King of Bollywood by Anupama Chopra
Unlikely Hero Om Puri by Nandita. C. Puri
Much as I try to dismiss Om Puri as a predictable actor, I realize that he is an important part of my cinematic sensibility. If Ardh Satya (1984) was his masterpiece, he reigned on Indian TV during its golden years with Tamas, Yatra, Bharat Ek Khoj and Kakaji Kahin. Like his best friend Naseeruddin Shah, he too acted in a Malayalam film (Puravritham). He did many things that Shah couldn't - act in a Satyajit Ray film (Sadgati) and several Hollywood and UK productions like Wolf, Gandhi, Charlie Wilson's War, The Ghost and the Darkness, East is East and My Son the Fanatic, even earning an Order of the British Empire. His life story recounted by his wife and journalist Nandita Puri is a wholesome experience. It is as candid as Shah's autobiography that came later.
Om was rustic, middle class and with the patriarchal upbringing that a Punjabi male could have. Till the end, he could pronounce October only as Aktoober. Like Shah put it, he was born with a wooden spoon in his mouth. He studied at both NSD and FTII and his success was only due to hard grind. After living in with Ismat Chugtai's daughter and some others, he married Annu Kapoor's sister Seema in 1993. Before a year was out, he met Nandita, 17 years his junior who had come to interview him during Roland Joffe's City of Joy. He married her and split after 20 years. Son Ishaan was born in '97. The marriage ended ugly, with Nandita going to cops with a domestic violence complaint. Curiously, Om went back to Seema Kapoor who was single. She gave him company until a massive heart attack took him early this year at age 67.
A filmi study of Om's life alone would not hold the lay readers' interest, certainly not mine. That is where this book scores highly. You get to know when Om was 'deflowered' and by whom (incidentally a woman forty years his senior) and all those tidbits. The only problem is Om was not OK with such disclosure, which led to their spat, post book release. Maybe he used that as a ruse to get rid of the spouse. There are hints of temper and intolerance spiced with tales of Om the doting father, lover, pet lover, cook, caring for his Bauji and even Nandita's mom in this book which has an amazing spread of photographs. Does Nandita play the victim? No. Does she paint herself perfect? An allowance like this gem shows otherwise: '.....citation from Karlovy Vary was lost by Nihalani on the flight from Prague. And a ceramic plaque was smashed to smithereens by me during one of our domestic quarrels!'
I took an interest in this pending book thanks to the IFFK which is on in Trivandrum. Thirty years ago when an International Film Festival happened for the first time in the city, two new cinema halls were inaugurated - Kairali and Sree. And Om Puri and Naseer Shah were queuing there for the premiere of The Last Emperor!
The book's foreword is by Patrick Swayze, his co-actor in City of Joy.
And Then One Day by Naseeruddin Shah
Shah is among my favorite Indian actors. What a delightful book his memoirs is! Frank, forthright, pulling no punches and written from the heart. And in such excellent English too! Shah has been one of my favorite actors, preferred above the predictable Om Puri by spades. In the book, he says his hate of mainstream Hindi cinema could also be an act of psychologically seeking insurance against rejection as he lacked conventional star looks. He, however, holds some earlier generation stars like Dilip Kumar in awe. Ever the theatre person, Ebrahim Alkazi for him is God. He smoked weed, writes about going to gypsy prostitutes as an adolescent and also lets us into his record of finishing 50th in a class of 50 in the Jesuit school he went to. At Poona FTII he rebelled against the pariah status given to acting students, even gheraoing institute director Girish Karnad. The best thing in his life apparently is his wife Ratna Pathak. Mature and loving enough to even accept his love child Reeba (through Pakistani girl Parveen who was 14 years his senior, when the man was not quite out of his teens) she comes out a winner. A brilliant account. One of his brothers, Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah is all praise for the book.
PS: I read from an interview of Malayalam director Lenin Rajendran that Naseeruddin Shah was confirmed to play Swathi Thirunal in the eponymous movie. But when they realized that it required some shooting in and around Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple (non-Hindus are forbidden entry there), Shah was relieved of the role and Kannada idol Anant Nag was brought in instead. Shah did play a character in a Malayalam movie though....T. V. Chandran's Ponthanmada along with Mammootty.
