COVER STORY 10

MARATHON MAN
THE TIMES OF INDIA
The Crest Edition
M
y first school was the Boys High School in Allahabad. One
painful memory was being caned for writing on the wall of
the classroom. My father was furious and complained to the prin-
cipal. Of course, when I went to Sherwood College for the last
years of school, caning was quite the accepted thing (only prefects
caned us) with an elaborate system of cane points.
I played all games in school. I loved games. And I was fairly
good at them particularly athletics. My best race was the
100 m. I have lots of photographs that my mother took of both
my brother and me. We collected a whole tableful of cups! And if
you think that it was because of my long legs, you are wrong.
Surprisingly, I was never the tallest of my classes. It was only
when I was around 16 that I really shot up. I was very keen to
reach 6 feet and when I touched 6 feet, I thought 6 feet, two
inches well, thats not bad.
We used to have a big gramophone which played 78 rpm
records. Music was used as an inducement for us to go to sleep or
drink our milk or whatever. I like any and every kind of music.
(From an article When I was 12 written by Bachchan
for Target magazine)
VINAY LAL
T
he persona of the angry young
man, a role that Amitabh
Bachchan would earmark as his
very own, is commonly thought
to have emerged in Hindi cinema in the
first half of the 1970s, in films such as
Zanjeer and Deewaar. The 1970s were
certainly turbulent times: early in the
decade India and Pakistan went to war,
and not long after India would attempt
to have itself partly admitted into the
club of nuclear states with a peaceful
nuclear explosion. Whatever Indira
Gandhi may have gained with these
spectacular displays of her will to
triumph, she is commonly thought to
have squandered these victories with
the imposition of Emergency, the
stifling of dissent, and social policies
calculated to arouse the opposition of
the poor. However, the malaise that
afflicted the country was much deeper:
industrial production had slowed down,
the labouring classes were in a militant
mood, shortages of essential commodi-
ties were palpable, and unemployment
was rampant. Azadi had wrought little;
the dream had soured.
There is every reason, then, to think
of the 1970s as pre-eminently the decade
when the genre of the angry young
man planted itself in Hindi cinema, a
theme taken up with considerable gusto
in Tamil films of the 1980s. But
Bachchans films of the 1970s demand
attention for another compelling trope,
namely the idea of the city. The migra-
tions from the countryside to the city,
which might be constituted into one
epic narrative of the history of India
after Independence, continued unabated
and we should recall that Vijay, in
Deewaar, flees with his mother and
brother Ravi to Bombay from the hinter-
land. Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray are
commonly thought of as two filmmakers
who were heavily invested in the nexus
of the city and the film. Sen has
described Calcutta as his El-Dorado, his
muse: the city features prominently in
his work, perhaps nowhere more so than
in his films of the early 1970s when
young men floundered about in search
of jobs. Rays Calcutta Trilogy Pratid-
wandi (1971), Seemabaddha (1971) and
Jana Aranya (1974) likewise captures
with extraordinary subtlety the anomie
of city life, the dislocations the city cre-
ates in social relations, even the trans-
formations in emotions under city life.
Many of Bachchans films of the
1970s are also eminently city films.
Signs of the urban landscape are unmis-
takably present in Zanjeer, even if the
city is somewhat undeveloped as a char-
acter in its own right. The city must
have its dens of vice, where Sher Khan
rules supreme before an encounter with
Inspector Vijay Khanna (Bachchan) sets
him on the path to reform. Mala, the
street performer, lives in Dongri Chawl;
at the other extreme, the mafia don Teja
lounges by the side of a luxurious swim-
ming pool. Four years later, in Amar
Akbar Anthony, the city would have
even greater visibility: many of
Bombays landmarks Nanavati Hos-
pital, Victoria Terminus, Haji Ali Dargah
feature prominently in the film.
It is Deewaar, however, which carved
out the space of the urban in a wholly
distinct manner. As Vijay, Ravi, and their
mother arrive in the city, they leave
behind a social order that is simultane-
ously more intimate and more unforgiv-
ing. There is also a tacit assumption that
as the breadwinner of her family,
Sumitra Devis prospects are better in
the metropolis. Vijays adolescent years
are captured in a few, albeit critical,
scenes in the film; and then a match cut
transports us to the angry young man,
now a worker at the docks. As he takes
on the mafia, one senses the explosion of
urban India; the angry young man, a
new hero emerging from the bowels of
the city, represents the anger of a gener-
ation whose dreams lie shattered.
As Vijay wrests control of the docks
from Samants men, we are tempted
into thinking that he is increasingly
embracing the urban world as his own,
refusing to be beaten into submission by
the unruliness and hurly-burly ways of
the city. The city is everywhere in
Deewaar and the film skillfully signposts
urban spaces. Newly arrived into the
city, Vijays mother finds works at a large
construction site. Sumitra and her two
sons make their home under the bridge:
it is not the overhead traffic over the
bridge that makes the city, but the tens
of thousands, indeed millions, sheltered
under it who, yet again, give birth to the
unintended city. The great migrations
into the city gave rise to the slums, with
their population of labourers, trades-
men, prostitutes, and petty criminals,
and it is from the housing tenements,
some under the bridge, that one gets
what Ashis Nandy has described as the
slums eye view of Indian politics. From
their modest home under the bridge,
the young Ravi arrives at the gate of the
nearby school.
