Thursday, January 26, 2012
Shivaji lives forever!
In the name of Nadigar Thilakam
ALWAYS ADMIRED: Sowcar Janaki at the mike, as Y.Gee. Mahendra, A.L. Raghavan and Ramkumar look on.
Having witnessed first hand the euphoria that goes along with every re-release of a Sivaji Ganesan film, I’ve been dumbstruck by the innumerable diehard loyalists of the actor. More than a decade has gone by since his death, but Ganesan’s fan base is intact -- in fact, despite stray criticisms of his portrayals, the fascination only seems to be growing! So when a group of his admirers decided to join hands and begin a film society in his name, I was curious. NTFAnS (Nadigar Thilakam Film Appreciation Society) was inaugurated on Sunday last, when the golden jubilee of ‘Paarthaal Pasi Theerum’ was also celebrated. ‘Paarthaal Pasi Theerum’ was first released on the day of Pongal in the year1962. Personalities involved in the making of the film shared their memories of Sivaji Ganesan.
Said Y Gee Mahendra, an established Ganesan fanatic, and president, NTFAnS: “When some steadfast Sivaji-ians came up with the idea, I jumped at it. Every two months, members will get to watch a classic from the past. Actors and technicians of the film concerned will also be invited and honoured.” Those present that day at Bharat Kalachar, the venue of the event, and tasted the kind of spread that awaits them in the days to come, must have found it worthwhile, because I saw many making a beeline for the membership counter during the short break. For details visit www.nadigarthilagam.com
Close your eyes and listen to Ramkumar and you could mistake the voice for his father, the great Ganesan’s. Such is the similarity! “I’m becoming a member straightway. Personally, ‘Paarthaal …’ is my most favourite among Sivaji’s films,” he noted. He had reasons. P.N. Pillai, the erstwhile general manager of Sivaji Films, had worked only for two people in his life – Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and Sivaji Ganesan! “We’ve heard a lot about the army from him. Appa was inspired and decided on a film with patriotic fervour, and ‘Paarthaal …’ happened,” recalled Ramkumar. “Also it was probably the only film that had a physically challenged hero limping and singing a duet with élan,” he smiled. True, how can anyone forget the melody of Mellisai Mannargal’s ‘Kodi Asaindhadhum Kaatru Vandhadha,’ Saroja Devi’s exuberance or Ganesan’s stylish demeanour in the sequence?
‘Paarthaal …’ remains an incredible musical bonanza from M.S. Viswanathan and T.K. Ramamurthy. Sadly MSV couldn’t make it to the event, but TKR’s presence made up for it. Listening to A.L. Raghavan sing a few lines of ‘Andru Oomai Pennallo …’ another evergreen hit from the film, TKR said he regretted not having a violin with him to play the wondrous notes, just as he had done for the original. Raghavan’s voice was as fresh as it was 50 years ago when he had first sung it!
Sowcar Janaki had travelled all the way from Bengaluru for the event. “N.T. Rama Rao once told me that more recognition will come my way only late in life. Today I feel he was right,” she observed. Ganesan always described her as “a classy lady,” Mahendra said, and Ramkumar cheerfully echoed the sentiment, “She’s still one, and a beautiful one at that!”
The renowned dialogue writer of ‘Paarthaal …’ Aaroordas, came up with nuggets that were matter of fact. Though the audience could make out that Janaki didn’t quite agree with some of the points he made, she was sportive.
If Dr. Kamala Selvaraj accepted the memento for her dad, Gemini Ganesan, the other hero of ‘Paarthaal…,’ Madhuvanthi Arun did the same as the granddaughter-in-law of the inimitable Savithri Ganesan, one of the three heroines of the film. And receiving the honour for Sivaji Ganesan was grandson Dushyanth.
Nalli Kuppuswami proved his admiration for the actor, by sponsoring the day’s event. What exactly triggered the formation of a society in the name of Sivaji Ganesan? “Call it Kalaiveri,” chuckled Mahendra.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Hail Tyagaraja!
