Zanjeer 50 Years Hence

Posted on June 17, 2023 by secondsaturn

Zanjeer 50 Years

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay’s Questions. Susmita Dasgupta’s Answers

Question 1: 50 years ago, Zanjeer was a new and yet typical Bollywood film. Its stark novelty broke and yet reaffirmed the Bollywood formula. Based on the image of an Angry Young Man, Amitabh Bachchan started with a new flavour for the audiences. Whose credit was this? Amitabh Bachchan himself? Or the directors? Or the screen writers?

Answer: Most of the credit of Zanjeer and the new formula around Amitabh Bachchan must be given to the writers Salim Javed. Prakash Mehra saw the point and Amitabh Bachchan expressed the story. In a star-based movie, a lot of it is based on the star’s own personality and even biography. The star does best when roles are extensions of his/her life.

Cinematographically, Zanjeer has drawn so much from Uday Shankar’s film, Kalpana. Especially because of the dream being central to the story. It was about searching for the dream in the waking world.

Question 2: Do you think that Amitabh Bachchan expressed rebellion against the order or system? Especially as Zanjeer was released in 1973 and the Emergency declared in 1975? Around that time there were many rebellions, the Naxal movement, the slew of industrial and institutional strikes? Did Amitabh Bachchan represent the general angst?

Answer: No, that’s not true. The revolutionaries, because I lived in those times, so I know firsthand, always looked upon Amitabh as a stooge of the Congress. Rumours were afloat that Mrs Gandhi was setting up the star cast in the film! The intellectuals hated him and thought of him as a pro establishment person.

Question 3: Is that not a contradiction? He is a rebel and yet pro Indira Gandhi.

Observed carefully, Amitabh Bachchan and Indira Gandhi are parallel figures, bit as Yugapurush. Indira Gandhi was a rebel, she rebelled against the elders as in the syndicalists, she broke through many elitist bastions, the nationalization of banks, collieries, sick units, the BIFR, and brought 50 laws veering India towards a socialist economy. Amitabh also represented the attacks against the stagnancies of the system.

Question 4: You have mentioned that Amitabh Bachchan’s anger was not personal, it was universal. Did it represent the anger of the people?

People are always angry with something or the other. Arts and politics, both encash on it. In case of Amitabh Bachchan, especially in Zanjeer, he is troubled by a dream, or a nightmare of the past. The dream makes up edgy and eventually angry. He is angry at the disorder, anything disorderly. That dream is a disorder, the disorder from the dream spills into the real world. Strangely, it makes him become more aware of things out of place. The dream oppresses him and hence he becomes so frenzied when he senses oppression such as the children who were crushed to death by a speeding truck.

So, this anger against disorder comes from a separation of essence, contained in the dream and his existence. The alienation of existence from essence has marked the entire journey of the image of Amitabh Bachchan.

Question 5: If Amitabh and Indira Gandhi were on the same page, then what about the rebellions which were happening around us?

The rebels, Indira Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan were all on the same page. Rebellions are often struggles to overcome limitations. With Indira Gandhi, a new age dawned on the country. We saw expansion everywhere, education, industry, agriculture, technology, these created opportunities for the middle class. The increase in population and the spread of education brought many more candidates into the workforce. There were both huge career opportunities as well as unemployment. So, everything had to expand to sustain the increase in opportunities for the youth to seize. Everybody wanted to expand, and everybody rebelled against limitations of systems wherever those applied.

We should not make too much of the image of Zanjeer, because that was a steppingstone. It was Deewar where the image took its shape. It is perhaps Amitabh’s only political film in the waxing phase of his career. The rest were stories about the separation of the essence and existence and of angst of the hero in trying to close that.

Question 6: Where do you think that the angry young man emerged from? He had predecessors in Hindi films? What about Ashok Kumar, the antihero in Kismet?

All heroes have been angry at the same thing, namely the limitations in the system. But for Amitabh, the anger was made into a central narrative and not as something that happens by the way.

There was another thing of the ability of the hero to fight; since the Hindi film was about the protection of the middle classes and the promotion of its aspirations for existential meaning, one of the major causes of its vulnerability lay in being attacked in the streets. Middle class respectability feared violence. Amitabh’s image ended that. It was not so much the expression of frustration, but a show of strength against the roadside goons. 

Question 7: You mention that for Amitabh Bachchan, the films showed the hero’s full biography, from childhood to adulthood? Why was this necessary when anger was narrativized?

The narrative around anger made the biography. If it is a momentary anger, then it is an emotion, then it cannot be narrativized. Anger as a narrative need to ride upon the biography. Also the separation between the essence and existence, central to the image of the angry young man is an existential matter.

With the expanding opportunities and education, we see a lot of upward social mobility between 1967 and 1977. The birth rate is very high, so there is an urgency for the species to proliferate. That urgency translates into the image also as anger, you want to go fast and yet caught in a traffic jam.

Besides, in times of upward social mobility the biography becomes important because you are drawing upon your inner resources to break into new grounds. No one knows who you are, and you establish yourself, you are acquiring new skills and talents, the background becomes important.

Question 8: Where has the anger disappeared in our times?

We see anger all around us and all the time. Lynching, name calling, violent speeches, personal attacks, murder. So, anger has not disappeared at all. But because this anger is person to person, mostly against your neighbour, fellow traveller, family members, colleagues, it has little value for art. Art can only accommodate the universals, about reason, about rules. The anger we see at present times is personal, not systemic, about self-gratification and not about being a creative citizen.

Question 9. What about the role of Sher Khan that Pran played? Was he made into a Pathan to foster communal harmony?

Hindi films have always promoted communal harmony. So, nothing new about that. But Sher Khan was modelled around Kabuliwallah, the role which Chhabi Biswas enacted. Pran takes on the accent, the mannerisms, and the body language of the Bengali star. Also, remember that the hero was also a child in essence because the dream never freed him from childhood.

Question 10. Can the new generation be inspired by Zanjeer?

I don’t think so. Amitabh’s appeal lay in the middle-class intelligentsia. That class was the leading social class in the 70’s. Now we are totally disempowered into a middle class consumer class; since we neither possess nor desire nor are allowed to have any decision making in the system, what use would Amitabh Bachchan be to us?

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Hindu Khatre Mein Vaake Hi Hain

Posted on May 11, 2023 by secondsaturn

Hindu Khatre Mein Hai: Vakey Hi Hai

After the release of the Kerala Story and the aftermath of the Meiti insurgency in Manipur, PM Modi gave a convincing speech in his Mann ki Baat, or as his enemies say, Monkey Bath. It was compelling making the non-believers like me see the point that there is indeed a conspiracy brewing across the world against the Hindus in India. It is another thing whether they will succeed against the swathes of humanity called Hindus with their tiny bands of militia, irrespective of the sophistications in their strike powers. But they will be after us; one after the other, Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs. They will come after us, not irrespective of the religions but because of their religion. I believe in the speech, and I see the point.

