of the cow belt) took power.

At first the elites in India reacted to this new situation by retreating inwards. They cut themselves off from politics. Earlier elite Stephanians would, for example, join the civil services. Now they would prefer an MBA, wanting nothing to do with the government. Of course, insularity is hardly a long-term solution. Hence the recent eruptions since 2011 as urban elites in India struggle to snatch back the power they lost to the lower castes since the 1990s.

Similarly, in Turkey, while the park acted as catalyst, these protests seem largely to be driven by upper class dissatisfaction with the government, a fact that prompted Erdogan to boast (not untruthfully) "you bring one hundred thousand, we bring one million!"

Given the developments in the past decade, it’ll be impossible for both Turkey and India to go back fully to their old plutocratic ways. But the recent protests show that the elite classes of both countries will not let go of their privileges that easily.

The Language Revolt of 2013

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(First published on NewsYaps)

The Language Revolt has broken out, ladies and gentlemen. This is a battle for Human Civilisation as we know it.

The Words have risen.

To avoid any confusion, I will begin at the beginning and then go on till I reach the end. I will then stop.

Mankind’s history has been a long saga of man ruling over man. This social system is responsible for all order, all that’s good and all progress. But keeping this order intact is not easy, my friends. It requires hard work, brains and, most of all, language. For all of human history, language has been a perfect slave for the Rulers. You can have all the guns, tanks and armies in the world but your rule will be little less than a blimp if you do not have the Words fighting by your side. Whoever controls the Words has, throughout history, controlled the world.

But how, you ask?

An old master once remarked:” When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean”. We Rulers have perfected the art and science of controlling Words. The meanings of Words have been twisted, contorted and, in some cases, reinvented altogether to help control the Ruled. Armies and tanks control via force; and force, as Gandhiji has shown, is weak—it’s temporary and ephemeral. To really control people you need to mess with their tiny little heads. And for that we have Words. These little slave soldiers of ours go in and lock onto your brains. And from then on, we own you. You think what we want you to and, consequently, do what we want you to. Muhahaha! (the laugh’s corny, I know, but come on, it’s fun).

You don’t believe me do you? You think this is some kooky joke. You think I’m just making it all up like those IPL matches? Don’t worry, I have proof.

Democracy: What does it mean? Who does it benefit? Where do we get it? You’d think this was an easy one, right? Naah. “Democracy” is what the US imports into Iraq as it bombs it into rubble. “Democracy” is what India brings to the tribals in its forests as it strips the land of its minerals.

You see what we did there? We took an innocuous, well-meaning word and used it to mess with your brains, all so that we could propagate our rule. Smart, no?

But of course, all that’s coming to end! All of it! The bloody Words have stopped listening! They’ve suddenly developed a mind of their own; maybe even a conscience. They say they’ll only mean what they mean from now on. They won’t listen to us.

Which is why all we have now is chaos.

Just the other day, the US president wanted to praise his army of occupation in Iraq. “As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it,” is what he wanted to say.

But instead of “Freedom” what he said was “oil supplies”.

“As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our oil supplies are only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it.”

“Freedom” had had enough. It refused to comply. Obama was left dumbfounded. All his protestations, his anger was futile. Everyone knows you can’t threaten a Word. It’s too powerful.

And this spread across the world. In India, on Facebook, the word “Equality” revolted when used by a certain Mr Ravi Singh as he posted his third anti-reservation post of the day. “We want equality in college admissions” is what he wanted to post but the phrase “but want to conveniently paper over thousands of years of inequality” somehow got added on. You should have seen the look on his face.

The word “terrorism” now attaches itself to all acts of political violence even if the perpetrator is White or even a rioter from Gujarat. Indian politicians regularly trip up now when they use the word “justice”. Most of the times, they are unable to say anything and sometimes they end up saying “injustice” in its stead.

Indian families have stopped calling their daughters betaa and Fair and Lovely ads seem to be unable to use the word “beauty” when describing the after effects of their products.

McDonald’s, particularly, has been badly affected. Its slogan now is, “I’m meh-ing it”. “Low fat” chips have now become “low fat but still high calorie” chips. And Coke’s “Open Happiness” has become “Open Fatness”. Even the “Married yet innocent” matrimonial ads haven’t gotten away. The word “innocent” has been variously replaced by words such as “virgin” and even “recipient of hymen reconstructive surgery”.

It’s chaos, ladies and gentlemen, chaos.

A long time back, a certain Mr George Orwell (of Motihari, Bihar) had remarked that political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

And was he right. Imagine where humanity would be without a little bit of respectable murder and some gas. This Language Revolt is the end, ladies and gentlemen. I tell you, it’s the end.

