04-02-2007, 08:20 PM
Op-ed in Pioneer, 2 April, 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Indian cinema comes of age
Shobori Ganguli
<b>A decade ago</b> when I quit academics to join this newspaper, <b>popular Hindi cinema rarely found serious consideration.</b> While a glamorous star would occasionally meander in by way of a picture on page one, cinema per se was entertainment, covered by the features section. <b>However, unknown to many then, Indian cinema had embarked on a significant journey, a journey which by the first decade of this millennium would make the Indian film industry a global phenomenon and a newsworthy entity.</b>
<b>Two distinct trends mark this phenomenal evolution. On its part, the Mumbai film industry engaged in a serious image makeover. </b>Each Friday now holds the promise of refined filmmaking from mainstream Bollywood. A more educated audience means filmmakers can ill afford indifference to quality or content. Significantly, Bollywood is also the strongest cultural link the Indian diaspora has had with the land of its origin. <b>Here steps in the second trend. What marks the coming of age of Indian cinema is the manner in which the Indian diaspora itself has decided to tell its side of the story through the genre of crossover films. </b>Today, after a film like Mumbai-based Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black and New York-based Mira Nair's The Namesake, <b>one can comfortably assert that the two strands are collectively taking Indian cinema to unprecedented heights of creativity.</b>
<b>To speak of crossover films by the Indian diaspora first, they are the most authentic sociological register of immigrant Indians.</b> Although filmmakers like Mira Nair came to India way back in 1988 to create a masterpiece like Salaam Bombay, <b>the story remained that of India, done by a Non-Resident Indian. The other side of the story was yet to be told.</b> In 1993 came London-based <b>Gurinder Chadha's Bhaji on the Beach. This was the first signal that the diaspora was ready to narrate its story, a story that needed to be heard and acknowledged as much by Indians as by the world in which this diaspora resided. While most Indians have immigrant relatives and are therefore familiar with the agonies and ecstasies of life in a foreign land, crossover cinema today is the most effective instrument of showcasing those ordinary and some not-so-ordinary lives lived far from home. </b>
Admittedly, Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham in 2002 marked the commercial success of the diaspora's filmmaking efforts but the aggregation started a long way back. Toronto-based Deepa Mehta's Sam & Me in 1991 fared well at the Cannes Film Festival that year, establishing a crucial link in this evolving trend. The trickle had begun although such cinema was yet to taste commercial success. The same filmmaker, better known for her elements trilogy, Fire, Earth and Water (all with Indian themes), returned with her roller coaster Bollywood/Hollywood in 2002 that captured the NRI story on a lighter vein, telling the world that immigrant living is not necessarily all gloom and longing.
<b>Not yet a spate, more was added to this trickle when in 1997 an Indian engineer quit his job in Atlanta to resettle in India. Nagesh Kuknoor employed his modest savings of Rs 1.7 million to give India its first indigenous crossover film Hyderabad Blues in 1998. The film picked on the reality of Indians who after an alien spell return to their homeland. With their growing acceptability in international theatres, more and more NRIs and Indians effected their narrations of the South Asian experience overseas. </b>If Indo-American Somnath Sen's Leela poignantly captured one part of the story, India-based Revathy's Mitr gently dwelt on another. From American Chai, to American Desi, The Guru, Split Wide Open, and Everybody Says I'm Fine, the floodgates opened. From the tragic to the ridiculous, today the South Asian experience overseas is well-chronicled in cinema.
<b>If crossover cinema got going, our indigenous filmmakers too matched the trajectory. By the mid-1990s Bollywood was administered much-needed resuscitation. The effort began in true earnest in 1995 with Aditya Chopra's Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ). Although Hum Aapke Hain Kaun the previous year was actually the film that brought back audiences to the theatres, DDLJ initiated an important era in cinematic history. With this film Bollywood found an audience it had hitherto not looked at seriously - the Indian diaspora. This culturally famished diasporic audience across continents was forever in search of connections with the homeland. DDLJ repackaged that promise of connection and soon gorgeously clad Made in India films started finding fame across the seven seas. The economics followed.</b>
<b>The year 1997 saw the international release of films </b>like Dil To Pagal Hai, Yes Boss, and Pardes, the last one more popular abroad than in India for its treatment of the NRI theme. By the time Karan Johar arrived with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai the following year, Bollywood was travelling across world capitals for premiers to packed audiences. Into the new millennium Indian cinema was not limited to international film festivals. Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham in 2001, Kal Ho Na Ho in 2003 and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna in 2006, were all released in mainstream cinema halls across Europe and America. A promising global market saw Karan Johar liberally people his plots with NRIs, connecting with great finesse, the Indian diaspora and its homeland. Today, in 2007, as the fastest growing movie industry in the world, Bollywood holds legitimate interest, not simply because it defines India across cultural and political borders but because it is an industry in its own right, selling theme India to the global market.
