Middle class cinema and Bollywood

The End

Soft popcorn intervals no more. The death of middle class cinema is real, though it resurrected for a fleeting moment with Hrishikesh Mukherjee's final farewell

Partha Chatterjee Delhi

It is often said these days that the middle class cinema of 'Old Bombay' is dead. Numerous instances are cited, of directors like Basu Chatterjee, Gulzar and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, whose films are no longer part of the celluloid landscape. The last mentioned, of course, cannot make films anymore: he died quietly on August 27, 2006. But the fact is that the gentle, 'thinking and feeling cinema', dealing with middle class values, has had a make-over like Bombay in metamorphosis, now renamed Mumbai.

Much before the multiplexes and the malls came up and the single screen cinema hall ruled the roost, there was room for the well-made Hindi film which had good songs to act as commercial buffers. Basu Chatterjee, Gulzar and the late Hrishikesh Mukherjee had a fairly long run of steady success. They worked with stars (or was it the other way around?) and made films that could be watched by the whole family, and yes, together. Had their films not done reasonably well consistently, there was no way that any of them could have survived in the dog-eat-dog world of box office-driven, crassly commercial Bollywood.

Those days, the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) did not really have such a strong presence in the US and the UK, Australia or Canada. And the population of Indian origin in the West Indies and South Africa were often keen to see on screen a jazzed-up version of the Nautanki, a folk form familiar to their forefathers. Surely, the struggles of a nation and its (relatively) educated middle class with modernity did not interest most migrant Indians abroad.

Life was hard, though money could be made by the sweat of one's brow. English language cinema was largely about an engagement with life of which the Indian away from home already had too much. Indian films, which succeeded overseas, were escapist in nature. Aan by Mehboob Khan, Mughal-e-Azam by K Asif and Raj Kapoor's Sangam were immensely popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

Messrs Mukherjee, Chatterjee and Gulzar did not ever find an abiding place in the hearts of the NRIs. Their audience was mostly domestic and mainly urban, perhaps, in the metropolitan cities and small towns of India, especially in the north. They are the ones who paid to see their films and kept them busy. These filmmakers were also capable of making reasonable money for the producers in the long run.

Suresh Jindal, a chemical engineering graduate from Caltech, came home from America in the early 1970s and produced Rajnigandha with Amol Palekar and Vidya Sinha, directed by Basu Chatterjee, who had already made the evocative Saara Aakash in black and white, financed by the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC). Rajnigandha was a romantic comedy about a middle class couple and the problems they face in the course of their relationship. It was a runaway hit. The incredible song, Kai baar yun hi dekha hai, yeh jo man ki seemarekha hai… (composer Salil Chaudhary, lyrics Yogesh, singer Mukesh) remains a favourite with discerning lovers of Hindi film songs till this day.

Chatterjee had three hits in a row after this film. Piya Ka Ghar with Jaya Bhaduri and Anil Dhawan, about a joint family in Bombay living in cramped quarters and the travails of a newly married son and his bride trying to find a little space and privacy for themselves; Choti Si Baat, with Amol Palekar and Vidya Sinha, about a bachelor's reluctance to get married, with an immensely popular song by Lata Mangeshkar

(composed by Salil Chaudhary set to Yogesh's lyrics) Na jaane kyon.; Chitchor for Rajshree Pictures with Amol Palekar and newcomer Zarina Wahab in the

lead and introducing singer Yesudas,

who was already a playback star in Malayalam films.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee, who had such fine films as Musafir, Anuradha, Anari, Anupama to his credit through the late 1950s and 1960s, emerged as a maker

of accomplished comedies. Golmaal, with the ubiquitous Amol Palekar, Utpal Dutt, Bindiya Goswami; the hilarious

masterpiece Chupke-Chupke starring Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Amitabh Bachchan and a chirpy Jaya Bhaduri; Khoobsurat, a creative vehicle for Rekha, the reigning female superstar — all proved successful.

Earlier, Mukherjee's foray into show business, Guddi and Anand, with standout performances by Jaya Bhaduri and Rajesh Khanna, did very well at the box office while not compromising on artistic standards.