When Georgie was alive, we used to watch a show called the Dog Whisperer by Caesar Millan, a dog trainer in the west coast of USA who is now a sort of a universal animal behaviour theoretician. Caesar’s principles are important because they can be generalized to human behaviour as well and to behaviour in general, at least of living organisms. For instance, in a zoo in Russia, a goat placed as prey for a tiger grew healthy and old without the tiger ever harming it. When the goat was placed inside the confines of the tiger, it was not scared of the tiger. Seeing its confidence, the tiger grew diffident and even subservient to it. Throughout its life, the goat was the dominant partner. It never considered itself as prey, the tiger was led to believe so.

Throughout the history of time, humans have dominated animals. Elephants, ten times the size and weight of a human, are controlled by humans. Men have driven chariots of six horses, ridden camels, and even bulls and cows are much bigger and heavier than humans, so size does not matter. What matters is the game playing, who becomes the victim and who claims the status of the boss.

In India we always knew that the Hindus are a majority. Even at the height of Muslim rulers, Islam touched us nowhere, neither in our learning, nor in our beliefs, neither in customs, nor in clothes, neither in food nor in rituals. Hindus were indomitable. Even when the violence was physical, Muslim rule could never intimidate the Hindu mind. The most opulent temples, the most verbose texts, the most extravagant performances thrived during the Muslim rule. The Muslim rule, which consists of the Sultanate and the Mughals, not only shaped and firmed up the Hindu identity, but Hinduism flowered in such times as never before. Nothing could be done to the Hindus.

During the British rule, Hindus grew into a massive power. The social reforms of the Hindus reinvented its Vedic source, the delving into its universalistic principles by Raja Rammohun Roy and then by the Brahmo Samaj and eventually Tagore, raised Hinduism into a world religion. Later in the day, Vivekananda lived more like Elvis than only a monk, his glamour glitzed the western world with snazzy Vedanta societies been set up and visited by the who’s who of the respective societies. Hinduism flared up during the Vietnam war when the Hare Rama Hare Krishna became a global chant for peace with Prabhupad and Iskon walking the talk. Rajneesh eventually avalanched into the most esoteric and abstract understanding of all religions and faiths using the concepts formed within the Upanishads. Such is the global power of the Hinduism; much of the worldwide respect for Indians is because we are Hindus. No exaggeration there.

But in the recent times, the less educated and less endowed persons who have automatically risen to levels of articulation and hence acquired decision making powers in our democracy, have suddenly felt that the Hindu is endangered. This population, whom neither the providence of wealth and even less the fortune of education have graced, suddenly waking up to public life, as yet unable to detach themselves into civic beings, holding close to their homes and private selves find themselves beaten by a world in which they are ill equipped to compete. All they have, as legacies, are rituals, beliefs, and superstitions. Their families have never read history, ancestors never known science and hence in their dinner table conversations all they could repeat were the false associations of religion which were couched in the language of modern theory. That’s all they knew; vaguely imagining that the writings of Baudhayan contained the Pythagoras theorem, that the Vedas contained maths and that one knew the principles of aviation just because a culture imagined the Pushpak Vimana. That small mind looked at itself and the world in a small way. In its memories, yet undeveloped beyond medieval times found itself trapped amidst the raids of Mohammad Ghori and the conquests of Babur. Not knowing the difference between history and myth, this class can only access what has already come into myth. In other words, it can access mythic history.

It is this class, the new kids on the block of democracy which is at risk because it is unable to find its space in the modern world. India’s poor quality of education has failed them. The lack of unemployment is the lack of unemployability. The lack of skills has also made this group vulnerable to unemployment, dismissals, and failures. As a social class, this group is indeed in danger. Hence, everything that qualifies this group, the coordinates of its identities, its beliefs, superstitions, rituals, way of life is dangerous. Hence, we have videos of sari clad women doing gymnastics, yoga and the marathon, a covert imposition of the saree a la the hijab. We have of course the celebrated go mutra and ineffectual ayurveda cures of unfiltered substances not fit for the human gut.

The Hinduism as believed by this weak social class is indeed in danger because this very social class is in danger. It uses politics to compensate its failure as an economic power; the phenomenon of political parties appointing their unqualified members in posts of importance stems from this use of political power as a compensation for the loss of educational and economic power. The Hinduism that rules the world is both affluent and erudite. It belongs to the upper classes, the class enemy of the presently politically empowered but educationally and culturally weak social class.

The political weapon of an emergent social class post the French Revolution is the construction of itself as a victim. In a democracy of universal adult suffrage based on the language of rights, victimhood has the best chances of cornering entitlements. But, in the natural world, and humans are at the level of instinct, natural beings, weakness is never tolerated. In the survival of the fittest, nature lets those who are strong to survive. The animal senses weakness very well and attacks those beings which are perceived to be weak. Let it never be overlooked that humans are animals and whenever you project yourself as weak, the stray dog will start to intimidate you. By constantly posing Hindu to be a weak person, one may gain in the political world, but thus arouses the natural instincts among others to attack us. Women, especially those as unchaperoned as I know this fact instinctively.

If today, the Hindu projects herself as a weak person, she will now in reality invite attacks upon her by communities of other religion. It will start with jeers, then teasing, then harming and eventually war. Such is the instinct with which humans are born. The myth of danger, used for political gains may translate into a reality when all of us will become endangered in the real sense of the term. Human history is replete with instances of religious persecution; persecute none and none will persecute you.

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Ranthambore _ The City That Macchli Made Out of the Forest

Posted on April 7, 2023 by secondsaturn

Ranthambore, as legends and records go was a dense forest into which came a Yadava chief by the name Jayanta in 5 AD to create the fort. Since then, it has been built upon and expanded over centuries to assume the gargantuan proportions it does today. The entourage of Prithvi Raj Chauhan, fleeing the Khiljees, shifted into this area in the forest and emerged out of what was merely an asylum into creating one of the most formidable regional powers of the Rajputs lending Rajasthan its name. 5 AD, is a hoary time of history, the later days of the Mauryas with the Brahmanic Sungas, most also a Sino Asian force was foraying into the subcontinent, and it is possible that they could have driven the riverine Yadavas into the forest. However, the Yadavas, who was more an economic power than a political one, started the impossible task of building a fort out of stone, rather than of bricks or wood as were the conventions. Yadavas must have been able to garner a huge labour force, which means that they either had money or the means to pay the army of workers and yet with that money they retreated to the forest instead of bidding on political power. Interesting.

