S. Sukhdev, Film-maker: A Documentary Montage

Citation preview

Storage PN 199% -A3 $22 S14 1984

The

Provided by

Wov

Library of Congress

7 185

Special Foreign Currency Program S.

Sukhdev,

: a documentary

montage

(compiled) by Jag Mohan. -- Pune : National Film Archive of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1984.

186

p.,.

Articles, 1933-1979. Rs35.00

fa

film-maker

85-901896

1/28/85

92

[8]

p.

of

plates

reminiscences,

vps

:

ill.

etc.,

ENG

;

on

22

S.

cm.

/

Sukhdev,

I E 49394

S. Y

SUKHDEV FILM-MAKER

A DOCUMENTARY

MONTAGE

by

JAG MOHAN

NATIONAL

FILM

ARCHIVE

OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PUNE 411004 1984

ore

P, N / q 7

© Copyright National Film Archive of India

AB S22 Si4

|7 94

Published by: PUBLICATIONS DIVISION MINISTRY OF INFORMATION & BROADCASTING PATIALA HOUSE NEW DBLHI-110001 ON BEHALF OF NATIONAL FILM ARCHIVE OE INDIA, PUNE-411004

Printed at The Central Electric Press, 80-D Kamla Nagar, Delhi-110007.

NOTE ABOUT DOCUMENTARY

MONTAGE

After having edited journals and books and after having written scripts for over 30 documentaries over a period of as many years, I stumbled upon what I choose to call ‘Documentary Montage.” This

happened

when

I was

compiling

friend, the late Sukhdev Singh Sandhu,

Sukhdev

and

familiarly

this book

more

called just Sukh.

Sukhdev published during the last 25

on

famously

my

dearest

known

as

The material on and by

years in my

was considerable. This had become “documents”

private archive

overnight—after

the all too sudden, premature death of Sukhdev on March I, 1979 at

Delhi. Through these documents one could trace the emergence of Sukhdev as one of the most brilliant film-makers of his time, who

had outstripped his predecessors and contemporaries. And, the void casused by his death cannot be—and will not be —filled in for some time to come. The documents

in my

could be called: ‘Thus

collection

fell into two

categories. One

Spake Sukhdev’’/““Thus Wrote Sukhdev’’.

His writings, both in prose and poetry, and the interviews he had given to a few journalists belonged to this category. They plotted the graph of his career as a film-maker of both documentaries and feature films. Fortunately, he happened to be an ebullient personality, volatile and loquacious in talk and expressive with an individual vigour of his own in writing.

One could sense his personality through the written and spoken words, There was the authentic feel. And one could detect his despair over the tortuous frustrations he had because of his battles

with censors and bureaucrats, with friends and critics alike. All

through these first-person-singular writings one

the missionary zeal he had for

the

could also notice

Documentary—its

role

in

national life and its future. He was a passionate believer in the Documentary being made a tool for the development of the nation. This belief is a continuing thread through all his writings and pronouncements included in this book. Into the second category fell all the other pieces. They were writings by others on him—and his films, written at various times. Some were reviews; some, interpretations; some, factual compilations; and some, tributes.

After his death in harness, a spate variety of journals written by friends not pious obituaries dutifully written. rugged, abrasive and controversial, as he

of articles appeared in a and colleagues. They were Some were as rough and was in his life-time. Some

turned the spotlight on some obscure and little known aspects of

his life and career. It was at this stage that I invited a few people closely associated with him to send in their memoirs, reminiscences, assessments of his films or just tributes. Quite a few replied; a few did not. Out of all this wealth of material

that

I collected,

the form

of

this book took shape. At first glance, it looked a rich tapestry in which the warp was from his friends and associates and the woof was from his own writings and interviews. On closer look, it looked that the book would not be one more run-of-the-mill memorial book of sentimental tributes, with blah-blah eulogies and goody goody statements. The portrait of Sukhdev that emerged was a four-dimensional one out of this tapestry of words, Sukhdev’s thoughts in 1957 or 1958, his views in 1965 or

1979, his comments

on his problems at various other times were there. Reviews of his films by diverse hands and comments on them from the Prime Minister and Satyajit Ray downwards traced the course of his career as a film-maker. The memoirs, reminiscences and remembrances of things past of others provided a time-frame sequence —though

not

necessarily

in

absolute

chronological

continuity.

