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100 Years, 100 Movies – Action Cinema

100 Years, 100 Movies – Action Cinema

Archive, Cinema

The Indian action film is more than just the underworld genre and freely explores a combination of action/crime subgenre like heists, revenge sagas and spy thrillers, some with astounding authenticity.

SHOLAY (1975) – Hindi – Thakur Baldev Singh, a former police officer, hires two petty thieves, Jay and Veeru, to capture alive the dreaded dacoit, Gabbar Singh so he can exact revenge for the massacre of his family.

DEEWAR (1975) – Hindi – When their father, branded a criminal, deserts them, Vijay and Ravi are raised by their righteous mother. While Vijay works at the docks to support the family, and eventually becomes a gangster, in a twist of fate, his brother becomes a cop.

PARINDA (1989) – Hindi – Kishan wants to shield his brother Karan from the underworld but when a friend is murdered, Karan plots revenge by setting off one gang against another. When Karan and his new bride are brutally murdered, it becomes Kishan’s cause to bring down Anna, who is responsible for all the mayhem.

DON (1978, 2006, 2011) – Hindi – Remade in 2006 with a sequel in 2011, the original story is about Rita joining the gang headed by the notorious criminal, Don, in order to avenge her sister’s death. She discovers that in reality, Don is already dead and at the police’s behest Vijay is masquerading as amnesiac Don to infiltrate the gang to get Don’s diary.

SHIVA (1989/1990) – Telugu/Hindi – Shiva, a new student in college, becomes a threat to JD, a powerful Student Union Leader with political connections. Shiva ultimately ends up antagonising JD’s boss, Bhavani who sets out to annihilate him and those close to him.

SATYA (1998) – Hindi – Satya arrives in Mumbai to make an honest living. When he is sent to prison on false charges, he meets Bhiku and joins his gang. As Satya slips deeper into the world of crime, his chances of having a normal life seem increasingly distant.

BLACK FRIDAY (2004) – Hindi – The film pieces together the motives, the planning, execution and investigations surrounding the 1993 serial blasts that ripped through Mumbai.

MAGADHEERA (2009) – Telugu – Harsha, implicated in the murder of his lover’s father, tries to remind her that in a previous lifetime, he was a warrior who fell in love with her, a princess, and their life was brutally cut short by the man reborn as Indu’s evil cousin in this lifetime.

ARANYA KANDAM (2011) – Tamil – A little boy and his guileless father come upon a bag of cocaine and get caught in the midst of a gang war triggered by the presumed double-crossing of Pasupathi for whom the cocaine becomes ransom to free his kidnapped wife.

VISWAROOPAM (2013) – Tamil – Nirupama, a nuclear oncologist, hires a detective to trail her effete Kathak-dancer husband Viz who seems to be harbouring some secrets. This inadvertently triggers off a series of happenings that reveal the truth about Viz to be more complex than she imagined.

An edited version of the article was published in Culturama’s May 2013 Issue.

100 Years, 100 Movies – Romance

100 Years, 100 Movies – Romance

Archive, Cinema

It’s not all song and dance when it comes to Indian romance movies – there are many impediments in the path of love, like the rich-poor divide, caste, religion, jealousy and even death!

AWARA (1951) – Hindi – Rita meets her childhood friend, Raj after many years, and they fall in love. However, Raj happens to be a petty criminal thanks to Jagga who was wronged many years ago, by Raj’s estranged father. Of course, love triumphs against social divides in the end.

MADHUMATI (1958) – Hindi – A classic Indian tale of rebirth and memories of other lifetimes, Madhumati is about an engineer who visits an old house whose objects trigger memories of a previous lifetime, when his relationship with a winsome tribal girl was violently thwarted by his employer.

CHEMMEEN (1965)– Malayalam – Set in the fishing community of Kerala’s sea coast, this story is of a fisherwoman who sacrifices her love and marries another. When she meets her old lover again, little does she know that the sea would claim its toll for her infidelity.

