First Day First Show: Writings from the Bollywood Trenches

By Anupama Chopra.
Penguin.
Pages 376. Rs 499.
First Day First Show

BOLLYWOOD is a national obsession, more so than cricket and corruption. More than film-making per se, it encompasses within its ambit shenanigans of actors, directors, singers and of course the rumor-rife ubiquitous cine awards. Anupama Chopra’s First Day First Show taps this Indian desire for a peek into the life and times of Bollywood stars. Chopra cobbles together various articles authored by her for India Today, NDTV24x7 and The New York Times and in the process gives the reader quick view snapshots of Bollywood from 1993 to 2010. She also delves into her books Sholay: The Making of a Classic and King of Bollywood. Sharukh Khan’s quirky "Foreword" adds the necessary starry glitter. Khan’s unequivocal declaration, "It will be a ride. It will be a true representation of what a Hindi film is", raises high expectations.

The "Prologue" describes the run up to the launch of Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay. The fine detailing of the initial wary and cautious response to Sholay and its slow but sure march towards blockbuster status is interesting to say in the least. Like a typical Hindi film, "Prologue" "mein emotion hai tragedy hai", and the reader is hooked. The articles that follow trace the evolution of Bollywood through the slapstick Aankhen to the sensual rendering of "Choli ke peeche" of Khalnayak to the zany Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. Chopra in her more serious articles also dwells upon the plagiarism of scriptwriters who with panache borrowed from Hollywood and thought nothing of it.

The music industry flourished on stock music rather than creativity and the death of the audio king Gulshan Kumar spelt the end of ostentation in the film industry. The late 90s saw a paradigm shift which saw the emergence of stars that appealed to the urban populace. Sharukh Khan with his Hilfigers, artfully mussed up hair and dimpled smile became the urban icon with Dil To Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and DDLJ. The maniac intensity of Bazigar, Darr and Anjaam did nothing to dent the image of the uber cool romantic hero. Aamir Khan with his mustard yellow pants and the tapori act in Rangeela also made the cash registers ring. With the end of the 90s, Karan Johar’s "Designer sagas" hit big time. But fortunately, there was room for varied genres like the road movie Jab We Met, the angst ridden Dev D with its contemporary Devdas twist, the Forrest Gump-like My Name is Khan and the Chulbul Pandey-starrer Dabangg.

All in all, Chopra’s book is an enjoyable read for a relaxed Sunday afternoon. It has enough mirch-masala of the Bollywood kind to keep the reader glued. It also has some serious insights into the life of glitz and glamour which nevertheless has an unsavory underside. The underworld connections add an unusual twist in the manner of a typical potboiler of the Satya and Company genre. But read on, kyunki "picture abhi baaki hai mere dost".

Buy the book at Amazon.com First Day First Show

Published in the Tribune dated 17 July 2011 Part of the Dream Weave Walk Network 1999-2012

I Want To Live: The Story of Madhubala

By Khatija Akbar.
Hay House Publishers.
Pages 261. Rs 399

The movie Mahal, with its black and white ambience and the ghostly strains of "ayega anewala", was my introduction to Madhubala’s ethereal and enchanting beauty. Even as a child given to watching the fast-paced films of the 1970s, I was completely mesmerised by this unutterably beautiful actress of Indian films. I was also intrigued by the mantle of inscrutability that firmly denied ingress into her personal life. Not a lot had been written about this Venus of the Indian silver screen, and whatever was written was limited to film journals. So, Khatija Akbar’s I Want To Live: The Story of Madhubala came as a welcome surprise. Even as I sat down to read the book, I had a moment of misgiving as I wondered if the book would tear away the mystique of the Madonna with the beguiling smile and reveal the underbelly of humanity or add to her enchantment. But my perseverance was rewarded.