There was a certain amount of going forward and backward, obviously entailing a bit of overlapping. This was inevitable. Ina way, certain important aspects of Sukhdev got special emphasis. The repetitions, not constituting more than two or three per cent in the text, were found to be worthwhile. Ultimately I stumbled on the concept of the ‘Documentary Montage”. Why not edit this book in a cinematic manner, more suited to the subject? Why not Sukhdev be presented in an authentic

manner with his real voice expressing his real feelings and real thoughts? : Why not allow the other real people who were involved with

about

him

the

and

man

who had

and

seen

his films

his work. And,

to say what

why

they

wanted

should I interfere just

because I happened to be the compiler and editor? Why should! cut and chop all this material and try to form a pattern

often

used

in literary works? Why have a continuous story with all those “Sukh said this’’...‘the said that”, and ‘‘so-and-so remarked” and “such and such person commented.”

I decided that I would do a book in the manner and spirit of a documentary film as Sukhdev would have made—with cuts and inter-cuts,

with

dramatic juxtapositions

and

smooth

transitions,

with first-person-singular and _ third-person-singular narratives jostling with one another, with plain facts and figures intermixed. Such is ‘Documentary Montage”’—the result of the impact of the art of the Documentary Film on literary material. Having been

conversant with both books and films over a period of time, I found

thisa fascinating exercise. All the more so because it was very much

like the work of collage painters. Photographs of Sukhdev

and stills from his films add a further dimension.

As such it is being submitted to the reading public, most of whom may have known Sukhdev or about him. There may be others of the coming generation who have now lost the chance of knowing the man, though his films will survive for a long time to come and will be available for them to see. For them Sukhdev’s own words are here as well as the words of testimony from those who knew him, warts and all. This is no festschrift (garland of tributes) to a dead enfant terrible; nor is it an anthology of his writings. From the contents, it can be gathered that it is like a documentary-cumnewsreel compilation out of the coverages by many people, including

Sukhdev.

Assembling this ‘“‘Documentary’’ was no easy task at all as it apparently looks. Establishing shots, continuity shots, carrying

over commentary over transitions, jump cuts, freeze shots and zoom shots had to be provided with the literary medium. And I as the compiler and editor had to exercise my right not merely because I happen

to be so but because for over quarter of a century Sukhdev

had been one of my four closest friends. The personalised postscript gives a finishing touch to this book.

This book is affectionately dedicated to the memory of Sukhdev for having done so much for the qualitative improvement of the Documentary Film through his own films during his short life. New Delhi March 15, 1981

JAG MOHAN

CONTENTS

SUKHDEV

1

R.LP.

FLASHBACK Rebel Film-maker (1968) : Jag Mohan The Documentary in Theory and Practice: S. Sukhdev

5 10

Is it a Farewell to Documentaries?: S. Sukhdev Sukhdev: A Memoir: Sudarshan Sharma Sukhdev the Creator: Anand B. Saran

19 25 29

About Four Films of Sukhdev

31

Poetic Musings: S. Sukhdev “«My Love’’ Nearly Killed Me:

35 42

(Interview) Mohan Bawa

“India ‘67”

47

The Indian Documentary Film in 1967: Asok Mitra Mass Message Mediun: S. Sukhdev

49 53

Journalist with a Camera: K.N. Subramaniam

56

Review of ‘Nine Months of Freedom’’: Jag Mohan 60 Sukhdev: While Shooting and Editing: Jag Mohan 63 On “‘Thunder of Freedom’’: (Interview) Vikram Chopra 1 Documentaries: Crisis of Credibility : (Interview) Suresh Kohli 76 Review of ‘‘After the Silence’ : Jag Mohan 83 The Political Fall-out in Bihar: A. Raghavan 86 On ‘‘After the Silence’’: (Interview) Raghu Shergil 90 Golden Peacock for ‘‘After the Silence’ 95 Film-maker’s Purpose: S. Sukhdev 96 The Last Interview: Aruna Vasudev 104

POST-MORTEM Death of a Major Talent: M. Shamim

111

Condolence Meeting (Delhi) ; and Resolution Sukhdev Remembered: Anees Jung Genius, Clown, Friend Extraordinary: Partap Sharma