In all the successful films of this clean and aesthetic 'middle class cinema' period, songs played a major role. If one single composer can be picked, it would be the hugely gifted, extremely troublesome Salil Chaudhary. He contributed significantly to Mukherjee's success with his songs for Anand, Basu Chatterjee's films and Gulzar's debut film Mere Apne, a remake of Tapan Sinha's Bengali hit Aapan Jan. Haal-chaal theek thaak hai…, a song from Mere Apne could well be considered an apt summing up of the national political scene then and now.

Indeed, the one factor that governed both politics and cinema in India was economics. The nature of Indian films and politics began to change in the late 1980s as money inflow from largely illegitimate sources rendered both the activities murky. As the price of gold fell, smugglers turned to drugs, not unsurprisingly, the profit margins far exceeded those gained by an illegal trade of that particular precious metal. Emerging crime syndicates diversified by going into real estate and film production. So we had a flood of films that glorified both crime and criminals: Zanzeer and Deewar (directed by Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra), both written by Salim-Javed, master plagiarists, who also wrote the great blockbuster Sholay. The script writers were behind the big success of these two films that helped create Amitabh Bachchan's image of a smoldering youth at war with the system.

His character in Deewar is said to be modelled at least in part on mafia don Haji Mastan Mirza, a porter in Bombay's docks, who became a gangland boss during the same phase as another don, Kareem Lala, an Ismaili, who happened to be once a member of the Khudai Khidmatgar (a non-violent social service group founded by Frontier Gandhi Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan). Bachchan in Zanzeer played the role of a police inspector, who thought he could bring justice to a corrupt world.

Deewar was lifted from Raoul Walsh's 1930s gangster film, The Roaring Twenties, starring James Cagney. The following exchanges between the bad brother Amitabh and good cop brother Shashi Kapoor — "Mere paas bangla hain, gaadi hain, bank balance hain, building hain, property hain, tumhare paas kiya hain?" "Mere paas ma hai" — a straight translation of a similar scene from Walsh's film.

Meanwhile, imperceptibly, satellite television took over the Indian airwaves and provided an unparallel choice of

programmes. Indian TV producers opted for lurid soap operas and film producers went for Hollywood melodrama.

Everything became strident and vulgar. For the NRIs and their progeny, or the upwardly mobile aspirant of the affluent society, designer brands and silicon valleys in the West, the rat race had drastically changed its terrain and contours. In such a situation, where would a Basu Chatterjee, Hrishikesh Mukherjee or Gulzar fit in?

So true...I don't think we can expect to get films like Golmaal, Choti si baat and Anand ever again. These were gems my family and I have watched over and over and over .. so thoroughly that we could say the dialogues along as we watched them (same with a lot of us here I am sure) 😆 .

I recently saw 'Ghosla ka Khosla' which I thought could be categorised under middle class cinema with a touch of humour. Must say I enjoyed it..made me feel that all is not lost after all 😊 .

Thanks Qwest ji.

Thanks dada for the article. Yes those names mentioned are indeed great films.

I am not an avid film watcher...but the recent movie .."Hera pheri" - it looked pretty middle classs type of a story to me...and what a fantastic movie too...just kept us on a roll...the movie was liked by all classes I am sure, even the NRI's.

That way even the munna bhai ones, had a middle class background

Thanx for the article. so true that those golden movies are lost from bollywood completely now. i am sure there are many who still wish if such movies can come back to bollywood again.

Originally posted by: Qwest

Everything became strident and vulgar. For the NRIs and their progeny, or the upwardly mobile aspirant of the affluent society, designer brands and silicon valleys in the West, the rat race had drastically changed its terrain and contours. In such a situation, where would a Basu Chatterjee, Hrishikesh Mukherjee or Gulzar fit in?

They dnt fit true but maybe its now upon the public to make them fit. unless they change their taste or atleast try to make some adjustedment with their tastes movies by these greats will be lost forever.

Originally posted by: simtara

Well now, while I certainly agree that the films have taken a turn for the worse, by and large, in recent times and trends, I'm not appreciating the blame being put on the "NRIs" en masse.

The fact is that India itself, and more so the metros, in their effort to modernize and "westernize" have moved to a point where middle class doesn't sell...vulgarity does.

While some of the commercial movies are still bearable (to a point...), they are mostly trash in my (NRI) view.

Some of the recent, considerably "middle class" movies I've enjoyed include:
"Khosla Ka Ghosla" - middle class man's story with a cast that included few known faces and several unknown or theatrical faces.

