When enough was a feast

When the jolly 1960s swung into the 1970s to the beat of RD Burman’s Spanish guitar and the pulse of Amitabh Bachchan’s angst, in retrospect, it was the  end of  happy endings  in Hindi cinema.

Twenty years into independence, the political reality of India had become far too complex, dark and divisive to allow films  to be set on house boats, shikaras, hill stations amid perpetually singing and dancing ‘extras.’

The sunshine turned occasionally grey and the guitar strumming hero was now an iconic dock coolie, a smuggler, a thief, an angry police inspector but as Shah Rukh Khan observed while revisiting Don, there was a certain innocence about evil, then. It was not the evil we see today in films like A Wednesday or Black Friday.

Today as director Milan Luthria recreates the 70s in Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, revisits the Haji Mastan and Dawood lore,  dresses Prachi Desai in Bobby’s polka dotted  blouse and mini skirt, it is time to look back and wonder.

And to ask if nostalgia is ever about what once was. Or is it about what we have lost within us? Our capacity for innocence. Our passion for life. Our sense of connection with the reality around us.

Romantic, revolutionary Urdu poet Majaaz once lamented, Woh gudaaz-e-dil-e-marhoom kahan se laaoon..ab mein wo jazba-e-masoom kahan se laaoon (How do I kindle the tenderness of my heart? Where do I find the innocence that is lost forever?).

He was born in 1909 but is still emblematic of  every one who has ever mourned the loss of  something as intangible and fragile as a sense of youth.

The transition from the 70s and 80s  to the present has been even more brutal.
A recent art exhibition in Bangalore curated by Shaheen Merali and inspired by the Cinema Verite movement (initiated by French film makers  in the 60s) had interesting takes on the shift from Then to Now.

Chennai-based artist Parvathy Nayar for instance juxtaposed iconic and simplistic imagery of romance from classics such as Awara and South-Indian mythological films against startling graphic representation of an egg and a sperm.

This shift from poetry to biology, from Devdas to Dev D has befuddled a certain generation. Their world of landmark memories, sights, sounds, smells of  personal significance has been replaced by unfamiliar reference points suddenly and with as much finality as Doordarshan was erased by satellite TV from our memory.

Today, there is a collective craning of necks to look back wistfully at the 70s and the 80s. These decades represent the last clutch of the so called wonder years when friends were  real and not virtual.  Reality TV had not taken over reality.

Neighbourhood banter  had not yet been replaced by social networking sites and points of view had not been condensed to tweets. Hard bound digests of Amar Chitra Katha, Indrajal comics, Nandan, Champak and Lotpot were read avidly.

Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar and RD Burman were alive. Films ran for 25 weeks and the term ‘pan-Indian hit’ had not been coined because films  worked across all divides.
When we identified more with Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony than with Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. When Ramesh Sippy triumphantly turned Akira Kurusawa's Seven Samurai into Jai and Veeru and stirred Bhelpuri aesthetics and the swagger of a spaghetti western into Sholay.

A time when film songs, radio and TV jingles could be hummed from beginning to end because they connected with us.  

This nostalgia for larger-than-life heroes and villains, street smart dialogues, trend setting clothes and  unforgettable background music composed by the likes of Kalyan Ji Anand Ji (Don), Laxmikant Pyarelal (Karz) and RD Burman (Sholay) has also inspired Farhan Akhtar's Don and Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om and to some extent Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey.

Advertisements are popping up to flaunt candy colours, white shoes and bouffants. Songs like, Din hai suhana aaj pehli taarikh hai recall Indian cinema's joy saturated narratives. The fact that just over 20 years ago, families were happy watching just one movie a week, two chitrahaars, just one news purveyor seems almost unimaginable.

Longing for the past

Architect Kavya Thimaaiah Prasanna recalls, “I miss the times when everyone watched the same shows on TV and then discussed the same movies, ads or news. Such simple times!”

Writer Suneetha B  misses DD movies on Sundays and shows like Different Strokes, Star Trek, the Amul ads and all the TV brands which no longer exist. She says, “I miss cycling, radio shows, sharing an ice-cream cup with 10 people because pocket money was scarce!”

Celebrated food writer and consultant Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal looks back wistfully to recall, “I miss Phantom Cigarettes, rose-mints, that psychedelic pink raspberry soda we only get at Irani restaurants now. And Irani restaurants! And the innocence where food was concerned.  When the spectre of unhealthy calories did not stalk everything we ate. When we ate home made potato chips.”

She also misses post cards,  aerogrammes and writing all over the edges. Says she, “I miss the time when letters were still anticipated and writing them was gratifying too. When we referred to books and not to Google.”

An email being forwarded relentlessly by the lost teenagers of the 80s recalls the abundance of three ice-cream flavours, prized Fiats and Ambassadors with hand sewn lace curtains on the windows, HMT watches, the morning music of All India Radio, Sunday gatherings depending on who had the colour TV in the neighbourhood, Salma Sultan's lone rose and just the hint of a smile, the plastic covers that covered TV, fridge and a ‘mixi’ and Nazia Hassan,  the lone voice of teen longings.  

Days of simple abundance

Asma, a Chennai-based writer and social activist says, “An evening powercut was always welcome because it meant time away from homework and more time in the playground. Each time you went to a film with your family, you would narrate, even enact the story to your friends who hadn't seen it. Every kid died like Amitabh in Sholay, at least once! And treats (like Mangola) had to be earned.”

For Asma, the 70s and 80s have indelible recall value as she rattles off jingles and brands that no longer are heard or seen. She also recalls, “Hawa Mahal, Binaca Geet Mala, Bhule Bisre Geet, Vishesh Jaimala!” But artist Parvathy Nayar smiles at the deluge of sentiment for the lost decades and says, “Those decades had their own issues..nostalgia makes us remember only fragments that we are comfortable with.”

Curator Shaheen Merali believes that the voice of diversity is always a welcome thing. He says, “There was an imposition of homogeneity through television which is no longer there now. Now we have news in every Indian language. The media is beginning to display urgency in dealing with local, regional issues which was never there earlier. Yes, we miss those times perhaps because now we are over consuming everything. We aspire for an apartment and multiple helpers around the house and excess has become basic. Trees have given away to roads. Pollution is a reality. As are the cracks in Hampi's architecture.”

But he conveys, the past is never perfect. Our perception makes it so.

Clare Arni, photographer and chronicler of rivers, vanishing professions, old architecture and lost decades however often browses the old curiosity shops in Bangalore's markets and collects vintage film posters and redundant objects of street kitsch from the past.
She says, “The detailing, the depth of light and shadows in the posters of the past speak of a passion for detail and a romance that is missing now even in cinema.”

It is hard to say if the past was better but it was different and we were different too.  Perhaps regret always underscores change. Perhaps a few decades from now, another generation will be looking back in wonder and feeling with a pang, the loss of
their youth and the homelessness of their memories.