Sound of Water

Sound of Waterby Sanjay Bahadur.
Roli Books.
Pages 168. Rs 195.


Mining today finds mention only in environmental forums, with environmentalists holding forth loudly on how defacing it is and how crippling to the landscape. The human aspect, predictably, is lost in academic wrangling. A human disaster tweaks the academic posturing only to settle back into statistics in disaster management texts.

Sanjay Bahadur’s The Sound Of Water’ does not allow the reader to take refuge in such academic trivia. Bahadur with a deliberate brutality cuts through the statistics shrouding the Bagdighi colliery disaster that killed dozens of miners in 2001 and brings the reader face to face with the deadly ‘beast’ that stalks miners in the ‘tomb dark womb of the earth.’ The reader is shoved willy-nilly into the labyrinth of Mine No 3 along with the condemned and expendable five; Raimoti, Arif, Birsa, Lakhan and Sagan. Like Birsa, the reader can feel the gorge rising when faced with the ferocity of the ‘charging beast’, the black remorseless water that rushes into the mine ‘swamping life’. ‘The cold sinewy paw’ of the water alternately immobilizes and stimulates panic in both Arif and the reader. Arif and Raimoti caught in a pre-death situation struggle with the questions of ‘Who wants to die?’ and ‘Why do you want to live?’ This juxtaposition of life and death ‘I exist. I am going numb’ becomes the leit motif of the novel and claws into the consciousness of the reader. The connection between the reader and the protagonists, thus, is complete and unbroken. Against the background of this epic struggle is the tragedy of Bhibhash, the mining engineer who is lost to his family and who seeks oblivion in ‘whiskey’ and then in the dark swirling water of the inundated mine. But his sacrificial death is submerged in the political red tape that needs a ‘sacrificial lamb’ in Bhibhash. The political posturing of the Unionist Ghosh Babu and Pandeyji and the utter detachment of Karna reflect an insensitive establishment.

The narrative has a quality of wrenching sadness as it recreates the human tragedy of miners who drink themselves into oblivion to escape the encroaching soul-destroying darkness of the mines. The nightmare of death by water with its quality of utter hopelessness leaves an indelible mark. At times the overt and sometimes encroaching presence of the author does create a degree of discomfort but the consciousness of being walked along by the author on a preordained path dissipates as the narrative gathers momentum and inexorably moves towards its deadly finale. But in the final analysis, it is not Bahadur the deft craftsman, nor Bahadur the ultimate storyteller, that makes the lasting impression. It is the portrayal of the epic struggle of life and death that lifts the novel from the moorings of ordinariness. A great debut novel that transcends the limits of story telling and in doing so transforms into an archetype of life itself.

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The Girl from Foreign

The Girl From Foreign:
A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors,
Forgotten Histories and a Sense of Home
By Sadia Shepard
Penguin Books
Pages: 364, Price: Rs 450.
The literature of diaspora has caught the imagination of literature lovers all over the world. And why not? An empathy with the ‘rootlessness’ of the ‘diasporic’ protagonist often becomes the inspiration to undertake a personal voyage of self-discovery.

Sadia Shepard’s ‘The Girl From Foreign’ with its long appendage ‘A search for shipwrecked ancestors, Forgotten Histories and a Sense of Home’ appears to be an attempt at a fiction of diaspora. Yet it would be unfair to place this book in such a cliched groove. Sadia’s search for her Bene Israel roots in Bombay has none of the disoriented emptiness of a ‘diasporic’ protagonist .Sadia’s journey is, in fact, a voyage of joyous discovery as she moves from one synagogue to another on the Konkan coast or interacts with the Indian Jewish community and joins them in the Jewish festivals of ‘Sukkot’ and ‘Simchar Torah’. Sadia undertakes the journey at the behest of ‘Nana’, her grandmother who was born Rachel Jacobs, a Jew in Mumbai and who later married a Muslim and shifted to Pakistan after the partition. Her Nana’s directive ‘Go To India, study your ancestors’ takes Sadia on an untrodden path to India where armed with a camera and a pen she enthusiastically etches the Bene Israel community on the pages of her book. The life of the Indian Jews is sketched for the readers through small vignettes of the Waskars of Revdanda, the Chordekars of Chorde and Mr Ellis of Alibag. The author’s journey to her Jewish roots is however overlaid with the pain of losing her beloved grandmother. The book also talks about the regret and pain of a grandmother who even after several decades of leaving Bombay clings to the refrain ‘I should’nt have left’.