Tyagaraja lives in his aradhanas
Sangita Kalanidhi T. Brinda and Bharat Ratna M.S. Subbulakshmi seen singing the Pancharatna kritis in Tiruvaiyaru many years ago
The relevance of Tyagaraja today is that a noble bhakta lived amongst us just 200 years ago. We have been fed on the Puranas' description of great devotees such as Prahlada, Parasara, Narada and others. Prahlada has also stood as the devotee par excellence to be emulated by those spiritually inclined. The nearness of the saint to us perhaps has not appealed to us as one on par in devotion like Prahlada. It looks as if Tyagaraja composed the opera ‘Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam' to place before us the agony and ecstasy of the young Prahlada as the echo of the saint's own experience in life.
One who has gone through his opera may be able to recognise the soul of the saint taking the garb of the great Puranic devotee. This comes to mind because the sentiment expressed by Prahlada in the opera may open the eyes of music lovers today to the possibility whether what Prahlada says is perhaps what Tyagaraja himself had felt in life. To recall the particular sentiment, the Samudra Raja in the opera exclaims to Prahlada that casting aside the three worlds is of no consequence, he stands supreme in the galaxy of his devotees. This is Prahlada's reply — “Naa jayamunu joochi nammare devuni” (Even after seeing the acme of my bhakti, people do not have any faith in God).
Can we take it as Tyagaraja's doubt over whether the propagation of his bhakti for Rama through his Utsava Sampradaya pieces and Divyanama songs, has percolated into the minds of rasikas and vidwans for over two centuries. While this may be a fact in standard music concerts, the observance of aradhanas still brims with spontaneous Tyagaraja bhakti.
Listeners at the Tiruvaiyyaru festival and the recent celebration in Chennai city and even abroad, carry printed copies of the Pancharatna songs. They follow with rapt attention and deep devotion as the vidwans sing the songs of the bard. Tyagaraja wouldn't have failed in his mission of spreading Rama bhakti among us because his avatara is destined by Rama Himself.
Friday, January 6, 2012
mErA jootA hai jApAni ...
Singing Hindi in the Rain
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive.
"Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema" at MoMa includes “Shree 420,” starring Kapoor, right, and Nargis.
By RACHEL SALTZ
Published: January 5, 2012
It’s one of the most famous sequences in Indian movies. And, not surprisingly, it’s a song. A Chaplinesque tramp with holes in his shoes, too-short pants and a slightly goofy hat skips down a country road and sings these lines in Hindi: “My shoes are Japanese/These pants are English/On my head is a red Russian hat/But still,” he says, pointing to his chest and delivering the kicker, “my heart is Hindustani.”
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive.
Raj Kapoor in “Awaara” (1951).
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive
Kapoor's frequent co-star Nargis, here as a country girl left behind in “Barsaat” (“Monsoon”), from 1949.
Indian International Film Academy
Kapoor with Kamini Kaushal in “Aag” (“Fire”), from 1948.
That heart belonged to Raj Kapoor, and his song — a simple statement of patriotism in a globalizing world — struck a chord with audiences in the young Indian republic when it appeared in “Shree 420” (1955). And not just in India; it was a hit in the Middle East and the Soviet Union too. Some middle-aged Russians can still sing it.
Kapoor (1924-88), called the Great Showman — no small tribute in an industry besotted with showmanship — looms large over the Indian film landscape. But how to explain him and his work to those who didn’t grow up with Hindi movies?
As an actor, Kapoor was a leading man who played poets and misfits and lovers. With the actress Nargis, he made up one of Hindi movies’ great romantic couples. And he could be comic too, as in “Shree 420,” in which his everyman tramp is not above the old slipping-on-a-banana-peel gag. (No one is spared: Nargis takes a tumble too.)
As a director and producer, eventually with his own studio, Kapoor lived the auteur’s dream. In a mostly formulaic and conservative industry, he made inventive, personal films that were entertaining and accessible but also something more. Socially conscious and Socialist-inclined with nation-building themes, they resonated in — and maybe even helped to define — a newly independent India busy inventing itself.
For those who have never seen a Hindi movie or are curious about Kapoor, the Museum of Modern Art’s well-chosen eight-film series Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema, opening on Friday, is an excellent place to start, focusing mainly on Kapoor’s heyday, the late 1940s to ’50s. And for those already familiar with Kapoor, the series offers a rare opportunity to see his films as they should be seen: on the big screen, in new 35-millimeter prints.