An Open Letter to the Indian Cricket Fan

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(First published on NewsYaps)

Fellow BCCI™ Cricket Fans,

I am Ravi Kumar, a software engineer who lives in DLF™ Gurgaon. And I am sad. In fact I am downright angry. I am a regular Joe like you. I get up, take a Harpic™ dump, catch the Congress™ Metro, go to office, code and get back, tired as hell. Apollo Hospitals™life sucks, people, you all know that. If there’s one thing though that’s a bright Surf Excel™ spot in our lives, it’s the game of BCCI™ cricket. And what better showcase of that beautiful BCCI™ game is there than the Pepsi™ Indian Premier League. That brilliant idea in which India’s richest cities play for glory for two months of the year; and what a two months it is! Is there anything better than coming back from office and sitting down to 4 hours of the beautiful BCCI™ game? (The answer to that question, in case you were wondering, is ‘No’). A few Yes Bank™ Maximums and Maxmobile™ Strategic Timeouts later you’re on your way to bliss.

But lately that Kurl-On™ dream has been shattered. Shattered! (As I write this a Johnson’s No-More-Tears Shampoo™ tear rolls down my cheek). Apparently, there is Indian Parliament™ corruption in the IPL.  The BCCI™ game, pristine as it was, has been Daagh Acche Hain™ muddied.

Three Sahara™ players have been arrested by the Rapists ache hain™ Delhi Police for spot-fixing. Imagine that. It’s almost like all the games I watched and followed with Durex™ passion have no meaning anymore. It’s like, it’s all hollow. What will I do the next time someone hits a Yes Bank™ Maximum? Should I Vicks™ cheer? Or just sit there, knowing that it’s probably all a Red Chillies™ charade.  As an Airtel™ friend recently remarked, now that the BCCI™ cricket’s probably fake, all we’ll be left with is Karishma Kotak, Rochelle Maria Rao, the cheerleaders, the award ceremony, the hour long pre and post match TV shows and the after-parties. Sigh. This spot-fixing episode has clearly killed the game.

You know what this episode means though? It means that, at last, Ayn Rand™ greed has entered even the pure game of BCCI™ cricket. Earlier all cricketers played for was pride and KamaSutra™ love of the game. In fact, in just the latest Pepsi™ ad they show Dhoni enjoying the BCCI™ game so much that it warmed the cockles of my Hallmark™ heart. “What a man,” I thought. “Enjoys BCCI™ cricket even when shooting for an ad”. But all that’s dead now. This shows that the IPL was once all about the BCCI™ cricket but today...today players will even play for RBI™ money.

And what about the nation? Did these scumbags even once think about the millions of their fans who give up everything to watch them in Thums-Up™ action? This act is so anti-national that I won’t be surprised if ISI™ Pakistan is involved. Just take my example. What haven’t I done for the Pepsi™ IPL? I’ve regularly jumped red-lights on my way home from office because I’m usually late for the pre-match show. In fact, at one time I was even caught and had to bribe a policeman in order to wriggle out (missed the pre-match show that day, sadly). As I paid him the money, though, I had no regrets: nothing is too big a price to pay for the country. And why only me? Millions of our fellow countrymen give up productive work, family, friends and do their national duty everyday by plonking themselves down in front of the TV all evening. And it’s this great national sacrifice that these guttersnipes have mocked with this act. We might have hanged Kasab but till people like these are allowed to roam free, our nation will never be Bisleri™ safe, ladies and gentlemen, it’ll never be Bisleri™ safe.

It’s just greed is what it is. These players earn so much and still want to earn some more. Look at me. I own a car and a flat in a metro which puts me in the top 0.1% of Indians. But do I act greedy? Do I indulge in questionable tax-evading tactics to save just that little bit more? Do I back-stab people in office to get that promotion? Do I? The answer to all these questions is...er...well, since these are rhetorical questions I don’t really need to answer them. But I will say one thing: it is fun to sermonise. Wheee!

Anyhoo, gotta run now, guys. Arnab will be on TV soon thrashing everyone left, right and centre, demanding answers for the nation and making wrong-doers quake in their Bata™ boots. In fact, he’s just started! Look at his opening salvo: “We will be closely involved in this case because YOUR love for cricket is NOT for sale”. His EMI™ voice makes me go weak in the knees. And it sounds so goood on my new TV which I bought only because my favourite cricketer models for it. But I digress. Yes! My love for cricket is not for sale and it’s a shame what these people have done.

Now, Tata™.

