Mumbai Mehfil

A look at the Islamic elements of Bollywood

A look at the Islamic elements of Bollywood
It is hard to imagine the Hindi film pantheon without its great Muslim movies. It is harder to believe that it has taken all these years for someone to come up with a scholarly look at the provenance and progression of the Muslim components the nawabs and the tawaifs,the kotha and the kaneez,the ghazals and the qawwalis of the cinema that came out of Bombay.

In their introduction,the authors of Islamicate Cultures of Bombay Cinema define what they mean by Islamicate a composite term for the influence and impact of the forms of imagined history,social life and expressive idioms that are derived from and are associated with Islamic culture and history of Bombay cinema. Ira Bhaskar and Richard Allen contend that these forms reached their most distinctive and complete realisation in specific genres and sub-genres of Bombay cinema,and classify those genres as the Muslim Historical,the Muslim Courtesan Film and the Muslim Social.

All this while,weve known the Muslim Social as the overarching principle under which were clustered all films that dealt with Muslim subjects and characters. By splitting it,the authors find it easier to demarcate the films and assess them on their specific characteristics. Mughal-e-Azam,Pakeezah and Mere Mehboob are defined as paradigmatic instances of the three genres respectively.

Most useful are the early chapters which expound on how the genres developed and how they were used right from pre-independence India when the idea of a nation-state was still being formed remember the wise Mughal emperors and the loyal Rajputs,to the 60s and the 70s when reform and modernisation and shifts in perceptions of gender roles were being seen as pathways to free women from purdah and illiteracy.

The classily produced volume,however,restricts itself to the classics Najma,Chaudhvin Ka Chand,steering clear of the common Muslim socials that came and went all through the 80s and the 90s filmmaker Saawan Kumar Tak was most prolific,with Sanam Bewafa,Salma Pe Dil Aa Gaya and a host of other movies. It would also have been interesting to see how the authors saw the thinning and diffusing of the nazaakat and tehzeeb into the more democratic,vulgarised form that the Muslim social took on in later years,before it dwindled and began taking its last gasps.

Except perhaps for Jodhaa Akbar,which the book takes note of,there has been hardly anything in the past few years which would comfortably be classified under any of the three genres. The Muslim film is not dead though,even if you rarely see any mehfils and mushairas in the new Mumbai-multiplex cinema. It is changing,to keep up with the times,and not always succeeding.
The Umrao Jaan of the 1980s is a haunting classic,the new Umrao 2006 a badly made anachronism. Salim Langda has turned into Aamir of Aamir,or Samir of New York. The process of assimilation,long in the works,is now inexorable. Perhaps a companion volume will add in more context and connections.