Bollywood Retold

Publication: Asian Voice

Date: Tuesday, 5 June, 2007 

From: Nagin Khajuria

I beg to differ in several respects with The Guardian's Edward Marriot book review: "Bollywood: A History by Mihir Bose" (p.36, AV, 2 June 2007).

Mr Marriott writes "that while the Indian film industry began in 1896, the genuine cross-over success did not happen until Lagaan was produced in 2001". This is not true. While a greater number of Indian films may have been average or mediocre, Bollywood has indeed produced umpteen number of outstanding master pieces throughtout the decades from 1900 onwards. These have long been popular not only in India, but also all over the world, esp. Russia, former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the entire Middle East, North, East and South Africa, etc. Western media had just chosen to ignore this success until of late.

The book review says "the Indian film industry is rich in irony and it is hypocritical for India to forbid lovers kissing on the screen while producing master pieces like Kama Sutra and the erotic statutes of Khajuraho". There is no irony or hypocrisy in that at all. Not only on the screen, but in real life, both in cities and villages, kissing in public by lovers is considered indecent. Kama Sutra describes the pursuit of love or pleasure, both sensual and aesthetic, as necessary for life, but only if restrained by considerations of dharma according to Hinduism. That is why Khajuraho is a group of 20 Hindu temples, constructed mainly of sandstones, in 950-1050, where the internal and external wall structures are embellised with masterpieces of erotic art. It is also why it is considerd a world heritage site.

Again, the article says "to Western eyes, the peculiarity of Bollywood is surely its eclecticism. Eclectic merely means diverse, general, broad, varied, comprehensive, extensive, wide-ranging, selective, diversified, manifold, heterogeneous, catholic, all-embracing, liberal, many sided, multifarious and even amateurish. But not just the last meaning. So what is wrong with its eclecticism? In Mother India, for example, the money lender verbally agreed to charge one-quarter of the farm produced by the illiterate village heroine borrower as interest, but made the old heroine put her thumb on a written document where he changed the one-quarter to three-quarters. The village tribunal was relied on the written evidence and the lender but not illiterate borrower and dismissed the latter appeal for redress. Such powerful messages were given subtly as early as 1957 in our films. A largenumber of Indian films encourage higher moral and religious values, nomally with a happy end.

Finally, out of estimated total households income of 1881.9 lakh rupees earned in India, 1,347.1 lakh rupees (71.6%) was earned by rural India in 2001-02. And again, out of this 1347.1 lakh rupees rural income, 1,107.5 (82%) was earned by households that earn less than 90,000 rupees (or £1,058) per anum each. That is just under £3 or under 250 rupees per day. The raison d'etre of Indian movies has been escapism to the urban and rural poor historically speaking. One needs to be very careful when re-writing this history so that future generations are not mislead.

Nagin Khajuria, FCCA