In the hands of the Rajputs, Ranthambore was a site of bitter rivalries between them and the Khiljees, though it was always a sort of a hiding, where kings went when out of power, pouncing on Kumbalgarh or Chittor as the opportunities came. Hamir was its legendary king, who moved in the forest, made friends with both the Bhils as well as the leopards and tigers and made them his allies against his enemies and rivals. Myths and folklore claim that Hammir was protected and guarded by a pair of black panthers.

The tiger seems to be a recent feature; for dense forests in epics of the Ramayana and Mahabharata are dangerous because of demons but not for tigers. We have the ghosts and spirits in the Vikram Betaal stories, but not the predators. They occasionally do stalk the jungles but not as dominant as they were when Babur and Sher Shah kill tigers. Akbar has a veritable forest policy of protecting wildlife; hence the rise in the predator population is a matter of a millennium but not of a deep past. Rather, terrifying rakshasas are seen to be killing tigers and sloth bear rather than the other way round.

It was only in the 20th century when India’s population started to rise that forests, so far considered as being impregnable to human habitation came to be encroached upon and cleared out. In the year 1973, when Indira Gandhi’s government undertook a massive road construction project that Fateh Singh, the man who is said to have restored the forest, a PWD engineer took upon himself the mission to rehabilitate the natural flora and fauna to the earth again. He was himself a man of the land, living off the forest for generations and yet, he designed and imagined the future of the earth, not in human terms but as an ecological balance of the nature’s elements. Stiffly resisted by bureaucrats who would not allow displacement of the human for the tiger, Fateh Singh continued tirelessly, supported by the friends of the then PM, most importantly, Pupul Jayakar who created a Dastakar for the displaced persons to sell crafts and other interventionists who helped in agriculture and irrigation. But the humans did not take to these kindly, as the forest was their livelihood and now to leave it for infestation of tigers would mean disaster. They kept on infiltrating and even actively promoted poaching. A wild animal is not necessary to the forest, it is needed to keep the humans off; a similar initiative in the present times is to infest the river Chambal with gharials to help the waters remain unpolluted.

It was an uphill task to ward off attacks of villagers in the forest and its guards, to reign over the poachers and to save the tiger by keeping it safe from the human. Fateh Singh started to “cultivate” tigers to earn their faith in humans. He found a tigress with five cubs; determined to save her and the cubs, he started to assure her. He named her Padmini, after his own daughter and used to visit her regularly. Initially Padmini was aggressive and defensive, she attacked Fateh Singh many times, only to be read as mock attacks. Though mortally afraid of attacks, Fateh never used a gun; he probably did not have a license either and in this way, he started the culture of forest officers to abandon weapons. Should a wild animal kill a man, so be it, but the man must never kill an animal. Encroachers are discouraged for the predators must bever get into the habit of catching milch cattle or goats as easy prey for that will make them lazy to chase the deer and eventually risk the creation of man eaters.

Out of generations of trust, tigers began to grow in Ranthambore. Encroachments and poaching remained problems, despite strong vigil. This suited Rajasthan since the state is almost wholly dependent upon tourism; the forest fetched revenues and not the encroachers. Resentful of their fate, villagers have known to attack officers, Fateh Singh being nearly fatally wounded once. In such times, was born Macchli, the legendary tigress of Ranthambore, its brightest star of national and international fame. She was massive, heavy, fast, nimble, and immensely fertile, having produced 11 live cubs. She was aggressive and yet strategic in saving her infants from the dangers in the forest and feeding them well. However, as her daughters would grow old, they would need the space, Macchli had to seek her own protection. Somewhere in her middle years, she realized that she was not as fast as she would have liked to remain. It was then, which means around 2007 that with a human intelligence, she made a strategic connection, and which was that she was supposed to be “seen”. So far, the tigers would develop “relationships” with the officers and staff but Macchli started to court the tourists. She became the most seen as well as the most filmed. She would make a kill in the presence of tourists; she would fight the crocodile and boars as she would sense cameras rolling in. An extremely self-conscious lady, Macchli became the Lady of the Lake, named after the water body around which she created her home.

It was because of Macchli’s visibility and her accessibility to the tourists, that the traffic soared into Ranthambore. The tourism industry exploded, and it drew the locals into a boisterous set of opportunities as hoteliers, restauranteurs, drivers, guides, and safari providers. There now grew also a market for handicrafts, many even charging fancy prices for the wares. Hand painted pictures of tigers and wildlife, already traditionally practiced by local people were selling swiftly. What the rehabilitation programmes of the government could not do, Macchli established with one stroke, she made tourism into such a big affair that people had more opportunities living off the forests and then living in it. The people grew protective of the forest and the tigers. Poaching slid down remarkably as the villagers were now protecting the forest and wildlife instead of considering these as enemies. Just as Jamshed Tata established the steel city, Macchli too established an entire city based around the forest. It is not for nothing that the Government of India has issued a stamp on her, given her a lifetime achievement award recognizing her contribution towards the ecology and economy of an entire business.

That Macchli did not always work on an animal instinct and instead, had a thinking mind is evident in the way she spent her final years, seeking the protection of the people and the forest officers as she lurked behind the property of Fateh Singh, the one who started an entire journey of trusting her species. She moved about in hotels and resorts, sunbathing by the side of the swimming pool ever since her daughter, Sundari, by the laws of Nature drove her off her lake over which she established her ladyship. The villagers set their dogs to kill nilgais and then served Macchli with the carcass, the forest officers also made easy prey like goats available for her. As she lay breathing her last, having stopped eating, the dedicated forest guards were constantly by her side. She died peacefully, rejoicing in the illustrious life she led and the rewards she enchased from her status by way of a peaceful demise. The Rajasthan Government declared a state of mourning of three days, a huge crowd of devotees followed her pall bearers as she was cremated with full honours. Covered in a white sheet and decorated with coloured flowers of the forest, Macchli looked as dignified in death as she did while she stalked the earth to emerge as the longest living tiger in the wild, dying only at an age of 20 full years.

Macchli has a huge fan following, a Facebook page, Instagram account, YouTube videos, where she is still searched. She had almost a human brain. Without tigers of her intelligence, Ranthambore cannot and will not survive on the strength of its hotels and bars. It is not an easy drive or the addition of hotel rooms nor the addition of safari jeeps that will sustain Ranthambore. It is a forest where people go to see the tiger; tigers must be seen and for this, everyone must put in their best efforts to cultivate more Macchlis.

