FOOTLOOSE FOR FOOTAGE

As school kids in the days of yore, we rated a movie as 'immensely
watchable' or a 'must-see' only if the blokes featuring in it fought like
cats and dogs at regular intervals. While songs and dances were for the faint-hearted, we settled for nothing short of a surfeit of fight sequences - the more the merrier - involving swords, sticks, bicycle chains and what not. For us, harried as we were by some of our tyrannical school masters, watching the hero beating the daylight out of the baddies was a cathartic experience. As we jumped in our seats baying for the villain's blood, we honed our whistling skills which stood us in good stead later in life.

While the 'fightful' movies were for us, the under-12 tots, the stripling of the under-19 category with raging hormones and an apology of a beard had skewed appetite for lewd sequences code named 'Scenes'. The members of this nocturnal species tip-toed into the darkened cinema halls that showed Hollywood skin-flicks with hope of catching a few 'Scenes'. Like cockroaches on their nightly errands, they crept into the theatres after the lights got dimmed, only to go underground temporarily during the intermission to avoid being fodder to back-biting gossip-mongers.

Yet, our country-cousins who cut their theatrical teeth on the long winding 'Yakshagana Field Drama' that rang down the curtain only at cock-crow, based their ratings on 'per-penny footage'. For them a movie was good value for money if it cost them, say, two pennies per hour for a eight-penny ticket. So lengthy were the movies catering to this 'niche market' that, according to a local gag, the first place the police looked for in search of a missing person was the cinema hall that showed ' Dashavataram ' or ' Sampoorna Ramayanam ' (Hindu epics with long story lines).

Next on the list was the ' Lachrymose Brigade ' consisting of women folk who thronged the movie halls to watch tear-jerkers, carrying with them terry towels to wipe off their tears. The mothers-in-law amongst them wept uncontrollably at the travails of the on-screen daughters-in-law only go home later to get on with the business of harassing their own daughters-in-law. The house-wives wailed at the hardship of starving on-screen families even as their famished husbands and children waited at home for the 'return of moms' to get their quota of nourishment.

Those were the the days when the movie's star cast included a few garrulous members of the audience. These interjecters peppered the on-screen conversation with generous contributions of their own, transforming dialogues into 'trialogues and 'multilogues'. "Thrash the villain soundly," one would shout to the movie's hero. Or, "Don't arrest him. He is innocent," another would advise the police.

Often the audience of the front-bench variety joined in the on-screen dance number and were kept away form the stage by the management-appointed 'bouncers'. On one occasion, while a popular matinee idol danced, it became a free-for-all as the bouncers too, carried away by the revelry, joined the floor!

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VILLAINS, TAILORS & STEREOTYPES

The man has a mountainous mole on one cheek and a long scar on the other that can scare you stiff. And a stare through the bushy brow that can browbeat the lion-hearted. In a clean-shaven urbane avatar he dresses flamboyantly and hatches gory plots as he massages his tonsured pate. But in his down-market edition, he dons a T-shirt on a lungi and an amulet on his arm besides a tiger nail pendant around his neck while sporting a fiery handlebar moustache. Meet Mr Villain from the world of Hindi cinema, the quintessential Mugambo alias Jaggu Dada.




For decades, the cinema-czars from Mumbai have been dictating rigid costume codes for various movie characters, thereby churning out celluloid stereotypes. As with the comedian who flits around mostly in knickerbockers, if not in a warm pair of long johns with the loose ends of its draw-string hanging in front.

The rustic hero lands at the city wearing dhoti-kurta and a crew-cut with a tuft hanging from behind his dome as he flaunts Santoshima's vemillion tika on his forehead. Hugging an old iron trunk that contains all his worldly possessions, he swears by Bhjarangabali in Bhojpuri.

The country heroine (with plucked eyebrows!) roams the hillocks with a billy-goat in tow(soon to be replaced by the hero) wearing long-sleeved blouse on top of a knee-length pleated skirt and her hair in a single plait. To maintain her equilibrium (and to attract the attention of village desperadoes), she wears a pair of silver anklets which, in due course, will provide the opening jingle for the duet that she will sing with the sheharibabu in a desolate barn on stormy night.

Scores of characters parade through the movie bearing the stamp of their vocations. The tailor dances at his friend's baraat wearing a measuring tape around his neck. The doctor unfailingly dons his white coat with the stethoscope coiled around his neck (like Lord Shiva's serpent) even while attending his patient's funeral (just in case the corpse stars blinking).

But the police inspector is real case in point. For one thing, he wears his uniform even in bed, and for another he can't speak unless he keeps tapping his left palm with a baton. His favourite wind instrument is the police whistle which he blows either to kill time or to entertain the fleeing criminals.

Finally, what most of us don't realise is that the Mumbai filmdom has universalised the nightie as an all-weather, all-occasion garment. Today, if the nightie trade has become a golden goose, the credit should go to all those lovelorn heroines who, clad in nighties, sing soulful solos on the decks of the house-boat braving the biting Kashmir chill.

The Nightie Phenomenon:

Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/

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