Non-Fiction Reads: Sholay: The Making of a Classic by Anupama Chopra

The first time I saw Sholay (1975) was on national television in the late nineties. It was also the first time the movie was telecast on Indian television, I found out later. 

Sholay never felt four-odd hours long on that first viewing. I mourned a major character's death way past the end credits, and an unbreakable fan-movie bond was forged.

Sholay (Embers) has the epic wide landscape features of Sergio Leone westerns and is yet endearingly Indian in its earthiness, dialogues, acting style, song and dance sequences. There haven't been many befitting mixed genre, adventure, buddy movie experiences like Sholay in popular Indian cinema.     

The movie still holds my cinematic imagination and I am a huge fan now of its filminess, well-moulded Western elements, imperfections, memorable dialogues, detailed train robbery scene (standout action sequence), overdone water tank top jokes, largely sturdy acting, good music, and popcorn-crunching screenplay. 

So much that I run a blog, Sholayism and was among the select few who saw Sholay in 3D at the theatres, on its limited one week run.

Unexpected,fun stories 

Sholay: The Making of a Classic (2000) was a story screaming out loud to be told and Anupama Chopra tells it with spunk and great enthusiasm. An exclusive collection of colour and black & white photographs also decorate the pages. 

Each chapter is wackily titled after a popular Sholay dialogue. The anecdotes are well spaced out, aptly arranged chronologically, and ending with an actor breaking down on realizing the magnitude of his popularity.

How did a lead actor lose out on a great opportunity, what was it about the Salim-Javed writing pair, the unlikely outdoor location in Karnataka, a villian who everybody had their doubts on, how the dialogue audio cassettes sold more than the soundtrack, why the director-cinematographer chemistry is so important, among many other interesting tales, when shooting a magnum opus was a daunting challenge, than it is today.    

If you immensely love movies, you will love discovering how much passion, madness, technicalities, patience and self-belief goes into creating a landmark cinematic experience.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Non-Fiction Reads: Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored with Meena Iyer

Acting was in my blood and there was simply no escaping it. When I say this, I am thinking of not just the Kapoors but also the Malhotras, my mother’s side of the family, who were just as volatile as my father and his relatives.

Rishi Kapoor (1952 - 2020), the legendary spontaneous actor, was also an outspoken man, a wholesomely non-existent quality in a Hindi film celebrity. Just that one refreshing quality makes Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored a honest, spunky, if disjointed autobiographical account.

You may not like Rishi Kapoor as a person at all after reading the crushing Neetu Kapoor (wife, actor)  afterword. Neetu Kapoor's outburst is very revelatory of a man who is at home as an actor, but is otherwise a male chauvinist by his own admission, selfish, arrogant, and short-tempered.   

The Kapoors, Cinema's first family 

Rishi Kapoor belonged to the illustrious Kapoor family, easily the most iconic, talented family to have worked in Indian cinema. 

For four generations now, the extended Kapoor family have created unforgettable moments in Hindi films, the biggest star of them - Rishi's father - writer, director, producer, actor, Raj Kapoor. 

That Rishi Kapoor had no dearth of source material is both the book's doing and undoing. There are mountain loads of it and in a haphazard, zigzag manner, readers are in for a treat. 

Speculatively speaking, co-writer Meena Iyer either recorded or took down notes from Kapoor and then brought the whole book together, a staggering achievement by her to make sense of the abundant, exclusive material. 

Art in the blood: Rishi Kapoor, years before Mera Naam Joker (1970)

Movie star craziness 

Indian cinema is over a hundred years old now and the Kapoors have been an influential part of it for almost nine decades, spanning four generations, beginning in 1928 when my grandfather joined the Grant Anderson Theatre Company. He was, in fact, the last of the male Kapoors to graduate from college. He had started a course in law too, but the draw of theatre was too strong. He abandoned that degree for an acting career.

My grandfather was only fifteen or sixteen years old when he chose to become a stage actor. And his foray into the film industry was heralded by no less a figure than Rabindranath Tagore himself.

- Book Excerpt 

This is not a flowy, one-minded swing but an anecdote-rich book. 

The craziness, the madness of movie stars, how uncle, rebel star Shammi Kapoor drove his hand through glass just to get female attention is just one shocker. 

Kapoor also admits to have paid to receive a prominent film award. The blunt frankness in talking about disagreements with all his contemporaries, from Rakesh Roshan, Jeetendra, and Amitabh Bachchan is pure autobiographical joy. 

