| Bilkul Nahin Khushi, Itna Sara Gham
By K. Hariharan
Why
such rabid dislike of the NRI?
“When
there is a need to appeal to an emigre audience that
has no patience for Indian realities other than those
peddled by a sensationalist media, naturally the subject
that is being tackled cannot be too complex, or locally
thought-provoking. At the risk of sounding sensationalist,
Indian culture itself stands in danger of being colonized
by NRIs, precisely because of their power and success”.
This is how Sagarika Ghose ends up after blasting Karan
Johar and his latest film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham or
K3G as it is popularly known, in a long review published
recently. In the present context of strife and conflict,
I found it extremely interesting to see how the anger
against a “community” can manifest itself thru a film
in the mind of an upwardly mobile “Resident Indian”!
To understand the reasons for her anger we have to know
what kind of Indian Cinema she likes in the first place.
So, earlier in the article she spells out the kind of
film she thinks is the “quintessential Indian” film.
“The Bombay film industry was paradoxically much freer
in the days before the coming of the ‘’free market’’
when films like Teesri Kasam or Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam
delineated complex human relationships”. The very fact
that she is a great “nostalgic” lover of the days of
Guru Dutt and pre-liberalization is certainly well appreciated
but to ask for switching the clock back is reactionary
and naive in today’s context. Elsewhere she says, “The
NRI doesn’t vote in India, he doesn’t pay taxes in India,
he will never do military service here, yet he wants
to create a nostalgic dream world through sponsorship
of a certain kind of culture.”Now let us ask why should
someone be so upset with the NRI? Is it based on some
“idealistic” notion of nationalism? Does she assume
that an Indian living in India is more “nationalistic”
than the NRI? On the other hand when she says that the
NRI is virtually using India’s cultural scenario to
create his or her “imagined” India, be it Bharat Natyam
or Bollywood Cinema, is she speaking for all of the
one billion plus people? Or is she speaking for those
select metropolitan English-speaking upwardly mobile
urbanites whose only salvation is to somehow creep into
the bedcovers of an American University dorm?
Let’s get certain things clear. How many people in India
actually have relatives in the USA or UK? In fact there
are more resident Indians having NRI relatives in Malaysia
and Mau-ritius, Fiji Islands and Turkey. Certainly Sagarika
is not even thinking about them! Then there are the
multitudes of Gulf-bound NRI laborers who wait at the
airports with gunny bags instead of suitcases and have
never heard of Manhattan. Somewhere I feel that Sagarika
is responding like a typical “Phoren” aspirant who has
been refused a visa to go to the U.S. or the UK after
waiting several hours in front of the U.S. consulate.
Her NRI connections are in New Jersey and London and
undoubtedly so is”K3G’s.
There is a deep-rooted anger in her when she says “K3G
is our beloved Bollywood’s final surrender to the NRI.
The NRI is a sort of super Indian. He is highly talented
and successful. His donations to the IITs, medical colleges
and schools are impressive and many like Sabeer Bhatia
have created companies that have provided employment
and wealth to numbers of his fellow countrymen. But
in the sphere of culture, the NRI’s vision of India
is drastically and sometimes irrevocably in conflict
from the vision of those who actually live here.”
It baffles me and I cannot comprehend how a few million
NRIs living in the U.S. and the UK could, in her imagination,
manage to control and twist the “sphere of culture”
in India. Someone should be totally paranoid to think
like this. Is this sphere of culture so cohesive and
homogenous that it can be appropriated and molded the
way anyone wants? Would she think of similarly accusing
MGR and his hold on the Tamil Audiences? Would she feel
the same way of Lata Mangeshkar who allegedly dominated
the playback scenario for a full 5 decades?
The NRIs, according to her, who are presumably all male,
is good as long as they send donations to the IITs and
spend on employing Indians in India. As long as they
do not buy and sell India it is fine for her. But would
she therefore also consider blasting out at Coca-Cola
appropriating Indian film icons like Hrithik Roshan
and Tamil superstar Vijay or the Sufi spirit of “mast
kalandhar” in their ad campaigns? Does she lament the
rush of young urban Indians to the new McDonald and
Pizza Hut outlets? What is her problem? In the same
vein does Sagarika lament the death of hundreds of other
“Swadeshi” expressions in folk/ classical music and
dance in the face of Indian television, globalized rap
and theme parks?
The reality is Karan Johars exist in the heart of every
Indian citizen aspiring to grow on Anglo-centric western
world models and she cannot blame the NRI for it! And
on the other hand by making a moral issue of it she
is virtually playing into the hands of the right wing
and other reactionary elements! Are they also not demanding
the repatriation of all non-Hindu Indians back to their
countries since their ideas are “irrevocably in conflict
from the vision of those who actually live here”? Who
are those “actually” living here and who are those “virtually”
living there?
