Thursday, June 6, 2013

National Award 2013. SANITY RETURNS!!

Monojit Lahiri reports on how India’s only major award platform, mandated to unconditionally salute cinematic excellence across the land, returns to its old fair and fearless ways, undeterred by the distracting glitz n’ glamour of mainstream fare.
Once upon a time, the National Awards was indeed a big deal!  It celebrated a cinema steeped in liberal-humanitarian values embracing progressive solutions to urgent problems; a sensitivity to the plight of the dis-enfranchised & marginalized, poor & oppressed and a faith in the movement of man towards change.  A cinema of social significance and artistic sincerity presenting a modern humanist perspective, way more durable, relevant & significant than the pot-boilers defining the mindless masala for the culturally underprivileged and brain dead!  For an entire decade, [starting with Shyam Benegal’s Ankur in the early seventies] an alternative cinema to the Bollywood mainstream thrived, showcasing a spectacular range of films, actors, themes, subjects and treatment that took one’s breath away.  Shot with low-budgets, on real locations with new actors & technicians, these films attempted to re-examine an entire value system while fashioning a new path and direction.

The National Awards saluted and celebrated these efforts, bringing national & international honour, prestige & recognition to worthy artistes – across all categories – with a large media and enthusiastic audience, in attendance.  Also the LOC with mainstream commercial was clearly demarcated so there was no confusion.  The slow fade-out of this art-house [New] Cinema in the 80’s, coinciding with the rise of the 3 Khans, sounded the death knell of this movement.  The National Awards too, despite its agenda of celebrating quality cinema, was slowly losing ground, both in terms of popularity & quality fare.  Sure, there were a clutch of fine efforts by the gifted exponents of small cinema, but somehow it wasn’t the same.  With time, this annual one-off event was reduced to a here-today, gone-tomorrow affair, a consumer perishable in a glamour and star-driven space.  Sniggered a critic caustically, “No one was interested any more in going to an event without any semblance of glamour where vague regional films & unknown actors were awarded & sarkari types lagaoed long speeches about Cinema as an instrument of national integration … how boring!”  Film Historian & Scholar Rauf Ahmed however begs to differ.  “How can you even compare the National Awards with the zillion B-town awards beamed across TV channels every other day?  These are tamashas – media-house-driven shows, mass entertainment vehicles with a definite ROI in place.  The National Awards, for its turn, genuinely tries to celebrate quality – not popular or successful – cinema.  There’s a world of difference!”

In keeping with the consumerist times & rampaging juggernaut of Bollywood, the National Awards slowly paled into insignificance, a token event associated with ‘good’ cinema with lip-service and the right media bytes [about honour & prestige] in place, forgotten the moment the next B-town award seduced the small screen!  Critics & purists were also alarmed at the increasing Bollywood presence “sneaking into the national awards, at the cost of many worthy films/actors/technicians from unsung small/regional cinema!”

Just when the true-blue fans of the National Awards were about to get into heavy duty mourning mode and remember these awards as yet another template devoured by the compulsions of market-forces – Rs.100 crore club? -  comes the 2013 edition and yanks them out of this depression to fill them with hope and renewed faith in god!  A huge salaam to quality cinema that offered solid value proposition in terms of content, theme, treatment and focus, provided a fresh, different [even quirky & unconventional] take that was relatable in an entertaining & enriching fashion and categorically prove that even in these Dabangg & Ek Tha Tiger–driven times, small films indeed do have a contribution to make, the National Awards 2013 roster confirmed the almost forgotten, ignored, neglected & overlooked commandment that defined their existence – small is big!  Be it the splendid biopic Pan Singh Tomar [Best Film] Vicky Donor [Best Film in Wholesome Entertainment] Irfan Khan [Best Actor] Best Original Screenplay [Kahaani] Best Supporting Actor & Actress [Anu Kapoor & Dolly Ahluwalia, Vicky Donor] Usha Jadhav [Best Actress, Marathi film  Dhaag], these small films solidly swept the polls!

To followers of this new, new-wave, it brought renewed joy, hope and confidence.  For some time now, a bold, new & exciting breed of film-makers – passionate, determined, committed & gifted – has been serving notice by demonstrating their intent in no uncertain terms.  Led by the irrepressible Anurag Kashyap [whose path-breaking Gangs of Wasseypur provided a cathartic & chilling narrative on life & times of the Coal mafia], Dipakar Banerjee [Shanghai] Anurag Basu [Barfi] Sujoy Ghosh [Kahaani] Shoojit Sarkar [Vicky Donor] & Tigmanshu Dhulia [Saheb, Bibi aur Gangster, Pan Singh Tomar] this lot believed that non-formulaic, alternative cinema is a brand whose time has come!  While the unknown Dolly Ahluwalia is convinced that her award proves “that there is a definite demand and appreciation for good cinema”.  Director Shoojit Sarkar is “delightfully stunned” that a film that celebrated sperm donation could actually win such accolades!  Director Dhulia goes a step further to insist “that off-beat cinema is an economic necessity”. He believes that multiplexes in the small metros have played a huge part in getting back the intelligentsia and lovers of good cinema to the halls “because this lot stayed away due to both crappy movies and awful movie theatres!”

