Cricket and Tollywood

Cricket, considered as a religion in the Indian subcontinent, has found its way in the Hindi movie industry (commonly known as Bollywood) on numerous occasions. Be it Amir Khan hitting an over boundary of the last ball in a couple of movies, to the introduction of Hrithik Roshan in a multi-starrer, to Harman Baweja (!!)'s career best performance, to the recent Kai Po Che. However, the same cannot be said for the Bengali movie industry, commonly known as Tollywood. Cricket has always been treated as a stepson to Football, while representing sports in Tollywood. How can you imagine the evergreen Mahanayak uttering about cricket -- "ওটা আবার আমি তেমন বুঝি না।" (I don't understand the game very well.) On the other hand, the same person had been seen playing football and winning a match against the British opponents in pre-independent India. Let's look at some of the instances where cricket found its way in Bengali movies.

1) Janmatithi (1957) -- The national award winning movie has a mention of cricket, but in a weird manner. The story revolves around two young runaways from an orphanage. In a particular scene of the movie, they are seen to play cricket with some other boys. Veteran actor Anup Kumar is seen to talk about them to an elderly lady. He mentions them as "Cricket-i-yer", not Cricketer. Am not sure if Bengalis that time used to call Cricketers Cricketiyers or it was a mistake on part of the scriptwritter (maybe the reader can help), but that pronunciation by Mr Kumar was weird, if not, hilarious.

2) Dhonyi Meye (1971) -- This multi-starrer was a big hit for more than one reason. It has everything that a Bengali will love -- Football, Humor, Family Drama, Uttam Kumar. However, director Arabinda Mukherjee played it low on cricket. In one scene, Uttam Kumar goes to visit another gentleman, Nafar Ghosh to ask the latter's daughter's hand for his brother. Uttam Kumar plays the role of a retired footballer in this movie. Nafar and his wife, on the other hand, are interested in cricket. They would go ecstatic on hearing Sobers scoring a century on a radio. Not only has Uttam Kumar uttered the line mentioned by me at the beginning of this article, the portrayal of cricket-loving Bengalis is kind of hilarious, if insulting is a harsh word to use. The Ghosh couple has been portrayed as rich, pretentious, following a not-so-typical Bengali lifestyle, and of course, following cricket. On the other hand, Uttam Kumar's family has all the traits that any Bengali will associate him/herself with and of course, they love Football. Step-son!!!

3) Hansaraj (1976) -- Debut movie of Arindam Ganguly. Arindam plays the role of a young village bard, who has the unique ability to create songs on any event, instantly. When a cricket team from Kolkata comes to play in their village, Hansraj is amazed to see such a weird game being played. He, of course, takes few minutes to create a song describing the game of cricket in detail. You can listen to the song here:

4) Swopno (2006) -- Times have changed, and since 1983, cricket has been established as a religion in India. Prosenjit, therefore, backs his brother, Jishu Sengupta to pursue the career of a "Cricket-i-yer". Jishu ultimately makes it to the Indian team. With the betting scandal around, Jishu gets entrapped and accepts bribe to lose a match. Prosenjit, of course, being the righteous man, as he is always since his debut as an adult in Duti Pata (1985), can not tolerate this and nearly has a heart attack seeing his motherland lose. However, none other than the Bengal Tiger, Sourav Ganguly, comes in to rescue. He singlehandedly plays a superb innings to lead India to victory. This, IMO, is the only complete cricket-dominant movie in Tollywood. To be noted: Sourav didn't act in this movie. Some of his over boundaries from 1999 Taunton and 2000 Nairobi were used.

5) Le Chakka (2010) -- This is an ideal example to show that Tollywood has now changed it's stepson. This movie could have been ideal if Football was the bet; since this movie started with the eternal clash of Ghoti and Bangal. However, director Raj Chakraborty thought otherwise. Well, a South Kolkata (read modern, stylish) lad (Dev) moves to a North Kolkata (read archaic, useless) para (locality). The local guys have cricket club which ensures the last position in any competition they participate. Dev, on the other hand, is a renowned fast bowler. Politicians (eternal villains) play a devious plot to eradicate the club. Dev must not only play with 10 useless guys to rescue the club, he also has to ensure his love-story doesn't get disturbed. Cricket, definitely, plays a major role in this movie.

6) Cholo Paltai (2011) -- Prosenjit again. This time he is against cricket. His teenager son wants to become a Sachin or Sourav, while he wants the lad to pursue the career of a doctor or an engineer. A violent clash ensures his son falls into coma and become permanently paralyzed. How his son is rescued and how Prosenjit fights (by wearing a belt of time-bombs on his visit to the Chief Minister!!) forms a different part of the story. Sambaran Banerjee had a guest appearance in this movie.