Khatija Akbar’s biography has woven together reminiscences of musicians like Naushad and Anil Biswas, stars like Begum Para, Minu Mumtaz, Shammi Kapoor and Dev Anand and journalists like B.K Karanjia. In doing so, she has put together a vignette of Madhubala, the person behind the dazzling face with its mix of innocence and subtle sensuality. And the image that takes shape is that of a woman who was beautiful inside out but who had to pay for her goodness with her life. She started her film career as a child star in the film Basant. Despite her ease and spontaneity before the camera, Madhubala joined films only to earn a living and ensure survival of her family. She even gave up the bliss of married life with Dilip Kumar as her father Ataullah Khan would not give their alliance his blessings. This supreme sacrifice cost her emotionally as well as physically and sowed the seeds of her tragic demise.

Madhubla despite being blessed with a dazzling beauty was also cursed with a hole in the heart for which there was no cure in the 1960s. Madhubala’s dedication to her career took a physical toll that did not augur well for longevity and the break up with Dilip Kumar broke her completely. Her marriage with Kishore Kumar ended unhappily and she died lonely and sad at the young age of 36. Her heartrending cry "Allah main marna nahin chahti" defines the tragedy of Madhubala’s life.

Khatija Akbar’s biography has all the ingredients of an Indian film—a beautiful heroine, a Prince Charming, an overbearing father who is a spoke in the romantic wheel and a dreaded disease that is the knell of doom for the beautiful heroine. But more than that, there is a quality of warm empathy underlying the biography that brings to life the character of Madhubala with her natural vivacity, her compassion for the poor and needy, her dedication to her work and the fear and anxiety that beset her in public. A book that is a befitting tribute to not only a gorgeous and skilled actress but also a great human being.

Buy book at Amazon.com I Want To Live: The Story Of Madhubala

Published in The Trubune dated 11 June 2011

Part of the Dream Weave Walk Network 1999-2012

Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten The World Economy

by Raghuram G. Rajan
HarperCollins.
Pages 274
Pages Price 499

INFLATION and economic meltdown are the terms that have dogged us for almost a decade. We have talked animatedly about the alarming increase in price of real estate and the inflationary trends of day-to-day commodities. We have blamed the government for its lax regulatory machinery every time a financial scam raised its ugly head. We have decried corruption, holding it responsible for all ills that ail our society. But perhaps none of us (economic experts included) have really pin-pointed the causes of the economic recession of 2007 that caught the global financial community napping.

Raghuram Rajan’s Fault Lines makes such an analysis with great finesse. Drawing a metaphor from geology, Rajan traces the roots of the global financial crisis to the fault lines created by politics, trade imbalances and the financial structures in place to offset such trade imbalances.

The financial instability is traced back to the late 90s which saw the bursting of the dot com bubble. As the American economy down drastically, the Federal Reserve attempted to stimulate it by reducing the interest rates. This reduction did nothing to improve investments by the corporate sector. Instead, it made easy credit available to a segment of population that had low financial credibility. This segment invested in real estate in a big way but did not have the wherewithal to pay back the loans. So, while property prices soared as never before, the banks ended up holding huge quantities of mortgage-backed securities.

To check this credit expansion and its fall out, an apprehensive Central Bank increased the interest rates, which led to a drastic dip in consumption by the American consumer. This shook the foundations of economies like China which were dependent on American consumption and had invested in import of machinery from Europe to increase production. The Governments of such countries decided to abandon "debt-fueled expansion" and turned from being net importers to net exporters "adding to the global supply glut".

The lesson learnt from the jobless recoveries of the recession of 2001 was also internalised by politicians who attempted to give fiscal and monetary stimulus till the jobs started to reappear. Such a forced stimulus added to the problems of a beleaguered US economy. Weighed down by myriad problems, in 2007, the global economy collapsed. Rajan warns that despite signs of recovery the ‘fault lines’ are still gaping open and would deepen if left unchecked.

For most of us, economic jargon and its nuances are difficult to absorb. But Rajan explains the most complex economic terms in simple language. References to the effect of the crisis on the immigrant Indian Badri or on Jane, who represents the secretarial workforce in the US, adds an element of human interest to a dry subject. What perhaps lends credence to the theories propounded in the book is the fact that Rajan was one of the few economists who cautioned the world against impending economic doom generated by the Greenspan era. A thought-provoking book that adds a new dimension to our understanding of the fractures in global economy.






Published in the Tribune Sunday, February 6, 2011

Part of the Dream Weave Walk Network 1999-2012