Tag: Anjan Dutt

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From Outhouse to Backwaters

Ratnottama Sengupta tracks the journey of Leslie Carvalho over a quarter century

Leslie Carvalho
Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

It seems like only the other day. The International Film Festival of India, IFFI, 1998 was on. Along with a colleague, I was seated on the steps outside Siri Fort I auditorium connected to a long corridor going to Siri 2. Someone introduced Leslie Carvalho. “Aha! The young filmmaker from Mangalore?”  I responded. “There’s a write up on you in The Times of India today. It says there’s a lot of expectation from The Outhouse.”

The “delightfully sweet” film had lived up to the expectation of the critics. It was bestowed the Aravindan Puraskaram, presented by the Kerala Chalachitra Film Society to commemorate the iconic Malayalam director, and the first Gollapudi Srinivas award, another national level award to recognise filmmakers marking their debut in Indian cinema. So I was not surprised to meet him next as a co-member of the jury for the National Film Awards 2000.

The Tennis coach who is also a German language teacher with a passion for painting has now published his first novel, Smoke on the Backwaters. It centres on Rosa, a twenty-year-old from Mangalore, who is forced to flee overnight because of the storm of gossip, fear and shame unleashed by a single incident in her life. Her unexpected journey across continents becomes a path of healing. Seven years later, armed with education and maturity, she returns home, determined to pursue her purpose in life. But how much had the town she left altered from its old ways?

RS: Leslie, before we talk Backwaters, can we briefly revisit The Outhouse? From where did you derive its content? And what was your compulsion for choosing that subject?

Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

LC: The Outhouse was a simple, linear narrative about moving on in life despite the odds. A young mother’s need to gain economic independence to supplement the family income; the help she received from her financially independent sister; a kind hearted Bengali landlady’s generosity which causes stress and violence in the Anglo-Indian couple’s day to day life, and how it affects the two children growing up.

RS: Why did you choose this subject as your debut vehicle? If you were to travel in a time machine, would you choose a ‘mainstream’ subject?

LC: I chose this subject as my debut vehicle as I had seen quite a bit of violence in the Anglo- Indian community in the Lingarajapuram area of Bangalore I grew up in.

I was itching to make a movie after my six-month course at the New York Film Academy. As I was working on a very tight budget, I just stuck to what was taught — to keep it simple, straightforward and just tell a story using the various tools of cinema — in short, to make it cinematic.

If I were to go back in time, I don’t think I would have chosen a ‘mainstream subject’. I derived immense satisfaction along with the cast and crew as we felt we were working on something we were passionate about. We all felt drawn towards the characters, the story and the theme of the film.

RS: How did you get interested in cinema? And what were the problems you faced while filming The Outhouse – in terms of funding, casting, shooting location, distribution?

LC: I grew up watching Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, a couple of Konkani and lots of Hollywood films. My mother tailored clothes at home, and she taught a whole lot of women stitching. They were fans of Tamil cinema, especially of Sivaji Ganesan, MGR, and the heroes of Kannada cinema, Dr. Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan. She also enjoyed the Hindi films of Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Jaya Bhaduri and Rekha — that is the popular cinema.

And my father, being an Army person, took us to see English films, like The Ten Commandments, The Bible, Hatari, To Sir, With Love[1]. Also, St. Germain’s School where I studied, screened English films every Friday afternoon in the Hall, from spools off a projector that made a jarring sound. It was an amazing experience — black and white Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy films and also Patton with all the bad words. Later, when in college, we would bunk classes to watch most of the popular Hindi and English movies.

At the New York Film Academy, I was exposed to an entire range of the world’s best in cinema. Satyajit Ray, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Antonioni, John Ford, William Wyler, Fellini, Jean Renoir… And I watched a whole lot of films on the American Movie Chain (AMC). There I discovered all of Spencer Tracy’s films and fell in love with his sense of timing and under playing. It was also a time when I discovered Guru Dutt and marveled at his brand of filmmaking from Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam to Aar Paar and Mr & Mrs 55[2].

It is hard to believe I began the shoot for The Outhouse on September 18, 1996, and completed it in 14 days – on October 1. After we went through the rushes, we required two more shots to link the gaps. Since I was on a shoestring budget of a few lakh rupees, I had rehearsals with the cast for close to three months. I doff my hat to them in gratitude as 90% of the film was canned on first takes. I could not afford retakes, and I worked with a brilliant cameraman, S Ramachandra, who was very supportive and encouraging. He shot most of B V Karanth, Girish Karnad, and Girish Kasaravalli films as well as the popular tele-serial Malgudi Days[3]. A number of first-time directors like myself, had benefitted immensely by his generosity and patience.