At present, I can not think of any other Bengali movie where cricket was mentioned/an integral part. I will really appreciate if the readers can point to any movie names I missed. 

The curious case of Vivek Oberoi

Few weeks ago, back from office, I wanted to watch a movie. Sometimes, I get into this weird mindset of watching absolutely bad movies. I generally look at the recent released Bollywood movie lists (they hardly fail me) and pick one up looking at the reviews. On that particular day, I came across a movie named "Jayantabhai ki Love Story!" Surprised? Never heard the name? Well, it stars Vivek Oberoi and Neha Sharma. Neha...I really pity that girl. Not because she can't act (honestly, most bollywood heroines can't, at least the ones lighting the silver screen for the past few years), but just look at her co-stars!!! Started with Emran Hashmi, then Tushar Kapoor (I mean seriously!!! And she had to appreciate his bare body in the movie), followed by Vivek and finally Boby Deol. Doesn't she deserve at least Shahid Kapoor? A pessimistic friend of mine would have said -- "Lucky she didn't end up with Fardeen Khan." Ok, thank your almighty, Neha.

Anyway, lot of digression, getting back to "Jayantabhai ki Love Story!" As expected, this is a pathetic movie where a gangster tries to romance his next door neighbor. Well, let's not go into the movie. Vivek acted as a gangster, yet again. And believe me, he was convincing enough. He always is, right from his debut (Given his career in the movie industry, he can actually try being a gangster in real life).
That is when I felt, we need to talk about this actor. After his once "girlfriend" was hijacked by Abhishek Bachhan (on a separate note, Vivek, I believe, acts better than Abhishek), he has suddenly lost all the glamour and all the attention he used to deserve. Tell me when was the last time post that breakup, you saw him in Koffee with Karan (assuming you are a viewer of this show)?

Vivek, as we all know, made a dream debut. "Company" -- a highly acclaimed film, with co-stars like Ajay Devgan; he shot into limelight in no time. The bad gangster Chandu was highly adored. Within the turn of the year, we saw him romancing Rani Mukherjee in another blockbuster hit, Saathiya. This film is not just another "hit film" in his career, it also showed the audience that he can even play the role of a romantic hero. People started comparing him with the other two new-comers a couple of years back, Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachhan (again!!!). Actually, these two had horrible 2002. Hrithik started his downfall with movies like "Aap mujhe achhe lagne lage" (has anyone even seen the movie in its entirety?), "Na Tum jaano na hum" and "Mujhse Dosti Karoge". Dad's kiddo Abhishek starred in "Haan maine bhi pyar kiya" with his the then fiance Karishma (Akshay Kumar had to be there to save the movie, but alas!!), "Shararat" (one of the innumerable crap films by the junior B) and Om Jai Jagdish (Anupam Kher's directorial debut massacre). Thus, Vivek, with his two hit films had a dream debut in Bollywood.

2003 saw Vivek acting in a remake of a Tamil film, Dum. An out and out action movie -- it was however rejected by the audience. The Bollywood audience of 70s might have accepted this angry young man movie, but the new millenium audience were not ready to. After playing some guest appearances, Vivek starred in what I'd consider his biggest mistake -- "Yuva". A Mani Ratnam direction, with excellent co-stars and a hit film!!! So what's the problem? Well, the problem is, if it's a 3 hero film and you play the weakest character, you lose the battle to the other two; and if one of them is your competitor (whom you've already defeated once), you are just shooting at your leg!!! Abhishek Bachhan excelled at Yuva, even ending up getting an award, while poor Vivek had to only romance Kareena in Mandarmani. Those people who were, a few months back, considering Vivek better than Abhishek, now had a clear platform of comparison, and clearly, Vivek was a failure. Why would you choose such a film, Vivek?

Then came a series of films to kill one's career. First, a mindless romantic flick with his girlfriend Aishwarya Rai. Vivek was so obsessed with Aishwarya (as he mentioned in the chat show with Karan), he could do such a pathetic piece of shit!!! Although he brought in some comic element in Masti, it wasn't enough to revive the downslide of his career. Then came a series of bad films, Kaal, Kisna, Pyare Mohan (why should you choose a film with co-actors Esha Deol and Fardeen Khan?), Naksha....Vivek's career was almost gone. But halt!!! Vishal Bhardwaj, an enterprising director, suddenly made Onkara, the bollywood version of Othello. Vivek, as Kesu was more than convincing. Again, he got to play the role of a gangster. Again, he had Ajay Devgan as his co-star. And again, like Yuva, someone stole the whole limelight!! Yes, it was Saif Ali Khan as Lyangra Tyagi, leaving our poor Vivek as a no-gainer from the brilliant film.