The name of the book suggests a serious historical sojourn into the life of ancestors but as the reader moves through the pages of the book it becomes clear that despite the scholarly title, the focus is on the present day joys and sorrows of the community of Bene Israel in India. The history of the Jews can be extracted through snippets of conversation. The arrival of the Jews to India is summed up in a few lines_“A very long time ago, your ancestors left Israel in a ship and they were shipwrecked in India.”

Interestingly, Sadia’s story moves back and forth between her childhood with Nana and her present day search for her Jewish roots . It also recounts how she was brought up by three parents- a Christian father, a Muslim mother and a Jewish grandmother. And yet there is no angst generated by religious conflict. Sadia absorbs in her persona the qualities of all religions. The simplicity of acceptance of three religions is unique to her narrative. At the end of it all ‘Rachel Jacobs’ merges with ‘Rahat Ali’ and Sadia becomes in turn Christian, Jewish and Muslim. The book with its smattering of history and the simplicity of its narrative is a story well told. An interesting and enjoyable read.

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Under Her Spell

Under Her Spell
by Dileep Padgaonkar.
Penguin Books.
Pages 263. Rs 550.

AS a teenager I would often stay up late at night to watch old films screened by Doordarshan. One such film was Ingrid Bergman’s Notorious. This black and white film with its stark cameos was the start of my obsession with cinema. From Ingrid Bergman, it was but a short step to Roberto Rossellini who directed Bergman in films like Europe ’51 and Voyage in Italy. I learnt that after Voyage to Italy, Rossellini was lauded as the messiah of modern cinema. Any study of neo-realism in films was incomplete without Rossellini. I knew all that but I must admit I was completely ignorant of this Italian director’s Indian connection.

Dileep Padgaonkar’s book Under Her Spell takes the reader on an intriguing Indian adventure with Rossellini. Padgaonkar in the manner of a dramatic storyteller weaves a tale based on inputs from Tag Gallagher, Rossellini’s biographer and anecdotes and insights shared by Rossellini’s friends and associates. The character of Rossellini, who loved fast cars and pretty women, lends itself with ease to the dramatic twists and turns of his Indian sojourn.

Rossellini, we are told, launched the Indian project without any fan-fare. With typical `E9lan, he simply announced to a spaghetti-eating friend, "we’re going to a wonderland". And so in early December of 1956, loaded with 100 kg of spaghetti, Rossellini arrived in Bombay and checked into the Taj Hotel. With Nehru himself showing interest, Rossellini’s project, aptly called India Matri Bhumi, was off to a propitious start. Buzzing with creative energy, Rossellini shuttled between Bombay and Bangalore, Calcutta and Hirakud, in search of the truth about India. He did not visit Ajanta and Ellora or any of the other tourist attractions because he did not want "clich`E9d images of the country". Not for him the beauty of India, for he felt ‘pretty pictures’ were fatal to cinema.

We follow in Rossellini’s footsteps, impressed by his creativity, intrigued by his ‘Latin’ temper and flummoxed by his grand passion for Sonali Dasgupta, a much-married Bengali beauty. But unfortunately, the Indian adventure did not end happily for Rossellini who was hounded out of the country by the so-called moral guardians who denounced his ‘affair’ with a married Indian woman. The only saving grace was that he was allowed to leave India with the film he had shot and of course his lady-love.

In the latter part of the book, Padgaonkar recounts how back in Europe Rossilleni put together India Matri Bhumi, creating a ‘poetic synthesis’ bordering on a symphony. For a long time Rossellini spoke about India with ‘great feeling’ and described art in India as an ‘imitation of joy’. The Epilogue describes the death of this charismatic ‘maestro’ who "lived life like a fantasy, superior to reality". Some of Rossellini’s associates believe that he "probably wanted his ashes buried in India because India could alone beckon him in after-life". An interesting read that gives an "Indian" insight into Rossellini’s character as an artist and a human being.

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Romancing with Life: An Autobiography

By Dev Anand
Penguin Books India.
Pages: 438, Price: 695.

‘Raju’of ‘Guide’ has been immortalized by Dev Anand. The transition of a Casanova into a saint who brings rain to a parched famine-struck terrain has been fleshed out with great panache by the erstwile romantic. And this is not his only claim to fame. This Gregory Peck look-alike is a consummate actor who has given some great performances in films like ‘Baazi’ ‘Jaal’ ‘Jewel Thief’, ‘Tere Ghar ke Samne’ et al. The list is endless. This bright and ageless star on the Indian film firmament has also directed some unusual films like ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’, ‘Des Pardes’, ‘Heera Panna’ ‘Hum Naunjawan’ boldly analyzing divergent social issues that were spoken of only in whispers. Six decades of cinema does not seem to have dampened the enthusiasm and spirits of this creator-director-actor who even at 82 is running full steam ahead.