Since it was an independent film, whatever little finance I had, I sunk into the film. And then it took me a year to complete post-production for lack of finance.

I was particular about the casting. I wanted the Anglo-Indian look, feel, mannerisms, costume, interiors to be authentic. I met each cast member and spoke to them at length about the vision I had for my film. Almost all of them were from the Bangalore English Theatre, and all of them were cooperative. Moreover, Cooke Town is a quaint little place with many English bungalows and outhouses. After some struggle, I found one on Milton Street which suited my story perfectly.

After The Outhouse was selected for the Indian Panorama in IFFI ’98 and received the two national awards, I just walked into Plaza Theatre on MG Road in Bangalore and met the owner, Mr Ananthanarayan. He had heard about the film and asked me to meet the distributor, Nitin Shah of Hansa Pictures in Gandhi Nagar, the biggest distributor of English films. He put it on for a noon show for three weeks while Fire was on for the matinee and evening shows. The distributor then put it in Mangalore and Udupi for a week. And when I received the Gollapudi Srinivas National Award in Chennai, Aparna Sen was one of the honoured guests. She saw a small portion of the film and said that she would speak to Mr Ansu Sur to screen it at Nandan in Kolkata — founded by Satyajit Ray to help screen small independent films. A theatre owner in Kolkata recommended a person who took the film to the North East. It was also screened in parts of Kerala.

Coincidentally, this April 30th, The Outhouse will be screened in the leafy neighbourhood of Cooke Town next to the outhouse where the film was shot.

Still from The Outhouse, provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

RS: In the last 50 years we have seen films by directors like Aparna Sen, Ajay Kar, Anjan Dutt. Even before these, Ray had touched upon Anglo Indians in Mahanagar. These are all films made in Kolkata. Is it because this is the erstwhile capital of the Raj?

LC: Many of the films on Anglo-Indians were based in Calcutta. It was the influence of the British Raj and its culture that was so much a part of their long history of ruling there. Of course their influence was in other parts of the country as well like Madras, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Whitefield and Kolar Gold Fields, the railway colonies all over the country, the hill stations, and many other cities which has pockets of Anglo-Indians.

RS: I remember one Hindi film, Julie that had an Anglo-Indian protagonist. How has the community been projected in popular culture? Was it lopsided or biased?

LC: Throughout our film history Anglo-Indians have played bit roles here and there. Some significant roles came their way in Bhowani Junction, the teleserial Queenie, 36 Chowrighee Lane, Bow Barracks Forever, Bada Din, Cotton Mary, The Outhouse, Saptapadi, Mahanagar, Julie, and Calcutta I’m Sorry[4].

Some of the characterisations have been quite biased; some not well fleshed out; some in passing fleeting moments of drunkenness, prostitution. The song and dance sequences have not helped the community, sadly.

RS: What led you to writing? The screenplay for The Outhouse?

LC: I wrote the screenplay of The Outhouse on plain A4 sheets of paper, on both sides. This is not done but I did it to save on cost. I gave the screenplay to my cinematographer S. Ramachandra, and in his generosity he understood my purpose. I went by what was taught at the New York Film Academy. Of course, I had to combine all the elements to make it whole. The idea of the screenplay came to me while I was at the film school in 1995.

RS: What was the trigger for writing Smoke in the Backwaters?

LC: As an artist, filmmaker, and writer, I have tried to combine all the elements of story-telling – fact and fiction — keeping in mind the flow of ideas, pace and momentum to engage and interest my audience and readers.

I remember beginning to write the novel two decades ago when my mother — who studied in Kannada medium — said, “I hope you will write it in simple English so I can read it too.”

And I wanted it to be reader friendly with regard to the font size, the brightness of the paper, the spacing, the clarity and the size of the book. I was lucky my publisher ‘Anglo-Ink’ was supportive and combined well to find that centre.

Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

RS: How are you marketing the book? Through Litfests? Bookstore readings? Airport bookstalls? A H Wheelers?

