Recently, I got some Indian channels hoping they'd make me feel like I was in India while I hibernate in front of the TV in an evil Minnesotan winter. The mid-western cable guy who showed up in his overalls, sat and watched for a few minutes, wide-eyed at how colorfully dressed everyone seemed. "They cry quite a lot, don't they" he exclaimed innocently. It's been about two weeks and I have been watching, out of plain curiosity, these Hindi TV serials where the primary villain is this wicked daughter-in-law who insists on wearing jeans, does not want to cook, eats meat and wants a nuclear family rather than the drama-rich joint family that has kept this TV series going. So now I feel like I am in India...but in a rich Gujarati family of the 60s.
India has moved into the 21st century (I think) and so has our use of technology and standards of living. Mumbai (Bombay) is a jungle of high rise apartments and rickety shanties which all have in common the mighty television. Working women, girls in mini-skirts and denim capris are a common sight. Yet the television series for some reason insist on showcasing family dramas that seem to belong to the 1970s or perhaps even earlier. One might argue that this scene still plays out in some parts of India. But quite honestly, I have known people from all parts of India from Lucknow to Rajasthan and have yet to meet a single person who can relate to these serials. Yet, the producers claim that these series are commercially successful. I guess when one has nothing to watch on TV except for these similar family-drama type series on all channels then what else can one do.
Interestingly, this trend was started by Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms, who is a successful Indian TV creator and quite an enterprising woman who has made a mark in television production. Her persona is far from the saree clad bahus of the series she has spawned. With the arrival of the saans-bahu circus, gone are the glorious years of television when series like Udaan, Nukkad, Fauji, Tenali Ram and Karamchand where the story was new and refreshing with every episode.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tingya...a film about a boy and his pet
Cold Minnesota weekends have led me into the arms of Netflix. Here I can order films from all over the world and watch stories with universal appeal. Over time, having seen cinema from Israel, France, China and even Iraq I have begun to appreciate a world outside of Bollywood escapism. This weekend I watched Tingya, a small budget Marathi film, director Mangesh Hadavale's debutant effort. It is a Marathi film and I could not get subtitles to come on. I watched it with an American friend who does not really understand Marathi and yet she was able to empathize with and appreciate every aspect of this remarkable story.
The story is of a little boy, Tingya, who loves his bullock. This bullock, for the rest of the family is a means of survival; for them he is livestock, he ploughs their fields and the little money that they earn from the yearly crop keeps them going. They live a humble, hand-to-mouth existence in rural Maharashtra where farmers are known to commit suicide when the rains refuse to grace them one fateful year. When the bull falls into a leopard trap and breaks his leg, overnight, he becomes useless to the family of poor farmers. But not to Tingya. To Tingya the bull is a beloved pet. When his parents contemplate selling the injured bull to the butcher, the little boy begins a battle to save his pet's life. In this endeavor he has the sole support of his little friend Rashida. When the film was over, we still had in the room, those characters living with us, their smiles and their tears and their struggles hanging heavy over our shoulders. I have been starved of Indian films that make me feel this way.
Currently, a look at the big releases reveals that most commercial Hindi films are made by rich film families, the big banners, as they are popularly referred to. Every second commercially viable blockbuster has a Kapoor or a Bachhan associated with it. Our Indian populace, so used to deity worship, promotes films like these and in their zeal to uphold their existing heroes ignores new talent that does not have the money to market their creativity. In the current scheme of things, films made by a small-time, struggling director get shoved into a corner, neglected because our masses are so taken with the idea of escapism that they do not want to see the depth and meaning in the stories of our reality.
I tried looking up Tingya online and could not find any major articles about this film in any Indian news dailies. Only bloggers seemed to have covered this film extensively in 2007 when it was released. While the film has a short Wikipedia page, it does not have a website, using instead a blog to promote themselves. The film has received only local film festival awards and I doubt they were taken to bigger festivals for sheer lack of funds. And yet big budget films like Devdas and Jodha Akbar receive unwarranted attention at international festivals because they have money and big names driving their efforts. This movie lost out to Taare Zameen Par for an Oscar submission. I am certain that if it were chosen it would have definitely been nominated. The western world may have seen a child's struggle with dyslexia but I can guarantee you the story of Tingya would have struck them as unique. But Tingya didn't stand a chance against Aamir Khan's directorial debut. I can only wish that I could have conveyed my appreciation to Mr.Hadavale personally.