"Hera Pheri," "Yeh Tera Ghar Yeh Mera Ghar," and "Hungama" - stories based on the middle class and it's various plights with a comical twist. The star cast portrayed the middle class sans glammour and made the stories fairly believable.

While a few others attempt to dabble in making believable stories, most give way to the demand for drama, glitz and glamour.

Pity...I do enjoy watching good movies.

RDB sneaks into the "middle class" category as well... by default since it deals with a group of average coll students facing the troubles of the time of the country.
Vivah, while a bit showy and commercialized, is also fairly middle class.

I'm sure there have been some others...perhaps Baabul..though more commercialized than the average middle class film.

Many of the movies we disregard as middle class, could have been made in a manner that would make them middle class...though not necessarily more appealing to the majority (NRIs and at-home Desis alike).

Originally posted by: Qwest

Simtara missed you while you are gone. So good to see you back very well written and eloquently expressed your view.

😳 Thank you.

And I've missed being here. It's good to be back in action. 😊

Originally posted by: simtara

Well now, while I certainly agree that the films have taken a turn for the worse, by and large, in recent times and trends, I'm not appreciating the blame being put on the "NRIs" en masse.

The fact is that India itself, and more so the metros, in their effort to modernize and "westernize" have moved to a point where middle class doesn't sell...vulgarity does.

👏👏👏 i cant agree more to ur comments Simi. especially the second part. we need to change now. unless we change this will continue. same is going with the TV serials. a big section of public are all the time talking against the sas bahu serials. but they are watching it too. unless u stop watching them how do u expect change to take place!! how do u then expect to get good quality work be it in TV or bollywood or other entertainment sectors.

A poverty of poverty

Market-led liberalization seems to have gung-ho implications for Hindi cinema where no one is hungry, homeless or forlorn

Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr Delhi

In the magic year of 1991 — when the P V Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh duo ushered in market-led reforms, talk of poverty just disappeared from the Indian middle class drawing-rooms. Until then, the fashionable crowd felt it to be an obligation to pay lip-homage to the plight of the poor even as they sipped their wine and puffed at their cigarettes. But after 1991, they became honest, and ignored the poor. And some of them had even begun to pretend that there were no poor people around. It was more convenient to remove the poor than to remove poverty.

Hindi commercial filmmakers who accurately reflect the changing norms of society changed tack too. That is why it is the middle-class oriented Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge that became iconic successes. A few
liberal voices protested that this was the reassertion of reactionary values by the unintellectual Hindi filmmakers, without
realising that the commercial cinema was serving, in the old fashioned sense of the term, as the mirror of society. One of the authentic middle class films of this period was Ram Gopal Verma's Rangeela. Its key character played by Urmila Matondkar was the real symbol of the new dream of the middle-class — to make it good in life, and with no apologies. It showed the genuine courage and optimism of the middle class to get out of the poverty trap. Ram Gopal Verma could never get back to the simplicity of Rangeela as he turned into a poseur of a new kind of kitschy cinema with its shallow technical glitz, following in the footsteps of Quentin Tarantino.

But the poor people could not be kept out for too long. They made their back in recent years when the theme of the Hindi commercial films — it is necessary to emphasize the commercial film aspect because the so-called "parallel" and "art" filmmakers never reflected Indian reality in the authentic fashion that the song-and-dance-and-fantastic fight-scenes films did — turned to that of underworld crime. And this found its true echo in Mahesh Manjrekar's Vaastav. The bleak and ubiquitous "chawl" of Mumbai serves as the stage where poverty and honesty, crime and politics are played out with the intensity of a Greek tragedy. Sanjay Dutt played the lead role with rare conviction. In contrast to the heroine in Rangeela, the hero in Vaastav is sucked into the maelstrom
of crime and violence. There is no hope. But what is striking about the film is that the moral values are reasserted. The mother shoots the protagonist-son dead at the end of the movie, and a glimmer of redemption there. The moral dignity of the poor is restored.

Strangely enough, Vaastav connects back to a great film made about poverty in India, Mehboob's Mother India, where Nargis played the eponymous role, and where she too shoots her son dead towards the end of the film, again to reassert the moral norm. Sunil Dutt, who played the role of the irascible and rebellious son, abducts the daughter of the village moneylender, who is literally the bloodsucker of the poor. The mother takes the community line: the daughter of the moneylender is the daughter of the village. She cannot come to any harm.