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Fascism …

Posted on March 8, 2023 by secondsaturn

A young scholar writes that she intends to bring forth the terrible woes of the marginalized communities in the country to invade the comfort smugness of the privileged upper caste elites, who, according to her have cornered every opportunity in the world leaving the lower castes as victims of systematic oppression. If this is research, then it is like numerous ones which preceded hers without a concern for a counter question, what if this thesis is not true and what would be the exceptions to the rule and in which circumstances? The trouble is that when I asked her about the counter question, she had no clue what it meant. As an avid opponent of fascism, this young brilliant mind fails to realize that willingly she has herself fallen to the fascist trap precisely for the absence of her counter question. Fascism, a totalitarian order finds its legitimacy in minds which seek an uncontested totality, neat, well ordered and non-controversial. Discourses which seek only one side of the question are thus the building blocks of fascism and that is exactly how, fascism lies as the final form of evolution of any government, but more so for democracy, because no other form of government is founded upon individual freedom as democracy is.

On the face of it, fascism is the very opposite of democracy; it does not tolerate opposition while opposition is the very constitution of democracy. People matter in democracy, people come last in fascism and yet, fascism is the final stage of democracy and indeed, no other form of government can snuff out opposition to itself the way democracy can yield to fascism. Fascism manifests the best in democracies. This is because fascism works the best not when leaders want it, but when people uphold it whole heartedly with their beliefs and ideologies. Against fascism, liberalism has no chance because fascism feeds on the very facts that liberalism holds as sacred without acknowledging counter facts.

A central tenet of democracy is the rule of the people and inclusion. This is an ideal because inclusion can only be genuine when there is equality among humans; in reality, the asymmetrical endowments of wealth and power, status and entitlements make equality an impossibility. Democracy’s promise of equality thus uses political power to equalize the statuses among humans what the real socio-economic situation denies. This produces a strong class resentment where those economically and socially not well off try to dominate those who are endowed. Fascism has a strong contempt for talents, if those talents emerge from long held tradition, eg; those who are good in studies because they inherit a lot of knowledge that goes in with families with long educational background. The Brahmins of India have had a long and unbroken tradition of learning and they occupy the best positions in almost all professions. The resentment of first-generation learners against those who belong to traditionally educated families translate into preferences for political parties with ideologies which though detestable to the learned is delectable to the first generation of the educated. Atrocious distortions of history, upholding superstitions as science and even a contempt for genuine learning and sciences is transported into the education system through political appointments of those who believe in the party’s ideology.

The point in fascism is not that the less qualified are appointed politically, the point is that the liberal discourse has no defense in its favour. Liberalism is a struggle for emancipation against the various non democratic forms of governments; it fights kings and monarchs through persons of exceptional capabilities and with equality because the new leaders seek equality with the kings. This goes beyond equality because the new age elite is more talented than kings. When, however, the lesser talented, the less vital, the less capable ones also demand equality with the elites, the elites cannot deny them their claims. The insistence on merit is also a dividing force in society, sparring at equality. Liberalism’s upholding of equality boomerangs against it, making it appear as elitism and hence inimical to democracy. In its quest for inclusion and equality, liberalism is forced to admit people of lesser merit and capabilities and not raise the bar of merit against them. The people of lesser capabilities will want equality, use political power to seek appointments and fill spaces in offices. Fascism thus is best held by clerks, teachers, bureaucrats, and professionals appointed politically to mask their basic incapability of incumbency.

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So Many Buddhas

Posted on February 12, 2023 by secondsaturn

The exhibition in the Indian Museum in the journey of Buddha is enlightenment because it placed Buddha in a wider socio-cultural and historical context, which greatly illuminates the mind of the general interest person, not specialized in Buddhist studies.

The exhibits are in a timeline starting with the Sunga period, a set of non-Buddhist kings who may have hailed from China, more specifically Manchuria, bringing with them the jatakas, or ideas that the Buddha has had several incarnations in which his animal twin, the white elephant, his mother Maya and the charioteer, Sunanda remain common. Along with the jatakas tales emerge symbols of the tree, the wheel, scenes from Buddha’s life as narratives find their way into the domain of art. With the Kushanas, the Gandhara art takes over where Buddha becomes more human and more Divine because he is human. Forms of the Buddha as a corporeal body are explored, as a prince, a renouncer and a universal teacher. From just being a Hegelian soul seeking perfection of the self, Buddha becomes a guru and along with that the former is depicted as the Hinayana and the latter as Mahayana.

The Mahayana brings Buddha to the world, but soon the Stupa culture takes over. We find among the displayed objects, stone tablets with Chinese writings from Sarnath. The stupa culture is part of the culture of the pyramids, more as sites marking preservation of mortal remains of kings. The stupas are common across China, Korea, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. The tooth, pyre ashes and a foot print were part of this culture. A huge impression of his foot on stone is on display as well. From a teacher in the Mahayana, we now get him as a King in the stupa culture. The Hinayana of the Sungas pertained to the jatakas and symbols such as the peepal tree to depict the Buddha, the Mahayana inspired by the Gandhara art set him as a mortal and a Universal teacher while the stupa culture makes him into a King; together Buddha is all set towards becoming a Deity.

The Bajrayana makes Buddha, for the first time a part of the pantheon of multiple gods and goddesses. Puranic styles are followed in the Vajrayana texts where Buddha resides among other Gods and goddesses and as the Palas rule Bengal and other parts of the foothills of the Himalayan range, Buddha becomes a magical God from a metaphysical teacher, to who one could pray for rain and against epidemics. Mixed with tantric elements due to its magical powers, Buddha is fully embedded into a pantheon and becomes a regular God. This is also when, post the Pala rule that Buddha is absorbed into Hinduism. Harsha is confused between what is Buddhism and what would Hinduism be, for he breaks and builds shrines of both religions with equal vigour.

The Sahajayan Buddhism, which inheres Bengal during the Sena rule is all set to become the Sahajiya sects, those who again set Buddha back into the realm of the unseeable formless One. Here, post the Vaishnav movement, Sahajiyas mix easily with Bengal Vaishnavism while they absorb elements from the Bauls and other worshippers of the Formless One God. Buddha’s residence into Hinduism become permanent as one of its Gods, specifically as an avatar of Vishnu much like Rama.