With its restless hero and inventive visuals, “Aag” (“Fire,”1948), made when its director-producer-star was just 24, announces a new voice on the scene that all but shouts, “Look at me!” Filmed in gorgeously stylized black and white — pools of darkness are broken by shafts of light, and eyes glow out of faces cast in shadow — it combines expressionism and homegrown melodrama to tell the story of a soulful upper-class young man (Kapoor) who breaks with his conventional family to pursue a career in theater.
Living on his own terms, the hero searches for truth and beauty and long-lost love. But this isn’t just his story, he says, it’s the “story of youth.” He knows that “creating your own destiny isn’t easy” — are you listening, young India? — yet prefers a path full of obstacles to the comfortable life he would lead in his father’s house.
Set in Kashmir, “Barsaat” (“Monsoon,”
Kapoor is paired with Nargis, and while there’s no kissing — this is Hindi cinema, after all, which had a long-running ban on it — Kapoor the director finds ways to give their scenes an erotic charge beyond the actors’ obvious chemistry. Watch as he rubs her head or grabs her hair or calls her to him with the siren song of his violin. (She even licks his fingers, calloused from playing.)
In “Awaara” (“The Vagabond,” 1951), perhaps his best movie, Kapoor tries out for the first time his tramp persona, though briefly, in the title song. Both song and film were enormous hits abroad, especially in the Soviet Union, where bands serenaded Nargis and Kapoor with the tune when they visited; in China, Mao was said to be a fan.
Here Kapoor’s not a pampered upper-class fellow, but a fatherless boy, Raju, raised in the Bombay slums, who falls into a life of crime. Written by K. A. Abbas (who also wrote “Shree 420”), the movie mixes mythological themes (the story of Raju’s parents, told in flashback, echoes the epic the Ramayana) with social ones: Can a good man come from the gutter? Can the cycle of poverty and crime be broken? Can a man be judged by who his father is — or isn’t?
There’s also a class-crossing love story, another favorite Kapoor theme, as Raju falls for Rita (Nargis), a lawyer and the ward of a magistrate who just happens to be the father who cast out Raju and his mother. (Kapoor’s real father, Prithviraj Kapoor, a distinguished stage actor, plays the magistrate.)
If “Awaara” is his best movie, “Shree 420” (“Mr. 420”), a clown-rags to well-tailored riches tale, is probably his most emblematic. Looking for work, his outsider tramp lands in the big city, Bombay, where he finds a home along a footpath with other poor people and falls for a schoolteacher, played of course by Nargis. Their moonlit, rain-soaked love song, delivered as they wander along the footpath, the city glittering just beyond, is a justifiably famous four-minute distillation of movie magic.
The tramp, though, becomes corrupt, a city-slicked swindler. (The number in the title refers to the section of the Indian penal code that deals with cheating and fraud.) But he’s redeemed at the end, making common cause again with the poor and powerless as they rise up to agitate for the simple right to housing.
The MoMA series also includes two later color films made at a time when Hindi movies were becoming Bollywood — the term was coined by journalists in the ’70s — and Kapoor was struggling to recover his place in the industry. “Meera Nam Joker” (“My Name Is Joker,” 1970), a maudlin working through of the tramp and clown themes, was a colossal flop. An older, puffier Kapoor looks ill matched with his young leading ladies. But “Bobby”(1973), a teenage love story starring Dimple Kapadia and Rishi Kapoor (Raj’s son), was a colossal hit that ushered in a vogue for tales of young love.
Bollywood movies today don’t look much like the Kapoor films from what MoMA calls the Golden Age. But the Kapoor dynasty stills flourishes. Raj’s brothers and sons have been stars, and now two of his grandchildren, Kareena and Ranbir (they’re cousins), are hard at work in the family trade. Both are actors, but both — is anyone surprised? — may have a not-so-secret dream: to direct.
“Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema” runs from Friday through Jan. 16 at the Museum of Modern Art; (212) 708-9400, moma.org.
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