Whatever be the case, these awards augur well for this new parallel cinema.  The subjects may not be as raw and rooted in social realities defining the human condition as the earlier wave pioneered by Benegal, Nihalini & gang of the early seventies, but then isn’t change the only constant?  Besides, this is a new generation, rooted in a different milieu with different sensibilities and responding to the times with their very own special vision of reality, pitched to a totally different audience-base, whose only commonality with the earlier generation is an appreciation of anything fresh, different & real.  Each one of these award-winning films [along with several other glorious examples across all regions] has only re-affirmed this fact with passion and purpose. For lovers of this genre what is specially satisfying is that most of the films mentioned also remains financially profitable, making them both artistic and commercial successes.  Veteran Shyam Benegal wraps up the debate as only he can.  He reminds us that the National Awards “were not established to celebrate glamour or success but recognise, popular and honour quality cinema.  These awards – like the films – will always remain niche events focusing on artistic worth not mass-connect.  It must be understood that everything on earth is not – and should not – be targeted for public consumption.  The evolved and informed minority count!”

So, at the end of the day is the National Award – seemingly ignored and forgotten in the blitz of the glamour n’ glitz – finally staging a comeback, responding to the times and its hallowed principles of saluting quality cinema and re-inventing itself to the relevant?  Recognising that good, meaningful cinema [blending art with entertainment; engagement with human insight undistracted by big stars & Rs.100 crore club] is what they are committed to champion, promote and celebrate, without fear or favour?  If year 2013 is any indication [thanks in no small measure to its chairperson Basu Chatterjee and a fine set of cinema-literate jury members], the answer must be a thumping affirmative!  May this be a resurrection of the importance of the nation’s most treasured award relating to good cinema and inspire the movement to propel ahead.

Into the future with confidence!

NATIONAL AWARDS … WITH ZERO REWARDS.

It is savage irony that once the National Award announcements were made, congratulations and laddoos passed around, excitement, flashbulbs, interviews and shabashi from the high n’ mighty done, there was chilling and deafening silence! It appeared to be a surreal and scary scene residing between obscurity and oblivion, with a little bit of stardust flung in between…


Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Book Review: Young titan

The making of a legend

History is rife with people who have been made important because of the thrust of history. There are others, unlucky ones, whose individual achievements got lost in the tsunami of big events. General Erwin Rommel, most certainly a better commander than Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, had the bad luck of being on the wrong side of history. In fact, World War II had affected many like him. However, if there is one individual whose entire persona has been defined by that War, it is British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

There have been volumes written on him, but there has hardly been any title outside of pure academia that has tried to explore his personality beyond the realms of World War II. American writer Michael Shelden has tried to bridge that gap. Shelden’s ‘Young Titan: The making of Winston Churchill’ focuses on Churchill’s formative years as a politician and a person.
Before moving further, it should be made clear that Shelden writes primarily for American readership and this book is no different. After all, which Brit will need to be told that Tonypandy is in Wales and Dundee in Scotland. But having said that, this must also be mentioned that the book do  have incidents about the life of Churchill that are not well known even among British readership.

Winston Churchill is one legend who has both mistakes and success written all over him. But in his initial years as a politician, the mistakes he committed were pretty frequent and pronounced. Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a blue blooded aristocrat who was running out of money, and fast. It did not help Lord Randolph either that he married Jennie, a New York beauty who went on to become Winston’s mother. This was a peculiar era in Britain where American gold-diggers were marrying declining aristocrats in Britain, and under the circumstances, Jennie’s marriage to Lord Rudolph not only scandalized his class, it virtually also finished his political career for good. Lord Rudolph was also not particularly attentive or caring when it came to his family, even by the dismal standards of 19th century British aristocracy. All these had huge impact on Winston in his formative years. The book does manage to bring it out effectively.

However, the most interesting aspect about junior Churchill’s formative years was his initial days in Conservative Party and his later defection to Liberals. Unlike what he turned out during or after the War, Churchill in those days was a deeply polarizing character. Shelden unearths almost equal number of people who thought Churchill was a figure worth promoting and those who thought he was a figure worth ridiculing. Also, across the party line, there were equal number of politicians who thought he was a snob, upstart and threw his weight around, and those who considered him brilliant.

