Experimenting

Movie Watching in the Indian Army

Written before the 2009 Oscars:

Movie watching was a way of life for us in India. As all my Indian army brat-mates will bear out, no one but no one even understands movie watching unless you are one of us. I am talking of movie watching taken to an art form …as in entertainment, socializing, daily pastime with fashion, food, fun and romance thrown in. My siblings, Kalyani, Roopa, Manish and me must have watched movies by the hundreds. By the time I was through high school (1973) not only had we watched every single Bollywood film but all Hollywood films brought into India by the army. This was the era of no-television. The movies would be screened for the soldiers and officers in the army in the open air. Huge screens were put up with sound system and all and these amazing stories from all over the world unfolded before our eyes practically  every other day. I remember watching Jerry Lewis and Tony Curtis movies and in keeping with the innocence  of the era and my age, laughing my guts out at the Laurel and Hardy or the Chaplin films, I Love Lucy or later the Pink Panther series. The grandeur of Citizen Kane, Dr Zhivago, Ten Commandments, Spartacus, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Sound of Music, Roman Holiday, Wait until Dark, Oliver Twist, Wuthering Heights, How Green was my Valley, Lillies of the Field, To Sir with Love, War and Peace, My Fair Lady, the Hitchcock movies, Kubrick, Polanski, Dracula, House of Wax, …so many many more. We were young…..in the midst of watching movies, we dressed in the latest fashions of the day, bell bottoms and crepe cotton tie up shirts and what-nots, we found our own romances and had our little trysts (strictly hidden from the adults) exchanged letters, surreptitiously held hands, and ate the most delicious kababs, and mutton chops and dal moot and tea and pop. The officers and wives drank and socialized during the intermission (couldn’t care). Each station we were posted to had its own food specialty. Oddly (to me at the time) the soldiers did not mix with the ranked officers. The lines of the army were strict and never crossed. Later on in life I remembered that oddity and was able to place it right along with lines drawn in society between rich and poor, between job-holders and job-less, between classes of all kinds all over the world as I traveled and worked across 3 continents. It was not like the drive-ins in the US because we actually got out of the cars and sat in chairs and mingled. More like a huge movie screening –party. I particularly remember Bhopal (of the Union Carbide gas tragedy which happened later in 1984) where the heady mixture of a huge 70 mm open air permanent screen and fantastic sound system in Bairagarh came together with fabulous movies and my out-of-this world high school experience. Every movie was a tale full of imagery, sound and music which filled the senses and made me escape into these imaginary lands seen only in tiny letters on a world map. I never would have guessed that I would perhaps one day live and work in the lands I saw.

By the time I came to Kolkata, my thoughts were influenced by books from Rand, Tolstoy, Tagore, Gandhi, Nehru and to the political atmosphere around me. I wanted to make a difference. Perhaps when I stepped over my first open sewage drain with ooze into my in-law’s shanty in the Watgunge bustee in Kidderpore, Kolkata and crossed over to a life of the reality of poverty, the laughter of innocence left me gasping for air to survive the struggles I took head-on in my youth. This was the life I chose because I was tired of being in the unreal, disconnected world of the army. Movies at this stage became my only way of escape. This was strictly Bollywood. The unreal song and dance bonanzas full of tear jerking stories of infinite complications which always seemed to get sorted out in the end. I would fill my students’ heads up with dreams of a world of hope and light. I had my daughter and worked through graduate school and completed my thesis work. Life changed as I moved out of the slum into our first apartment and made a life for ourselves amongst the daily struggles. My affair with the movies continued, this time taking in the Bengali movies as well. This was a period of serious movie watching along with the art, jatra, theater and classical music, rabindrasangeet scene of Bengal. Several low budget films with serious actors like Smitha Patil, Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore were delightful. I did not miss a good Bond movie or The Graduate or several other gems from Hollywood during the period. I even named my daughter Rinku, after the nickname of my favorite Bengali film actor.

And then there was Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray,  1954). I had read the book by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay and for once I could not say which was better. The sheer honesty of the story and the lyrical quality of its depiction was simply grand. The movie has been endlessly reviewed by far more knowledgeable critiques than me. Ray has won accolades for this , his first movie and several others and is considered one of the greatest film makers of the world. Adding to that is unnecessary.

Amidst my own struggle I found strength in the trilogy of Apu’s life and struggles and believed that in the end I would prevail. Through my own reality of having to give up my first fetus , walking miles everyday with my baby and bags through rain and shine, riding in buses with a toehold clinging for my life after passing my baby in for some stranger to hold…getting my PhD, working in Germany, immigrating to the US, scientific experiments, learning to survive in Science more than life, having a son, getting a green card, surviving my husband’s suicide after 16 years of the struggle, getting my citizenship, publishing all through, falling in love again for a second chance at happiness with my husband, starting 3 new departments and my today … I realize that Pather Panchali has to be my best movie of all time. It makes me realize that every human has a story equally important, heartbreaking and stressful. We all have a hero inside us which shows up and works in times of strife and struggle. It is only when a crisis has passed that we can even look around us and see how well we have managed and done what was ours to do without breaking down.