There is, however, more to Mother India than this powerfully melodramatic denouement. Mehboob shows rural poverty in its exact contours — how the moneylender chips away at every possession of the indebted family, until he strips them of all their dignity. And Nargis shows the grit and courage of a poor woman which is not uncommon in India as is generally believed, who moves from the brink of despair and clutches her way back to well-being. The farmers' suicides across many states in the country in the post-liberalization period have not altered the harshness of the economic system, and 48 years after it was made — Mehboob had made an earlier version of Mother India as Aurat in the 1940s — Mother India remains a relevant portrayal of the poor farmer.

Though a member of the then undivided Communist Party of India, Mehboob did not make a partisan film. Through the lyrics of Shakeel Badayuni, he acknowledges the benign presence of god, who seems to provide the faith and courage to the poor people in India. His depiction of rural indebtedness is disturbingly true, and the situation has not changed as yet.

Mehboob, whose own personal life is a journey from poor orphan born in Gujarat to that of one of the greatest — unfortunately unacknowledged — film directors of India, and even of the world, is not a pessimist. He believes that obstacles can be overcome, and there is a scene in the film where an anguished Nargis pleads with the enraged Sunil Dutt with a gun in his hand that guns will not produce harvests, but only spell destruction.

It is then necessary to bring in the controversy over depiction of poverty in films triggered by Nargis's remark that Satyajit Ray showed Indian poverty abroad to win awards in the rajya sabha in 1980. It came out of justifiable irritation. She was not attacking the artistic merits of Ray's aesthetic cinematic creations. She just did not much care for that kind of cinema. What angered her was the uncritical praise heaped on Ray that he showed the stark realities of India. She learnt, both in her own life and through her portraya in Mother India the real face of poverty, and also how the poor grappled heroically with that. In truth, Ray was not interested in looking at the poor in India. He was too middle class, too genteel to deal with the dark aspects of life. In Pather Panchali he was not so much concerned with the poverty of Apus' family as with their simple life story. Poverty was an incidental detail of the film. And even in depicting the scenes of poverty, Ray took enormous care to emphasize idyllic rural background.
For instance, compare the scene of Durga dancing in the rain in Pather Panchali with that of the two children drenched in the rain on the city's pavements in Raj Kapoor's Bootpolish. The scene in Pather Panchali is a celebration of innocence. In Bootpolish, there is no turning away from the glaring poverty of the children. Another powerful scene of poverty in Indian cinema is that of the famished Balraj Sahni pushing the rickshaw on the streets of Kolkata in Bimal Roy's Do Bhiga Zameen.

Unlike Mehboob Khan and Bimal Roy, the films made from the late 1970s are made by those who have no first-hand exposure to the world of the Indian poor. A good example is Hum Aapke Hain Kaun which is a remake of Nadia Ke Paar directed by Govind Moonis and set in a rural background. The same story is given an urban neo-rich look to appeal to the globalised audience by Sooraj Barjatiya, a Mumbai-based director from a traditional Marwari family, who never tried to broaden his horizon. The film was produced by Rajshrees who were till then leading distributors with an enormous chain of theatres throughout India. The film was released in major cities with only 50 prints. The strategy was to work with high-price tickets which brought in the cash. It was an exclusive. The film set a trend and remains one of the last genuine golden jubilees.

The reason for the vanishing rural backdrop and associated poverty can be found in the lack of purchasing power of this rural multitude and the swell of the migrant urban dwellers. These slum dwellers, the have-nots, found their aspirations reflected in the portrayal of the underdog who makes it big. The urban rogue of Awara and Shree 420 made way for the Amitabh Bachchan of Deewar and Lawaris. Mithun Chakravarty, Amitabh Bachchan, later Govinda, and now Salman Khan were among the heroes. This urban angst found reflection in the underworld films like Satya and Vaastav.

Poverty as a theme in Hindi cinema might appear to have disappeared. But it still lurks in the corners despite films like the Dil Chahta Hai, Kal Ho Na Ho and Salaam Namaste genre of urban middle class films with their overdose of chic and attitude and their new norms that seek to replace the old sensibilities rooted in a moral framework that has forever fired the middle-class imagination for centuries.