It is like saying that only Indian Passport
holding Hindu nationals have the right to sing “Jana
gana mana” and “Jai jagdish hare”. Why does Sagarika
get so angry at NRIs who pray to Indian gods and salute
the national flag on a foreign soil?
She says, “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham is a ghastly film.
Kareena Kapoor is a mini-skirted Gayatri mantra reciting
disco baby, Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan lend tragic legitimacy
to retrograde backward-looking role models who when
not thundering on about The Hindu Family are being tearful
about consumer goods. In K3G India doesn’t exist. What
exists is a strange mutant, a beautiful, savagely dumb,
ritual-driven wasteland where rich people sing adrenaline-thumping
bhajans and, in times of stress, the national anthem.”
How do we reply to such venom? In the 21st century one
should be clear on certain issues. Nationalism is not
about morality and worse still about Hindu morality.
I accept that Karan Johar is producing a product for
certain kinds of viewers and today the new NRI constituency
is chipping in almost 35% of the financing for the product.
If audiences in the state of Tamil Nadu were to chip
in that kind of money maybe he would have Rajinikant
and Kamalahasan play the brothers in K3G!
Is Sagarika looking for some kind of “objective dispassionate
artist” in this field? And does she believe that her
“favorite” director Guru Dutt had no audience in mind
when he cast tragedy queen Meena Kumari to play the
“choti bahu” in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam? Is that not another
case of archetypal typecasting? Could Guru Dutt have
cast Ashok Kumar instead of Rehman to do the heartless
aristocratic husband? Did she not feel baffled at the
fact that all those Bengali aristocratic landlords spoke
chaste Hindi in those feudal mansions?
Such vituperative fire spitting on how the NRI “others”
think about “her motherland” is certainly not dignified
at all. What does she mean by “ritual driven” wasteland,
savagely dumb, adrenaline-thumping bhajans etc? On her
terms she could make anyone feel ashamed to see the
Prabhat classic Sant Tukaram which has a bhajan in every
reel or she could get the Wakf board to ban chest-beating
“quwallis” sung in all Muslim functions in the movies.
Does one have right to hate the NRI or anyone for that
matter just because he or she makes more money (the
x 48 factor) or because the NRI invites Indian cultural
artistes to do programs at their leisure? She says,
“An acclaimed Bharatanatyam dancer recently said that
on tours abroad she is repeatedly asked to portray ‘’angst’’
and ‘’alienation’’ through her dance. When she responded
that Bharatanatyam is not about angst or about alienation,
she was told that youthful overseas Indian audiences
would not sponsor her if she remained overly traditional.
So an ersatz tradition is being manufactured by the
NRI, a tradition that stands somewhere between Britney
Spears and a disco rendering of Jai Jagdish Hare.”
I am not able to understand Sagarika’s politics at all.
I would like to know what is wrong in asking the visiting
“resident” traditional artistes to do contemporary themes
like”“angst” and”“alienation” or even”“working class
struggles” and”“religious discord”? Would Sagarika get
so upset if this request came from a local sabha in
Mylapore or if Anita Ratnam and Leela Samson did a modern
fusion dance in Ahmedabad? Maybe she would appreciate
it as an indicator of their growth! Maybe she would
not and prefer to keep her Bharatnatyam sealed from
all such corruptors!
Let us get some things clear! It is not the job of the
artist to spell out socialist or other political agendas.
The job of the artist is to reflect on their times and
disseminate it in a manner which is spiritually identifiable/recognizable.
The artist should never attempt to be the““messiah”!
Change should come from within the people, the Rasika
and their peers.
Sagarika should lead from the front rather than criticize
K3G from the back-rows!
Maybe we should now look at the film. K3G is like any
other melodramatic film made in India ever since film
shooting/projection technology landed on our shores!
The splitting of the family, the conflict between parents
and children, separation and their reunion has been
a theme for the past two millennia and sure of touching
people’s hearts like a sure-fire “Hamsadhwani” or a
“Kalyani” raga. And why should an artist not rely on
such guaranteed winners?
Next. K3G is based on a very interesting “if” at the
level of casting! The film pegs on what happens if and
when you are “completely” unable to recognize your own
brother ten or twelve years later? What happens when
a short fat chubby kid goes into a school and comes
out of college tall, lean and even light-eyed?
We all know that everyone grows with a lot of features
carried over from childhood to old age! Photographs
and films help us to such comparative “milestone” studies.