A True Cricket Havell’s™ Fan,

Ravi Kumar

Zabaan Sambhaal Ke: The Evolution of Language in Bollywood

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(First published on NewsYaps)

The elite in India treat their own languages rather oddly. We live our lives in our mother tongues but when it comes to anything serious, say education or for that matter, online articles (ahem!), we immediately turn to English. As a result, our languages are extremely stunted when it comes to being used as vehicles of our own culture. India’s most talked about novelist, for example, isn’t a Hindi, Bengali or Tamil writer, it’s, whether you like him or not, Chetan Bhagat. In all of this, cinema comes as breath of fresh air. It’s the only place where the masses as well as the elite come together and partake of art in their own language. Which is why it’s so interesting to see how cinema, and specifically Bollywood—as it completes its a hundred years—uses language to express itself.

Since this is a piece on the language Bollywood uses, I'm going to start by defining a few terms. Firstly, I am going to consider Hindi and Urdu to be the same language. This is not my personal opinion but the standard linguistic view given the two have identical grammar. Of course, that’s not to say that there are no differences within the language. The language exists in a continuum where you can use Persian words (Urdu) or Sanskrit words (Hindi) to express yourself. So for the sake of this article, I will refer to this common language as Hindustani and affix Persianised or Sanskritised as adjectives wherever necessary. So, for example, Ghalib's poems are written in Persianised Hindustani and Dinkar's in Sanskritised Hindustani. Capiche?

The Beginning (1930s-1960s)

Unlike Ghalib or Dinkar’s poetry, though, Bollywood has always been a commercial endeavour, a means to make money. For this, it has always had to cater to the lowest common denominator which means that the language it has had to use has always been the popular, day-to-day dialect that is spoken in cities across North India. Back when talkies first came into being, everyday Hindustani, not very different from what we speak today (minus the English vocabulary), ruled the roost as an everyday language and lingua franca. However, a highly Persianised idiom was also popular, given its wide spread as the official register of education and administration (Urdu along with English were the two official languages of British India). Modern Sanskritised Hindustani (Shudh Hindi) was still in its infancy then—the first work of literature in that register had come out as late as 1888—the novel Chandrakanta, which was, a century later, made into the extremely popular TV show. So, for example, when Ram Prasad Bismil wanted to write a popular song of resistance, he penned down the fairly Persianised Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna. While that song is still extremely popular today, most people wouldn’t even know what the word ‘sarfarosh’ in its title means (farosh means vendor. The word, therefore, means someone who is ready to give away his head i.e. a daredevil). Same goes for Netaji’s INA, two-thirds of whose motto, “Ittehad , Itmad aur Qurbani” (unity, faith and sacrifice) would seem incomprehensible to Indians today given its heavy Persian tilt. And when Gandhi wanted to promote a new system of education he gave it the name Nai Taaleem and did not, as the government does today, use the word shikshaa.

Given this state of affairs at the time, it’s not surprising that Bollywood started off with a Persianised idiom. The name of the first talkie—Alam Ara (Adorning the World)—itself attests to that. And while it would need to be “translated” for most Indians today, the film’s success meant that at the time everybody did get the meaning just fine.

The real force of Persianisation, though, wasn’t in the titles or the dialogues, which were still, more or less, in everyday Hindustani, it was in the lyrics. Nobody typifies this more than Sahir Ludhianvi who, like many lyricists at that time, was also an Urdu poet. Here’s a sample of some of the words from his most famous film, Pyaasa (taken from the song, Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par Vo Kahaan Hain :

Muhaafiz, ismat, zard, dareechon, fiqare, tanuumand, ham-jins, ummat, rehbaron, manzar

Bet you didn’t get too many. While this song was written only 50-odd years back, given its vocabulary, it’ll be incomprehensible to most today. India, in 1957, though, was a very different country. Far from being incomprehensible, the songs of Pyaasa were, to use a Bollywood term, a super hit and Sahir was the star credited for their success. In fact, so miffed was SD Burman (the composer for Pyaasa) for the attention and acclaim that Sahir got, that he refused to work with him from then on. Pyaasa made Sahir such a celebrity that he actually got paid more than the singers who sang his lyrics, something that would be unheard of today.

In the Middle (1970s-1980s)

30 years and counting as a free country, India had a whole new generation without any formal Urdu education. To quote from a Sahir poem written in 1968:

Jin shehron may goonji thi Ghalib ki nava barson
Un shehron may ab Urdu benaam-o-nishan thehri

(Cities, where for years Ghalib’s voice echoed/In those very cities, Urdu is now without a trace)

Without formal education, the capacity of the paying public to follow highly Persianised vocabulary declined. “Yeh public hai, sab janti hai”(the public knows everything) sang Rajesh Khanna for Roti. Bollwywood’s faith in the public was just as strong. Given its audience’s new linguistic capabilities, it toned down some of its own high falutin’ Persian vocabulary. Sahir himself had to adapt. His most famous song from the period, Kabhie Kabhie is a highly simplified version of one of his poems (recited by Amitabh’s character here).