LC: Since Anglo-Ink is a small-time publisher, we’ve had a dream launch in my hometown Bangalore at the Catholic Club. My book seller is Bookworm on Church Street in the heart of Bangalore and for people in Cooke Town it is in The Lightroom’ library.

We are looking at launches in various cities as well, through book readings, LitFests, Airport book stalls, AH Wheelers, readings at schools and colleges.

Since a major portion of the novel is set in Germany, we are looking at translating it into German. I hope to get it translated in a few Indian languages as well.

RS: Since the sunset decade of 1900s, Anglo Indians have been migrating to Australia and Canada. What triggered this migration? Economics or politics?

LC: The migration of Anglo-Indians was inevitable. It was bound to happen for reasons more than one, be it political, economic or social. First under the ‘Whites Only’ policy, many fair skinned Anglo-Indians migrated — the brown and dark skinned were left behind. Slowly they opened up and even they left. Some felt they would adapt better to a western culture, and have adopted their new country as their homeland.

RS: You were a big support for me when my son joined NLSUI in 2000. Again, when I curated Anadi, the exhibition of paintings by Contemporary and indigenous artists from MP and Chhattisgarh. Bangalore has since become an international megalopolis. How has life changed for the locals?

LC: Bangalore has changed dramatically and drastically. The change was bound to happen because of its growing prominence of an International City. The IT industry brought jobs, slowly other industries, started picking up from real estate, fashion, digital technology and social media platforms, start-ups, academics, sports, games, recreational and tourism.

The moderate climate was a huge bonus that attracted people from all over. Bangalore has always been cordial, encouraging and accommodative of people from all over through their mild manners, hospitality and gentleness.

Today Bangalore is unrecognisable. Still, some pockets retain that old world charm of neat, clean and green Bengaluru from the old Pensioners Paradise of Bangalore.

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[1] The Ten Commandments (1956), The Bible (1966), Hatari (1962), To Sir, with Love (1967)

[2] Pyaasa (Thirsty, 1957), Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper flowers, 1959), Chaudhvin Ka Chand (The Full Moon, 1960), Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam (The Master, the Wife and the Slave, 1962), Aar Paar (This shore or that, 1954), Mr &Mrs 55 (1955).

[3] From 1986 to 2006.

[4] Bhowani Junction (1956), TV miniseries Queenie (1987), 36 Chowrighee Lane (1981), Bow Barracks Forever (2004), Bada Din (1998), Cotton Mary (1999), Saptapadi (Seven Steps, 1981), Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963), Julie (1975), and Calcutta I’m Sorry (2019)

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of  The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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Slices from Life

‘When will we ever learn? Oh, will we ever learn?’

Pete Seeger (1919-2014) lamented about the futility of war, but he also imparted hope, says Ratnottama Sengupta, as she recalls her memorable meeting with folk legend Seeger, in a tete-a-tete with friends

Courtesy: Creative Commons

Last week, as people crowded the Kiev railway station to flee the Ukrainian capital, visuals started trending of the giant staircase inside the pedestrian bridge over the Yauza River to the Kiev Railway Station, the deepest station in the world. It reminded Sonia, my batchmate from Elphinstone College, of the hours she’d spent on the fabulous stairs that take you all the way down with her father who had an attack of trachycardia as they arrived in Kiev by a train from Moscow. “With great difficulty we made our way to the waiting hall from which you have to descend by this enormous staircase. I remember all the Ukrainians helped us, just as all the Russians would help us. And father kept taking Calmposes until I supported him down the stairs into a cab that took us from the station to the hotel.”

Only after that Sonia had called for an ambulance. But why not do that two hours ago? “Because father did not want me to engage with the local health authorities as we didn’t know whether they would have the drugs he used and had forgotten in India,” she explained. “And as soon as I made that call, within five minutes the ambulance was there – with that drug.” Only after that Sonia found out that Kiev has the fastest ambulance service in the world – “and the finest,” she added – “because of what they faced in WWII…” 

All through those few hours Sonia felt so supported by the local people. “I didn’t have to explain anything to the cab driver or the hotel staff – we were whisked into our room and then I went back to check in!” So today Sonia wonders how people in the bunkers are coping with small necessities such as brushing their teeth. Even as she sends Kiev her love and prayers, she feels that “peace keeping forces have to go in rather than arming Ukraine.”

