The Oracle: a flash back

Nirmalyam, an epoch making film of the seventies won’t be made again, much less shown in the theatres of Kerala. The reasons are two fold: one, the story is no longer contemporary –that’s the subject of my post- and two, I doubt, the present religious (Hindu) awakening will permit such a film being shown without a cut. Kerala society has moved on so much since the seventies, thanks to the dilution of Marxist dogma with liberal ideological moorings, that even the hard core Marxist is temple going and sports the sacred sandal paste on his forehead. In such a revivalist point of time, it is doubtful whether the ordinary Hindu will   tolerate the perceived blasphemy of the Velichapadu (Oracle). Such is the intolerance that has crept into the society that MT, the author, director and producer of the movie would consider it a misadventure not worth taking.

Nirmalayam is the story of an impoverished Velichapadu, set in the backdrop of a village temple in ruins and the people around it, who depend on the meager income of the temple to eke out a living. The temple has fallen on lean days with fewer devotees thronging in. With poverty stalking at their doors, the son of the Oracle turns into a rebel, a deviant; the daughter falls an easy prey to the charms of the young temple priest. Amidst the despondency, all that the Oracle is looking forward to is a resurgence of faith among the villagers which could brighten his fortunes. As if in answer to his prayers or as a result of the wrath of the deity, the village is afflicted by small pox. The villagers turn to their Oracle to appease the deity. This was the moment the oracle was waiting for, his moment of glory!  Fully charged, he rushes home to get his temple sword, only to find the money lender walking out of the house, satiated by his (oracle’s) wife who had sold her body to discharge the family debt. Utterly defeated and shattered, he pours his pent up fury into the ritualistic frenzied dance, slashing his forehead repeatedly with the sword and splashing and spitting the blood on to the deity till he falls dead. A very powerful end which stunned the audience! And for his powerful acting as Velichapadu, P J Antony walked away with the National Best Actor award.

Well, as I said in the beginning this story no longer holds good. The story of Nirmalyam came to me as a flash back, during the local temple festival. The oracle of the temple is a stocky young man who is in business almost all the days of the week.  On Chuttuvilakku (adorning the whole temple walls with oil lamps) days, for which there is a waiting list of devotees,   he performs the ritualistic dance. It is then that the deity speaks through him to the devotee. The devotees, blessed by the deity, make liberal offerings. During the festival season the Oracle goes around the village showering blessings and collecting offerings to the temple and to him. Devotees vie with each other in their offerings and devotion.  No wonder the modern day oracle is a far cry from the Nirmalyam days. He moves around in his private conveyance, has all the modern amenities at home and a happy contended family. 

If MT decides to remake Pallivalum Kalchilambukalum, he might have to change the script a bit, though, to make it contemporary. And sure it will not have a torrid ending!   

ദി പറമ്പന്‍ അടി ( Helicopter Shot)

I have been no fan of the slam bang cricket. I grew up with the test match cricket, the only form of cricket those days. Those were the days of Bapu Nadkarni, Mansur Alikhan Pataudi, Nari Contractor, Faroukh Engineer et al. They played for days together against mighty opponents, very often with no results. Either the rains came to their rescue or Nadkarni produced a mighty spell of maiden overs.

The game was enjoyed on the running commentary of a Sardendu Sanyal, Balu Alagannan or a Suresh Saraiya with statistics provided by the AIR statistician who was known by the name Mama. In the news papers the commentary was very often by Rajan Bala, Raju Bharathan or KN Prabhu. The 5 day match had a day off and the last match in a series had six days to produce a result. You could very often skip a large portion of the game and still not miss the vital action. With figures which read 29 overs, 26 maidens, and no wickets for three runs from Bapu Nadkarni, you could carry on with your daily chores and still be with the game.

Then came the 50 over limited over cricket and the television. And the game changed beyond recognition.  The gentlemen in white transformed into men in blue or orange or whatever colour you chose. The umpires also transformed, some wearing Emirates Air logo. The players have all sorts of corporate emblems on all visible parts of their body. And they come armoured like the ancient Greek soldier. Some with weird hairdos and some with appalling tattoos.  Some sported talismans a la Bhappi Lahiri.