CHATTAKARI (1974)/JULIE (1975) – Malayalam/Hindi – An Anglo-Indian Christian girl falls in love with her Hindu best friend’s brother and has his child out of wedlock. When her lover’s mother refuses to accept her, she is all set to migrate to England.

MOONDRAM PIRAI (1982) – Tamil – Cheenu rescues a young woman with regressive amnesia from a brothel and takes her away to pristine Ooty where he becomes part-parent, part-friend to this child-woman. He struggles to keep intact this near-perfect life, but the world begins to intrude.

QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK (1988) – Hindi – Cast in the classic Romeo & Juliet mould, QSQT, as it is lovingly called, is the story of the tender romance that blossoms between a young man and young woman from two feuding families, leading to the inevitable tragic end.

GEETHANJALI (1989) – Telugu – When Prakash moves to his holiday home in Ooty to come to terms with the news of his terminal illness, he meets and falls in love with a gregarious young prankster who changes his perspective on life.

KANDUKONDAIN KANDUKONDAIN (2000) – Tamil – Adapted from Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, this is the story of reticent Sowmya and hopeless romantic Meenu who end up supporting their family when they lose their inheritance. The sisters go through much heartbreak and learn to discern between romance and love.

RAINCOAT (2004) – Hindi – Manu travels to Kolkata to drum up funds for a business. He meets his old love, Neeru, and over one rainy afternoon, the two reminisce about days past, each trying to hide one’s real economical condition from the other. Adapted from O’Henry’s The Gift of the Magi.

JODHAA AKBAR (2008)- Hindi/Urdu – The movie recasts the tal of Mughal emperor Akbar and his Rajput Hindu wife, Jodhaa Bai as a love story, portraying them as individualistic personalities whose marriage starts out as a strategic alliance but turns into a relationship between equals.

An edited version of the article was published in Culturama’s May 2013 Issue.
100 Years, 100 Movies – Comedies

100 Years, 100 Movies – Comedies

Archive, Cinema

Indian comedies are replete with stories of mistaken identities, fake identities, assumed identities, being at the wrong place at the wrong time and ingenious ploys by ordinary people. That’s not to say they don’t have place for all the ‘masala’ elements – romance, fights, high drama and songs. 

CHUPKE CHUPKE (1975) – Hindi – A Wodehouseian plot where a newly married man plays a prank on his wife’s unsuspecting family, by masquerading as her car driver and asking a friend to assume his identity as the husband.

THILLU MULLU (1981)– Tamil – In order to land a job, Chandran assumes a serious demeanour and a fake moustache. When his deception is almost discovered by his boss, he ends up having to create a fake identity – that of an irresponsible, moustache-less, twin brother, Indran.

ANGOOR (1982)– Hindi – Based on Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors, Angoor is about two sets of twins – each child is separated from his own twin, but grows up with a child from the other twin set. To add to the confusion, each set has identical names – twin Ashoks and twin Bahadurs!

PUSHPAK / PESUM PADAM(1987) – Silent– An unemployed youth assumes the identity of a millionnaire to get a taste of the good life. The movie reinterprets the silent film genre using expression, body language, music and symbolism in the absence of dialogue in this dark comedy.

CHITHRAM (1988) – Malayalam – Kalyani hires Vishnu to act as her husband, projecting the picture of a happy marriage to her visiting father. Although they bicker constantly, Kalyani soon falls in love with Vishnu, who hides a tragic secret.

HYDERABAD BLUES (1998) – English – A low budget realistic comedy about a young NRI who visits his hometown, Hyderabad, on vacation, and resists relentless pressure from his parents to get him ‘arrange-married’ in a hurry.

KHOSLA KA GHOSLA (2006) – When all efforts by legal means fail, a beleaguered Khosla and his middle-class family set a trap for Khurana, the land-shark, to beat him at his own game and retrieve their piece of land from him.

SA-RO-JA (2008) – Tamil – In this comic thriller, four young men, en route to Hyderabad to watch a cricket match, take a detour off the highway. They reach an abandoned factory which they discover is a kidnapper’s den where a schoolgirl is being held captive.