“But who will stand in the line of fire?” quips Liz George, another college mate. “So, may God help the people who are facing such terrible times!” she echoes Sonia. “May god protect everyone in Kiev,” Bhamini Subramanian’s heart goes out to the innocent civilians who lost their lives and the countless families displaced, fleeing and seeking shelter to save their lives…

Watching images of the bizarre war at Kiev opens a floodgate of memories amongst us. “Yet, put aside politics and people anywhere in the world are ready to go out of their way to help people in dire situations,” Sonia sums up. And, like her, I have seen from my travels around the world that people are the same everywhere – they just want the humdrum of a normal, peaceful day to day life. But circumstances – “and policies,” Sonia adds deny a whole lot of them that. “Wish we could find a less harmful way to settle disputes,” we sigh.

*

The mention of the staircase made me think of the Potemkin Steps – the giant stairway in Odessa, another landmark habitation in Ukraine. Originally known as the Boulevard Steps, or the Giant Steps, these are considered the formal entrance into the city from the sea. Odessa, perched on a high steppe plateau, needed direct access to the harbour below which was, in days of yore, connected only by winding path and crude wooden stairs. A hundred years eroded ‘the monstrous stairs’ built with greenish grey sandstone shipped from Italy – and so in 1933, the sandstone was replaced by granite and the landings by asphalt. And in 1955, the Soviet government renamed it as the Potemkin Stairs to honour the 50th anniversary of the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin. After Ukraine gained independence it restored – as it did with many other streets and landmarks — the previous name of Primorsky Stairs.

But why did I recall this bit of history? Because of Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin . “That silent 1925 film is a handbook for every editor!” –  Hrishikesh Mukherjee had said to me as he must have to hundreds of other students of cinema in India. And just seven years ago, in 2015, the European Film Academy put a commemorative plate on the stairs to indicate that the Potemkin staircase is a memorable place for European cinema.

*

Watching the news unfolding tirelessly on the idiot box my friend Shireen Elavia is reminded of the Hindi film Airlift (2016), which had dealt with the evacuation of the Indian expatriates stranded in that state bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia, at the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990, when the soldiers of Saddam Hussain’s Iraq had walked into Kuwait and run over it… “In a massive rescue operation in which our friend Raji had also participated, Air India under its regional director Mascarenhas had airlifted 170000 people…” Sonia pitched in. “I was at that time posted in Moscow.”

“It is not a question of the negativity of war,” again Sonia recounted what a dear friend of hers – Polish by birth and Indian by marriage – has said. “Ukraine suffers because of its geopolitical position.” History repeatedly shows that “Countries suffer either because they have a certain geopolitical position or because they sit on earth filled with riches.” How very tragic! For, if they now forget they are all still in East Europe, we all forget that we are inmates of the same home – this planet.

Pete Seeger: Courtesy: Creative Commons

A profound truth that we often overlook – or render to oblivion. A truth that Pete Seeger (1919-2014) had driven home to me in Delhi sometime in 1996. “The point is not to ask for yourself alone — one has to ask for everybody: Either we all are going to make it over the rainbow or nobody is going to make it. And that is how suddenly a song about the greens becomes a song that takes a step forward. This is what I call the folk process.”

*

The human drama unfolding between Russia and Ukraine, the two countries that have been described by a cartoonist as ‘divorced spouses,’ led yet another of my university friends, Usha Kelkar Srivastava, to re-play Where have all the flowers gone (1955), that old Pete Seeger favourite “which turns out to be a Ukrainian folk song”. The poignant melody was a favourite of ours when we went to university – much like Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind (1962) and John Lenon’s Imagine (1964) – and for decades after he’d penned it, regardless of which country he was in, the guru of country singing would sing the peace songs and the audience would sing with him. “They would sing the songs in schools and in summer camps. Some of us sang in churches and unions, some sang in coffee houses and people would gather around us and sing with us old songs and new…” Pete had recounted in the course of the four days I was really fortunate to have spent in his company. The legend who sang in defence of humanity, had come to Delhi at the invitation of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) — and when he returned to America, he gifted me a set of CDs signed to me which are among my prized possessions. 

“Just as a river takes the shape of the land it flows through, a song can echo the raw emotions of a land and people,” said Usha culling from her background in Music History. “Rarely has any song touched the world like the simple Where have all the flowers gone…” It has the cyclic structure of another Hebrew folk song about violence that I’d heard in an Amos Gitai film. Pete, while travelling in air, had come across a few lines in Sholokov’s And Quiet Flows the Don: “Where are the flowers, the girls have plucked them. Where are the girls, they’ve all taken husbands. Where are the men, they’re all in the army.” 