<b>Admittedly, Hindi cinema was worth pittance for most part of the '80s and the '90s, a hiatus that saw some of the worst cinema churned out by the film industry. Not surprisingly, global recall of Hindi film stars ceased at Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Amitabh Bachchan.</b> Therefore, when mainstream Hindi cinema credibly reinvented itself through Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in DDLJ, the stars acquired instant cult status. While in India the audiences returned to the theatres, the diaspora found fresh icons to fete. Technology helped this process and by the time the new millennium arrived, film producers were eagerly eyeing the global market. <b>Subhash Ghai's Yaadein in 2001 was a telling comment. The film bombed at the Indian box-office but the producer more than made up from sales overseas.</b>
Today between the two kinds of cinema there is a rich market that allows commercial filmmakers like Bhansali to make films as diverse as Black and Devdas and NRIs like Mira Nair to swing between Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake. <b>If Bollywood sells sugar-candy dreams to Indians abroad, crossover cinema speaks of the diaspora's lived life, to India and to the world. Admittedly, between the two Indian cinema has accomplished the most unprecedented global consolidation. Time we stopped testing this against the Oscars.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I saw three flims this weekend- Namesake in theater and Dor and Sarhad Paar on DVDs. Dor by Nagesh Kukunoor was a better and sensitive handling of widows than Deepa Mehta's Water. Sarhad Paar is a new twist of Bollywood blaming Paki jihadis and absolving thier masters the RATS.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Indian cinema comes of age
Shobori Ganguli
<b>A decade ago</b> when I quit academics to join this newspaper, <b>popular Hindi cinema rarely found serious consideration.</b> While a glamorous star would occasionally meander in by way of a picture on page one, cinema per se was entertainment, covered by the features section. <b>However, unknown to many then, Indian cinema had embarked on a significant journey, a journey which by the first decade of this millennium would make the Indian film industry a global phenomenon and a newsworthy entity.</b>
<b>Two distinct trends mark this phenomenal evolution. On its part, the Mumbai film industry engaged in a serious image makeover. </b>Each Friday now holds the promise of refined filmmaking from mainstream Bollywood. A more educated audience means filmmakers can ill afford indifference to quality or content. Significantly, Bollywood is also the strongest cultural link the Indian diaspora has had with the land of its origin. <b>Here steps in the second trend. What marks the coming of age of Indian cinema is the manner in which the Indian diaspora itself has decided to tell its side of the story through the genre of crossover films. </b>Today, after a film like Mumbai-based Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black and New York-based Mira Nair's The Namesake, <b>one can comfortably assert that the two strands are collectively taking Indian cinema to unprecedented heights of creativity.</b>
<b>To speak of crossover films by the Indian diaspora first, they are the most authentic sociological register of immigrant Indians.</b> Although filmmakers like Mira Nair came to India way back in 1988 to create a masterpiece like Salaam Bombay, <b>the story remained that of India, done by a Non-Resident Indian. The other side of the story was yet to be told.</b> In 1993 came London-based <b>Gurinder Chadha's Bhaji on the Beach. This was the first signal that the diaspora was ready to narrate its story, a story that needed to be heard and acknowledged as much by Indians as by the world in which this diaspora resided. While most Indians have immigrant relatives and are therefore familiar with the agonies and ecstasies of life in a foreign land, crossover cinema today is the most effective instrument of showcasing those ordinary and some not-so-ordinary lives lived far from home. </b>
Admittedly, Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham in 2002 marked the commercial success of the diaspora's filmmaking efforts but the aggregation started a long way back. Toronto-based Deepa Mehta's Sam & Me in 1991 fared well at the Cannes Film Festival that year, establishing a crucial link in this evolving trend. The trickle had begun although such cinema was yet to taste commercial success. The same filmmaker, better known for her elements trilogy, Fire, Earth and Water (all with Indian themes), returned with her roller coaster Bollywood/Hollywood in 2002 that captured the NRI story on a lighter vein, telling the world that immigrant living is not necessarily all gloom and longing.