Rekha The Untold Story by Yasser Usman
Luck came her way in the form of great directors who made good films with her (Hrishikesh Mukherjee - Khubsoorat, Muzaffar Ali - Umrao Jaan, Shyam Benegal- Kalyug, Girish Karnad - Utsav, Manik Chatterjee - Ghar, Govind Nihalani - Vijeta, Gulzar - Ijazzat, Mira Nair - Kama Sutra). Her relationships always ensured her Page 3 space. Amitabh Bachchan and her acted together in only 18 films but the press gleefully paired them in real life as well. Life imitated art which imitated life in Yash Chopra's Silsila (1981) where Amitabh, wife Jaya, and Rekha came together (and oh yeah Jaya's former old flame Sanjeev Kumar to complete the incredible quadrangle). In the 70s Rekha married Vinod Mehra but fell out. In 1990 she married businessman Mukesh Agarwal who hanged himself with her dupatta six months later. It was easy to typecast Rekha as a man-eater and home-breaker - her own and others'. But the book tells us how Agarwal confessed to her about his own AB! Divorcee Akash Bajaj was his psychotherapist and lover of ten years. Anyway, the marriage was a non-starter. Her secretary since forever Farzana is the dark horse in the story. One can suspect a strongly possessive lesbian love affair here for Rekha, the reins controlled by the lady who dresses up in pantsuit and sports a hairstyle like.......who else but Amitabh Bachchan!
All in all, a delightful and easy read is this 200-page book by award-winning TV journalist Yasser Usman who had earlier penned Rajesh Khanna - The Untold Story of India's First Superstar.
Adoor Gopalakrishnan a life in cinema by Gautaman Bhaskaran
I admire Adoor Gopalakrishnan not only for making quality movies but for his integrity in not ever diluting his art. With his technical skill and hard-earned reputation, he could have minted money like Subhash Ghai or Priyadarshan (Om Puri once told Priyan, ‘If at all you write your autobiography, call it “Non-Stop”) through compromising on cinematic elements. But he did not. My own favorite is the 1982 work Elipathapayam (The Rat Trap) followed by Kodiyettam, Swayamvaram, Mathilukal and Nizhalkuthu in that order. Vidheyan, Mukhamukham and Anantaram were ok. He wrote most of his films. In case of Vidheyan he adapted Zacharia's novella Bhaskara Patelarum Ente Jeebithavum which is set in a fuedal Mysore village, Mathikulal was Basheer's novella and a couple of later films were based on Thakazhi's short stories. Kathapurushan has the maker’s autobiographical elements the most. Journalist and film critic Gautaman Bhaskaran with nearly forty years experience with major dailies was perfectly poised to pen a book on the auteur. This came out in 2010 and covers his work up to Oru Pennum Rendaanum.
Adoor has been so feted around the world in countless festivals that the provided lists of where all each movie went, sounds mighty exotic - Fribourg, Hawaii, Nantes, Ljubljana, Pesaro, Sao Paulo and the like. The great Satyajit Ray was asked in his deathbed who he considered as his successor. The master replied in his rich baritone, ‘Adoor…only Adoor.’
Smita Patil A Brief Incandescence by Maithili Rao
Smita Patil died 31 years ago but remains my favorite actress ever in any Indian language. She lived barely 31 years from 1955 to '86 and acted in around 80 films. They included languages like Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali and Gujarati. Identified by Shyam Benegal, she went on to work with masters like Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. My pick of ten of her works would be Bhumika, Mandi, Umbartha (Marathi. Subah in Hindi), Mirch Masala, Akaler Shondoney, Ardh Satya, Arth, Manthan, Chakra and her only Malayalam film, Chidambaram.
[Talking of Smita's Malayalam film, the maestro G. Aravindan's Chidambaram is pure celluloid poetry. The movie based on a short story of the name by C.V. Sriraman tells a tale of sin and atonement. A Mattupetti farm office superintendent Shankaran (Kodiyetam Gopi) seduces Sivakami (Smita Patil) the wife of lowly worker Muniyandi (Sreenivasan). Muniyandi takes his own life. Guilt devours the life of Sankaran who seeks recourse in alcohol. He goes wandering and finally arrives at Chidambaram temple, where he encounters Sivakami shining chappals there. The final scene is the masterstroke in this movie classic. The camera gradually pans to the sky from inside the temple and lingers there as mridangam beats to a crescendo in the background.]
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Cannes, 1977. Shyam Benegal with Smita Patil and Shabana Azmi. Their film Nishant was in competition[/caption]
Maithili Rao's book is meticulously researched. Rao has spoken extensively to people associated with Patil including her sisters Anita and Manya, father, Benegal, Azmi and more. Chapters titled 'The Seminal Seventies', 'Smita Patil and her Dasavatars' and 'The Ambivalent Eighties' examine her critically acclaimed works in depth. A big challenge for the writer, of course, is the absence (since three decades) of the subject person. The book is a very sincere attempt. There are interesting anecdotes like how Smita had a premonition about Amitabh Bachchan and called him late in the night on phone to inquire about his well-being and the very next day he had the accident during the shooting of Coolie which almost cost him his life.
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The author with Benegal and Bachchan at the book release[/caption](2017)
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