But it is also striking how much rigour one had to put in those times to be able to even qualify as a possible Prime Minister-in-waiting, leave alone Prime Minister itself. Churchill never completed his university degree. However, the hands-on experience gained during his stint at Board of Trade, the Treasury, the Home Office and the Admiralty, gave him enough apprenticeship to be taken seriously. Those were not the days when being a PM at the ago of 40-45 was considered an achievement. The likes of Blair and Brown wouldn’t have possibly passed gates of 10 Downing Street had they been born just a century shy.

But those were also the days when democracy was still maturing. Unruly behavior, sabotage and plain thuggery were widely accepted norms of parliamentary process and young Churchill was not left untouched. He crossed the floor in 1904 and joined the Liberals over the issue of ‘Free Trade’. And then returned in 1925. However, he did not think twice before he quipped, “The only instance of a rat swimming toward a sinking ship,” when a fellow Liberal aspired to fight the election on Conservative ticket.

However, the author also appears to put Churchill off the hook on mistakes that he made. In fact, the author appears too enamored at times to judge the incident impartially. For example, the author fails to mention that his jumping parties were more about being in the right spot at the right time and less about issues per se. After all, the politician who apparently “despised the crude methods of violence as a tool” vehemently defended the British colonialism till his dyeing breath. Incidents like  the Tonypandy miners’ riot or for that matter the Siege of Sidney Street, where he particularly showed penchant for violence as a tool, Shelden absolves him on rather flimsy grounds.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, June 2, 2013

"We will reap benefits in 2014"

When the Samajwadi Party came to power in 2012, the elevation of Akhilesh Yadav as Chief Minister came as a bit of a surprise to most – the vote after all was for his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Presiding over a State cabinet that has many stalwarts – including some from the family – Akhilesh's debut has been baptism by fire. Law and order has been a sore point in the State and he has been in the firing line for not being able to handle matters smoothly. In an interview with Anil Pandey and Avinash Mishra of TSI, the young CM says developmental projects, and law and order are his two main concerns.

You are the youngest ever Chief Minister in India. How would your rate your experience in the past one year?
When you think deeply, you think some good work has been done, but again, there are doubts. Maybe some things could have been done better. On a balanced note, we have done well. We have taken important decisions, results of which will be evident soon. We inherited a dysfunctional government which was more driven by motives of personal profit than overall gains and welfare of the State. So we had to reverse some of the programmes of the BSP government and that too in quick time. I took oath in March and the budget happened only by July, so we could not spend till then. But despite bad weather and other factors, we conducted a long assembly session.

What were the main challenges in your first year?
The biggest challenge was to fulfill the promises that we had made in our poll manifesto. I can say with confidence that we have achieved them. There are many big challenges ahead. No matter how hard you work and what you do, if law and order of the State is not under your control, then you have to give answers to your people.

You have been accused of not being able to control  the worsening law and order situation in UP. What is your reaction?
The government is worried about law and order and we are taking steps to control it. One bad case can undo all the good work you have done. Crime and law and order are two separate things and we are working to improve systems. Our effort is that cases be registered immediately so that culprits are sent behind bars. We have been successful in a number of cases but unfortunately, we never got the mileage that we should have got from the good work. I believe that the kind of image being portrayed in the media is incorrect. Equally, the behaviour and language of policemen many-a-time embarrasses the government. Old attitudes need to go and this needs to be worked on.

What steps have you taken to bring law and order into place in the State?
Our emphasis is to augment the capacity of the police force as well as modernise it. We are introducing a central GPRS system which will cut down on the police's reaction time. We have started the 'Dial 1090' helpline for women who face harassment.

What have been your main achievements so far?
The biggest achievement of the SP government has been that we have won the confidence of our people. What we had mentioned in the manifesto, we have delivered. But some of our schemes – like the one to distribute laptops to students is path-breaking. A lot of people were cynical about our ability to do that, but we succeeded. The media too has been helpful. Our emphasis is on the social sector; we have spent more than 74 percent of our budget on farmers and poor workers. We have a new industrial policy in place, the mood is becoming investor-friendly and companies from Europe and US are keen to come and invest in UP. We have to take a decision on roads and highways too; no country can develop without proper infrastructure.

UP is in the grip of a severe power crisis. Your comments on this?
Power crisis is a huge challenge for us. We have to take help from other States. UP is not able to produce enough electricity. Power plants in the State need to be overhauled. There are problems with distribution, fake bills, faulty transformers, bad equipment... you name it. We have plans to increase our capacity with the help of a 660 MW power plant. We have introduced non-conventional energy sources in the State too.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
ExecutiveMBA
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)