A speck in the Small Town’s Great History

 

No one can resist an idea whose time has come.  But what becomes of an idea ahead of its time? A foregone conclusion, as you can see from this post. It is about one such daring experiment which failed to take roots and eventually stifled future attempts. (I’m not aware of any Film Society now in Ottapalam. The latest claim to fame is the talented, young, homegrown director Lal Jose and the outdoor location at Varikkasery Mana) I’m talking about a film society which we cobbled up in the sleepy town of Ottapalam. Way back in the early seventies. 

I don’t remember whose idea it was. My earliest memory relates to a meeting we had in PT Narendra Menon’s magnificent tharawad. We were about five to six people. The agenda was to name the society and get it registered.  It was Narendra Menon who suggested the name Satyajit Ray Film Society. Some of us had other ideas, though. Would it be construed as a fan club? What about the other equally famous titans of the alternate film movement, such as Ritwick Ghatak and Mrinal Sen?  There were some like me who thought Ghatak superior to Ray, not from seeing any of his movies but on account of his association with IPTA.  Most of us had not seen any of the movies of the trio so far. But if I remember right I had seen Pather Panchali and Teen Kanya, screened during my college days, as benefit shows.  

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To our knowledge there were only two other film societies in Kerala - Chithralekha Film Society of Trivandrum and the Calicut Film Society. We copied their byelaws and mode of functioning.  Our President was Mr. Narendra Menon, a poet and patron of arts. . Mr. Mukundan Nair, a professor in the local college was chosen the Vice-President; Mukundan, my colleague became the secretary and I, the treasurer. As both Mr. Mukundan and I were in the same office it became the nerve centre of the Society. Many of our colleagues -Rajeev, Kesavan and Rajendran helped us in the activities of the Society- the membership drive, publicity, communication, correspondence and liaison with local bodies. With the naming over, the remaining formalities like adoption of a bye-law, registration with the Federation of Film Societies of India and with the National Film Archives were carried out in quick time

We did not want to open the membership to all and hence the membership drive was by invitation. After screening a few 16 MM movies we felt it was time to make our presence felt with a memorable event.  Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s ‘Swayamvaram’, which the local theatre had not braved to show till then, was the unanimous choice for our first public show. And so we went ahead with the arrangements for the exhibition of the film as a benefit show. We had to get the approval of the Local Panchayat to get exemption from entertainment tax. We thought that was easy. But to our utter dismay the authorities wouldn’t oblige. They wanted to know why we wanted to exhibit the film. What purpose? Our memorandum and bye laws were not convincing enough. Exhibit a cinema to exhibit more cinemas? – the executive officer couldn’t understand the logic! Used to giving approvals for benefit shows for raising money for buildings, charity etc. this was something new to him. Somehow we managed to get the approval … in a small town where every body was connected to everybody, the connection works. We were in for another rude shock when we went around the houses for selling the ‘passes’ which we thought would be grabbed up by the discerning Ottapalam elite. It was then we realized that our outrage, at the chicken heartedness of the theatre in not exhibiting the film so far, was out of place!  

Sethu (no more now), our buddy, the operator in the local theatre had only one condition ……we should have the film reels at least two days before the show. Not an onerous job, we thought. The money was paid and we made a solemn undertaking that the negatives would be returned intact in due course. Rajeev ,whom we thought had a remote kinship with Adoor through his previous employment , and our best bet in the circumstances, volunteered  for  the onerous job of getting the print in time for the show. Things are a little hazy from now on except that we did not get the prints as required by Sethu. Trains and telephones being rare luxuries to Ottapalam, Rajeev kept us endlessly waiting.   The anxious moments we spent at Metro (a saloon, the only hang out place in Ottapalam) the previous evening was made more unendurable with Sethu putting pressure by the minute.  Added to that was our worry as how to face the irate crowd if we failed to show the film.  Sethu had already foreseen this and adequately warned us. 

Our endless wait, being made bearable only by the many teas and vadas from Swami’s Cafe and our resignation to the inevitable fate was suddenly broken by the appearance of Rajeev from nowhere, fully drenched in somebody’s vomit. Behind him stood the porter, carrying the print box. Those days the practice of performing pooja to the print box was thankfully not prevalent! And what a relief it was! We wanted to hug him but the vomit kept him at bay.  To cut the story short it appears Rajeev was redirected from Trivandrum to pick the print from some where near Calicut and he had taken the first available bus. The rest was uneventful except that the local public did not give us the thumbs up. Trust this brings a smile to Rajeev’s face if he sees this!

Merchant Ivory production's ‘Savages’ turned out to be an eye opener for us. The story takes off  from the point where a croquet ball accidentally falls amidst  a tribe of primitive  ‘mud people’ .They follow the ball back to its start and land up in a majestic mansion  and slowly adapt to the so called  ‘civilized’ ways of ‘upper class behavior’. The mud people (Indian actor Asha Puthli among them) are nude or partly so.  The film met with serious censor board cuts, but the print that was given to the societies was with out these. Our hand bill mentioned the Censor Board cuts that were retained in the movie for adult viewing. And wow! What a response! The show was fully sold out. But to the utter disappointment of the budding voyeurs, the hot scenes were either long shots or for fleeting moments. The elite squirmed and we rejoiced at the jingle of our cash box. Sweet revenge for the disastrous reception that Ray, Ghatak and Tapan Sinha got.

A little more on some of the classics and milestone movies we saw, in my next post.