<b>Not yet a spate, more was added to this trickle when in 1997 an Indian engineer quit his job in Atlanta to resettle in India. Nagesh Kuknoor employed his modest savings of Rs 1.7 million to give India its first indigenous crossover film Hyderabad Blues in 1998. The film picked on the reality of Indians who after an alien spell return to their homeland. With their growing acceptability in international theatres, more and more NRIs and Indians effected their narrations of the South Asian experience overseas. </b>If Indo-American Somnath Sen's Leela poignantly captured one part of the story, India-based Revathy's Mitr gently dwelt on another. From American Chai, to American Desi, The Guru, Split Wide Open, and Everybody Says I'm Fine, the floodgates opened. From the tragic to the ridiculous, today the South Asian experience overseas is well-chronicled in cinema.
<b>If crossover cinema got going, our indigenous filmmakers too matched the trajectory. By the mid-1990s Bollywood was administered much-needed resuscitation. The effort began in true earnest in 1995 with Aditya Chopra's Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ). Although Hum Aapke Hain Kaun the previous year was actually the film that brought back audiences to the theatres, DDLJ initiated an important era in cinematic history. With this film Bollywood found an audience it had hitherto not looked at seriously - the Indian diaspora. This culturally famished diasporic audience across continents was forever in search of connections with the homeland. DDLJ repackaged that promise of connection and soon gorgeously clad Made in India films started finding fame across the seven seas. The economics followed.</b>
<b>The year 1997 saw the international release of films </b>like Dil To Pagal Hai, Yes Boss, and Pardes, the last one more popular abroad than in India for its treatment of the NRI theme. By the time Karan Johar arrived with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai the following year, Bollywood was travelling across world capitals for premiers to packed audiences. Into the new millennium Indian cinema was not limited to international film festivals. Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham in 2001, Kal Ho Na Ho in 2003 and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna in 2006, were all released in mainstream cinema halls across Europe and America. A promising global market saw Karan Johar liberally people his plots with NRIs, connecting with great finesse, the Indian diaspora and its homeland. Today, in 2007, as the fastest growing movie industry in the world, Bollywood holds legitimate interest, not simply because it defines India across cultural and political borders but because it is an industry in its own right, selling theme India to the global market.
<b>Admittedly, Hindi cinema was worth pittance for most part of the '80s and the '90s, a hiatus that saw some of the worst cinema churned out by the film industry. Not surprisingly, global recall of Hindi film stars ceased at Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Amitabh Bachchan.</b> Therefore, when mainstream Hindi cinema credibly reinvented itself through Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in DDLJ, the stars acquired instant cult status. While in India the audiences returned to the theatres, the diaspora found fresh icons to fete. Technology helped this process and by the time the new millennium arrived, film producers were eagerly eyeing the global market. <b>Subhash Ghai's Yaadein in 2001 was a telling comment. The film bombed at the Indian box-office but the producer more than made up from sales overseas.</b>
Today between the two kinds of cinema there is a rich market that allows commercial filmmakers like Bhansali to make films as diverse as Black and Devdas and NRIs like Mira Nair to swing between Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake. <b>If Bollywood sells sugar-candy dreams to Indians abroad, crossover cinema speaks of the diaspora's lived life, to India and to the world. Admittedly, between the two Indian cinema has accomplished the most unprecedented global consolidation. Time we stopped testing this against the Oscars.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I saw three flims this weekend- Namesake in theater and Dor and Sarhad Paar on DVDs. Dor by Nagesh Kukunoor was a better and sensitive handling of widows than Deepa Mehta's Water. Sarhad Paar is a new twist of Bollywood blaming Paki jihadis and absolving thier masters the RATS.