An Old Master Takes A Bow

THAT an Indian Summer descended on the UK is old hat. What is not half as well-publicised as the Selfridges8217; promotion or the West End ...

THAT an Indian Summer descended on the UK is old hat. What is not half as well-publicised as the Selfridges8217; promotion or the West End debut of Bombay Dreams is that a small section of the British population was also exposed to V Shantaram, synonymous with films like Do Aankhen Barah Haath in India, but lost between Satyajit Ray and Yashraj Films to western audience. In fact, it was to retrieve the auteur from obscurity that Lalit Mohan Joshi, editor of the journal South Asian Cinema, brought Shantaram to the UK. 8216;8216;There is a lot of socially responsible Indian cinema apart from Ray,8217;8217; says Joshi, 8216;8216;and I want to bring that cinema to the UK.8217;8217; His audience may have been small, but it is proactively engaged in issues that touch the lives of people both in the UK and in India.

There were the usual exhibitions of rare photographs and posters of Shantaram films at the Nehru Centre, as well as a lecture by film historian P K Nayar, who argued that Shantaram8217;s themes like persecution of women and dehumanising of prisons transcended time and space. Shantaram8217;s Duniya Na Maane 1939, a film about a young woman married to a much older man against her wishes, vindicated that line with a heated discussion in the audience, comprising woman activists, social workers, legal experts and some victims of domestic violence.

But it was at the next stop that Shantaram8217;s relevance to 2002 was driven home. At Feltham, Europe8217;s largest prison for young offenders on the outskirts of west London, 20-odd Asian offenders and their wardens were shown Do Aankhen Barah Haath 1958, Shantaram8217;s classic about a young jailor who persuades the authorities to release six hardened criminals and then engages them in an economically viable community regeneration programme.

The film8217;s opening shot 8212; of a cruel jailor hitting a prisoner on the head 8212; had one of the audience mumbling, 8216;8216;Typical Asian8217;8217;. But as the show progressed, the parallels became inescapable. Prisoner-rehabilitation experiments are not unusual in today8217;s Britain: In fact, during probation, officer-supervised offenders go back into the community 8212; like the characters in the film 8212; and engage themselves in some form of productive activity. As Clive Martin, director of a charity called Prison Community Links, confessed, he was 8216;8216;surprised to see an India filmmaker 40 years ago raising the issues that are being explored in Britain today8217;8217;.

For the prisoners, it appeared to be quite an extraordinary experience discussing a film that argues that offenders should not be behind bars. 8216;8216;Dated, but very interesting,8217;8217; said one. 8216;8216;It8217;s not real, it can8217;t happen,8217;8217; said another. No one appeared convinced that the film was based on a true story.

Corey Crickmur, director of the Institute of Cinema and Culture at the University of Iowa, perhaps summed it up the best: 8216;8216;People may forget modern blockbusters in 20 years, but Shantaram8217;s films will not be forgotten as they relate to universal social concerns. And therefore, it is important that they must be shown to the new generation.8217;8217;