SONGS OF INTEGRATION

SONGS OF INTEGRATION

After many years I visited Vizag ( Visakhapatnam ) recently. My friends, those who had stayed in that city were in praise of its rapid progress and development. It was hailed as the ‘Goa of the east’ during the NTR era.

As my vehicle moved toward the city from the Airport the Telugu film posters drew my attention and I slipped into the past reminiscing of my tenure in the city in 1983 when large number of ‘Hindi’ cinema was screened and ‘Telugu’ cinema was emerging. People saw Hindi films as probably they had no option. However when I returned to the city in 1989/90 the ‘Telugu’ cinema had taken over along with the NTR wave. Hindi cinema was hardly available and was pushed to the fringes. On this occasion too I noticed that the hoardings of cinema were dominated by Telugu stars. When I explored the city further I noticed that all the advertisements, notices and signboards were either in English or Telugu, Hindi was not traceable nor any film posters were visible, though my driver spoke to me in Hindi. Therefore there was wide spread development and also the regional culture was in upswing along with the Ganesh festival and many pandals were decorated and immersions at the prescribed dates were occurring. One remarkable aspect of Vizag has been its adoption of other cultures. Durga pooja too is celebrated with devotion and zeal befitting the occasion; a culture imbibed from the adjoining states of Orissa and West Bengal. Ganesh, of course popularised by Tilak in Maharashtra and celebrated with gusto has made impact on Telugu culture by the reach of Television.

As is customary a few of my friends invited me to dinner at a prominent sea side Hotel. After some time my host asked me if I was interested in listening to the ‘live music’ by one ‘Babu’, so as not to displease my friend I agreed and we moved to an open space near to the sea in the Hotel premises where Babu ,with a cap on was singing Hindi film songs. His songs were not of recent times but of the sixties and seventies- Hemant Kumar, Mohamad Rafi and Kishore Kumar. He played some of our requests too and the guests seemed to be enjoying themselves including some children, I wondered as to how many of those were ‘Hindi speaking’. The next day the organisers of the conference held a ‘Dinner party’ in another sea side Hotel, there too one ‘David’ was singularly enthralling the guests with his fine selection of Hindi film songs mostly of the ‘Golden era’.

On my return to my Hotel room I was thinking that a fortnight in September is devoted to the promotion of Hindi in Government Offices. The National language is relegated to such a status that it requires such ‘steroids’ for sustenance and even then most participate to register attendance , in real terms it has not helped in usage of the Language.

Real promotion of the ‘Hindustani Zuban’ is being made by the songs of Hindi films specially from the old era when ‘emotion’ was of value. They sure were ‘songs of Integration’ ; of Hearts.

CULTURE AND CINEMA

CULTURE AND CINEMA

Any form of Art be it painting, dance, music or Cinema is rooted to a culture; though it may be an attempt to escape from it. However it does not necessary imply that since it is linked to a culture it lacks universal appeal. Culture remains a backdrop against which it operates. Though ‘Fine Arts’ is a field which has a universal appeal as these are appreciated more through our senses than our mind. Expressions of Art which are conveyed through people as medium are more popular and yet more rooted to a ‘ geographical location’. My reference is to Cinema and Theatre which are more people oriented than the other expressions . These are also collective expressions unlike painting and music which are largely individual . Cultural exchanges among Nations also takes place between popular Art as it involves people.

Understanding and appreciation of Art requires a mind which is free of prejudice as well as suppression. Our generation watched English Cinema and Theatre not only for entertainment but also under the compulsion of the ‘cultural imperialism’ which was the result of colonialism. It is true that we hardly understood the ‘dialogues’ and the setting too was alien to us . Be it the Westerns depicting gunfights in the bars with liquor bottles and furniture breaking whilst the actors muttered something incomprehensible to us , but we posed to have understood and enjoyed it under the colonial burden. The romantic interludes between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton too was away from our reality though subconsciously we were enamoured of the explicit love making scenes and revealing attire as the same was unavailable amidst our environment . However despite the complexity of our response , we were fascinated by the drama and spectacle and did feel the universal emotion and themes of Roman Holiday, Benhur, The ten Commandments and the many silent movies of Charlie Chaplin era. The conflicts presented in these Cinema were universal and transcended cultural barriers. Over the years owing to the impact of television the urban masses too have been drawn to the Hollywood science fiction , adventure and action thrillers. The flatness of the world has helped in enhancing understanding.

However the purpose of my writing this article was not to explore for justification for invasion of western culture in cinema but to highlight the importance and relevance of ‘culture’ in cinema and how it affects our very appreciation of the medium in general and understanding of performance of characters in particular. Often we rave about performance of great actors such as Marlon Brando, Al Pachino, Robert de Nero, Richard Burton and very many. We participate in animated discussions about their roles and in our zest to emphasise or to make a point we rate them on higher pedestal than our Indian actors. But, is it really true? Or we are according superiority of performance to superiority of technology ? How competent we are to be so assertively declare the western performance paramount ? As said earlier, each performance is rooted to a ‘culture’ which has a geographical and historical context. Therefore those who are familiar with that culture are better equipped to understand and be critical of that performance. However in most cases we are affected by the ‘dominance’ of the alien culture and cover our ignorance or lack of comprehension by according appreciation and offering exaggerated praise. There is undisputed opinion about the greatness of Marlon Brando for his performance in ‘A Street car named desire’, ‘ on the waterfront’, ‘Julies Caesar’ and finally culminating ‘The Godfather’. He underplayed his role ,spoke little, even when oratory was expected such as in his role as Mark Anthony in Julies Caesar but he delivered his speech in a casual manner without much formal trappings of the Roman period. But it appears quite strange for us to be in the forefront of the critical appreciation when our understanding of the mannerism, language, dressing style is limited. We are so blinded by the standards of ‘western acting expressions’ that we tend to overlook our ‘local’ talent as much of it remains unnoticed. We should accord the same seriousness in understanding the acting of our legends such as Moti Lal, Balraj Sahni , Ashok Kumar and others as we do to foreign actors and judge them by our ‘cultural’ standards rather than looking for ‘western’ style in them and feeling unsatisfied.

Ironically in a heterogeneous society of ours the ‘dominant’ or the ‘ruling’ class sets the cultural standards and despite remarkable performances of Artistes depicting rural culture/small town milieu the urban elite sets the parameters of critical appreciation.