  

The instant variety T20 was soon to follow. Except that they play with a bat and a ball, this fun game, more of an entertainment, has very less to do with cricket. The game is over in minutes and if you perchance dozed off a while, or blinked, you would have missed the turning point in the game.And then the replay of replays, frame by frame, millimeter by millimeter! And the game is analysed ball by ball by experts, some  fully attired and by some who would have their dress precariously held together.

This game throws out unlikely, unheard of heroes and is no respecter of form , style or reputation! Paul (not the Octopus of the FIFA 2010 World cup) the hero, so far, of the IPL 2011 brings me memories of Kunju, my friend and couple of years senior to me in school. I had just joined my village school after a stint in the Town. I had brought a cricket bat, a cork ball and a little knowledge of the game when I landed at my ancestral home to pursue schooling. After a briefing on the nuances of the game, Kunju was invited to play the game in the yard. I bowled the first ball at Kunju expecting a wicket, but to the dismay of the small group of aspiring cricketers, the ball was never to be seen again. And Kunju was not welcome anymore! Kunju would have surely made it to one of the IPL teams if he were to be spotted today. 

POST SCRIPT (2021)

10 years hence ,my grandson Nikhil  (12), a cartoon enthusiast (Mario Miranda fan) was inspired to draw Kunju hitting the helicopter shot and the fielding side looking stunned. Mario's trademark dog looking bored and unmoved.  The 1950s in Nikhil's imagination. Here is his sketch:

Contrarian or Plain Stupid?

“Something is wrong with you” has been the usual refrain in the house. More charitably, with my brain or my thinking. The worry is, even I have started feeling so. The manifestation of the problem has been there for some time but became more pronounced during the last few months. I don’t want to beat about the bush. It is about my inability to see what is so apparent to the vast majority of learned friends, people whom I hold in awe (that includes politicians , retired bureaucrats, the facebookers, the judiciary) , the print and television media . I shall narrate my shortcomings one by one.

To start with, it was the scams, widely reported and discussed threadbare in all the august forums…..the press, the parliament and the revered courts. My problem…I just can’t believe the size of the scam, be it notional or real.  The lady of the house says it’s my inability to comprehend the figure involved, used as I am to not more than the thousand! I tried to write down the figure but gave up half way.  I need to do something about my math….

The second was my inability to pronounce that ex- minister Raja’s letter to the Prime Minister was intemperate. The Honorable Judge of the Supreme Court has decreed so. Only I and the Prime Minister seem to think other wise. I read the letter and the related correspondence between the PM and Mr. Raja in full and found nothing offensive.  Either I have poor etiquette, thick skin or meager grasp of the language.  I can’t, now, do anything about my hide. So I feel I should start afresh at grammar school or be sent to reform school. Not too late, the lady of the house says.

The third charge is I have become insensitive to issues affecting the country or the society. Corruption in public life, Environmental debates, Political mud slinging (Ice cream, golf club etc) no longer affect me. I seem to be more concerned about mundane matters….for example, the cremation ground issue of Aivor Madom.  Where is my idealism and social conscientiousness? Why am I not able to see the larger picture?  Well, I have no solution to this, except to reverse the time machine and go back to my college days!

The final provocation is the Wikileaks in the Indian Press. As I scribble this, it is the fourth day of the leak in the Hindu. I went through all the reports with a fine comb and didn’t find anything which I don’t know already. Do we need the American word to finally open our eyes to the maladies that we know exist in our system?  I know money is spent by politicians to sway votes. What’s wrong? Isn’t it better than doling it out from the public exchequer? A few ‘saries’, a little pocket money? 

We all know that President and the Prime Minister need not see eye to eye on all matters, that we can play real politic when it comes to our relations with neighboring countries (Iran, Burma, Sri Lanka) , we conduct secret dialogues with countries (Israel, Pakistan) so on and so forth. It is common knowledge, or so they would want us to believe, that the so called super powers try to arm-twist smaller countries and their Ambassador’s send exaggerated reports and claims back home. Should we consider these pompous reports as Gospel truth and waste our time and news print? In international relations aren’t Ambassador’s expected to liaise, spy and if nothing works at least sex up their reports? In a democratic country like ours is there a secret?  Some looks like a cut and paste job, straight from some magazine …..the one about Rahul Gandhi’s vision!