‘Romancing with Life’, the much awaited autobiography of Dev Anand gives us a glimpse of ‘Dev-aan’ the person behind the public persona of the legendary film star. A montage of reminiscences strung together in a beguiling pattern, the autobiography is written in a simple conversational style that creates an empathetic bond between Dev Anand and the readers. The reader sits with Dev as he listens to his father reciting the Koran, counts the stars lying on a charpoy on the terrace in Gurdaspur with the future star, murmurs a shy lovelorn hello to ‘Usha’ in the college of Lahore and walks the footpaths in Bombay waiting for a ‘break’. The reader feels Dev’s dejection as he sifts through war correspondence for a living and later becomes party to the adulation that Dev Anand receives after ‘Ziddi’, the film that made him a romantic hero.

As we travel down memory lane with Dev Anand some reminiscences smack of narcissism and seem to find place in the autobiography for no earthly reason except to highlight a star’s romantic proclivities. But, Dev Anand has defended himself against the charge of self-obsession stating with child-like candor that he is a ‘deity to his millions of fans’ and his memoir is merely to ‘honor that image’. So the star ingeniously says ‘My best moments with myself are when I am in front of my mirror in the bathroom’.

But if we make an honest attempt to look beyond the image of a ‘larger-than-life-hero’, feted by hysterical fans, we find a Dev Anand who feels utter anguish when his dear brother, ‘Goldilocks’, passes away or when his much-loved friend Guru Dutt ends his life. Dev Anand, like ‘Raju’ is in search of ‘that special ray of sunshine that makes life worth living’. His romance with life, it seems would never end.

Seeing is Believing

Seeing is Believing: Selected Writings on Cinema
by Chidananda Das Gupta.
Penguin. Pages 295. Rs 499.


AS a student of cinema, I would wade through large amounts of research material on cinema and film studies. I found that books on cinematic greats like Eisenstein, Truffaunt, etc. were available in plenty and easily outnumbered books on Indian greats like Satyajit Ray or Shyam Benegal. Also, the idiom of books on Indian films was completely foreign. Words like alienation, Brechtian, catharsis were bandied around to explain not only parallel cinema but also Indian commercial films. Not surprising really, considering that most books were written by foreigners. So, Das Gupta’s book Seeing Is Believing comes like a breath of fresh air in the putrid environs of Indian film studies. Here is a book that examines the Indian tradition of theatre and folklore and attempts to link Indian cinema with Bharata’s Natyshastra and Sarangdeva’s Sangeeta Ratnakara. It attempts to straddle the divide between the fast-paced rhythm of mainstream cinema and the meandering pace of parallel cinema. In fact, the book begins with an enunciation of this traditional divide in Of Margi and Desi.

Das Gupta’s writings are surprisingly self-sufficient in that every article is an exhaustive enumeration of one or the other aspect of cinema and emerges as an independent treatise on the subject. Precursors of Unpopular Cinema, for instance, traces the growth curve of realistic films.

Das Gupta analyses the cinematic verities of Himanshu Rai’s Achut Kanya (1936) and V. Shantaram’s Dr Kotnis ki Amar Kahani. Satyajit Ray’s cinema, he feels, has a distinctive realism such that even today "not a day passes when Pather Panchali is not shown somewhere or the other in the world". This Ray film was a precursor to cinema that was not only "artistically valid but also socially relevant".

Influenced by Ray, Ritwik Ghatak focused on the refugee triology with Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandhar and Subarnarekha while Shyam Benegal’s Ankur, Nishant and Bhumika dealt with oppression of women in Indian society. Bimal Roy’s Do bigha Zamin and Sujata on the other hand were influenced by Italian neo-realism.

Some filmmakers like Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt attempted a symbiosis of ‘art and box-office considerations’ but this blending was a rarity. Efforts like Aamir Khan’s Lagaan or Kamal Hasan’s Hey Ram are few-and-far-between. But as Das Gupta points out, these films hold out a hope that "one day Bollywood will be able to range more freely like Hollywood, from one end to the other of cinema’s spectrum". For cynics, films like Mani Ratnam’s Bombay hold out a promise of cinema no longer "intimidated by the traditional need to endorse the prejudices of the majority".

The interface of politics and cinema, as seen in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the evolution of the cinematic character of Indian women, the necessity of awards—all these issues are examined at length in the Indian context. Das Gupta’s book is a first step towards redefining Indian film studies as an indigenous network of traditional discourses blended with just the right touch of global cinematic patterns.

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