There is a chart in the Museum that lists the four councils; 483 BCE, after the death of Buddha when his teachings and philosophy was documented in the textual form. The second one takes place under Kalashok in 383 BCE of the Sisunaga dynasty where the split occurs between the Theravada Buddhism and the Mahasangika, where the teachings were divided into what constituted the fundamentals and what would be the more liberal. The third council was under Asoka in 250 BCE, where Pali was established as the official language of Buddhism. Texts of the Hinayana sect, namely those which focused on personal salvation through the Hegelian refinement of the soul via repeated births. The fourth council was held under Kanishka in 72 AD where Buddha emerged into the visual space as a human who lived a worldly life. Kanishka’s contribution appears to be the most significant as he created visual images literally in stone to portray Buddha, hitherto only heard of. From here really begins the journey of Buddha from a hero, a prince, to a teacher to God.

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Dante, D’Annunzio and Tagore

Posted on January 5, 2023 by secondsaturn

“Dante, D’Annunzio and Tagore” is the name of a project that culminated into a Seminar of the same name between Prof Mario Prayer and the English Department of Jadavpur University. The focus of the scholarship was mainly around modernity and its critique. However, to understand the poets as mentioned above, we may need to be aware of a brief historical and cultural background.

In D’Annunzio’s own words, his purpose, as has been the purpose of philosophers right from Socrates and which is, to be able to see an underlying pattern among the apparent randomness of everyday life. Hence, he draws his inspiration from Dante with whom he has many worldly similarities. Both were in positions of political power, both were defeated and exiled and for both, more than defeat and exile, it was a forced rendering them as irrelevant that created the trouble. D’Annunzio took his exile badly, knowing fully well that his defeat meant the advance of fascism in Italy, focused on self-destructive passions, unnecessary bitterness, and unfounded cynicism, while writing some of his expansive poems. Dante, on the other hand, sought his metaphysical refuge in Christianity, writing his Divine Comedy in which the Inferno depicting the Purgatory constituted the lengthiest passages and acutest descriptions of human follies and temptations. Dante’s spirit then reconnected with Beatrice, his lifelong passion, his muse, who he could not marry while he was alive because of social compulsions. The Divine Comedy establishes the truth of Heaven, of romantic love and the fragility of social customs, ranks of power, desires of material wealth and so on.

Indians would find the familiar idea of “Maya” in Dante’s poem; the world of appearances being merely illusory and a celestial world that is truer than the one lived in. This is our religious belief. We would also find in the Divine Comedy, the familiar motif of Devdas, a novel written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1917, politically a most volatile period in India, where Devdas loses all meaning in life because he cannot marry Parvati, his Beatrice, sneers at the world of appearances and goes into an existential lull. Devdas, is a story of self-annihilation, like Dante’s death but without the prospect of the Catholic resurrection and instead a Protestant blankness of afterlife. Devdas is the Protestant conversation with Catholic Dante. Devdas has been the most filmed novel ever.

The other familiar motif for the Indian would be the penultimate scene of the Mahabharata where the Pandavas are on their path to Heaven, the Mahaprasthan. Each Pandav fall on the way for their human limitations and Yudhisthir is alone with the stray dog who, quite unnoticed till the final moments suddenly catches our attention. The dog is Dharma, the God who everyone searches on earth and yet He follows Yudhisthir around. Yudhisthir is beyond Dharma; he leads Dharma rather than seek or follow Him. The episode of the Mahaprasthan expresses an unlimited faith in human powers and the reality of the world rather than of the Purgatory, which is where he meets his loved ones as departed souls. Yudhisthir refuses salvation on two counts, once he refuses to ascend the chariot to Heaven because he does not want to abandon the dog who followed him and the other when he refuses to graduate from the Purgatory because for him the company of his family was far greater than the pleasures of Heaven. The Mahaprasthan is the only moment when we see Yudhisthir revealing his emotions, which are attachments to family and bonds of filial relationships.

The third motif is Hamlet of Shakespeare in which the Father, his ghost and the son are in a dilemma; the dilemma is that of a Protestant who is supposed to believe in predestination and annihilation after death now confronted with the “reality” of the Catholic purgatory and the Holy Ghost. Hamlet’s guilt is the guilt of the Protestant against the Catholic and of the Unitarian against the Trinity, a familiar guilt among religious converts of the subcontinents.

D’Annunzio does not speak of the Catholic beliefs but is essentially Greek who seeks to integrate the Latin flavour of Dante. The Greek and the Latin have been the long-standing conflicts in the European tradition; each seeking the other but, in a way, repelling too. The Greek culture is humanist and pagan and yet idealist, its metaphysics is about material hyperloops. In its materiality, it gets really close to the Protestant nihilism of Heavens. The Latin culture is transcendental and religious; spirituality is its metaphysical unity. D’Annunzio seeks the unity, a transcendence of appearances into their higher forms of cognition, a transcendence that negates the appearances. Dante has inspired great paintings through ages, namely, Classicism, Expressionism, postmodern and the futuristic. D’Annunzio has been influenced by paintings especially of Leonardo da Vinci rather than inspiring paintings. D’Annunzio’s influence is far sharper in drama, the opera, the theatre and even, unwittingly in comedy. While Dante’s transcendence, despite being other worldly is tangible, physical, and palpable while D’Annunzio is misty, intangible, illusory reaching the zone of the unknowable. A possible explanation could lie in Dante’s palpability of death while death for D’Annunzio is pure annihilation.

Tagore and Dante do not seem to meet too well because Tagore’s is not the mind of an epicist. Michael Madhusudan Dutta may be a better study with respect to Dante, Dante’s poetry seems to have some resonance in his works, especially the Meghnadbadh Kavya, a retelling of the Ramayana. D’Annunzio and Tagore are closer to each other in constantly trying to find patterns and more than that, a future in the prevalent chaos in the real life. D’Annunzio is exiled by political forces; Tagore is rendered irrelevant by his state of being in a colonized nation. Both their audiences are blind to their visions, deaf to their words. How would they make themselves hear? D’Annunzio’s poetic strategy seems to be the use of words to push the apparent away into Nature, Tagore seems to raise the smallness of everyday familiarity to a larger universal yet to be known. For D’Annunzio the world must melt away, cease to exist in the vastness of the unity of patterns; for Tagore, the smallest of existences must be infused with the contemplation of the vastest.

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Brahmananda Keshab Chandra Sen

Posted on December 9, 2022 by secondsaturn

Keshab Chandra Sen (1838 to 1884) was considered, during his times, to be one of the most, if not the most illustrious members leading the Indian Enlightenment. Born into a well-established family of high zamindari officials, Keshab Sen seems to have veered into the path of finding God through intense devotion when he, still an adolescent froze in the scholarship examination and failed. Imagining this failure to pass an examination of otherwise brilliant student, his mission lay elsewhere, which is to emerge as a public figure, even if doubtful to occupy a public office. This he does, by emerging as one of the astounding speakers, inspiring Indians to emerge into expanded souls and expanded scope beyond the narrowness of beliefs. What remained confined among a few intellectuals within the Brahmo Samaj, now becomes a deluge of popular participation.

