Filmi Belles from the South, Part II - Waheeda Rehman

Like a million men before me, I fell in love with Waheeda Rehman at age 21. If you’ve watched her movies, especially the early ones, I don’t have to tell you why. Among other things, I think I particularly fell for the way her luxuriant hair seemed to grow all the way past the temples from the sides of her forehead.

There’s so much about Waheeda Rehman on the net and on other blogs that there is scarcely anything original for me to write about. I knew from early on that her origins lay down south. On a visit to the leather industry town of Ranipet many years ago my aunt proudly spoke of her as a ‘Ranipettai girl’. This, I realised only recently, was slightly off the mark for she was actually born in the neighbouring district town of Chengalpattu, or Chingleput as it was known in her time. Minor inaccuracies apart, the fact is that life took her a long way across the Palar, the river that flows past both Ranipet and Chengalpattu en route to the Bay of Bengal. (I imagine that it carried a lot more water seventy years ago than it does today. Industry has killed this river but we’ll talk about it another day.)

Like Vyjayanthimala (see earlier post), her illustrious peer from the south, Waheeda Rehman was a skilled danseuse who put her skills to good use. Unlike her, however, she did not act in a single Tamil (or Malayalam or Kannada) movie even though her career originated in Telugu filmdom in Chennai. (There being no Ramoji Rao Film City in the early 1950s, and the Nizam having become the ex-Nizam, Hyderabad had only the Char Minar.) This was, of course, before she was whisked away, barely two films old, to Bombay by Guru Dutt.

Despite her long innings and rich repertoire as a leading lady it is in the early part of her career that I count my favourite characters. The novitiate debutante brings to the screen a certain energy that remains unmatched in its naivete and freshness. So here we go as Gulabo the prostitute, all grace and risqué elegance, seduces the pensive poet, Vijay, in Pyaasa:



The song was probably shot on a set but the tall columns tend to remind me of the curved stretch between the Mumbai Samachar building and the Central Asiatic Library at Horniman Circle in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, in this evergreen number from Bees Saal Baad, Waheeda is the classic village belle, lively, teasing and coy at the same time, being sung to by Biswajeet:


My favourite song from Bees Saal Baad is actually the hummable Beqarar karke humein yoon na jaiye. Incidentally, this is the song that we find Amitav Ghosh humming to himself as he walks down London Bridge in The Shadow Lines, surprised at having picked on it for he ‘never had the record’. Zara nazron se kehdoji is visually more pleasing though.

Considering that her latest film release was Delhi – 6 earlier this year, it is evident that Waheeda Rehman has enjoyed a remarkably lengthy professional run for a female actor in Indian moviedom. Indeed, from Bharatnatyam-loving daughter of a liberal Muslim father to peerless veteran, this lady has travelled a long way.

Is Boost the secret of your energy, Waheedaji?

Telangana

(Picture source: http://www.topnews.in/bjp-reiterates-demand-separate-telangana-state-219420)

I wonder whether Potti Sriramulu, had he been buried rather than cremated (as I assume he was), would have turned in his grave. Or whether he would have been pleased that a leaf had been so ably and successfully drawn from his book by K. Chandrasekara Rao, whose long fast, backed by popular support has won for the people of Telangana the promise of a separate Indian state.

As is known, the Madras-born Sriramulu went on a fast-unto-death beginning 19 October 1952, demanding the creation of a separate Andhra state for Telugu-speaking people. Sriramulu already had a quirky history of emulating his icon, Gandhi, and in the mid-forties had fasted for the rights of Dalits to worship in the temples around Nellore. Unlike KCR, Sriramulu was not a politician and took himself seriously, perhaps too seriously. In fact, he began his own fast quietly without any fanfare, and did not go through the motions of breaking his fast upon a token acceptance of his demand (we-will-look-into-it sort of assurances were not for him) and then hastily resuming it in response to public anger as happened in the current case. Public support for Sriramulu’s cause picked up only in due course. Barely six months into his first elected term as Prime Minister, Nehru was inclined to ignore Sriramulu; likewise, Rajaji, the Chief Minister of Madras, was also against the creation of provinces on a linguistic basis, seeing it as a fissiparous tendency and a potential danger to the survival of a nation still in its infancy. But the intransigent Sriramulu had his mind all made up. Even as the government began responding grudgingly to mounting public pressure, Sriramulu passed away after almost two months of fasting on the night of 15 December, barely a few hours before Nehru made a formal declaration initiating the formation of an Andhra state. Sriramulu’s fast and death served as the impetus for the reorganisation of Indian provinces on a linguistic basis. Now, exactly fifty-seven years later, KCR has ensured that the Andhra Pradesh that Sriramulu gave up his life for will be split, at least into two.