After word: I have watched most of this year’s Oscar nominated performances Danny Boyle/Tandon’s Slumdog Millionare will probably win Best Picture. For me, it was a bit too close to a portion of my own story and thus I know that even though it was a “feel good in the end” story well told, it is probably not one that would have ended well in real life. The maladjusted child from the slum can have a dream and  can succeed in making it come true but the harsh realities of life, even after winning a million dollars, would test his experiences and depth constantly. But movies are about dreams. About struggles, hope, love, music, imagery, art and feeling good. I have held on to them to live. Dreamweavers my solemn salute!

My favorite movie of all time

My First Encounter with the US

1989 in Calcutta, India (Now Kolkata). Private complications galore prompted me to apply for research at SUNY, Buffalo, USA. Leaving the husband and my 6 year-old  back home, with the ordeal of passports and visas behind me, a  one-way ticket in the pocket of the stereotypical 2 suitcases (40 Kgs), $ 40 (that’s all the money I could afford to get exchanged), and my degree, I set out alone on this adventure.

I was naïve enough not to have looked Buffalo, NY on the map. Where I would live was unimportant. Was 18K a year, enough for a family of 3?  Would we, could we, ever be a family of 3 again? I had no clue!

The pressures were too great. I focused on the world of Science that was about to open before me in all its splendid opulence. The fire of biological-success had been lit and needed to be fed. Telecom those days was hardly a blip in the horizon. I remember the hallowed fax machine that the handler allowed me a peep at, after he uncovered it in the shrine he had built for it at Calcutta Telegraph Office (built 1876). It was truly divine! Real time communication with my mystery professor from the US of A! Focus ahead.

The tiny plane from JFK to Buffalo had a lady in jeans and a wide brimmed hat (no gun) serving orange juice and peanuts. Like the cowboy movies and “Sudden” books I had read. But those were men on horses with guns. Wow! The juice tasted different from the squeezed juices in the corner shops of Cal. And the peanuts were not the “bhuna hua chinebadam” of the hawkers. Good enough to be recognizable. Reassured, I went back to worrying about the size of the plane, turbulence and other sundry matters. My (never-before-seen) over-6 ft new mentor met me at the airport. It was like those James Bond movies where spies meet and the purple sari is the only clue! Must admit I had never really seen such a big man before. But then the sun was never quite so bright either. Onwards into a restaurant for lunch. Parched from the long dehydrating flight, I asked for water. Out came a glass, the size of which was bigger than anything I had seen in the class of tumblers. I took a huge gulp and my throat froze! Liquids really got cold here !  (Little did I know about the winters of Buffalo)

The portion size and the amounts of wasted food on  some  plates I saw made me wince. Who cared? There was Science and “nuclear matrix” playing its illusory role of Menaka, seemingly sent by Indra himself guiding me onwards and upwards (pardon the tenuous connection).

Off we trundled to a Motel on Main Street (now with a changed name). The $40 was burning a hole in my pocket. I refused to lay my state of penury open to ridicule. My mentor breezily checked me into a $25 per night room and left!  My room was the last in the upper floor looking out over a lot with a huge blue box of sorts. Turned out to be a garbage dumpster that could be picked up bodily from the ground into a truck! Wow! the sight and sounds  of this garbage picking process was amazing! (people from Cal will know why) I looked across the road and saw the bright sign of “Burger King”.

This was the un-globalize-d world of early1989 (pre-Berlin wall breakdown days). I had remained insular and disconnected in my laboratory along with the rats, mice and guinea pigs. The light switches were upside down! A mistake surely. The bathroom revealed new delights of unknown knobs and levers. The highly imaginative design of bathroom fixtures took some time to figure out and actually have a shower without scalding myself or freezing instantly.

With the lengthening shadows of the evening came a vast regret at having left my land, kith and kin. The overwhelming realization began to sink in that I was alone in foreign land with no friends and family and highly limited resources. My first night turned into a never ending whirlpool of loneliness. At a dead end already. I had money to last in the hotel for just 2 days! What was I to do? Where was I to go? Where was I to live? I had a job and I had a name that I could call.

“Science” lost its luster and I could not conjure up Menaka anymore to guide my path. Gripped in fear of the unknown ahead, I did not dare open my suitcase and slipped into whatever was handy in my bag and waited for the sun, when my new life would begin. Jet lag kept me wide awake. For someone from Calcutta, the silence around was a cultural shock. Where were the people? Outside the heavy blackness of the night was oppressive. There were no reassuring sounds of human life and activity, no music, no honking of horns, no familiar insects or animal cries…no dogs, no cats, no crickets! Simply a deathly velvety black silence broken by the unfamiliar sound of very fast moving automobiles.

My qualms were overwhelming me and in tearful desperation I approached the TV. Took a bit to figure out the power switch. The screen filled with color. A very handsome African American was doing his thing and I was transfixed at how much I did not know of this world I had crashed into. I flipped through the channels my mind trying to spot a tree that I could recognize, perhaps a plant from my vast Botanical taxonomy. Suddenly….. a familiar friendly face and voice came crashing into my consciousness from the screen, filling the room with his presence. Relief washed over me like some soothing balm and I felt my taut muscles actually relaxing. With his jokes he made me feel welcome in this far away distant land. You see I had seen the man in movies back home! A friend at last, a known soul, albeit over unseen distance, time and culture.

I  was a connection I cannot explain. Suddenly I was not alone anymore. Things would be all right! Menaka came back with a vengeance and demanded servitude and I steeled  myself for the long haul. Upwards and onwards!

This if for you Mr. Chevy Chase, who knows what might have happened if you had not cheered me up that first night?!

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