A Year Later - Something About a 100 Years of Indian Cinema

Okay, so with all the Reverb hype that's going around our beloved college, it's time for some reflection. Goin' down deep into the vagarious layers of the shifty chestnut, a wave of Reverb-themed nostalgia sweeps over me. Except, not really. However, I have been going over online remembrances of Reverb-2013, and marathon-ing those amusing promo videos. Rivaling CID in its black humour, those videos sure are a treat for the dead-eyed-ness of SIT.

In this maelstrom, I've also chanced upon an article that I'd written for last year's "Reverb newspaper". I use article liberally, so pardon, monsieur. However, what actually went down was that me and my bud RV signed up for the misleading "journalism" committee of Reverb last year. We were charged with producing a tabloid-toerag-styled pulp piece that would headline the one page newspaper. Of course, since the theme of the fest was "one hundred years of Indian cinema", our piece had to be based on that.

And it was. We both scribbled in our entries within a fairly tight deadline. I remember returning from some schmucky Transcend DJ night, and working into the wee hours to get it going. And that was that. To what can only be attributed to as politics / skulduggery / forgetfulness / classic SIT mismanagement, our articles never ended up seeing the light of day. There was a newspaper by the end, and it did have some toerag-esque gibberish in it. Very proper and patriotic, it was.

But in return, my scoop was lost to the abyssal void forevermore. Small mercies. And I thought to meself - "Isn't it a pity that I wasn't published?" And then I thought again - "Not really, it wasn't much good." And then I counterstroked - "Might as well put it here. The light of day still eludes ye, but it's something."

So here it is, in all its delusions of grandeur!

It is come!

So they say it’s been a 100 years of Bollywood. Now, if ever there was news to evoke a variety of reactions, this is it. You’ve got the folks with the mildly raised eyebrows, the codgers actually giving it thought, a snarky retort or two, maybe a nostalgic old-timer. And the straggling patriots carrying on about national pride and whatnot. 

But let’s face it, you can’t deny the influence of the stuff. One way or the other, we’ve grown up with these movies and one’s favourites can bring on a rush of memories, or link us to a bygone era. Not to mention the hilariously bad ones. Those so-bad-it’s-good Sunny Deol action flicks from the nineties? My god.

And thus, Reverb, too, can’t escape the proverbial bug. With the amount of Bollywood culture already ingrained into our psyche, Reverb is set to blaze with Bollywood’s flair this year. 

But everything has humble beginnings. For Indian cinema, it all began in the black-and-white silent film era, with the pioneering likes of Dadasaheb Phalke’s 3700-feet-long, 40-minuted, mythological tale of Raja Harishchandra, and it’s come a fair distance to reach the era of 3D, high production values, and whatever else it is that the cool cats are into. And even with the atrocious habit of trading CAMRips, which plagues hostels the country over, there’s truly something else in going to a theatre to watch a movie. The magic of the 35 mm, if you will, though folks won’t admit to it.

Then in 1931, movies with sound started streaming in, rather quaintly referred to as ‘talkies’. And thus, the most polarised legend of Hindi movies was born – the songs. Cheered and derided in equal measure, ‘filmi music’ has defined the cinema since then. When the forties came along, they were an interesting time for cinema since the world was pretty messed up back then. Hotshots like Ashok Kumar and Raj Kapoor ruled the roosts and made those distinctive old-timey movies which air on Sunday afternoons.

The next couple of decades were the golden age of Bollywood. That’s what the conventional shmucks say anyway. But even critics who held that the movies were fluff had to admit to the grittiness of Guru Dutt’s classics. And Manmohan Desai’s ‘masala’ stuff had mass appeal. Genres were expanded and dope like Pyaasa, Mother India and Mughal-e-Azam live on to this day.

And then the seventies came on like an edgy teen, with fiery hits about angry young men and suchlike. Amitabh “The Man” Bachchan attained his ultimate form and pleasant coves like Rajesh Khanna and Dev Anand were dawdling about. Epics like Sholay were made, which was as western as a showdown at goddamn high noon and so pulp as to wring the nourishment outta you. Gave people a blissful escape and all that jazz.

After that, the eighties and nineties were kind of a step down. While technology flourished and immortal heroes like Shah Rukh Khan, Rajnikanth, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan and other what’s-their-names rose up, the camp style, hammy acting, overblown dancing and general inanity had some detractors. But well, Bollywood doesn’t have to make sense. It’s all in the wrist.

And it never lost that joie de vivre. And camp or not, these movies defined moments from our childhood. After all, no one can forget the monthly reruns of the intergalactic masterpiece that is Border, when one simply dropped everything.

The last decade or so of movies have been defined by their variety and quality. 3 Idiots resonates with students all over India and Kahaani is a well-written thriller. And of course, you have stuff like Dabangg which harkens back to the shady halls of the eighties. Well, being true to one’s roots isn’t a bad thing. It transforms little college fests into extravaganzas.

Anyhow, here’s to another decade of decades of Hindi movies entertaining the generations. And here’s to a bright future for Reverb, while we’re at it. Innumerable cheesy quotes are worthy of this occasion. Maybe one involving pictures which are yet baki.

But I guess we’ll see. 

[The End]

 

By the way, shar, might I also take this moment to plug the very entity that this post is devoted to? What I mean is, remain ignorant of the ways of the Reverb-2013 and come one, come all to Reverb-2014! It's gonna be a blast this year (you wish!). But what I'm actually saying is that this is a roundabout way of saying that I'm on the website team this year. And we're actually making a site! Huh.

You can be one of the privileged few who can access the site, just by clicking here!

Please overload the servers. And also the college, come 7th March. We need the money!