Slowly but surely, the plot of Dee-
waar drifts into other ineluctable spaces
of the urban landscape: high-rise build-
ings, five-star hotels, night clubs, the
city streets themselves, through which
Ravi gives furious pursuit to Vijay. But
the singularity of Deewaar resides in
something quite different. It is the first
film in Hindi cinema which establishes
a dialectic between the footpath and the
skyscraper, the two pre-eminent signs of
the films urban landscape. The ubiquity
of the footpath as home to the home-
less, migrant labourers, and myriad oth-
ers living at the margins of society is
self-evident. It is a school where lifes
lessons are imbibed: while Ravi goes to
school, Vijay takes up shining shoes on
the footpath. Soon, Vijay gravitates
from the footpath to the skyscraper: he
even attempts to gift his mother one.
No sooner has he gained possession
of the skyscraper than his fall com-
mences, as if the footpath were beckon-
ing him to return to his roots and plant
his feet on the ground. The fact that his
claim on this skyscraper is ephemeral,
and ultimately undeserving, is under-
scored by the fact that the viewers
sight of the building is barred through-
out the negotiations. The skyscraper
holds no intrinsic interest for Vijay,
indeed its very existence is refracted
through the footpath. The footpath is
literally that: the path where the foot
trod, where every footfall becomes a
trace of memory. At every turn of his
confrontation with Ravi, Vijay seeks,
unsuccessfully, to remind him of their
shared histories on the footpath: Ravi,
tume yaad hain bachpan mein kitni
raaten footpath pe khaali pet guzarin?
One of the dialogues on the footpath
that have now become part of Indias
cultural memory. The young Vijay,
refusing to pick up money thrown at
him as a shoeshine boy, says with digni-
ty, I polish shoes and do not beg for
money. Pick up the money and place it
in my hands. Davar, the mafia don, tells
his henchman: Yeh umar bhar boot
polish nahi karega. Jis din zindagi ki
race mein isne speed pakdi, yeh sab ko
peeche chorh jayega. Looking back at
the life of Bachchan, one has the feeling
that much in it was prefigured in the
figure of Vijay. More than anyone else in
Indias film industry, Bachchan has
proven to be the lambi race ka ghoda.
Vinay Lal is the author of
Deewar: The Footpath, The City And
The Angry Young Man
REKHA
Their alleged off-screen
romance may be the stuff
of Bollywood folklore, but
the Amitabh-Rekha pair
certainly produced smoul-
dering on-screen chem-
istry. Whether it was
Muqaddar Ka Sikandar,
Khoon Pasina or Mr Nat-
warlal, the sultry Rekha
held her own against
intense Amitabh. The two
appeared together for the
last time in Silsila (1981).
PARVEEN BABI
Deewaar, Amar Akbar
Anthony, Namak Halal,
Khuddar, Kalia some
of Amitabhs biggest suc-
cesses paired him with the
glamorous Babi. They
made 11 films together.
The audience liked us as
a pair. She brought in a
new, bohemian kind of
leading lady to the
screen, Amitabh had said
after Babis tragic death
in 2005.
RAKHEE
Rakhee and Amitabh
became famous as a
mature romantic pair
after Kabhi Kabhie. The
two produced five hits
together including Kasme
Vaade and Muqaddar ka
Sikandar. Rakhee was not
afraid of taking on roles
that threatened her image
as a youthful actor. She
played ABs mother in
Shakti and also his
sister-in-law in Shaan.
VINOD KHANNA
With movies like Khoon
Pasina, Hera Pheri and
Muqaddar Ka Sikander,
the Amitabh-Vinod
Khanna partnership
resulted in some great
entertainers that com-
bined crackling dialogues,
action and comedy. The
dashing Khanna, who also
ruled Bollywood in the
70s, was at one time even
perceived as the biggest
threat to ABs star status.
SHASHI KAPOOR
Shashi Kapoor and
Amitabh provided the per-
fect foil to each other in
their many films together.
Kapoors urbane and easy-
going presence worked
very well with Amitabhs
intensity. They are best
remembered for their
roles in Deewaar but they
had other big hits to their
credit including Namak
Halal, Do Aur Do Paanch,
Trishul and Shaan.
SIGNS OF THE URBAN
LANDSCAPE ARE
UNMISTAKABLY
PRESENT IN ZANJEER
TOO. THE CITY MUST
HAVE ITS DENS OF
VICE, WHERE SHER
KHAN RULES SUPREME.
MALA, THE STREET
PERFORMER, LIVES IN
DONGRI CHAWL; THE
MAFIA DON TEJA
LOUNGES BY A
LUXURIOUS POOL
In Deewar, the
new hero, an angry
young man,
emerged from the
bowels of the city.
The film was
unique because it
established a
dialectic between
the footpath and
the skyscraper
WONDER YEARS:
Standing tall in
Sherwood College,
Nainital
LAND MARKS: Zanjeer (above) and
Deewaar (left and bottom) told the story
of a disillusioned generation
Maximum jodis
HOW VIJAY
WAS BORN
Down memory lane