Keshab Sen leaves his religion to become a Brahmo, and yet there, within the religion of Deism, he reverses the trend towards the larger acceptance of the idol worship, in effect uniting the Hindus and the Brahmos and escalating the scope of religious reformation into a nationalistic veneer. In trying to reach the form through the formless, he meets Ramakrishna Paramhansa, whose travel is from the form towards the formless. The two come together from opposite directions into a union of dramatic opposites; Keshab, the erudite and educated, Ramakrishna the rustic and commonplace meet each other in ecstasy.

Keshab Sen helps to bring within the fold of Brahmoism, an interfaith understanding. In this, he raises the idea of interfaith harmony from the mere coexistence of multiple theologies into a mystical understanding the essence of all religions, or the meditative centres in each of these, where the possibility of a genuine dialogue may arise. It is in this spirit of dialogism that Keshab and Thakur meet.

Both Keshab Sen and Ramakrishna, albeit involuntarily let out an anxiety about Christianity. There is a felt need to deal with that religion and hence they try and unite the two together. His praise of the Trinity is both an attack against Rammohun Roy, who he feels without exactly saying so, had restricted and restrained the Brahmos into the picky and choosy intellect of conceptualizing the Formless beyond beliefs of any religion whatsoever. He is eager to point out the similarities between Christ and Paramhansa.

Keshab Sen lauds Islam too, finding within it a deeper spiritual purpose rather than it being the religion of the conqueror it is usually associated with. However, in pursuing the great mission of the interfaith understanding, as Shibnath Shastri says that Keshab had become a fundamentalist like the Prophet Muhammad, who said that he is the final word. Once the truth was discovered in his head, Keshab was pursuing it in the manner of it being absolute. Hence the schisms in the Samaj due to the agency of Keshab Sen.

Rabindranath however reads Keshab Sen a little differently; like Subhas Bose, he feels that Keshab Sen was too large to be contained in the institutional framework of Brahmos. Maharshi lauds his devotion to the cause of Devotion and awards him with the title of Brahmananda.

In Sreemati Mukherjee’s book on the Kathamrita, she articulates that Thakur wanted to become a Prophet. However, it was Keshab Sen who becomes a Prophet while Thakur remains a Divinized Guru for the Bengalis across generations. Two men mutually allergic towards each other, namely Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar remained unimpressed by Thakur as they found devotion to be a drag on the attainment of worldly opportunities.

In the efforts of Raja Rammohun Roy, one could work through religion too to access reason, religion could be tweaked to become a spiritual emancipation rather than blind faith and that liberation could help persons acquire material wellbeing and political autonomy; in the path of Keshab Sen, the Hindu religion could become expansive to be able to engage with any and every religion in the world. The demagoguery of Keshab Sen, his charisma, his populistic appeal through in the vehicle of religious reform anticipates the Freedom Struggle of unity in diversity which would be in place half a century later.

The Bhowanipore Brahmo Samaj convened a small gathering with three speakers namely Manjura Chakravarty, Prof Sreemati Mukherjee and Prof Sunrit Mullick on the evening of the 17th of November 2022 to discuss Keshab Sen’s ideas. Manjura spoke animatedly on the devotional aspect of Keshab Sen, his access to the title of Brahmananda, Sreemati spoke on the interaction between Keshab Sen and Ramkrishna Paramhansa with succinctly chosen details to highlight the drama pf Keshab Sen’s life with Thakur, while Sunrit spoke on Keshab Sen’s mysticism that sought a dialogical union among the essences of all religions. Arindrajit Saha conducted the panel while Prof Tathagata Sen summarized the proceedings.

The audience was so charged up with the proceedings that discussions continued beyond the meeting into late evening. Who says that discussions on Keshab Sen are passe and old fashioned?

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Kali Pujo 2022

Posted on November 3, 2022 by secondsaturn

This year, the Kali Pujo in Kolkata, though as countless as on other years, somehow seemed to be to be an exhausted and even a bored affair. The celebrations of the Durga Puja has been raised to such an extent and level that it has been able to draw out, then accumulate and concentrate all the energies of Bengalis and eventually drain these out on its conclusion with the Lokkhi Pujo. Hence, the utterly tired, spent out, depleted Bengalis, sapped of all its energies sank into a lack lustre affair. However, there is no let up in the number of pujos held as this is a matter of commitment, once you start the pujo it cannot be given up.

 Like in economics, so in celebrations, there is a process of democratization and then a process of the monopoly. The age of the CPM, notwithstanding that it was a communist regime, was also the age of democratization of the public space and its popular culture. Just as the monopoly of Uttam Kumar was compromised in the cinema, with Hindi films and a slew of other heroes entering the fray, the process seemed to have peaked in Basanta Bilap, 1977. In fact, the story is set in the Saraswati Puo Pandal.

The monopoly of the Durga Pujo was also democratized into a series of Kali pandals that fostered creativity both in the façade built by bamboo and cloth as well as in the idols of the Goddess, moulded and baked from clay. Then there was the supply of music, loud, fast paced erotic music of RD Burman and Asha Bhonsle, of Bappi Lahiri a little way down in the 1980’s and ofcourse the sensational Salil Choudhury and Lata Mangeshkar. The melody and the rhythm shook the chakras of the body releasing from it an energy where the human seeks her companions. Those were also the times of the crackers; with the upbeat music blaring on the streets and the smell of burnt sulphur enveloping the air, became intoxicating and exhilarating. But then, I was in my teens. My grandfather took to the Kali Pujo rather badly; not being one quite keen on pujos, for him any occupation of the public space, whether by way of processions or by celebrations was repulsive.

And then there was the immersion; the best of local bands played numbers from Hindi film songs of Laxmikant Pyarelal. The boys dressed in the latest fashion and hairstyle would dance to a frenzy making a lively spectacle on the roads. These days, however, girls have taken the role of the boys in Bengal as they dance with lithe movements, shimmying and swaying, they really claim the space for themselves.

Then came the environmentalists who complained of noise pollution and insisted on a ban on crackers; the latter also had a child labour angle to it. But these dented the excitement of the festival. Then there was the process of monopoly at play again especially with the duo of Rituparna Ghosh and Mamata Banerjee who returned to the Bengali its bourgeoise Jalsaghar and the luxury of poverty of Pather Panchali, Bengalis looked towards heritage again. And what could be better than the Durga Pujo with the huge fanfare that it has come to be.

