Paswan
da was our friendly neighbourhood rickshawala. He came to the rescue when
school buses were missed; elderly relatives who didn’t trust scooters needed a
lift to the nearest bus station and for various other trips around town. Paswan
da was also quite resourceful. During
the thunderous monsoon season, travelling by rickshaws meant the moment the
heavens opened up, one would get drenched in an instant. But Paswan da had come up with an innovative solution for rainy days. He had rigged a plastic apparatus
that covered his rickshaw totally with a single flamboyant flick of his wrist.
He used to proudly proclaim ‘You might get wet before you get into my rickshaw,
or after you get out of it, but when you are inside it you will be as dry as a
leaf in winter’. He was very happy when I named his rickshaw ‘Duckback
Rickshaw’. These are events that happened in an idyllic era called the eighties
in a small sleepy town called Jorhat in Assam.
In
the evenings, Paswan da would be found at the Rhino Cinema Hall, a popular
theatre in an army cantonment. Though it was meant for the armed forces, civilians
were also allowed. Since the agricultural university colony where I lived was
only a couple of km away from Rhino Cinema, many would give their trusted Bajaj
Chetaks a break and instead engage Paswan da’s services for the evening. An
arrangement that suited him fine. He not only had a confirmed to and fro fare
but also made himself part of the conversation between the filmgoers, which after the film, usually revolved around the film, rather than
how the cost of rohu fish has gone up in the local haat (bazaar). Paswan da
would gently prod and ask questions regarding the film as he pedaled away.
After a couple of trips, he could describe almost every scene of the film
without getting into sniffing distance of the oily samosas served in Rhino Hall’s
lobby. This retelling of the film in bits and pieces would be done near my bus
stop to an appreciative audience comprising of the other rickshawalas. Many a
time, I’d get down from the school bus and spend a few pleasant minutes
listening to Paswan da’s animated description of the latest film playing at
Rhino Cinema. And if he was in a really good mood, he would would borrow a
cigarette from Om Groceries and would act out the famous dialogue from
Vishwanath starring Shatrughna Bhaiyya - Jali ko aag kahte hain, bujhi ko raakh
kahte hain, jis raakh se barood bane usey Vishwanath kahte hain."
He would then
return the cigarette back. Paswan da was a non-smoker.
Other
than keeping aside a small amount for his expenses, Paswan da used to send all
his earnings to his family in Bihar. He would, however, save up a little amount
of money for his one indulgence in a month – a film at Rhino Cinema.
Maybe
it was red tape. Maybe there were budget issues. Maybe somebody found some
perverse
However,
watching a film was a highly researched decision. Paswan da would weigh the
different opinions and reviews about the film heard while ferrying passengers
and then take an educated decision. If the film was not worth it, he would skip
it for that month and the money allotted would go into his savings. As he liked
to explain in his own inimitable manner, ‘Why should I spend my hard-earned
money to watch my own hard life on the big screen. Watching such films only
makes my heart grow heavier.’ This was a lesson learnt from watching a film
called ‘Gaman’, a film that revolved around a taxi driver (Farooq Shaikh) who
left his ailing mother and wife in U.P. to earn a living in Bombay. The film
ends with Farooq Shaikh driving around Bombay without being able to go back to
his family. Paswan da knew from his research that the film didn’t really end on
a happy note. But he still went ahead as he heard that the film depicted the
plight of migrant workers. By the time the film ended, he was extremely upset.
He later confessed that he cried for many nights after watching the film.
But
the antics of Amar, Akbar and Anthony always kept him smiling.
As
the era of the Ambassadors, Premier Padminis and Maruti 800’s gave way to the
Ford Figos and the Hyundai i10s, the shift in social mores started getting
reflected in films too. Single theatres turned multiplexes ensured the
emergence of a different breed of filmmakers who started making films they
believed in, to varying degrees of success. However, mass entertainers, more
often than not, still continued to score heavily at the box office. But this was
something that never found favour with critics or the intelligentsia. The humour,
the performances, the action sequences, the song and dance numbers, the lack of
a plot. Nothing was safe from being ridiculed. And now with the proliferation
of social media platforms, it has become the norm to start bashing this genre
of films from the time the trailers are released. What’s even more vexing is
that most of these social media critics would even go for these films and then
again moan about their experience online. If one cannot make the distinction
between a Housefull and a Gangs of Wasseypur, then one is really not qualified
to froth online about money wasted on a ticket.
It’s
simple. Masala entertainers are not made with the intention of satisfying the
finer sensibilities of cinephiles. They are made with the single-minded purpose
of getting crowds in the theatres by applying the lowest common denominator
factor.
For
many like Paswan da, a cinema ticket is a ticket to a fantasy world. For three
hours or so, they can leave their worries far behind as they laugh at Shah Rukh
Khan’s clumsy attempt to fight a villain three sizes bigger (Chennai Express) than
him or cheer wildly as Akshay Kumar uses a row of trucks as a jogging track
(Boss). They are not bothered whether it is meaningful cinema. All they are
concerned with is that for an all-too-brief period of time, they forget the
tables they have to clean, the taxis they have to drive and the streets they
have to sweep. Only a paisa-wasool film can help them achieve this state of
mind.
I
had once taken a friend who ticks all the right ‘intellectual’ boxes, to a film
festival to watch Roman Polanski’s ‘Knife In The Water’, an intense film that
revolves around three characters on a boat. A much-acclaimed classic that left
my friend cold. Earlier in the day, he had a presentation that went horribly wrong.
A presentation that he was working on for two weekends in a row. All he could
say later was ‘I wish we had gone for Apna
Sapna Money Money instead. I desperately wanted something to take my mind
off the presentation. Something fun.’ Apna Sapna Money Money made money not
because of its content, or lack thereof, but because it also made white-collar
workers take their minds off hard-to-please clients, missed deals and botched presentations.
Mentioning ‘Knife in the water’ and ‘Apna Sapna Money Money’ in the same
sentence might get film enthusiasts get their hackles up. But the truth is, the
world out there doesn’t really care much about what you and I think.
In short, keep
calm and watch the films you want to. And let others like Paswan da enjoy a few hours of
escapism without getting the country's history and culture into it.