Who doesn’t know of the strong presence of Malayali Civil Servants (Mafia is the most uncharitable remark) in the Capital? Perhaps the Ambassador hasn’t heard of the earlier description of the Malayali presence, more specifically of the Menons who held important positions, euphemistically referred to as “Menongitis”.  They wouldn’t be allowed to be pushed; they would rather jump before it came to a shove. 

Outrageous, Outrageous!  Do I hear?   Am I becoming unfashionable when the whole world seems to be hooked on to Assange and his leaked cables!  Or am I just a spoil sport?

A Bridge to Somewhere

View From Ottapalam

View from Mayannur

In an earlier post I had mentioned about the new bridge across Bharata Puzha (River Nila to poets and environmentalists).  This brought me great many memories of the times when there was no bridge to Mayannur.  Though separated by the river into two districts; rather two states, before the formation of the integrated state of Kerala, this natural boundary never separated the people on the two sides. There was a symbiotic relationship between the two villages of Ottapalam and Mayannur. Ottapalam depended on Mayannur for its daily supply of vegetables, milk and workmen while Mayannur depended on Ottapalam for higher education, medical facilities, travel and wholesale groceries. The ‘aadhan pradhaan’ continued uninterruptedly with the help of country boats even when the river swelled.  Now with the new bridge, there will be more traffic of men and materials.

Mayannur was part of Travancore Cochin which merged with Malabar to form ‘Aikya Keralam’ in 1957.  It was ruled by the Cochin Maharaja pre-independence. Ottapalam, in the district of Malabar was part of the then Madras state. Culturally and linguistically the two villages could not be separated. But the geography in the form of the river separated the two villages which came to be administered by two political entities. Though this separation inconvenienced the locals it offered criminals from both sides a lot of leeway. It was a practice for offenders to escape into the other state to get away from the long arm of the State. This was a big head ache for the police force of the two states and continues even now in a milder form.

This bridge is not the only bridge across the river Nila.  I can count at least 4 others, the one in Lakkidi, one in Shoranur (Kochi Palam), one in Pattambi and the latest in Chamravattom in a few days from now. As I write this the local MLA has announced one more to come within a few kilo meters off the Ottapalam Bridge.  Ottapalam literally means Single Bridge in Malayalam but this seems to be an anachronism.  And an oxymoron too, as Ottapalam town is bordered by two small creeks with bridges across.

Bridges have spawned many a book universally. They are not just physical but symbolic of human bondage and the desire to transcend their limitations. Some of these stories have been filmed. Most notable is the David Lean film ‘The bridge on the river Kwai’.  The other books are “A bridge too far” and Richard Bach’s “The Bridge across forever”.  Closer home we have the KG George directed ‘Panchavadipalam’, a spoof on the petty village politics. The story ends in the tragic death of the character played by Sreenivasan when the new bridge collapses on its inaugural day!

Not so for the Ottapalam Bridge. It had a grand inaugural but not without minor controversies.  The only casualty of the Bridge seems to be the boatman who used to make a small kill during the five/six months of rainy season. He should have seen the writing on the wall but hoped it was ‘a bridge too far’. But it is reality now, after many years of waiting. The schools and colleges have a good number of students who use the boat service and now they can make it to Ottapalam without the worry of getting themselves and their books wet during monsoon. The boatman would be cursing his fate though he is not an innocent victim of progress.

I particularly remember one incident in which I had a small role to play. I had some official work in Mayannur while I was working in Thrissur.  After the work I thought I could visit my in-laws in Ottapalam. So I disposed off the car and used the boat service to cross over. I was carrying some important documents (loan revival papers) obtained after much efforts. There were a few youngsters on the boat and as is their wont started making some comments about the rowing. Mid way through the river the boatman stopped the boat. “Who among you is unhappy with my rowing? Will he please come forward and teach me?”…asked the boatman.  I immediately sensed danger, though not to my life, but to the papers I was carrying. A hush descended in the boat and along with it, the belligerence of the boatman. I would have kept quite and allowed the situation to evolve, which is my normal style. But here I could not do that and soon stepped in to douse the small spark with all my persuasive skills and with a liberal appreciation of the selfless   good work of the boatman.  Fortunately, the noisy boys also kept quiet and my task was made easy. An embarrassing situation was averted. Descendant of Guhan or Charon? None of those for our man!