Vivek played the role of "Maya Dolas" brilliantly in Shootout at Lokhandwala. He would even win a Filmfare best villain nomination. However, this multi-starrer failed to provide a significant boost to his career. It could, at best, stall his downslide. Next year, he played a Turkish Commando Rizwan Khan (heard the name before) in Mission Istambul. However, with Zayed Khan as co-actor, you can hardly expect anything, and the movie fell flat. Vivek continued with another of his crap, action packed films "Prince", before he was cast into Rakht Charitra. Vivek did a brilliant work in the film, and it got considerable attention. His career, seemed to be revived for the time. Since the last year, he has been acting in films like KLPD (with India's only heroine with US+Punjabi accent -- Mallika Sherawat), Zila Ghaziabad and Jayantabhai!!! I had expected him to come back with a bang after Rakht Charitra, but things are again going downhill.

Vivek Overoi's career has been overall full of ups and downs. The guy, who started his career with such a loud bang, is now far behind Hrithik and Abhishek. He has shown moments of brilliance in some of his gangster roles, but all his romantic characters have fallen flat post Sathiya.  He is expected to star in the Roshans' home production, Krish 3. Hope, he does a good job there. His career might never reach the height it reached in 2002, but, he can definitely move against the gravity and be in the race. Here's wishing all the luck for Jayantabhai!!

Memorable Stories from Anandamela: Part I

I have been a regular reader of the bengali youth magazine, Anandamela from July 1991. The first issue that I subscribed to had the coverstory "ফরেন্সিক তদন্ত" or Forensic Investigation. At that time, Anandamela used to be a fortnightly magazine. Later, it changed to weekly for a small time and then to the current monthly status. Till 2007 (the year I left for US), I had all the individual "Anandamela"s from the beginning of my subscription.  I still remember some of my favorite stories from Anandamela. I'll try to make a list of them here:

1) Gabu . Writer: Dulendra Bhowmick, Date: 1991

Gabu, a teenager, had a voracious appetite. He used to be hired by marriage parties (specially the people from the bride's family) to take revenge on their in-laws (for demanding huge dowry). Gabu would start with around 50 luchi, followed by about 10 kg goat and 100 rasgullas. He would even do a warm-up by the river to enhance his hunger. This story has the typical Bhowmick characteristics, a comedy with a slightly sour ending. When I re-read this story, sometimes in the last decade, this story made me nostalgic for a different reason. In the early 90s, catering business was not so well established in semi-rural West Bengal. The "parar-chelera" used to serve all the food to the guests. This trend started declining in the late 90s when professional catering became a social status symbol. I do not think anybody tries any other avenues these days.

2) Jibontolar Mati. Writer: Shibayan Ghosh, Date: 1991

A story of two siblings, staying as refugees in the Barasat area. This story brought tears to my eyes back in '91. Even when I read it later, I was moved.

3) Cycle. Writer: (Don't remember), Date: 1991

A story of how an elder brother taught his sibling to drive a bicycle. Almost everybody will be able to relate their own corresponding personal experiences with this story.

4) Gagansundar. Writer: Shibayan Ghosh, Date 1991

This was published as a "Sampurno Upanyas" (a novel completed in two issues of the magazine). It tells the story of a boy named Gagansundar, who, due to his father's professional requirements, had to move from the familier life in Kolkata to rural West Bengal. His classmates used to make fun of his unusual name, his dark skin complexion and his cross-eyed face. How he overcame those formed the crux of the story.

5) Goenda Tatar er Tritiyo Obhijan, Writer: Sastipada Chattopadhyay, Date 1991

This was also published as a "Sampurno Upanyas". A typical Sastipada thriller, where a not-so-subtle romantic inkling is played between two characters. Not a great story at all, but love it just for the nostalgia.

6) Ma Aschen, Writer: Atin Bandopadhyay. Date: 1992

In September 1992, Anandamela organized a Puja Special issue, where 10 different stories of different genre were published. There were thrillers, Sci-fi, fairy-tales as well as, some simple heart-melting stories. Ma Aschen, literally meaning "Arrival of mother" was one of them. The story deals with an young boy who stays with his dad in rural Bengal. His mother works in Kolkata and rarely visits them. She has notified that she'll come for a vacation during Durga Puja. This story revolves around the particular day she's supposed to arrive at home. The anticipation of the young boy, how he roams around and tells everyone he meets that his mom's going to come home -- simply magical. This is one of the most beautiful short stories I have ever read in Anandamela.

7) Kopaler nam Gopal, Writer: Ashapurna Debi. Date: 1993

Two cousins went to fair and bought lottery tickets. The first prize -- a brand new cycle. Will any of them win it? This story again deals with the simple joys of life that are visibly absent in the so-called "thrillers" published in present day Anandamela.

 So long for the day. I will dig into my brain and try to compile more such lists.