Stories Of Us

Such mistakes should not be tolerated in a lesser tome. But in a book this expensive, from a publishing house this reputed, it’s almost unforgivable. On page 141, the copy reads, ‘‘(Mira) Nair is now directing Hollywood princess Reese Witherspoon in her next film, Hysterical Blindness.’’ Correction: Hysterical Blindness starred Uma Thurman. Nair’s film with Witherspoon is Vanity Fair. Blunders such as these take away from what is essentially an informative encyclopaedia. Indian cinema pre-dates the release of the country’s first full-length feature, Dadasaheb Phalke’s silent film Raja Harishchandra in 1913. For about two decades before that, audiences had been exposed in tantalising doses to early experiments in film making by pioneers in the country and abroad. Soon after the arrival of the short films sent to India by the legendary Lumiere brothers of France, shorts by Indians began appearing on screens with increasing regularity.

The book chronicles the journey of Bollywood cinema from Phalke’s pioneering effort through to the country’s first talkie (Alam Ara in 1931), the studio system and the star system, the advent of colour, and films in the new millennium all the way up to Koi Mil Gaya in 2003. Although cinema has been around in India for over a century, there is surprisingly little literature available to the general public. Some of this has changed in the past decade, with a trickle of books on Amitabh Bachchan, Dilip Kumar, Sholay, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and other subjects.

It is in this context that senior film journalists Raheja and Kothari’s Indian Cinema assumes significance. While the dominance of Bollywood in the country’s film scenario is undeniable, it comes as a relief that in the title, as in the foreword by Ismail Merchant, there is an acknowledgement that ‘‘the cinema of India is enormously diverse with monumental studio systems in South India and Bengal’’.

For neo-converts to Bollywood, the book is a pleasant introduction to one of the most colourful film industries in the world. But Indian Cinema is likely to give serious followers of Hindi cinema a sense of deja vu. The analysis is all too meagre and the information presented doesn’t go much beyond other notable books in the genre such as Firoze Rangoonwalla’s Indian Cinema, Past and Present (1975), or the invaluable Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen (1995) which gives you triple the detail at less than half the price.

The authors of Indian Cinema tell us they interviewed scores of film people for this book. And the text is interspersed with some delightful quotes from former and present stars including the 1960s actress Nanda, music director Naushad, film maker B.R. Chopra, and Mr Bharat himself, Manoj Kumar, among others. But there are also some disappointingly inane ones from director Vidhu Vinod Chopra and actors Jeetendra and Meenakshi Sheshadri. The usually articulate and intelligent Chopra has been quoted as saying that ‘‘we are on the verge of a global breakthrough’’. Really?