Hindsight Bias

The house is suddenly abuzz with terms such as presumptive loss, notional loss and opportunity loss.  And depending on one’s political proclivity   ‘the no loss’ theory also has been aired with equal felicity. The lady in the house has suddenly taken a fancy to the word ‘presumptive loss’ to get even with her male counterpart. For so long, she has been trying hard to get her point across when ever a decision concerning money was involved. Now with the CAG report to shore her up she has been on the offensive on many of my financial and investment decisions.  She has also dug up incidents of the past and put them under the microscopic scanner. Mercifully she has not cast her inquiry to the pre marital days but in all likely hood, might reassess her losses on her father’s decision to give her in matrimony to a dull wit like yours truly.

She has now found the stick to beat me with for my alleged acts of procrastinations and avoidance. Her stock argument is that I have caused irreparable loss to the family’s financial position by not acting on her advices. The losses are both capital and revenue, and if you may, sweeten it by prefixing ‘presumptive’. (By the way, a loss presupposes a possible gain. So a presumptive loss of 376000 crores means every Indian could have been richer by Rs 3000, which is a nice elevating thought. This logic takes off from a very original idea propounded by VKN: that is, increase the population so that   the ‘per capita debt burden’ of India would lessen!  My acknowledgements.)

Her first charge is that the family (read, I)   has not considered the dirty yellow metal as profitable investment option. By this act of omission, the presumptive loss, according to her, would be the sum of both the scams put together, if you, as much as, ignore the crore tag.  I agree, albeit, with a slight modification… the loss is ab initio, as the investible amount was presumptuous to begin with.

Her second charge …. We could have saved a lot on the house construction had we started it early, courtesy her advice.  The difference in cost of construction between the dates we finished our house and the date of her advice, is a loss we could have avoided, if I had listened to her.  How I prefix the loss, the choice is mine…notional, presumpumtive or opportunity, so long as I don’t emulate Mr. Sibal in claiming no loss.  She will not buy my claim to a whopping capital gain, notional if she insists, considering the sky rocketing realty prices. Her advice: be cautious of the bubble around the corner and do not rejoice in haste.

The third charge is my reluctance to heed to her advice on my stock market exposure. She accuses me that my timing of the market is so amateurish that I have only made losses. Had I listened to her advice I would be sitting on heaps of money, she avers. And pray what’s her advice?  When ever she sees the slightest signs of the bulls taking over the market she wants me to offload all the stocks I hold.  When I tell her that I should stay invested and participate in the rally and see my portfolio grow, her view is that the growth is all ephemeral. Hard cash is all that appeals to her. And when the markets tank she will be the first to point her finger……..didn’t I tell you.  She doesn’t buy the argument, the losses are all notional and as a risk averse investor, it is best go long. Her outlook on the market resembles that of Anil Ambani who says a bear cartel is working extra time.

Another issue on which she smells a rat is the skyrocketing prices of Onions and Tomato. Her expert view is that somebody has played the commodities market in respect of these vegetables. Not the ‘futures and options’ but something like what the legendary Puzhakkare Vettil Chathu Nair did in the epic (will it qualify?) Pithamahan by VKN: the daring act of burning 200 bags of paddy in the Cochin beach, which act earned him the Sir title from Queen Elizabeth. Chathu did this not to manipulate the market but to teach the Dewan a lesson. In the instant case, the prices of onions have come down fast but she smells a scam there also. Luckily, no demand for a JPC!

Slivers of the Failed Experiment

This post is a sequel to my previous post which was mostly in the form of  trivia. Herein,  I place  the few remnants of the experiment, fortuitously preserved by me . Those who were part of the venture may  like to reminisce about the good old days. To those  others, who were not part of the endeavour but love Ottapalam and Good Cinema , here's some thing which will tell them, 'we did our bit'. It is for them to start it all over again.

This post does not purport to be the whole story. There are many others who can supplement my modest effort. To them my request is please share the  memories you  have. Further, I'm aware, the  story is incomplete in one respect at least .... about the 'end ' of the venture.