But there was also the social media, where all kinds of discourses emerged. Some resisted the Kali Pujo by saying that the Diwali got all mixed up with it and then painstakingly, the Bengali mind was drawn into separating the two. The impact of such a sieving out is felt as the music played changes, with the weepy Ramprasadi Shyama Sangeet taking over the sizzling numbers of Asha and Lata. Then because there are no crackers, there is hardly any activity around the pandals. Pandal hopping has died down because of the been there and seen it all feeling after the hectic pandal marking during the Durga Pujo.

In short, there are two aspects to my observations; one is that the monopoly of the Durga Pujo over the community’s physical and mental energies have crashed the Kali Pujo and secondly, the multiplicity of discourses can crack up the public space; too much of critical thought can fracture the universals, the simple principle of post modernism.

P.S These days, the Chhath is celebrated with fanfare in Calcutta and across Bengal due to the rising Bihari immigration into the state. While this means that West Bengal is actually doing very well since all job opportunities appear to be concentrated here, one cannot help noticing the rise of the Jagaddhatri Pujo as a Bengali assertion over the Biharis. The Durga Pujo explodes the pandal artists, the Kali Pujo bursts the energies of the idol makers and the Jagaddhatri belongs to the lightmen. Considered as “the” pujo of the French territory of Chandannagore, the people made Jagaddhatri their Durga, celebrating her with the fanfare of lights exactly a month later.

The questions for media studies would be as follows:

  1. How should we study the phenomenon of the Durga Puja and the other public worship of images by erecting pandals on streets?
  2. Why did the Durga Pujo get so big? Does the changing politics of Bengal have something to do with this?
  3. The typical business cycles of monopoly and perfect competition and then again, a monopoly holds true also of culture. Do you agree?
  4. The choice of music, from the fast paced and excitable RD Burman to the folk and slower music shows the change in social taste in music which has a lot to do with the changing social composition of our demography and hence democracy.
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Bonedi Pujos 2022

Posted on October 3, 2022 by secondsaturn

At Home With the Bonedis on Mahasaptami Pujo

On the Saptami Day of the Durga Puja this year, i.e 2022, Madhusree bought two tickets for herself and me to take a walk into North Calcutta Bonedi Pujos. Bonedi, a Bengali term derived out of buniyadi, or one of establishment in the land, refers to families who have been rich over generations and hence translated their wealth into a substantial cultural capital to uphold the culture and convert these products into the tradition and heritage of the land they belong to. Thus, we visited a few homes such as the above mentioned. The homes were those of Badan Ray (Pal), Motilal Seal, should be written as Mutty Lull Seal, Bipin Bihari Banerjee, and Beni Madhab Banerjee, Purna Chandra Dhar, Madan Mohan Dhar, Radhanath Mallik and Charu Mallik. Among these, there was only one barowari, or a community pandal puja that celebrated the Akala Bodhon, a variation in the theme of the Durga Puja. These pujos are more than 150 years old, all of them seem to be post the Mutiny of 1857, especially 1860 when India passed securely under the Crown. These were cultural assertions of a new elite with their newfound prosperity under the new regime, having faced many vagaries of fortunes for four centuries of political turmoil in Bengal. Bengal’s prosperity ended with the end of the Hussain Shahi dynasty when Akbar attacked Bengal, led by Man Singh. Though the agrarian production increased, land under cultivation expanded, revenues and commerce grew, yet the constant political harassment of the wealthy by the Mughal militia and revenue officers remained a botheration. Akbar’s favour of the Portuguese, with who the Indian seamen often clashed in the waters did not do better. The East India Company was capricious too and it was not until the passing of the government under the Crown that the Bengalis felt safe again in terms of life and property. The Durga Puja was a celebration of safety and territorial security.

Each of the families mentioned above has a distinct origin history, which when viewed together also becomes a lively history of Bengal. The Badan Ray family immigrated from Rajasthan in about the 14th century into Benaras from where they came to Bengal in the 1600, carrying with them their trade of gold, craft of gems and stocks of silk textiles. The expanding bureaucracy and artisanship, the proliferation of trade and money through trade on the Bengal frontier in the 1600’s made this family well settled. Later they came to Calcutta, made a home in the premises of what in present times is the Calcutta Medical College and when the British acquired the land, they bought the ready-made house in the premises we visited. The plan of the earlier house was different, in the sense that it did not have a mandap, now with the new home with a distinct space for the Divine, the Pals celebrated the Durga Puja with aplomb. The courtyard also had a pond! In 1946, the idol was ransacked by Muslims in the riots, and they could not celebrate the Pujo, but since 1947, they resurrected the celebrations in new vigour. Hence, they are celebrating the 75th year of Indian Independence with fanfare.

I was particularly keen to visit Motilal Seal’s home since he was a contemporary of Raja Rammohun Roy, though closer in age to Dwarakanath Tagore, which makes him about twenty years younger to Rammohun. Despite being the “Fort William” gang and good friends with Radhakanta Deb, especially over the quest for universal primary education for both boys and girls, he supported anti Sati and widow remarriage. He must have started his Durga Puja not before 1815, at best in 1812, because that was when he came and settled in Kolkata. Motilal Seal is perhaps the biggest philanthropist known in recent Bengali history. His properties were spread all over the city and hence the home and its pujo looked simple and staid and modest compared to the wealth he possessed. Clearly this was the influence of Raja Rammohun Roy.

We visited the two Basu Mallik families; one which had the surname of Basu Mallik and the other simply Mallik. Mallik is a title of the Hussain Shahi regime, but they added Basu to their names, as per the guide to hide their identities from the Mughal revenue officers. This does not seem to be too probable an explanation; instead to my mind, the great caste reorganization of the 1860’s may have had something to do with this, as the Malliks today are overwhelmingly Baidyas, while the Basus are kayasthas.

The Basu Malliks were, as the guide tells us, shippers and it is interesting that their homes are overwhelmingly studded by cast iron pillars, grills, panels and laced with glass! The glass was sourced from Italy rather than Belgium, the Belgian glass being a luxury a century later. The cast iron pillars and panels appear to have been imported as well. The Bessmer process had just started in England around the 1850’s and though there were valiant efforts by the Mysore Maharaja, an American in Madras and a Parsi cum Ethiopian trader in Chittagong to set up an iron factory for mass production, these were not too successful. It was not until the 1930’s that Alamohan Das could finally stabilize the technology of castings. However, the Basu Malliks being shippers also explains their access to imported goods.