Kapoor in his first blockbuster Bobby (1973) 

Too much, too little? 

Strangely, despite Prithviraj Kapoor’s stature in the film industry, my father didn’t grow up dreaming of an acting career for himself. He in fact wanted to enroll at Dufferin, the naval training school, and join the Indian Navy. Fate willed otherwise and perhaps it was also the pull of his genes towards the world of cinema. After he failed his final exams at school, Papa started work as an assistant to film-maker Kedar Sharma. It wasn’t a long stint though, because he ended up stepping in front of the camera – and a star was born. His first role, at the age of twenty-three, was as lead actor in Sharma’s own Neel Kamal (1946). After that there was no looking back. Just one year later, he launched his own film production company, RK Films, becoming the youngest studio owner ever in India. He made his first film, Aag, the same year. These achievements were early evidence that he would go on to be regarded as one of the most influential film-makers in the history of Indian cinema.

- Book Excerpt 

In retrospect, the free-flowing Rishi Kapoor frankness could have been reined in to chronological effect. That there is no established storyline ensures that the content doesn't come together cohesively to be a defining autobiography of our times, but it's easily the liveliest I have read recently.  

From tales of his great-grandfather the gruff baritone giant of a man, Prithviraj Kapoor, father -  mercurial, showstopper Raj Kapoor, the scandalous Nargis story addressed without any hesitancy or guile, Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored is certainly one of a kind.   

More revelations, family photographs, hell lot of entertainment, this is a breezy read, simply told as it is, the late actor's spontaneity exuding in every page. The best moments are bare and raw, there is just too much to tell, and this clearly calls for a sequel, only that Kapoor is no longer around to tell it all. 

With Amitabh Bachchan in 102 Not Out (2018)

Good buy for Indian movie fans 

That there are no lingering moments is the book's greatest downer, the stories just rush through like a fast Mumbai local train, making for great popcorn-crunching reading, when it could have been so much more, an epic, sprawling account of arguably India's greatest film family.  

Despite the impulsive, speedy take, Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored is a great read in innumerable bits and pieces, wickedly disarming, and recurrently entertaining.  

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Non-Fiction Reads: Ten Best Books: A Selection of Memorable Book Condensations from The Reader's Digest

My not-yet-battered secondhand copy 

The Reader's Digest monthly magazine editions from the early 1970's to the mid-1990's are a treasure trove of superlative, crisply edited, extremely engaging, relevant content. 

I have never been a fan of their condensed books editions though, especially the abridged novels, but this 1992 edition is classic RD for the amazing non-fiction collective of investigative, humourous, thrilling, biographical writing at its sincere, pristine best. Multiple, varied life shades make up this sharply selective anthology.

A revelatory tragic account of how it really is to be a spy, and that it is no James Bond seduction-happy romp, is made alarmingly evident in Henry Hurt's Shadrin: The Spy Who Never Came Back. 

Though reeking of making the Russians look bad again (perpetual villains in American movies, fiction, comic books, media), the sinking feeling of despair and remorse is hard-hitting as glaring truths begin to tumble out into view.

Similarly thrilling and constantly fascinating are To Catch a Killer by Nathan M. Adams, The Breaking of the Hungarian Circle by David Moller and Inside the Cocaine Wars by Nathan Adams. 

But my absolute favourite of the groovy investigative genre is Moonwebs: Journey into the Mind of a Cult by Josh Freed, rigorous investigative journalism that got me deep into the murky psyche of brainwashing and deception.

Gerald Durrell's uproariously funny My Family and Other Animals is editing at its edgy best. I possess the unabridged version, can only marvel at how the text has been condensed into 20-odd pages. 

The Lincoln Who Lives in Anecdote is a lovely reverse of the classic biography format in brief yet unforgettable text. Every anecdote has been carefully chosen for this edition, an example of why sometimes, 'less is more' makes for superlative, entertaining prose. 

But the most remarkable of the lot is the aura and constant fog-like mystery that Death and the Magician: The Mystery of Houdini by Richard Fitzsimons is shrouded in - riveting, baffling puzzles surrounding the life, death and alleged afterlife (boo, yes) of the revolutionary, pathbreaking early 20th century magician, Houdini.

My only grouch - why isn't there more of it, say, like a second volume? 

If you are a regular at second hand book sales, consider yourself lucky to find a copy of Ten Best Books: A Selection of Memorable Book Condensations from The Reader's Digest. 

