What a hullabaloo! There’s so much tumult going about the centennial celebrations of Indian cinema to be observed in May next year. Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harischandra was first shown to a select audience in Mumbai and then to the public, in 1913.

But I’m quaking, not with anticipation but dread. Because countless centenary festivities will take the form of tiresome award-like events, exruciatingly boring seminars, exhibitions petite and plump, publications dwelling on the best (and worst) Bombay-produced movies, besides TV chat shows which will once and for all prove that bytes are worse than the speakers’ barks.
The usual suspects will recall the milestones and pebbles. And I suspect Mahesh Bhatt will use Samson-strong words to make his points about the lack of government support to the world’s most fertile film-producing centree. Already, at a recent meeting between filmmakers and the censor board, the Webster’s Dictionary-friendly Bhatt declared that matters were becoming ‘fascist’. Heil Hitler!
Subhash Ghai has brought in the centenary prematurely with screenings and lectures on the campus of his film school Whistling Woods. Lyricist Prasoon Joshi has written an anthem for the momentous occasion.And at a glitzy ceremony, Yash Chopraji unveiled the ‘first look’ of a logo dedicated to the centennial year. The logo didn’t really reflect the spirit of a 100 years of glory, but font sizes and graphic designs have never been the forte of the current elite of monopolistic poster artistes.
Not surprisingly, it’s the posters of the 1950s to the ’60s which are hot at auction sales, the favourites being originals of Mughal-e-Azam (Shah Rukh Khan has one at home), Guide, and quite oddly Do aur Do Paanch. The poster of that Bachchan-Shashi Kapoor film isn’t a design wonder. Since it wasn’t preserved, it’s rarer than snow in summer. Actually the most priceless poster — oil on canvas — of Raj Kapoor’s Awara hangs ignored over the stairway of Mumbai’s Liberty cinema. See the artistry in the tints and shades and you evidence the splendour of er.. Bollywood cinema.
Bollywood — now that’s a bad, bad, bad word. If some of us still use it stubbornly — despite rumbles from Amitabh Bachchan and of late, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra — it’s simply because it’s catchy, quick and certainly sounds more evocative than ‘film industry’ which throws up the image of factories and mammoth chimneys.
Generally, it’s argued why compare Mumbai’s cinema with Hollywood? We have our own identity and all that. Agreed. But what’s in a pet name? Bollywood isn’t a disparaging term in my Webster’s at least. And how come the names Tollywood (for Andhra Pradesh, and sometimes also Bengal), Mollywood (Kerala) and the perfumed Sandalwood for Karnataka cinema entice instant smiles? Chill guys really.
Centennial sureshots include books on the 100 greatest films ever made in the Hindi language. Sholay, Mughal-e-Azam, Pakeezah and the money-toppers 3 Idiots, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun! and Dabang will be re-re-remembered, Some lists may take in the pre-independence super-hits like the black-and-white Kismat and Ratan. Great.
I just hope that some hidden masterpieces make it to the the century chronicles too. This requires considerable hubble, bubble, toil and research but who’s to do that with the low-budget advances paid by the publishers? The tribe, even in an age of e-books, is growing but the peanuts paid to authors aren’t even salted anymore. Take this or buzz off.
Although the centenary is months away, TV channels are already asking, “So what do you think about the centenary of Indian cinema?” Think? No thinking required. After all, the most quotable line of dialogue written in years, goes, “People only want one thing…entertainment, entertainment, entertainment.” Sure, but even that requires intelligence, integrity and originality, I hope.