In this case there is no resemblance between the actor
who plays the school kid and the actor who comes out
of college! Well, that is the stuff mythologies are
made of. Once you swallow thi “improbability” theory
the film works like any other.
Next.”K3G is all about hanging onto tradition. And there
is nothing new about it here again. In her favorite
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam you had the patriarch reminding
poor “Choti bahu” about family values and tradition.
Sadly she gets bumped off for not respecting”“tradition”
while the patriarchs simply fade away. Viewers in those
days were agonized by Guru Dutt’s notion of justice
and fair play! In K3G the notion of “tradition” is challenged
by the younger generation and in fact they are doing
very well for having challenged it. The exiled brother
lives in an affluent house and is leading a comfortable
life, worshipping his parents in a big frame on the
wall. Finally the tradition-breakers even get the old
patriarch to apologize! But then K3G is a formal comedy
and “Sahib Bibi” is a tragedy. And each director has
played by the rules of their genre!
You do not ask questions like what business is Shah
Rukh doing in London to live such a swanky life! Or
what is the Raichand Empire all about? These are questions
for which you can find answers, maybe in the films of
Shyam Benegal! Even F.F. Coppola does not state what
Vito Corleone does for a living in Godfather besides
having a few henchmen around him while discussing territorial
rights! From Sagarika’s POV Godfather would be all about
a totally ritual-driven Italian wasteland in Manhattan!
Next. K3G is not about Indian villages and poverty-ridden
fakirs and sadhus! She says “The film is designed to
make NRIs thankful that the Old Country is as beautiful,
as backward and as resoundingly traditional as he wants
it to be”. Honestly this distinction should be given
to an earlier master who catered quite exclusively to
the “white” NRIs. The Oscar-winning Bharat Ratna Satyajit
Ray. Can Sagarika ever imagine of such a category of
Anglo-Saxon NRIs? Well does she not know that there
are many whites, who are solid Indophiles, seriously
concerned about developments and deterioration on the
Indian soil? It is another matter that they prefer the
realistic Ray to the fantastic Chopra or Johar.
These “NRIs” are the people who have virtually shaped
the understanding of Indian history, our opinions about
ourselves, and the way to analyze our economic realities!
Our educational institutions in India virtually follow
a western system of reading Indian history and economics.
How right and how left they are is currently the matter
of intense debate but what is not being debated is the
source of all their information, which is lying in the
name of “truth” gathering solemn dust in the gazettes
of the British Archives! Do historians like Edward said,
Gunder Frank, or even Claude Alvares figure in the study
of Indian history? Well that’s another question!
Next. K3G is all about upward mobility. And Indian cinema
has always rooted for the ideal “Indian” as the individual
who speaks an Indian language, believes in an Indian
god and aspiring to be an true Indian leader of her
people. And this idealist struggle will continue and
take many more years to fructify. Can there be an ideal
Indian language, God and leader? Sagarika must understand
that the mainstream Indian cinema is probably the only
true player in this ring of confusion.
True, this Indian cinema is naive, stupid, and hopelessly
romantic but as a”“raw” player it is the only national
“event,” as a collective, to thrash out the identity
issue unabashed and shamelessly. Indian cinema is the
only form, which churns the collective imagination of
Indians, wherever they are, to help resolve whatever
be the true meaning of “Indianness.” Finally this resolution
will have to take place on the streets, in the maidaans
and with the diversity of the Indian populace but to
help this happen and precipitate, I am convinced that
the so-called commercial cinema is the only true player.
The film is finally not such a big success as it was
expected. Speaking to several youngsters in India I
heard that they felt badly let down by the film, which
was all about the oldies with no sense of romance and
adventure. Too much sentiment mixed with very little
fun. From their point of view the film was not elevating
enough.
With a depressed economy all around and with destructive
critics like Sagarika such films will only grow rarer
and soon even in this field we will let Hollywood and
their MNC agents decide what is to be an”“Indian.” Just
like Coca-Cola gets Nusrat’s Sufi songs and Pepsi gets
our soldiers and Visa gets our own Sachin Tendulkar
to endorse and advocate what it is to be a true Indian.
The trinity of Pepsi, Coke and Visa would even advocate
India becoming the 53rd state of the USA! Then there
will be no NRIs at all and all of Sagarika’s problems
will disappear in one shot! Is that not another way
of looking at India instead of Karan Johar’s?
To be or not to be an NRI should never be made into
a moral issue. It is a political matter and it should
be discussed at that level. It is a very serious topic.
Neither Sagarika nor Karan Johar has the capacity to
do that. Karan has left it to the more competent and
so should Sagarika. After all nationalism is not about
morality!
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End Of Article.....
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