I want my friends and readers to watch this film and talk about it. I know some of you may not be Marathi speaking but this film and its story is driven by scenes and not dialog. Some of you are animal lovers and I can tell you that this story will move you to the core. Help this little piece of genius along and in some little way encourage such talent instead of just going along with the blatant nepotism and cronyism that is plaguing our film industry back home. Mind you I do not mean to put down our commercial film industry. They have earned a place in people's psyche. But there is more to India than the glossy, commercially viable, rich lives portrayed by the Johar, Chopra factories. In a world plagued by superfluous, fleeting and material content, there are stories that have the power to move us and see the joys that lie beyond what's on the surface. These stories might not highlight our affluence but they tell people of how much happiness there can be without it.
The story is of a little boy, Tingya, who loves his bullock. This bullock, for the rest of the family is a means of survival; for them he is livestock, he ploughs their fields and the little money that they earn from the yearly crop keeps them going. They live a humble, hand-to-mouth existence in rural Maharashtra where farmers are known to commit suicide when the rains refuse to grace them one fateful year. When the bull falls into a leopard trap and breaks his leg, overnight, he becomes useless to the family of poor farmers. But not to Tingya. To Tingya the bull is a beloved pet. When his parents contemplate selling the injured bull to the butcher, the little boy begins a battle to save his pet's life. In this endeavor he has the sole support of his little friend Rashida. When the film was over, we still had in the room, those characters living with us, their smiles and their tears and their struggles hanging heavy over our shoulders. I have been starved of Indian films that make me feel this way.
Currently, a look at the big releases reveals that most commercial Hindi films are made by rich film families, the big banners, as they are popularly referred to. Every second commercially viable blockbuster has a Kapoor or a Bachhan associated with it. Our Indian populace, so used to deity worship, promotes films like these and in their zeal to uphold their existing heroes ignores new talent that does not have the money to market their creativity. In the current scheme of things, films made by a small-time, struggling director get shoved into a corner, neglected because our masses are so taken with the idea of escapism that they do not want to see the depth and meaning in the stories of our reality.
I tried looking up Tingya online and could not find any major articles about this film in any Indian news dailies. Only bloggers seemed to have covered this film extensively in 2007 when it was released. While the film has a short Wikipedia page, it does not have a website, using instead a blog to promote themselves. The film has received only local film festival awards and I doubt they were taken to bigger festivals for sheer lack of funds. And yet big budget films like Devdas and Jodha Akbar receive unwarranted attention at international festivals because they have money and big names driving their efforts. This movie lost out to Taare Zameen Par for an Oscar submission. I am certain that if it were chosen it would have definitely been nominated. The western world may have seen a child's struggle with dyslexia but I can guarantee you the story of Tingya would have struck them as unique. But Tingya didn't stand a chance against Aamir Khan's directorial debut. I can only wish that I could have conveyed my appreciation to Mr.Hadavale personally.
I want my friends and readers to watch this film and talk about it. I know some of you may not be Marathi speaking but this film and its story is driven by scenes and not dialog. Some of you are animal lovers and I can tell you that this story will move you to the core. Help this little piece of genius along and in some little way encourage such talent instead of just going along with the blatant nepotism and cronyism that is plaguing our film industry back home. Mind you I do not mean to put down our commercial film industry. They have earned a place in people's psyche. But there is more to India than the glossy, commercially viable, rich lives portrayed by the Johar, Chopra factories. In a world plagued by superfluous, fleeting and material content, there are stories that have the power to move us and see the joys that lie beyond what's on the surface. These stories might not highlight our affluence but they tell people of how much happiness there can be without it.
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