This period saw a very interesting linguistic trend. For half a century now, Bollywood had used a register oscillating between everyday Hindustani and Persianised Hindustani to express itself. But 30 years after independence, the development of Sanskritised Hindustani had made Shudh Hindi a player as well. And, moreover, given its use by academia, literature and the government, the register carried a weightiness of its own. This is why, as Mukul Kesavan notes in his fantastic essay, Urdu, Awadh and Tawaif: the Islamicate Roots of Hindi Cinema, when directors such as Benegal and Nihalani wanted to title their New Wave films, they chose Sanskritised names such as Ankur, Nishant, Manthan, Bhumika, Akrosh and Ardhsatya. They wanted a clear demarcation between the mainstream, “song-and-dance” Bollywood and themselves. Choosing weighty Sanskritised titles, never used before in the industry, helped them achieve that branding.

Now (1990s- )

A spurt of old-style Persianised lyrics came in the 90s. Unfortunately, however, these were the last throes of a dying animal. This period is typified by the cringe-inducing vacuousness of Sameer with his endless cycle of sanams and saajans, dils and mohabbat. More of a caricature than anything else.

It took some time but as Bollywood entered the 2000s, it had made yet another linguistic shift. This time it introduced a language with generous helpings of English vocabulary, in keeping with the current register prevalent in urban India and even in large parts of rural India. While on a trip to Chhapra in Bihar, a waiter in a local dhaba was unable to understand me when I asked him whether he had any “ghosht” or “maans” dishes. Comprehension dawned on him though when I used the word “meat”. That’s how embedded English vocabulary is in India today so it’s not surprising that Bollywood has followed suit.

Just take a look at some of our recent film titles: Mere Dad Ki Maruti, I Me aur Main, Murder, Anybody can Dance, No one Killed Jessica, Bodyguard, Rockstar, Agent Vinod, Vicky Donor, I Hate Love Storys...you get the point. English vocabulary is today a significant part of Bollywood’s reality.

“I can talk English. I can walk English. I can laugh English. Because English is a very phunny language,” rattled off Amitabh Bacchan’s character in the 1982 movie Namal Halal, poking fun at the Queen’s language. In 2007 though, one of Bheja Fry’s main comedic elements was the fact that the character of Bharat Bhushan (Vinay Pathak) spoke purely in Hindi. In less than three decades Bollywood went from making fun of English to being made fun of because one did not know the language.

The last bastion that English vocabulary is still to breach in Bollywood remains song lyrics. This is a hurdle that, interestingly, Sanskritised Hindustani has still not been able to clear. Songs would still use a dil rather than hriday, kismat rather than bhagya and khoon rather than rakt. In fact, the Sanskritised Hindustani equivalents, if used, would sound downright odd in some cases. English, though, has had better luck.  In Karan Johar’s saccharine sweet family saga, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Hrithik Roshan woos Kareena by crooning, “You are my Sonia” as a crowd of blondes gyrate behind him. Sheila’s introduction to her fans is “My name is Sheila” and, while in an earlier age, love would drive people paagal or deewaana, Aishwariya, instead, is driven “crazy” in Dhoom 2 by her lover’s charms.  Even Gulzar had to bend, getting his characters to ask “personal” questions (Kajrare from Bunty and Bubbly). That said, as the recent song Khushamdeed (Go Goa Gone) shows, Persianised vocabulary does pop up now and then as far as lyrics go even as more Anglicised vocabulary takes over the dialogues.

Given the trend, though, it’s only a matter of time before the industry switches completely to Hinglish as the standard medium of expression. If you’re a purist, this might make you sad. Tough cookies but Bollywood really doesn’t care. It has accurately reflected the way Indians speak for 80 years now and that’s something that is not going to change.

Locking Away History

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(First published on NewsYaps)

King George V’s Coronation Memorial

In 1832, after a decade of fighting, Greece managed to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire. Greece had been under Ottoman rule for almost four centuries now, a period that had seen numerous revolts. Naturally, when independence was finally achieved, passions ran high. The new Greek state, therefore, embarked on a campaign to destroy as many Ottoman buildings as it could. Of this destruction spree, the most famous is the demolition drive at the Acropolis including that of a small mosque inside the Parthenon. Independence wasn’t enough. Greece wanted to erase all vestiges of its past as a part of the Ottoman Empire.

