At The Edge

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Hero travels to a place called "Naag gram", Snake Village, to research on snake venom that will save life of millions. He drives through a road that looks like poplar avenue of Baramula in Kashmir to arrive at a valley populated by a tribe of snake worshipers. Soon after arrival, forgetting all about research, Hero falls in love with a woman who is training to be a Naag Dasi, a woman who claims to be 'daughter of Naag Devta' and a 'Vish Kanya' whose mere touch can kill a man. And yet there are feelings of anti-animism budding in her heart, she doesn't understand a god that offers poison.  Love booms. Noorjahan sings. Father goes - Babu, Naag Dasi say prem karna paap hai . Violence erupts. Noorjahan sings. Lovers try to run-away. Get caught. Father goes - Shalaka ko Beti say Zyada Dharam pyara hai . Hero gets bitten by a snake. Heroine sings and dances to an idol of Snake god to save her love. God obliges, takes back the venom. In comes ...

One of the responses of British to the events of 1857 was to try and better categorize the people that they had come to rule. They went around with their cameras and shot all kind of natives, all tribes, castes, races, religions, belonging to places all across the length and breadth of this land and put them in books and added neat captions to these photographs describing in brief the 'must remember' of each native type. All this in hope that it would help them govern these people and more importantly rule the land better. One of the gigantic product of such an exercise was the eight volume series titled 'The People of India' published between 1868 and 1875. Collected from these eight volumes of 'The people of India : a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan' (1868) by John William Kaye, Meadows Taylor, J. Forbes Watson,[available at archive.org ] here are 345 photographs of the people of In...

A Muslim As "Krishna"! I cannot forget the words uttered by Khalil, a veteran among actors, at the Motion Picture Congress. Addressing Dad Phalke, he recalled how he, a Muslim, had been given the role of Krishna in dozens of films. In spite of the opposition from the orthodox element, Dada Phalke continued to cast a Muslim youth in the roles of Hindu gods. Art knows no barriers of caste or creed. And, looking through the pages of the history of the Indian film industry, you will come across numerous such instances. It was a Jewish producer who revived the glory of "Nur Jehan," a Hindu who dramatized the romance of the Taj Mahal in "Shiraz," a Muslim who produced "Chandra Rao More" and a Parsi who produced "Vaman Avatar". And even if some of these films were bad, I believe that they did bring the people of this vast country nearer in their understanding of one another's culture and traditions. Not only Art but Commerce too, dec...

'Sukarwaar' Market'. Sector 34.Noida. 2010. For the first true made in India spaghetti westerner: Gangs of Wasseypur -0-

"Full of inappropriate words and phrases" Came across it in "Twenty-One Days in India, or, the Tour Of Sir Ali Baba K.C.B.; and, the Teapot Series" by George Aberigh-Mackay (1848-1881).

Devika Rani with Mehmood's father Mumtaz Ali in Achhut Kanya (1936).

A couple of illustrations from 'Indian pictures, drawn with pen and pencil' (1881) by William Urwick (1826-1905). -0-

Cross-posted from my Kashmir blog. In year 1986 Doordarshan ran a tele-film series called 'Katha Sagar' directed by few prominent and few would-be prominent film-makers who presented adaptations of some famous international short stories, but all of them set in various parts of India.  In on of these adaptations, Shyam Benegal turned  Gogol's The Overcoat  into  Nayi Sherwani and set it in Srinagar. The adaption with its scenes of Kashmir life and office bureaucracy makes one think that Gogol had written the story for Kashmir and not Russia (Kashmiri writer Amin Kamil's Kafan Chor seems like a darker sequel to Gogol's story). Here's the film: video link Part 2

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Cross-posted from my Kashmir blog . A young Mani Kaul in Basu Chatterjee's Sara Akash (1969). -0- Complete film available here -0-