3 IDIOTS (2009) – Hindi – Raju and Farhan uncover the fascinating story of their best friend from college, the ingenious Rancho, who believed in learning for its own sake and had thereby invited the wrath of the placement-focussed principal.

EEGA (2012) – Telugu – When a wealthy industrialist discovers that the young girl he’s smitten by is already in love with a young man, he has him murdered. The young man is reborn as an animated housefly and sets about wreaking havoc in the industrialist’s life.

An edited version of the article was published in Culturama’s May 2013 Issue.
SMS – Music – Quartet Genius Series

SMS – Music – Quartet Genius Series

Archive, Others

What is this series about?
Carnatic music is a system of Indian classical music that originated in South India. This series showcases four renowned 18th and 19th century Carnatic composers through some of their krithis (composition structures combining lyrics and melody), set to a raaga (specific combination of musical notes) and rendered by some of the most popular contemporary musicians today.

Who is it by?
This series features the work of four of the genre’s greatest names – Thyagaraja, Shyama Shastri, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Swati Tirunal – sung by some of the well-known musical talents of today including Bombay S. Jayashri, T.M. Krishna, Nithyashree Mahadevan, P. Unnikrishnan, Sudha Ragunathan, Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Hyderabad Brothers and Neyveli R. Santhanagopalan.

Why should listen to it?
This album does not attempt to teach an appreciation of Carnatic music, nor is it a definitive album on Carnatic music. However, it does come close to providing a familiarity through repeated listening, of the genre, the composers’ signature styles and the musical prowess of the vocalists. Especially useful to those interested in attending the Music Season concerts in Chennai all this month.

An edited version of the article was published in Culturama’s December 2012 Issue.

SMS – Games Indians Play – Athletics

SMS – Games Indians Play – Athletics

Archive, Others

Who would have thought that the first person to have represented India at the Olympics in athletics was of British descent? Norman Pritchard won two silver medals (Men’s 2oo metres and 200 metres hurdles) in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris but the question of his representing India or England is controversial. Milkha Singh, nicknamed The Flying Sikh represented Indian in the 1956 Olympics and won two golds at the 1958 Asian Games. At the 1982 Asian Games, athletes like P.T. Usha, Shiny Wilson and M.D. Valsamma put India’s name on the world athletics map by winning a total of 20 medals. Other notable names include T.C. Yohannan, Sriram Singh, Jyotirmayee Sikdar, Saraswati Saha, Anju Bobby George and Chand Ram. While Indian states have their own training academies, athletes like P.T. Usha have opened coaching schools to mentor young and rising stars to go on to participate in competitive events including the Olympics.

An edited version of the article was published in Culturama's December 2012 Issue.

SMS – Indian Languages – Bengali/Bangla

SMS – Indian Languages – Bengali/Bangla

Archive, Others

Until 1905, West Bengal and East Bengal (now Bangladesh) were the same state and the language spoken across the region was Bengali or colloquially, Bangla (Baa-ng-laa). According to the 2001 Indian census, there are 83,369,769 speakers of the language in the country making it at that time, the second most spoken language in India. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is credited with refining the Bengali alphabet and simplifying the type. For an insight into the concept of bhakti (devotion), patriotic fervour in pre-Independent Bengal or the abolition of the zamindari system, one needs to look no further than the treasure trove of Bengali literature. The most prolific and perhaps best known name in Bengali literature is that of the Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. Apart from short stories, novels and poems, Tagore also wrote the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. Spoken Bengali varies from its written form. So, while the greeting, ‘Namaskar’ is written in Bengali as having an ‘a’ vowel, it is pronounced as ‘nomoshkor‘. Also, among the words that are common to Bengali and other Indian languages, those with a ‘va’ alphabet are pronounced as ‘ba’. So, Monday is ‘som-vaar’ in many of India’s languages, but pronounced in Bengali as ‘som-baar’. When in Bengal, if all else fails and you are unable to understand what is being said, simply say, ‘Ami bangaali boli naa – tumi ki, English bolte paro?’ or ‘I don’t speak Bengali – do you speak English?’
An edited version of the article was published in Culturama's December 2012 Issue.

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