They just don't tell stories like that, anymore.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Graphic Novel Reads: Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, Richmond Lewis

The darker, edgier Batman origin story that inspired the superhero crossover from frivolous teenage stuff to grim adult themes, Frank Miller's Batman: Year One (1987) remains a kickass, gold standard graphic novel, an ultra-engaging retelling of Batman/Bruce Wayne's error prone, almost fatal first steps to becoming Gotham's vigilante no.1.

Miller sticks to the fabulous story and dialogues, lets David Mazzucchelli travel the classic comic book illustration road, while Richmond Lewis splashes textured, layered colouring.

Miller, against the tide

Miller had already made a name for DC Comics with the formula defying Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), featuring a 55-year-old Bruce Wayne returning from retirement to fight off mutants and Harvey Dent.

Already obliged by contract to work on a Batman origin revamp series, Miller makes the crucial decision to not illustrate, the elaborate Mazzucchelli drawings are now legendary, especially the Sergio Leone-like close profiles. This is more like a perfect tweaking of Batman's origins, relatedly-human, grimy, frizzling with big city blues.     

James Gordon, badass!

A modern parallel to Batman's first year on the job, is not exactly like Peter Parker's almost embarrassing teenage errors in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but is no smooth sailing either. 

Bruce Wayne's first crime-fighting attempt almost ends in disaster, leading to his arrest and a close call to exposing his secret identity.   

Apart from a wonderful Catwoman origin story, corrupt policemen, fiendish villains, my utmost favourite is James Gordon, the incorruptible, courageous policeman, who is not without his faults.

In fact, the compelling parallel monologues are of Wayne and Gordon, letting us see things from their perspective, their nature to do good and what they have to sacrifice to rid Gotham of crime.  

Miller gives Gordon a badass persona - vulnerable, noble, headstrong, and the daring of giving it back as good as he gets! By his protective air, Gordon can easily be mistaken for Batman-in-standing.

The breathtaking bridge climax is one among many stellar moments. The siege to worm out Batman, the spectacular action centerspread.

Realism rocks! 

The tragedy of living in corruption-ridden cities, greed, depression, paranoia, Gotham is a mirror to a world where laughter and carefreeness are mega casualties.

That Bruce Wayne is extremely vulnerable is neatly conveyed, causing instant audience connect with Batman's failures, frustrations and victories. 

This is no superpower-blasting, alien nemesis world, but a world we identify with, a world that is coming apart in chaos and crime, a world we live and breathe in every day.  

But for some illustrated wee bits that are not detailed, can't find many glitches in this telling, still awed on repeat reads, by the imaginative, sturdy storyboarding, crunchy realistic dialogues, melancholy setting, and almost pitch perfect characterization.

Definitive, iconic, Batman: Year One remains a pathbreaking classic that led to the gritty Christopher Nolan Batman movie trilogy.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Non-Fiction Reads: The Lonely Tiger by Hugh Allen

If not for a friend's recommendation, wouldn't have known of The Lonely Tiger (1960). 

Out of print for more than 50 years before Rupa Publications (Rainlight) released the work in hardcover (2014), this episodic collection of true and thrilling wildlife encounter stories is an exceptional, evergreen page turner. 

Probably pushed to near-oblivion by the looming popularity of Jim Corbett's works, The Lonely Tiger is at multiple times a breathless, pulsating experience, dense with rare repeated calls of - What will happen next?

Once upon a time in central India...

All stories are set around Mandikhera, Madhya Pradesh. As life unfolded, Allen was discharged from the British Armed Forces during the Second World War due to a head wound. On the spur, Allen and his widowed sister Babs bought large tracts of land, and cultivated peanuts, barley, etc. at this central Indian village. 

Meanwhile, India gained independence and the siblings' friends went - For heaven's sake get out while you can.

In the preface, Allen admits he was a trigger-happy hunter, before remorse and guilt led him to take up the gun only to hunt man-eaters or creatures that destroyed his crops.

Homo sapiens, the most dangerous species...

What follows is an astonishing jungle trial of 14 stories, featuring amorous tigers, kill-crazy leopards, deadly wild boars, meandering bears, and the sole tiger that makes for the melancholic title story. 

In between, the human cruelty holds a horrific mirror to who we are, hammering our greed and will on wild animals, the ones crossing their path and not the other way around. Hunting was not yet illegal in India in the 1950's and almost anyone who owned a gun killed animals for pleasure. 

