Of middle class, insignificant things and growing up with Indian Cinema.
Cinema is still frowned upon in many of the middle class families; it is only logical when the first concern is fuelling the stomach, fuelling the heart comes at a much, much later stage. Though I grew up in a milder version of the aforementioned setting, I, like any other movie enthusiast watched movie after movie every Friday. Those were not the days of multiplexes, but hot, suffocating theaters. No nachos at the oh so swank counters, instead there was a huge clank of bottles with the bottle opener seconds before the intermission, accompanied with Thanda, Thanda.
I grew up watching a host of movies; good, bad, ugly, boisterous, boring, bullshit. 90’s was an interesting decade for lots of things were happening simultaneously at the same time, Mithun Da’s Aai-Yaee , Akhsay Kumar crushing the genitals of all the baddies and proclaiming I do all my stunts myself. And this used to be the talking point at our school. Saala kya hero hai. There were few actors, only heroes and heroines. Barring Aamir Khan, almost every ‘hero’ had the same weird hairdo, the shoulder long length hair, and mouthing dialogues which even their kaam waali would have cringed upon hearing. Even the goddamn interviews were the same; it’s a very different role. I’m sure I must have missed the interview, where someone would have said, the role was very challenging for me. I play a different rapist.
But that was cinema in those days; it was so detached from the real life. Barring few movies, almost every other movie seemed to follow a certain pattern. Religiously. Six-seven scenes cut to a song, then again six-seven scenes, cut to a song, and so on. It looked as if the movies were being made by a group of programmers paid to execute certain instructions. So I watched and watched and watched. And waited, and waited.
Week after week, it was the same stuff, same Switzerland, same snow, same hero, different heroine. (I swear on god, I have no problems with the chiffon sarees, and the sleeveless blouse amidst the snow capped peaks, the only problem I have is everything should gel with the story. Does anyone remember the Europe that DDLJ showed us? That was not Europe for the heck of it. In a similar vein Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was honest enough).
On the other hand, there was the same corrupt police officer Shinde, same corrupt, flawed ‘system’, same nobler than thou hero sometimes as police inspector, sometimes as the nobody. To quote Norton from Fight Club, everything was a copy of a copy of a copy. And the sad thing is, back then, I even used to enjoy some of them, not because they were good movies, but because I had no choice. If you have never seen Tendulkar bat, you would start liking Ashraful’s batting someday. I can bet on that.
So basically that was it, I had started wondering, is this what cinema is all about? Is it only about certain particular things? Does it have to be shown in a particular way? Why everything that is shown to us is perfect? Why are families always happy? And even if things are wrong, why are they so obviously wrong, that it makes me puke? Not at the wrongness, but the crassness in which it has been delineated. Why does everything oscillate in extremes? When would someone capture the simple delights of life, or was it an unimportant chapter ignored while writing the ‘rulebook’ of Indian cinema in that decade?( I didn’t know at that time, that movies like Saaransh had been made and forgotten long ago).
The late 90’s still produced some watchable movies, thanks to one man. Ram Gopal Verma. There was an instant connection with his movies. His most talked about work, Satya, was also about gangsters as thousands of other movies in the same decade were. The similarity ended right there. The execution just blew everyone. ‘Kyun be maarna tha? Ae Amitabh Bacchan marega kya? With Rangeela he changed the way heroines would be presented, and followed it up with absurdly funny Daud. Everyone had enough of the cheesy lines, and the Ram Rajya being shown on the screen, the tryst with realism had to begin somewhere.
I’ve had various moments in the cinema hall, where not the movie but the people watching it were the source of entertainment. The most recent one that I can remember goes something like this:
The movie was Mission Istanbul’lshit’, where in one of the scene, they had shown a look alike of George Bush. Cut to the conversation in back –
A “Saala, lagta hai bahut paisva kharcha kiya hai. Dekho, Jorj Boos bhi acting kar raha hai.”
B – Pagla gaye ho ka? E to pirated hai.”
( Translating the above, would rob all its charm!).
Tags: Bollywood in the 90's, Formula films.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Bravo! and welcome to PFC!
good start. keep it comin’
Good post, Tanul. Indian cinema is growing up too-finally!
Saala, lagta hai bahut paisva kharcha kiya hai. Dekho, Jorj Boos bhi acting kar raha hai.”
B – Pagla gaye ho ka? E to pirated hai.”
Ha ha ha ha ha
Welcome Tanul to PFC, ur experiences mirror mine a lot.
But i dont think it was only RGV who gave some watchable movies.
In the early 90’s Mahesh Bhatt, gave us some real good flicks like Jurm, Aashiqui, Sir, Hum Hain Raahi Pyaar Ke and Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin, before his movie making fell to pieces. But i liked his final movie Zakhm.
Rajkumar Santoshi again was one of the better directors of the 90’s with movies like Ghayal,Ghatak, Andaz Apna Apna, though Barsaat was a yawn.
Mansoor Khan also came up with good movies Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander and Akele Hum Akele Tum. Though the latter was a rip off of Kramer vs Kramer, i think Mansoor did a fairly good job of adapting it to Indian context, as also one of Aamir’s best performances.
Other favorite 90’s flicks of mine are
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa
Yes Boss
Sarfarosh
Border
Gupt
Chamatkaar
BTW one more feature of 90’s was apna Sweater Uncle Rishi Kapoor’s romantic flicks, though he gave a real good performance in Damini, which again is one of my favorite 90’s movies.
well cant agree with you more brother..
though i didn’t quite grow up in the early 90’s, but things were very much the same towards the end of that decade….and if some of the films this year (drona, kidnap, Istanbul etc) are any indication we are again taking a turn towards the 90s…
Great article…made me nostalgic…When the movie bug bit me (mid 80s) ..those were the heydeys of the VCR…one used to get Video Cassettes..the big brand was “Esquire”…for some stupid reason I still remember the ad that used to come at the begining of the casette and the address was Hung Hom Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong…and I must be the only moron on earth who actually, on a trip to HK, tried looking for the place… I used to watch 2-3 movies a day…seriously…ask me about movies and I can tell you about such crappy movies I have seen that one one would dare to…. even Movies which had some guy called Rajan or Raj N. Sippy as the hero….i was the just a film addict…and not just hindi..i have watched such B grade shitty english films that no one has heard of…why? the question is…Why?
because thats what we used to have…kurusawa etc were a dream..I used to read about them in the magazines whenever there was some film festival…but we never had access to classics…today its a different story….
But nothing can beat the feeling of seeing a movie in a jam packed hall…not a multiplex, but a total desi filmi hall…I have seen ZIddi in a single shitty hall in Punjab…amongst sardars and Jats who came in tractors and there were more tickets than seats…people sat in the aisles and then … it was surreal to see people sing and dance, throw coins, and whistle and shout comments when their hero Sunny deol comes 0n screen.. That, my friend, is the power of movies….
excellent article, Tanul.
Eventhough 90s in terms of good commercial cinema were better than 80s still I feel 2000’s will be considered golden period of Hindi cinema with directors like RGV,Madhur Bhandarker,Dibakar,Onir,Anurag Kashyap,Manirathnam,Ashutosh Gowariker,Amir Khan,Vishal Bharadwaj,Priyadarshan,vidhu Vinod Chopra,Rajkumar Hirani making great films which have great entertainment quotient but also are thought provoking
“I’m sure I must have missed the interview, where someone would have said, the role was very challenging for me. I play a different rapist. ” hahahaha
@sharath
why is priyadarshan there :S
@Ratnakar: I do get your point, but when I mentioned RGV, I meant his works connected with me on a personal level the most, Santoshi’s Andaz Apna Apna could easily be the high point of that decade, though barring Ghayal, I personally didn’t like Santoshi’s work later. Mahesh Bhatt’s Zakhm was a really nice attempt, so were movies like Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander(though this one was also inspired, but very nicely adapted).
Sophocles! Please say ur joking? About looking for Esquire in Hong Kong?!
I am literally pissing my pants man!
That’s just too funny!
There were a lot of other good films too. Mani Ratnam with his Roja, Bombay and Dil Se. His work in this decade is mediocre at best. Yash Chopra with Lamhe, Darr and Dil to Paagal hai. Bhansali with Khamoshi and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Kukkoonoor with his pathbreaking Hyderabad Blues and decent Rockford. Deepa Mehta with Fire and Earth. Amol Palekar made Thoda Sa Roomani and Daayra. (compare it with Paheli!) Ketan Mehta with maya Memsaab and O Darling ye hai India (even though I am probably the only one in universe who loved it) Gulzar saab’s Maachis. Saeed Mirza’s Naseem. John Mathew mathhan’s Sarfarosh…
And perhaps the greatest of them all. Bandit Queen.
Also Rajan Sippy’s films were in 80’s- Shoor Veer, Seetpur ki Geeta, Patton ki baazi et al.
nice article……
all the movies which now seem to be so pathetic today were quite enjoyable during those says as i was a kid…..
thank god i was not what i am now….
@Ashwin:Bang on! Life changes your perception on so many things. Strange!
@13 Pawan,
Your probability theory is wrong :-) and so is mine.
I had a blast watching O Darling Ye Hain India. A quirky and street-smart take on Quixotic India.
well yeah but what ever changes the general masala from the 80’s and 90’s just did not add much creative satisfaction… I was like 10, 11 and even I could not watch them especially being exposed to films that played regularly on TV in the UK… there were I am sure some small films that fell by the wayside but I am just glad the financing and backers are taking more risks and thankfully they are paying off sometimes now…
but there was always quality in art cinema…
Just watched Satyjit Ray’s Apu trilogy again and in the end cinema like that just transcends eras, times, fashion, money and borders… just amazing