I am not a Bollywood Blogger But...II

But...yes...despite it I like the fact that Bollywood has been appropriated, embraced even by the Hindi film industry. It's not unwieldy, it glides off the tongue and there's something cheekily subversive about it...taking on a pejorative term invented by former colonial masters and exported to the rest of the world. And, for some reason it has created more hindi cinema lovers because it has made the movies more accessible. So...Bollywood it is, though still with reservations. Sorry...old habits die hard, especially when you're growing old.

Now I'll put my pet peeve aside and do my promised film post. This post was inspired by memsaab's love of Laxmi Chhaya and by Indiequill's posting of one of my favorite songs from Mera Gaon Mera Desh...and one I insisted on singing at the top of my voice when I was little. How annoying was I? Very!

In the 1970's my father was posted to all these small towns in U.P. They were small enough not to have automatic exchanges. So....you'd pick up the phone and ask the operator to dial Mr. or Mrs. So and So's number. One of these was Farrukhabad. It's where a lot of my sentient memories begin and, apparently with good reason. At that time...and perhaps even now it was a district (something like a county with the town itself as a sort of headquarters with villages surrounding it) known for among other things dacoities. Yes, that's banditry. In my imagination dacoits thundered into villages on beautiful horses. The truth was a bit more prosaic. The richer ones used jeeps, and others simply walked in. However, when I think of dacoits I still think horses. It's all those movies. My parents were right. They did rot my brain.



I've been trying to find this reference for ages (someone?) but there was some 1970's daku movie where the said bad-guy was about to be hanged for his crimes. His last request? To be hanged facing Farrukhabad. The crowds in the theater in Farrukhabad would erupt with cheers, forcing the projectionist to re-play the scene over and over again. It was the biggest hit in that district even if it flopped at other places in India.

Did I mention that Farrukhabad had just two or three movie theaters and that during summer vacations that was our major entertainment? Of course we had to wait weeks for the movies to change or re-watch the same ones over and over again. One of the theaters had a major bed-bug infestation, one had seats with protruding springs. One was brand spanking new and another was just being built while we were there.

This was the town in which I saw Sholay (Embers)--that iconic Indian movie--and other daku movies. And Sholay and every other daku movie became entwined in my mind with that time and that place and my kiddie self. We lived on the top of a small hill, with a tributary of the Ganga flowing just under the abrupt cliff on the other side. Down the hill from us lived the Superintendent of Police (SP)and at the bottom lived the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). My dad was the District Magistrate (DM) and our hill therefore, was guarded around the clock by U.P Police's finest. If you wandered around at night or if you visited our place after dark, a voice would ring out in the dark: "Savdhan (Caution)" and "Halt! Who goes there?"

The response had to be "Friend." Of course I realized quickly that everyone knew this *code* and I was always terrifed that local dacoits would storm the place by shouting out "Friend" I was even more scared when I learned that the bandits would sometimes dress up as cops during their raids. Somehow the same cops who lived in barracks with their families on the property and were very indulgent with me as the DM sahib's daughter, playing games with me, telling me stories; transformed into something sinister at night. I remember (after reading some Enid Blyton secret kiddie club book) telling my father that we should rotate the secret code every night to throw off the dakus. To a child, even a DM's residence surrounded by cops 24 X 7 was not safe and I had nightmares about home invasions. Yes, I was just a slightly over-wrought, imaginative child. But perhaps it was natural that living in such a place would send my imagination into over-drive.

The years we lived Farrukhabad, now play like a looped folk-tale in my head. There were a few active dacoits in the area and the local paper (two-pages long) reported all the incidents in lurid detail. One dacoit was called Shivdan Kacchi (the last name denoted his caste--a boatman I think). In retrospect all these bandits had some sad tale of caste warfare and lack of opportunity. Remember, this is just before Phoolan Devi started wreaking her own wave of terror in the Chambal valley.

How does all this relate to Bollywood? Well, Shivdan Kacchi was killed in a police encounter, when he came to visit his long-time lover who betrayed him to the police. Tragic! Among his possessions was a little song book. Witnesses (including his lover) talked about how he watched every daku movie, emulating their style, and that before killing his usually trussed up victims he would sing to them. His favorite song? Maar diya jaye, ke chhor diya jaye (Should you be killed, or should I let you go?) from Mera Gaon Mera Desh (My Village, My Land). Art imitating life imitating art. It makes my head spin. While others see the amazing Laxmi Chhaya (and yes indiequill, Dharam must have adored Asha and her questionable headgear to not go for her) I see this frustrated singer, driven to become a heartless killer. How cinematic is that?



Once we toured the local prison--one of the biggest in U.P. and saw how the prisoners lived. There was an imposing man dressed in impeccable white, a huge red tilak on his forehead. Other prisoners would routinely come by and touch his feet every morning. He came to present my father with a list of issues being faced by them (too many pebbles in the dal, not enough spices for their liking etc.). Before presenting the arzi, on behalf of the prisoners he put a huge garland of flowers around my father's neck and folded his hands in the most dramatic namaskar I have ever seen. He was an anomaly for a bandit because he was a high-caste Brahmin but that might also have been why the others revered him so much and why he had carved out a niche for himself.

He smiled at me and asked permission to give me a flower, a marigold I think. I was totally entranced with him. He looked like something out of a movie. I later (years later) learned that he was some sort of priest for the local bandits in his area. Before heading out on raids they touched his feet for luck. Also, he had once thrown six babies and little children into a fire to teach a lesson to a village that had the temerity to protest their repeated raids. Then he presided over the slaughter of others in the family and the village.

To me, therefore, because of where I lived during, the 1970's are quintessentially about dacoit movies. Yes, there were the cravats and the dancing and cabaret-Helen and totally amazing villainish lairs, and huge collars and hideous brocade wallpaper, and Prem Chopra. But to me, nothing says the '70's more than rough n' rocky daku hideouts, Amitabh and Dharmendra and Amjad Khan and folk-dancing-Helen and the incandescent Laxmi Chhaya. And, oh yes, Vinod Khanna in Mera Gaon, Mera Desh! I was really little when I watched that movie but I remember being terrified of him and totally freaked out that my teenage sister (10 years older than me) had a crush on him. Then I saw the movie later...and oh my...Vinod Khanna...Phew! See...I am lost for words. Yummmyyy!! Doesn't he totally leap off the screen in Maar diya ke chhor diya jaye? He was my first crush I think.

After that, even though for a girl from Allahabad it was heresy not to have Amitabh as her first love, there was always a place in my heart for Vinod. His sons cannot hold a candle to him. Sorry, it had to be said. I only fell more in love with him in Qurbani which came out around the time I was about to hit my teens.


I hadn't thought about Farrukhabad or daku movies for a long time, until I read indiequill's blog and then wandered through all the Bollywood Bloggers posts about the 1970's, especially memsaab. Thanks beth for this great idea! Sorry for crashing the party and then, for writing a rather un-Bollywood post, but I was held captive to the Farrukhabad muse...and it sang to me. Maybe it's poor Shivdan Kachchi's spirit.

The 1970's were not only about crazy-amazing paisa vasool or even daku movies, it has become for me a decade of re-discovery. And isn't most re-discovery ultimately about discovering another part of yourself? Or perhaps that's just my narcissism. Whatever!