(Picture source: http://maharashtrapost.gov.in/htmldocs/march2000.htm)

It is however, unclear what exactly Sriramulu had in mind. He asked for an Andhra state for the Telugu-speaking people. I do not know if he had in mind the merger of Telangana (then already in existence as a distinct Hyderabad state) with the Telugu-speaking parts of Madras state. He believed that Madras, the city, would be the capital of Andhra – his fast was, in fact, carried out in Madras, but this did not happen. The Andhra state that came into being in 1953 did not initially include Telangana/Hyderabad, and its capital was based in Kurnool. It was only in 1956 that Andhra Pradesh as we know it today took shape with the merger of Telangana and Andhra.

The creation of Telangana is something of a watershed for independent India. It debunks the theory of linguistic unity, which is the basis on which the larger Indian states are organised. Unlike the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh from which new states had been carved out in recent times, Andhra Pradesh seemed to have a more cohesive linguistic-cultural identity. This identity has now been shown to be tenuous.

Considering that India’s population has grown nearly four-fold since independence, the creation of smaller states is not a bad deal. Small states ought to make administration and governance easier and more responsive by helping cut down on the distance between the average citizen on the one hand and bureaucrats and elected representatives on the other. But as the experience in other parts of India shows, small states seem to be more prone to political instability and are hardly marked by exceptional governance. On the contrary, their administrative mechanisms are weak, their politicians exceptionally corrupt and their people often subject to violent conflict.

So, where is Telangana likely to lead us? Will the idealism that has driven its creation sustain itself? Or will another illustrious successor of Sriramulu (and KCR) call for a bifurcation or trifurcation of their state some years down the line? Too early to tell.

Humankind has a tendency to draw lines around itself and to shut itself up in ever smaller boxes.

For the moment, may the Telangas rejoice!

Ugly face in the mirror

One way to form a picture of the Indian middle class is to look up the comments below the stories carried on Indian newspaper sites. Trust me, it’s not a pretty picture. For what may start of as an innocuous news story can end up as a sickening slanging match, loaded with invective, between readers by the time you scroll down to the end of the page. For example, this straightforward record of a prominent cricketer’s sentiments on the terrorist attack on Mumbai last year is followed by utterly unrelated wild comments in which readers attack one another along caste as well as communal lines. Stories on politics attract the greatest number of comments, and many of them are as cheap as they can get. Making below-the-belt personal attacks on personalities as well as other readers is quite the norm. While expressindia.com, a popular newspaper website, tries to check the use of language when readers post their two-bit, it does not seem to have a policy of moderating comments, and readers who want to have their chauvinistic say can have it with ease. Meanwhile, its separated sister publication down south, expressbuzz.com, has a no-censorship policy, so that here you can find readers posting the most nauseating comments with gay abandon.

One may well say that the churlish tirade of the internet-savvy urban Indian middle class reflects its sense of deep-rooted frustration with matters in its country. It is not hard to understand this. Anyone that belongs to this biradari or community, including yours truly, knows that there is no end of things in mahan Bharat to fulminate about. But this does not justify the remarkable lack of critical understanding that the comments display. Quite frequently, readers take recourse to conspiracy theories revolving around prominent Indian politicians, religious communities or caste groups, and countries in the neighbourhood. Very often, comments are solely aimed at denigrating the objects of their tirade. There is little or no attempt to be constructive in one’s criticism or to observe a minimum sense of decorum. The internet provides complete anonymity for hit-and-run readers of this kind, who revel in adopting warped pseudonyms (Jai Shri Raam, n.r.i., Indian etc.).

Given that the ability to read and write in English, and access to the internet are hallmarks of relative privilege in India, the nature of comments that one comes across are a deeply sad commentary on India’s educated, ‘upwardly mobile’ and ‘rising’ Indian middle class. It does not say much of the education it goes through either. Of the values that it inherits at home, perhaps the less said the better. The middle class produces successful entrepreneurs and tech wizards, cracks competitive examinations, infiltrates corporate offices (in India and abroad), and fills high-level government offices. Yet its ability to comprehend its everyday environment, cultivate the detachment essential to engage in useful debate and accommodate divergent points of view seems to be shrinking in direct proportion to its increasing material achievements.

Illiberal, spiteful and destructive – that’s the ugly face of the urban Indian middle class that one gets to see on the internet.

But I still have hope.

Is there such a thing as agro-imperialism?