The lines from a Caucasian folk song “are sung in the Ukrainian countryside as Tovchu tovchu mak and Koloda Duda,” Usha added. Pete had adapted these words, adding the refrain of ‘Long time passing and Long time ago’ almost as a chorus. At some point in time he combined it with the tune of a traditional Irish lumberjack song – “only, I slowed down the energetic and full of vigour rendition,” and thus was born the haunting song. The three verses were later expanded by other country singers who added two more verses that underscore the tragedy thus: ‘Where have all the soldiers gone? They’re in the graves, everyone of them…and Now the flowers have come back, on the graves…’

“My only complaint is that this song is not specific enough,” Pete once said at a live concert in Sweden. “It’s too easy just to say, ‘When will we ever learn? Oh when will we ever learn?’ without saying what you want people to learn.” Yet, how potent this critique of war is can be gauged by the number of recordings, and the spread of languages in which it has been rewritten. 

The Kingston Trio first recorded it in 1961 not knowing it to be authored by Pete Seeger. In 1962 Marlene Dietrich performed it in English, French and German at a UNICEF concert – “and she sings it even better,” Seeger had said. On a tour of Israel, she rendered it in German, breaking the taboo of using that language publicly in that country. The song has versions in Dutch, Polish, Czech, Croatian, Hungarian, Irish. It has been adapted to the piano, it exists in an instrumental version, and also as a parody! In 1964, Columbia Records released it in the Hall of Fame series and in 2002 Seeger was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in the Folk category. In 2010 New Statesman listed it among the Top 20 Political Songs worldwide.

I had the opportunity to hear the other American icon, Joan Baez, sing the contemporary folk song with operatic flourishes, in Manchester sometime in 1977. The activist songwriter had included the German version in her 1965 album, Farewell, Angelina. The very next year the much-loved voice of Harry Belafonte had recorded it in a Benefit concert in Stockholm. A Russian version was recorded in 1998 by Oleg Nesterov, who founded the Moscow based rock band Megapolis just before Perestroika. In the present century Olivia Newton-John recorded it in her 2004 album Indigo: Women of Song while Dolly Parton recorded it in 2005 for her album Those Were the Days. On August 9, 2009, it was sung at the funeral of Harry Patch, the last surviving British soldier of WW1.

In Kolkata, where I now live, Anjan Dutt had covered “the old but always relevant song” in Rawng (Colour) Pencil, going on to remind us at the outset of the Gulf War, “Ekii chinta Bangla tey korechhe Lalon, Notun korey eki gaan geyechhe Lenon, Shei eki katha aaj gaichhe Suman, gaichhi aami shei eki gaan (The same thought had inspired the Baul Lalon Fakir; the American John Lenon, and Kolkata’s own Suman and me, to ask — When will they ever learn?)” As for Kabir Suman, who penned the Bengali version, Kothay gelo tara: he had himself rendered it on stage with Pete during that India tour of 1996.

Back then Pete was “very happy that the Berlin Wall came down so peacefully”. I distinctly recall asking the self-effacing giant if the wide reach of Where have all the flowers gone indicates that the world is finally learning about not going to war. The Times of India had carried his answer: “I don’t know whether songs really change things. All I do know is that throughout history, leaders have been particular about which songs they want sung!” And then the balladeer sang of a youth who was asked the same question, to say, ‘I don’t know if I can change the world… But I will make sure the world doesn’t change me…’ 

“That was a good song,” Pete had concluded. “When people around the world say that — that’s when the world will be changed.” 

Notes:
Shlokov received the Nobel prize for And Quiet Flows the Don in 1965. The book came out in four parts from 1928 to 1940.

Ratnottama Sengupta thanks the people mentioned here: Both Sonia Singh and Raji Sekhar are her batchmates from Elphinstone College, Bombay (now Mumbai). They worked in Air India. Usha Srivastava and Elizabeth George (then Vergese) were singers in Pranjyoti Choir. Usha Kelkar Srivastava, trained in Western classical music, later went on to give lessons in Music History at the American Embassy School, New Delhi. Bhamini Subramaniam is a designer while Shireen Elavia. Havewala, is a retired banker.

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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL