Yes, the same blithe spirit who departed in medias res. A whole generation sighed, almost believing that debonair Dev might pop out of the screen and stroll into the theatre, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips.
Did I just say cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips? Indeed, what would Hum Dono — which had Dev Anand in a double role opposite Nanda and Sadhana — be without Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya? The theme cigarette-lighter
jingle was immediately etched in a million hearts.
It went on to become an anthem for a generation. Through swirls of cigarette smoke, everyone in the darkened hall believed that happiness was there for the asking. Shot through with wistfulness and tenderly remembered glamour, the scene kicked off thoughts which kicked off memories.
Would I watch this film in converted colour and cleaned-up sound? Oh, yes!
Would I watch it with the smoky seduction blotted out? Not a chance!
The movie is perfect as it is — a fairytale, where the cigarette is a
symbol of both triumph and delight. And now, nostalgia.
Remember the struggling poet in Pyaasa (1957) with no money or recognition, whose books are sold by the kilo to the kabadiwallah? He rejects fame and money, but finds honesty and love in a prostitute and asks, “Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye toh kya hai?” A legion of knowledgeable fans sighed for Vijay, the poet-outsider; for Gulabo, the prostitute with a heart of gold; and for Sahir Ludhianvi, who, we’re told, wrote these gems between midnight and four in the morning...smoking, smoking and smoking.
Remember Nadira — all black satin, sleek style, cigarettes and bobbed hair — as vamp extraordinaire, conjuring up a vision of bright lights and glamour? Clearly, such
visions — 50 years down the line — are to be feared and, therefore, fettered.
For a few years now, the government has been trying to introduce guidelines to ban smoking in films. Finally, in October, it issued a notification, ordering all films, as well as TV programmes, to have health warnings at the beginning and in the middle of the film.
The new guidelines, under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Rules, 2004, say that every new and old film (Indian and foreign), as well as TV programmes (new and old), must have the actors mouthing health warnings at the beginning of the film, and in the middle, among many other restrictions. Arguing that smoking scenes in movies send out the message that “Cool people smoke”, appropriate smoke-screens (pardon the awful pun) are being activated.
Smoke — like dreams — is an
indelible part of tinsel town culture. The villains got there first. The vamps followed suit. The heroes weren’t far behind to use cigarettes (or beedis — “beedi number bees” like Bachchan did, as Iqbal, in Coolie) to shape a character. The heroines blazed their own trail, unselfconsciously and nonchalantly. Shots of actors inhaling became as routine as shots of actors walking around with ‘cutting chai’. Did their image become less wholesome because of either the cigarette or the Suleimani? The jury is still out on this one.
It’s not that the Indian film industry didn’t have actors exuding machismo without the Marlboro. Many stayed firmly away from smoking on screen, but theirs was an artistic choice. Glamour has always ruled showbiz, with cigarettes and ashtrays thrown in for free. But smoking on screen is now morally somewhere between spousal abuse and shark finning.
If the new rules are implemented, the film-goer will not celebrate the return of old-time style. Of dapper Dada Moni aka Ashok Kumar, who chose to use his “clumsy” hands to work up a smoky haze; of cigar-chewing Ajit in his ‘loin’s den’; and of smoke-billowing Raj Kumar whose Jaani hovered somewhere between a sneer and a caress.
Guns are all right in the glamour stakes. Cigarettes are not. We can get bug-eyed from watching Mumbai’s underbelly indulge in heavy artillery exchange, but heaven help them (and us) if they flaunt a hookah or a humidor, instead.
Are movie makers and actors moral arbiters? Are movie-goers naive? Rent videos of The Lord of the Rings triology, where Gandalf the wizard has a huge fondness for his pipe, and where Hobbits Pippin and Merry also enjoy a puff of the Shire’s finest pipe-weed — to no one’s mutinuous chagrin.
Watch audience reaction to flavour-of-the-season Vidya light up the screen — in every sense — in The Dirty Picture, and you may find some answers. While you linger, long after the credits have rolled, you may wonder what’s being really done to curb smoking on the ground. Spouting more rhetoric than reason, the government has dithered for years on pictorial warnings, pricing and real policy, but when it comes to enacting laws
banning smoking in films, there’s an unseemly haste to mix up the message and shoot the messenger.