The Malthusian bug has bitten the Arabs. Countries in the Persian Gulf import about 60% of their food requirements and are worried about rapidly climbing food prices. Consequently, Middle Eastern nations, already high on their ecological footprint, are investing vast amounts of money in Africa, taking over thousands of acres of fertile land for massive, large-scale agriculture that will help secure food supply for their arid countries the future. African governments seem only too happy to give away land in return for the investment that is coming in notwithstanding the fact that some of these countries are themselves victims of famine and do not grow enough food for their people. Moreover, the ownership credentials of the land itself are dubious. In Ethiopia, for instance, land was taken over from farmers under Communist rule and never returned even after non-Communist governments came to power. The land thus, originally belonged to individuals who are now seeing it being given away by the state to agribusiness at dirt cheap rates. However, governments argue that agribusiness brings in capital and expertise apart from creating employment, and will make it possible for them to reduce their dependence on foreign aid.

The complex issue is highlighted with nuance in the following New York Times article, "Is there such a thing as agro-imperialism?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22land-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

Filmi belle from the South - Vyjayanthimala

The Hindi film industry has an interesting nexus with South Indian belles. The earliest of the demure ladies to cross the Cauvery, metaphorically speaking, were Vyjayanthimala and Waheeda Rehman, followed in succeeding years by Padmini, Rekha, Hema Malini, Meenakshi Seshadri and Sridevi (not to forget more recent ones: among others, Bhanupriya, Madhoo, Divya Balan and Asin Thottumkal).

While Vyjayanthimala and Waheeda Rehman were undoubtedly the pioneers, the former maintained her links to South Indian filmdom actively and found time to shuttle between Bombay and Madras, showcasing her linguistic prowess in addition to her dancing and acting skills in the process. She acted with leading men both north and south. Her films with Dilip Kumar, in particular, met with considerable success, beginning with Devdas (1955) and continuing with Naya Daur (1957), Madhumati (1958), Paigham (1959), Ganga Jumna (1961) and Leader (1964). (Incidentally, Dilip Kumar's comeback film in the 1960s was with the other leading actor of South Indian origin, Waheeda Rehman. This was Ram Aur Shyam (1967), a remake of the 1965 Tamil movie Enga Veettu Pillai.) She is believed to have created history of sorts by refusing a Filmfare Award for Devdas. Awarded for Best Supporting Actress in her role as Chandramukhi, Vyjayanthimala considered her role to be a main rather than supporting role, on par with that of Paro (played by Suchitra Sen).

Here we have her in the first flush of love with tongawallah Dilip Kumar in Naya Daur:



In Tamil, she hit it off well with Gemini Ganesan as co-star and three of their movies are on any movie buff's must-watch list: Vanjikottai Valiban (1958), Parthiban Kanavu (1960) and Then Nilavu (1961). Her 1960 releases with the other two giants of Tamil cinema - Sivaji Ganesan (Irumbu Thirai) and MG Ramachandran (Baghdad Thirudan) were also immensely successful, elevating her to the apogee of her career. It is impossible not to make a mention of her superb dance duel with Padmini in Vanjikottai Valiban. Film critic Randor Guy describes it as "scintillating and enthralling" and "one of the best dance sequences in Indian cinema".

In this evergreen song from Then Nilavu we have Gemini Ganesan wooing a recalcitrant Vyjayanthimala in 'khambe-jaisi-khadi-hai' mode (even if on horseback):



Being serenaded by the leading actors of her day was by no means a bad deal. But while she happily sings along with beau Dilip Kumar in the first video, she pays no attention to the eminently more handsome Gemini in the next one. Why this discrimination, dear Mrs. Bali?

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This has to be the greatest spoof on the Carbon Trading Mechanism! And a great way of exposing the scam that carbon trading is.

Illuminating lesser-known lives

In the winter of 1999, I journeyed by the Grand Trunk Express from New Delhi to Chennai Central, clutching a book that I had picked up out of pure fancy for its title, An Anthropologist among the Marxists and other Essays, at a bookshop in Connaught Place some weeks earlier. When I returned to the harsh embrace of the Delhi cold to begin the last term of my second undergraduate year I did so with the thrill of having read a refreshing collection of essays that had kindled some sort of an intellectual urge. The following year I was lucky enough to be nominated for an award that let me choose books worth a modest sum. Intrigued by the repertoire of an author who, at the time, wrote a fortnightly column on cricket history in The Hindu, while bookshops carried his works on (what I then saw merely as) environmental issues, I picked up another of his books, Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals & India. (In the meantime I had devoured Wickets in the East, a delightful collection of cricketing anecdotes in the possession of my cricketer room-mate.) I read through Savaging the Civilized even as my final year exams were just around the corner but found it simply unputdownable. The consequences, I might ruefully add, were far from pleasant. I flunked one of my papers, although in all fairness, the book was only one of other far more crucial factors responsible.