This (picture on the left) was the model we followed. Chitralekha Film Society Trivandrum Annual Report 1970-71. Look at the great names. Ours , Sathyajit Ray Film Society ,Ottapalam was a  modest affair. We had no great names and worked on a shoe string budget.

An intimation circulated among members.Mukundan's single finger effort. Kesavan chipped in seeing Mukundan's struggle with the type writer.

Most of the films we screened  were 16 MM prints. These films were shown at the NSS Training College which had a 16 MM projector Raman, the operator, was from Mayannur, across the river (after 35 years we have a swanky bridge across Bhartha Puzha) and on many an occasion he would have missed the last boat and had to make it to the other side wading through water. We are obliged to you , Raman, wherever you are!                                                              

Synopsis of three movies:

Hello Elephant(Italy)

Apanjan (Bengali/Tapan Sinha)

A Blonde's Love ( Czeck/ Milos Forman , later well known for his movie

"One  flew over the cuckoo's nest"  )

 

Chaplin movies like The Gold Rush , Modern Times could easily connect with the audience even if  the underlying pathos escaped a few at least . Vittoria DeSica’s   Bicycle Thieves did indeed  receive sympathetic response.

Some of the foreign language films shown. The notice, as you can see, was painfully and patiently typed by Mukundan.  The matter was given by the  FFSI or the National Film Archives. Most of the films were 16 mm. Some were  silent and many had English Sub Titles.

The language , grammar or spellings in the notice were  not of much  concern to us. What mattered was seeing the movies and keeping the cost at the lowest. Remember, we did not have computers or xerox machines. The most advanced technology in use was the type writer and the stencil cutter!

   D W Griffith's  classic silent movie 'The Birth of a Nation' .   Did we create history of screening the first silent movie? For most of us this was the first time.  By the time Ottapalam got its first permanent  theatre,  Laksmi  (then owned by entrepreneurs  EP Brothers), the talkie movies had already come and were in vogue. 

The one film which found a ready acceptance amongst all  was the brilliantly made  ‘The Incident at Owl Creek’ directed by Robert Enrico . I still remember the storyline,  the hallucination and hope of the protagonist, moments after the noose is tightened and just before his fall to death at the gallows. The shock among the audience was palpable.

Ritwick Ghatak’s SubaharnaRekha, a movie set in the backdrop of the partition of Bengal was another movie that  struck a raw chord with many a viewer. I particularly remember a slow trolley shot on Madhabi Mukerjee whose close up almost hits you on the face.Tapan Sinha’s ‘Ankush’ ( based on Narayan Ganguly’s  story Sainik) where the central character was an elephant ,was shown in the local theatre, open to public .That was a decision we regretted later as the front benchers started to show their restlessness on the benches, much to the displeasure of  Sethu. Mercifully they settled down to our entreaties. 

Tapan Sinha’s  Apanjan and Mrinal Sen’s  Bhuvan Shome , Interview , Calcutta 71 and Chorus were some of the other movies we exhibited in the theatre and had smooth passage.

Synopsis of Luis Bunuel's Cannes Festival (1959)Award winner Nazarin.

The Golem  , a milestone silent movie of 1920. The earliest of Monster movies.

Most of the movies had little entertainment value. They were either world classics or milestone movies.Another movie in this genre  was the 1928 movie The Passion of Joan of Arc  with the close ups of Joan that would haunt one for a long time.  

World Classic Akira Kurasowa's Throne of Blood (1957)

How I wish we had more insights and access to critical reviews of the movie then. Did we also get to see Kurasowa's Rashoman? I doubt. 

Memory fails me as to whether we could get Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries) , Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin) or Fellini. There were many who wanted to see these movies. Perhaps , these would have been brought by the new team that took over, before the venture folded up.

One year of existence. The Notice for the annual general body meeting .    Was a tame affair. The statement of  accounts was presented by me . I do not have a copy of the accounts , but I think we had a surplus.The accounts were approved without much ado. Somebody , though, made  a caustic comment ,more in jest than anything else.... we spent more on refreshments!

Well , these are the materials that I have retained. I'm sure some like Mukundan must have preserved a few. I put this in public domain before my memories  fade and the papers disintegrate .
Hopefully , this post would inspire a renewed effort .

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.  

.

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.