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April 2002 |
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Letter from U.S.A. |
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Whose Lagaan is it anyway?
By Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
With
Bhuvan's XI finding the winning run elusive, Team Lagaan will not exactly
return to a hero's welcome. For a film that was as much about cricket, as
concerning a fictional chapter in nascent Indian nationalism, the events
in Los Angeles evoked a painful feeling of déjà vu for a nation that was
made to believe that here was the finest Indian film ever made. For
generations, the lack of "killer instinct" in the sporting arena
has been one of the major talking points while discussing the failures of
Indian sports. In recent years, it needed the minnows from Zimbabwe to
establish that the Indian cricket team did not always "choke",
after all. For those who were hopeful of Lagaan bagging the coveted
trophy, it has been a case of a familiar story once again. Billed by
Bollywood bigwigs and sections of the media as a "sure winner",
Aamir Khan has only flattered to deceive and has - to use a common
cricketing phrase - snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Predictably,
members of Team Lagaan used analogies from the playing arena to get over
the bitter feeling of defeat. Arguments ran thus: "After all even
Sachin Tendulkar gets caught in the deep while trying to give the final
push. This does not mean that he is not a great player." But in ways
more than one, the collective urban angst at not bagging the Oscar had
more to do with the hype surrounding the nomination of the film and less
with the failure per se. It is not just that the crew of Lagaan has been
disappointed. But, the sentiment has been widespread among Indians who had
been following the travails of the films in the media. With the likes of
Parmeshwar Godrej lending more than a helping hand, the feeling had gained
ground that Lagaan winning the Oscar was a certainty. Being confident does
not mean one has to be brazen and this is one count on which Lagaan
publicists can be faulted. Expectations were raised to a feverish pitch
and national pride equated with Lagaan winning the Oscar. After
all, this was not the first Indian film to have been nominated for the
Oscars. While the episode surrounding Mother India falling at the final
round can be dismissed as being from a time when few Indians had heard of
the Academy Awards, Salaam Bombay came in the thick of the growing
yearning among urban Indians of acquiring a foreign certification for
something that was completely Indian. But Mira Nair's film had fewer
pre-awards' night write-ups in Indian papers (we did not have much of TV
at that time). The film also did not have the kind of support from
Bollywood that Lagaan had. This was probably because the filmmaker was not
a "homegrown" product of the industry and also because the theme
of the film was a trifle unnerving for denizens of the city. After all,
Nair's heroes were the very people that had little space in the scripts
that the Dream Merchants churned out year after year. There
are two aspects to Team Lagaan's tryst with failure: the film per se and
the larger issues concerned with its bid for the Oscars. While putting on
record that I do not have a position against popular Indian cinema, I have
a confession to make: despite having read the most damning review that the
film was "about a cricket match whose result all knew", I made
two attempts to watch Lagaan. Both went in vain and I could not reach the
stage where Aamir Khan makes the final 20 runs in three overs to win the
match for Bhuvan's XI. In terms of theme, Lagaan had nothing new: it was
about common people led by a strong individual who inspired his group to
stand their ground against oppression. There is nothing new in this story
line and films like Naya Daur and Sholay left little that could be taken
forward. Where Lagaan could have scored was technical virtuosity,
simplicity and precision. But while it scored on the first two counts, the
filmmakers often got confused over what kind of film they were trying to
make. I
have seen and reviewed enough films to claim in all fairness that Lagaan
was a trifle simplistic in its treatment of the main colonial drama and
grossly melodramatic in its portrayal of cricket in the nineteenth
century. In terms of details, Lagaan continued with the distortions of
various Indian dialects like most Hindi films and both the director and
the editor were clearly conservative when it came to clipping sequences.
But for the moment, the debate on the aesthetic qualities of Lagaan is not
of importance when compared to the manner in which the build up to the
Oscars was managed. What
would have happened if the umpires had given Team Lagaan the benefit of
doubt? One shudders at the thought but it is likely that the hype would
have been akin to 1994 when it was sought to be rammed down our throat
that Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai had been the most beautiful women to
have emerged out of the Indian womb. True the damsels in questions are
owners of very proud bodies. But, to say that no one of such perfection
had walked the Indian ramps prior to them would be a travesty of justice. The
global beauty industry needed icons in the early 1990s and they found able
partners in a section of Indian business and media in the quest to push
the sales of "fairness creams" to new heights. It was all thus
very convenient: you market cosmetics and other accessories of the fashion
industry while declare undying concern for the poverty-stricken populace
of the nation. The trend has become so fashionable now that even male
contestants in Mr India shows now say that they want to queue up behind
Mother Teresa on the way to heaven. If that was hypocrisy at its starkest
then equating Lagaan with the best that Indian cinema has to offer is the
latest instance of a nation that is increasingly looking up at pygmies to
become national icons. If
we try to identify the majority of people behind Lagaan's bid at the
Oscars one finds that the list comprises the same "happening
people" from a particular social class who made the Indian beauty
contestants into celebrities. The people who once lobbied at the Miss
Universe and Miss World contests held in exotic locales were the ones who
once again put their best foot forward at Los Angeles. That a large
section of the media trumpeted the claims of these "happening
people" only indicates that the old "projects" are becoming
stale and new "concerns" have to be identified. This
year it was the turn of Lagaan, next year it might be the latest designer
on the ramp and the third year we could be in for something completely
unexpected. The only conditions that would apply for being promoted such
is that there should be a touch of Indianness, a market-friendly attitude
and be open to manoeuver. This is all part of the make believe world that
the cloistered few would like to revel in. Oscars, beauty pageants and
fashion shows are of greater relevance. Real issues that affect the nation
are not of primary concern because lagaan - the hardships, affects not
these handful of Indians
This
was first published in March 26, 2002 edition of
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