It is now ten years since I acquired the acquaintance of Ramachandra Guha through his books (and on more than one occasion, in person) and have never had reason to be unduly disappointed given his prolific output. I do not necessarily agree with him on all things; nor do I particularly appreciate his polemical, even if bold, manner of joining issue with fellow writers; nonetheless I enjoy reading him. While I have particularly enjoyed his writings on environmental history as well as cricket, it is his superb biographical portraits of relatively lesser-known Indians that I cherish the most. His essays on Dharma Kumar and CS Venkatachar are among my top favourites and those on M Krishnan, TG Vaidyanathan, CV Subbarao, PK Srinivasan and DR Nagaraj come a close second. To Guha's expanding repertory has been added, rather recently, one more portrait, that of the late K Balagopal, whose life holds especial value in these turbulent times as the Maoist insurgency threatens to consume almost a third of India. This is an essay which, like it or not, deserves to be read.

http://www.indiatogether.com/2009/nov/rgh-leftist.htm

Awaara hoon

What do you do when you meet an ex-flame after many years and realise with a pang that you've lived these years in the delusion that you had gotten over it but that, in fact, a bit of your heart still seems to be pledged to her?

You sing "Hum Tujhse Muhabbat Karke Sanam".



Hahahahahahahaha!!!

The bazaar of Palampur

Many years ago I read a story entitled 'The Day-Dreaming Darzee of Darzeeganj'. I have forgotten what it was about save that it was about, well, a darzee. But I remember being struck by its poignance although I remember none of its details. The only reason I invoke it now is because it seems to have been acting upon my sub-conscious in the title I'm using for this post. But there is also something RK Narayan-esque about it, isn't it? It seems to go with his book titles such as 'The Vendor of Sweets' or 'The Painter of Signs'. The difference, of course, is Palampur is a place, not a person. More along Sarojini Naidu's alley, perhaps? ('In the Bazaars of Hyderabad'?)

The Palampur bazaar is indeed a delight. Palampur is a fairly old town; the police station is still housed in a quaint colonial era building. The sights of the bazaar took me twenty years down memory lane: this is how markets used to be in the 1980s, I said to myself, though now I think it was just an overdose of nostalgia at work. I like small towns, and the visits to Palampur during my stay in Rakkad were like a dash of opium.

The Palampur I'm talking of lies in Himachal Pradesh, by the way, and is not to be confused with the Jain temple-town of Palanpur in Gujarat. It lies on the way to Baijnath, which is home to a beautiful temple, apparently dating back to the early 13th century and with plenty of mythology attached to it. Palampur is three kilometres away from the fabulous Kangra Valley Railway, on which, rather unfortunately, I could not hitch a ride. The narrow gauge railtrack has a width of roughly 2 feet 6 inches, and stretches for a length of 164 kilometres from Pathankot to Jogindernagar.


And lest I'm hauled up for not mentioning this, let me add that Palampur has plenty of tea-gardens, whose produce is the well-known Kangra tea. Kangra, because that's the valley stretching between the Dhauladhars and the Shivaliks, in which Palampur is nestled.

The pictures, I should say, were all taken by ringsinmypond. Her pictures are bright even if her poetry is melancholic.

Memories of Rakkad

I had almost forgotten about the existence of this blog when bethebird wrote in last week saying that it cannot be that I have nothing to write about. I was, to be honest, quite flattered although also a little wary for bethebird is an impish sort and at times I'm not sure how far to take her at face value. In any case, I have had but one ardent reader - Mampi - to whom I am deeply grateful for the attention that she has bestowed on my songs of sixpence.

A great deal has happened between my last post and now. I was living in a little village called Rakkad near Dharamsala. It was a lovely place to be in with lovely people around. For this post I will simply post some pictures taken by my friends RL and ringsinmypond.


The banana tree in the picture above is almost as tall as a mid-sized coconut palm making it impossible for the fruit to be plucked from the ground. The very fact that it is thriving far from its home in the tropical south makes clear the enormous implications of climatic change for the Himalaya.

Songs of Sixpence rises sphinx-like from the ashes!

Talk of tall claims! Nonetheless, seven and a half months of disappearance later, Songs of Sixpence is back. And appositely, on another day of election results, in another country, my own. Do I have a reasonably unique distinction of having gone through national elections in two different countries in less than eight months? Unlike 29 September 2008, 16 May 2009 seems relatively more heartening. The UPA is leading. Not that I root for them but only that they seem to be the lesser evil among the others.

Hopefully, I will be back again.

Till then, here's my tanner for Manmohan.