Nature lovers will be deeply disturbed by the descriptive accounts of casual killing. The Lonely Tiger is a constant reminder of what we have become as allegedly, the most advanced species on the planet.   

Thrill-a-minute 

Most man-eaters featured here are animals injured by bullet wounds, which made me side with the creatures immediately. 

Allen is clearly a gifted writer, builds a relentless stifling tension to a level that every sentence leads on to alarming blind turns. The sheer daring of it, to hunt for man-eaters in the dark on foot, cut through dense growth, be vulnerable to death every second, and thus invariably be alive to the moment...

Among the brilliant tales, Death in Sixty-Five Minutes particularly made my mouth dry with anticipation, The Odd Chance... turns out to be more lethal than anticipated, The Laughing Leopard is a stunning illustration of a leopard's killing expertise, expect the unexpected in The Three Bears, and The Tiger's Trap has the most hair-raising climax. 

For all reading seasons...

The Lonely Tiger is the only book Hugh Allen wrote, it is filled with the entire rich essence of his life at Mandikhera, gold-plated wildlife experiences like no other.

Even as we mutely watch more jungles make away to blankness, probably our false comforts, or temporary refuge then are works like The Lonely Tiger. It is the best non-fiction account I have read this decade, hard to beat in sheer reading experience, can't wait to devour its contents again, whole and raw.   

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Short Story Reads: Night in Tunisia and Other Stories by Neil Jordan

Over the years my shepherd like attitude to books has waned. No longer does my heart bleed if a page has a dog-ear.

Placing a book under a heap of dozen other books to straighten out the dog-ear, applying steam iron on the page, binding books with cardboard hardcover, designing a separate book cover with newspaper cut outs, book title and author name inscribed in a stylish handwritten blue scrawl - these adolescent pastimes no longer hold me.

After losing a British Library withdrawal sale copy to a colleague (the perils of lending books), the epic search for an elusive copy lasted half a decade. Finally, an UK-based rare books website airmailed an almost brand new copy in an otherwise listless 2020, getting to me with no tracking system in place over 30 days, unscathed through rain, lockdowns, sanitizers, with lots of suspense and uncertainty. 

So, I still do love books to a fault then. 

The 1950 born Jordan first established his reputation as a contemporary Irish novelist and later on as an Academy Award winning film maker.

His written work is still published from time to time. Jordan was yet to delve into film making when this particular collection was first published in 1976.

Now on to...

The stories in this collection prominently deal with thoughts. Interesting, observant inroads are made into the intangible, invisible thing - the mind.

There are no convenient endings as racing, random, nostalgic, angry, happy, lonesome and wondrous thoughts are revealed, much like scraps from a dairy entry.

The opening story Last Rites comes across like an experimental piece of abstract cinema, the effect in the tumult of words is disturbing.

Seduction starts with the promise of mischievous expectation, then washes up like a sea wave with the boil of pent up sexual desire.

Sand is another unpredictable tale - what seems to be a harmless squabble between a younger brother and the elder sister leads to a shocking event involving a gypsy and a donkey.

Mr. Solomon Wept is an observant, cold note on the effect of betrayal in marriage on a middle-aged man.

Night in Tunisia is easily the happiest, free flowing story of the collection. Bathed in the perpetual sunlight that childhood seems to be, sea salt and breeze dissolves to the sounds of jazz and a father-son bridge to an alto saxophone.

In Skin, we see how engaging words can vividly describe an Irish woman's mundane life along with an incident that displays her vain hope for change to occur.

Moving on...
A brief, dreamy, drowsy rambling of a woman apparently doused in alcohol during a party, Her Soul gives us a drab look at the female wondering and theorizing where her soul has slipped away to. 

Outpatient tells of strained husband-wife relations, and how both quietly realize that their relationship is meant to smother away.  

In Tree, the view of a whitethorn tree sets off intense nostalgia and the urge to change in a woman driving past it.

The book culminates with a beautiful story -  A Love.

Apart from mind reading, the sense of place and occasion are strong here. A young emigrant returns to Dublin to play out the last strands of his love affair with an older woman, even as the funeral procession of President Éamon de Valera passes by.

To a great degree, the tales in Night in Tunisia and Other Stories hold a mirror to how much we identify with our minds, replicating the chaos that swirls within our seemingly sane heads.

(first edit - May 28, 2013

second edit - June 30, 2020)

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)                                                                                     

Poetry Reads: Basanti Hawa by Kedarnath Agarwal

There are innumerable things about the Hindi language that appeals to this writer's heart. 