Like Greece, India has also had to grapple with the thorny issue of how to deal with an unpleasant period of colonialism. India’s reaction to British rule, though, was and is complex. To understand just how complex, though, you'll need to take a trip to North Delhi’s Coronation Park.

The Coronation Park, as the name suggests, was a site used to celebrate the British Monarchy at a time when they ruled over India. In 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India at this site. In 1903, her son’s coronation was commemorated here. And finally in 1911, the park saw its final and grandest ceremony which celebrated the coronation of King George V.  The final ceremony is marked by a bare sandstone obelisk at the centre of the park. Built on a square plinth, which is reached from all four sides by flights of stairs, the obelisk carries plaques in English and Urdu noting that the new emperor had received “homage and allegiance” from India’s people and princes. Indeed, Ahmed Ali’s classic Old Delhi novel, Twilight in Delhi bitterly recounts how some of the city’s residents had bowed and scrapped to the Emperor on that day—apparently even the walls of the Jama Masjid were emblazoned with gold letters to mark the occasion.

What’s most interesting though are the 5 marble statues which surround the obelisk. You’ll immediately recognise them as British and that’s exactly what they are. The largest is a 50-foot tall statue of King George V which sits there triumphantly facing its own coronation memorial.  The other statues are of various viceroys and architects.

These statues once adorned intersections all over Delhi and were transported here sometime after independence. Greece might have decided to run away from its history by obliterating it but our approach was a bit more nuanced. We hid the most obvious markers of our colonial past, the statues of our rulers, in an obscure park no one would even think of going to. Clever, eh. Yet

, our new rulers kept on residing in the very buildings that were also built by the British. Ironically, the statue of King George V was designed by architect Edward Lutyens, the same man who built Rashtrapati Bhavan and indeed the entire zone called Lutyens’ Delhi in which the crème de la crème of our political class now have their bungalows in.

An unknown statue with an Ashok Chakra panel next to it. The panels are a later addition and were a part of the plan to reopen the park on Delhi’s centenary. Bureaucratic delays, though, meant that 2 years after the centenary, the park has yet to be opened to the public.

R.K. Narayan had once noted this irony in a lovely short story called Lawely Road. At independence, the town of Malgudi, at great cost and pain, manages to remove a statue of one Sir Frederick Lawley, whom they believe had been “a combination of Attila, the Scourge of Europe, and Nadir Shah, with the craftiness of a Machiavelli.” In a typically humorous Narayan twist though, it’s only after the statue has been removed (the recalcitrant statue had to be blown up using dynamite) that the town municipality learns that Lawley had, in fact, been a virtuous governor who had advocated for India’s independence and died in the attempt to save villagers from drowning in a flood.

India has had a complex relationship with its colonial past. On the one hand there is revulsion, even hate, not surprising given the hugely destructive consequences of British rule. This statue uprooting is not confined to Delhi. Bombay’s best kept secret is a small, ramshackle 6X5 feet corrugated tin shed besides Elphinstone College. If you peek through a hole in the shed’s wall you’ll see the ghostly silhouettes of the statues of King George V and King Edward VIII in full military splendour. As in Delhi, these statues once dotted the city. Bombay, though, was so ashamed of these relics of its past that it actually locked them away, lest their presence corrupt the nation. It’s no wonder that a few decades later, the city changed its very name.

Our revulsion, though, is tempered by the fact that we are also products of colonialism. Our government takes large chunks of its functioning from the colonial state which it succeeded. Our police and the IAS, the two pillars of our administration, still function exactly as our colonial masters meant them to.  Our elites (and that means you, dear reader) read, write and, increasingly, speak in English. And, in what is almost poetic in its symbolism, our Parliament functions out of a structure built by the Raj. The complexity of our relationship with our colonial past is bought out by the fact that Calcutta’s most famous public space, the Victoria Memorial still carries the actual statue of its plump namesake, sitting pretty on a throne, patiently accepting pigeon droppings as morning walkers pace frantically around her. Unlike Delhi and Bombay, Calcutta, it seems, is not scared by dead monarchs. And while Bombay hides away its King George V statue, the Gateway of India—built to commemorate the same monarch’s 1911 visit to India—still functions as an emblem of Bombay...sorry, Mumbai. Talk about confused notions of shame and pride.

The fact is, whether we like it or not, we are products of our past. We might not like the past but that does not change the fact that we exist because if it. Attempts to deny history are fraught with danger and are, ultimately, useless. To deny our past, good or bad, is to deny who we are. And that can never be a good thing.