In the Surya Sen Street, Kabiraj Lane and the entire area of Radhanath Mallik Street, we see the profuse use of iron castings for pillars and grills. These homes may have belonged to those connected with overseas trade, which helped them with currency and resources to obtain the material, especially glass. The import and use of Italian glass may be explained by the fact that Italian seafarers and craftsmen who were frequently onboard the Company ships.

Purnendu Dhar was in the Company treasury, and this is pretty clear in his version of the Abhaya Durga, who has just two hands instead of the ten, rests herself on a pair of lions, is not killing any demons, comes with her children, with her guards, Jaya and Bijaya. The fact of Mr Dhar being in the treasury tells on his search for nonviolence and a more realistic image of Durga, he is already closer to religion less totemic.

Close on the heels of the Abhaya Durga is the Akalbodhon where, not the Mahisasur but Ram lies praying at the feet of the Goddess, about to blind himself in the eye because he failed in his promise to dedicate 108 blue lotuses to the Goddess. Since the Goddess hid one and counted only 107, Ram used his own eye as a substitute for the blue lotus. The four companions of Durga are Sugriv, Hanuman, Lakshman and Vibhisan, as this is the untimely call for her, and she could not have arrived with her children as she would have been she to be worshipped in spring, the original season of her homecoming. Autumn, despite being called the untimely and exceptional season of the Goddess, nonetheless is widely worshipped and the evidence whether she was ever worshipped in spring remains a big question.

The home of Benimadhab and Bipibihari, who worked in the Company’s judiciary services us very well explained by the fact that they have rectangular Corinthian pillars with Greek sculptures cast upon them in golden coats and plaster of Paris. All homes are rectangular with a courtyard in the middle, balconies overlooking the courtyard, cut off from the world at large except through the windows in the rooms. Even then these hardly overlook the street below. Interestingly, these are the families which have the most elaborate display of photos of ancestors on their walls, though some other families have these too though not so ostensibly.

The property of the Subarnabaniks, which is of Badan Ray is the best maintained, they started off being as rich as anyone else but somehow could maintain their riches through the generations. They had been the organizers of the Subarnabanik society in Calcutta and still maintain wide contacts within the extended family networks. Those who are keen to work from the angle of caste, would do well to study the role of the Subarnabanik caste in maintaining the family wealth and hence the cultural heritage of their ancestors. It is intriguing though why in 1946, despite the presence of so many bonedi homes, only that of the Subarnabaniks were attacked by Muslim rioters; it is possible that their wealth must have attracted contempt. There was a stair gallery in the sense photos were hung along the stairway; there were photos of Queen Victoria, the Queen Consort, Napoleon on a warship, British Parliament, the group photos of the Subarnabanik Associations in full swing and ofocurse of Benaras ghats and nooks along the Ganges, nostalgia of a home they once had and now they left.

Interestingly, a few of the footpath poster and calendar art shops were open; I gasped at the presence of European, and not even American music and sports icons in pictures. Tackily drawn and gawdily printed, it had the Beatles, Smiths, Rolling Stones, T Rex, Pink Floyd and then again images of Viven Leigh, Audrey Hepburn and then images of the English cars, such as the Rolls Royce. This was along the boundary wall of the Hindu Hostel. The streets of North Calcutta were spic and span, even when they could get really narrow, the paving perfect and the sewer and storm water system impeccable, all wires underground, and strangely, homes even when the most tragically dilapidated, were neat and looked organized.

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The Anomaly of Lal Singh Chaddha

Posted on September 7, 2022 by secondsaturn

Even before the film was put on the studio floor for shooting, I knew that Lal Singh Chadha would not work. Notwithstanding that Forrest Gump is an American cult film and Lal Singh Chaddha has been ably adapted, yet the film would not have worked in India, even if there were no adverse publicity. Understandable that the propaganda against the film was politically motivated yet there was something in the film spirit that ran wholly contrarian to the Indian ethos; one who does not get this essential constitution of the Indianness, to my mind, should no longer aspire to remain a filmmaker. Hence exit Aamir Khan, he has lost his philosophical home in India especially because his ethos and that of India’s are now at variance. Here is why.

Who is Forrest Gump and how is he the innate spirit of America so that everything in the American Constitution and the constitution of everyday life must be tested against his emotional well being and material success? At the core of the character is disability and America being a Sparta in spirit requires Spartan citizens, full of physical brawn and intellectual brain, material as well as spiritual success, inclusive but also has its own religion of success and pursues its own culture of future. America is a land of the prospects, of upward mobility and here the disabled, the colored, the women and perhaps the Catholic, like in Sparta constitute formidable others. It becomes, thus a challenge to the effectiveness of America to see Forrest Gump have a normal life.

The post-Independence situation in India is different. It is a land with an ancient past, which needs to be realized in the future by way of political autonomy. But the mere politics is inadequate to grant autonomy to the middle-class intelligentsia, the social class that won the Freedom. The Indian Constitution is geared towards providing this middle-class intelligentsia its fuller manifestation. People, irrespective of social class and caste, creed and religion, language and culture are supposed to become this member of the intelligentsia in attitude, mindset, and manners. The challenge of the Indian Constitution is to help a person who may have the capabilities but not the means to attain the status of the middle class. Hence to qualify as a candidate of popular imagination, the candidate must be seen to be one superior in qualities and capabilities though poor and without means and opportunities to use those capabilities into a materially comfortable life. Forrest Gump is automatically disqualified in the popular imagination. Our mascot is Apu; he is found even beyond the trilogy of Satyajit Ray; he sneaks into the images of the heroes of our popular cinema, practically in every language; one who suffers due to lack of means when s/he deserves every bit to be at the helm of affairs in terms of capabilities.

The challenge to Americans and hence to Forrest Gump is to make a lot of efforts at achievements; the challenge to Indians and hence to Apu is to make many complaints to allow the society to give him the right space. America’s politics is all about hard work; India’s politics is all about reservations and distributions of entitlements. The two do not match despite both being diverse democracies looking out more into the future rather than at the past. Lal Singh Chaddha is thus the wrong model for us. We cannot have much to do with it.

The above then brings us to the question of the popular cinema if it reaches out to the nation or nationalism. It perhaps does in the sense that the politics of the nation is the final limit and hence the final possibility for the manifestation of the individual’s capabilities. The nation serves as the reality principle of the film; take that away, the cinema loses its context. The universal appeal of a film lies in its context; place the context firmly, the actor’s agency finds its higher order principles. In Forrest Gump this was the case. In Lal Singh Chaddha, the context was missing; it did show India in its palpability but missed out India in its aspirations. Therefore the Apu trilogy, now over 70 years of age finds its appeal while Lal Singh became a damp squib.

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