Expressing in English has its joys in putting pen to paper, in arranging, rearranging words, in description, documentation, rhyme and flow. 

But for the sheer spontaneity of conversation - Hindi it is.

The following Hindi poem (featured here with my translation) is a school favourite. Years have withered away but the poem has remained entwined in memory.  

Roughly translated as Spring Wind, this Hindi poem by Kedarnath Agarwal (1911 - 2000) is a first person narrative by none other than the eternal traveler, invisible, omnipresent, and free - Wind. 

The poem's sing-song flow is such that it conveys in its deliberate clipped arrangement, a continuous, ageless quality of an element we usually take for granted.

बसंती हवा

केदारनाथ अग्रवाल

हवा हूँ, हवा मैं                                                                                        

बसंती हवा हूँ।                                                  

सुनो बात मेरी -       

अनोखी हवा हूँ।       

बड़ी बावली हूँ  

बड़ी मस्तमौला। 

नहीं कुछ फ़िकर है 

बड़ी ही निडर हूँ  

जिधर चाहती हूँ 

उधर घूमती हूँ 

मुसाफिर अजब हूँ।

(wind am, wind I, the spring wind am I...it begins and then goes - am crazy, mischievous, naughty, no worries, fearless, I roam where I please, am a strange traveler.) 

न घर-बार मेरा,

न उद्देश्य मेरा,

न इच्छा किसी की,

न आशा किसी की,

न प्रेमी न दुश्मन,

जिधर चाहती हूँ

उधर घूमती हूँ।

हवा हूँ, हवा मैं 

बसंती हवा हूँ!

(Breathlessly, the wind blows its tale like a whistle - no home, no ambition, no desire, no hope, no lover, no enemies, go where I please, wind am, wind I, spring wind am I...)

जहाँ से चली मैं

जहाँ को गई मैं -

शहर, गाँव, बस्ती,

नदी, रेत, निर्जन,

हरे खेत, पोखर,

झुलाती चली मैं।

झुमाती चली मैं!

हवा हूँ, हवा मै

बसंती हवा हूँ।

(from where I passed, to where I went, city, village, ghetto, river, sand, desolation, green fields, pond, I went swinging, I went swaying, wind am, wind I, spring wind am I...)     

चढ़ी पेड़ महुआ,

थपाथप मचाया;

गिरी धम्म से फिर,

चढ़ी आम ऊपर,

उसे भी झकोरा,

किया कान में ‘कू’,

उतरकर भगी मैं,

हरे खेत पहुँची -

वहाँ, गेंहुँओं में

लहर खूब मारी। 

(climbed a tree, made havoc, fell with a thud, went for the mangoes, shook them too, said "ku" in the ear, leapt off running, reached the green fields, there, among the wheat, made many waves)

पहर दो पहर क्या,

अनेकों पहर तक

इसी में रही मैं!

खड़ी देख अलसी

लिए शीश कलसी,

मुझे खूब सूझी -

हिलाया-झुलाया

गिरी पर न कलसी!

इसी हार को पा,

हिलाई न सरसों,

झुलाई न सरसों,

हवा हूँ, हवा मैं

बसंती हवा हूँ!

(not for a moment, but for moments eternal, I dwelt here. Then the wind eyes yet another mischief - tried to budge the splashing earthen pot from its hold, but it did not fall! Raw from this defeat, did not sway or shake the mustard, wind am, wind I, spring wind am I ) 

मुझे देखते ही

अरहरी लजाई,

मनाया-बनाया,

न मानी, न मानी;

उसे भी न छोड़ा -

पथिक आ रहा था,

उसी पर ढकेला;

हँसी ज़ोर से मैं,

हँसी सब दिशाएँ,

हँसे लहलहाते

हरे खेत सारे,

हँसी चमचमाती

भरी धूप प्यारी;

बसंती हवा में

हँसी सृष्टि सारी!

हवा हूँ, हवा मैं

बसंती हवा हूँ!

(the pulses shied away on seeing me, I tried to charm, but she didn't yield...I didn't spare him too - a traveler was coming, I lunged at him, I laughed aloud, laughed all directions, laughed all swaying fields, laughed the sparkling lovely sunlight, in the spring wind all creation laughed, wind am, wind I, spring wind am I)      

#  

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

(First edit - 20/5/2013

Second edit - 17/6/2020)