'Hun Hunshi Hunshilal’ restored for modern viewers

The Gujarati classic holds a mirror to today’s politics but not to today’s media

When the ‘Potato Eaters’ YouTube channel started out, it was a place for FTII direction student Nachi Guspathiya to upload his work from film school. But somewhere along the way, the channel committed itself to giving the Internet the best versions of the Indian film classics that are, if not lost, notoriously difficult to find.

Potato Eaters is growing in subscribers every month. Films by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G Aravindan and Ritwik Ghatak feature here in the highest quality available for any public platform. New ones are being added nearly every week.

Nachi’s latest addition to this formidable club is a film rarer than any of these. Very few of even the self-declared film buffs can claim to have watched Sanjiv Shah’s ‘Hun Hunshi Hunshilal’. The 1992 Gujarati arthouse classic went out of the public circuit when time outgrew VHS tapes. Nachi uploaded a 2K resolution version of the film on Potato Eaters, and within five days, 40,000 people had already watched it — numbers that would make OTT platforms proud.

He may have another reason for hunting the film out in our times. ‘Hun Hunshi Hunshilal’ is about a country called Khojpuri ruled by the despot Bhadrabhoop. The king crushes dissent, doesn’t care for the country's poverty, and blames mosquitoes for the nation’s various troubles. It is deliberately left unclear when he is referring to literal mosquitoes and when it is a slur for dissenting citizens, like “anti-national” is in our times.

“The film does not talk about any particular bad government, so it is relevant wherever a government crushes democracy,” Nachi says.

In addition to its continuing relevance, the film can be genuinely funny at times. In one instance where Bhadrabhoop addresses his subjects, he blames the mosquitoes again and promises firm action. “The mosquitoes have been drinking people’s blood for far too long; now, we will drink their blood,” he says, completely oblivious to the Freudian slip.

“I had managed to watch a copy of the film when I was at FTII. And recently, I wanted to watch it again. I called Sanjiv Shah up, and asked him whether I could borrow it. He was in the process of restoring the film at the time. Soon, we decided to screen the film for a limited period of time on channel,” Nachi says.

Trained as an editor at FTII and best known as a documentary filmmaker, Shah did not make another feature film. This quirky classic had less known names who would go on to become famous for other works. The role of the scientist was played by the actor Dilip Joshi. His renegade girlfriend was played by Renuka Shahane. The director of photography was Navroze Contractor.

While ‘Hun Hunshi Hunshilal’ appears remarkably prescient for our times, one thing we can see Shah did not get right is the film's portrayal of the media. Not that he did not see that the media would turn into a government mouthpiece, which is exactly what Khojpuri’s own version of Doordarshan is. Just that the newsreaders of Khojpuri are still serious and civil people who just happen to articulate the government’s view. Shah could not predict what Indian news channels do today. So, in a film where events are cartoonishly exaggerated versions of reality, the real-life media happens to be the cartoon version.