114

Sukh and his “Dukh”’ : Partap Sharma

_

U6 119

126

Remembering Sukhdev: S.V. Vasudev

As K. Vaikunth Remembers Him: Ali Peter John A Dialogue with Sukhdev at Leipzig: Neil I. Perera Who killed Sukhdev 7: (Anon—‘‘India Today’’)

This Doomed Caravan of Talent: K.4. Abbas Sukh as I Knew Him: N.V.K. Murthy Stray Thoughts on a Friend: B.D. Garga Auteur of the Indian Documentary : Chidananda Das Gupta Apology for Sukh Chacha: Neelima Mathur In Memoriam : Sarala Jag Mohan F.N. Souza’s Tribute Personal Postscript : Jag Mohan Filmography : (Sukhdev’s compilation) Brief History List of Award Winning Films Sukhdev’s Films in the Films Division Collection Acknowledgments

134 138 141 144 147 153 156 158 161 163 164 165 176 178 172 182 187

SUKHDEV R.LP. Jag Mohan

The

final fade-out

of S. Sukhdev

7.30 p.m. at the recording

studio

came

of the

on March 1, 1979 at

Centre

for

Educational

his

wish

Technology (NCERT), near I.1.T. New Delhi. A massive heart attack felled this sturdy Jat Sikh (originally from Ludhiana) in ~ a

matter

five the was film

of seven

or

eight

minutes.

As

was

during

of his earlier heart attacks, he died in harness—recording for CET film, ‘‘Khilone’’, scripted and directed by Rina Gill. (It Rina Gill who had done the research and script for Sukhdev’s on bonded labour. As a gesture of goodwill to her, Sukhdev

had also shot the film.)

Sukhdev had come into Delhi after hectic shooting at Bangalore just that afternoon. He was on his way to Rohtak for another spell of shooting. His unit had already gone there by car. He was

negotiating a deal with a friend and Sukh insisted on concluding the deal with a bottle of Remy friend,

Raj

Pal

Chaudhury,

Martin

was

(French)

waiting

Brandy. And

for him.

his

Sukh had also

asked the late O.P. Kohli to meet him at the Press Club and bring along a couple of bit-role players for his Rohtak film.

At about seven in the evening while working with T.R. Madhok,

re-recording for the film, he asked for a glass of water. One of the assistants went to fetch the water. Madhok also went to attend a

phone call. By the time both of them returned Sukhdev had already

slumped and life was ebbing away. Artificial respiration was administered. And he was rushed tothe All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The doctors pronounced him dead. One moment he was alive. A few moments later he had passed into the Great Unknown in the midst of the sound-recording equipment.

On that day ended the 25-year career of Sukhdev as the most intrepid, ubiquitous, vocal, talented documentary film-maker. During this quarter century, Sukhdev revolutionised the Indian documentary film, both in content and technique, bagged innumerable awards, here and abroad, created controversies and established bridges of understanding through his film with people here and else-

2 where. If Satyajit Ray has brought renown to this country with his feature films, then Sukhdev did likewise with his documentaries. Those

who

have

seen

Sukhdev’s

films

over

the years, cannot

easily forget the images of people and of the country that he recorded on celluloid with his “Third Eye’’. The “‘Camera Eye” had

become

addition

an

integral

part

to his limbs, He

ease.

of his system

manipulated

both

and

the tripod,

with deftness

an

and

The first film of his, which won praise from famous film-makers like Lindsay Anderson and Andrej Wajda was ‘‘And Miles To Go”, in spite of the merciless chopping by the then Chairman of the Censor Board (Dilip Kothari). This film, with its stark images of poverty and squalor in contrast with images of the indolent rich, earned from him the Special Jury Award—the Golden Tiger—at the 1965 International Film Festival of India, New Delhi. The way he

handled

the zoom lens in this film started a trend imitated by

others since then.

Golden Peacock Sukhdev scored a distinction when he bagged yet another award, this time the Golden Peacock from the same Festival—IFFI 1977 with his film on bonded labour, ‘‘After the Silence” This film on.

human bondage revealed the sordid lives of farmers and

with candid

shots. He

prostitutes

even managed to interview an all-powerful

exploiter of bonded labourers, then behind bars. Subsequently, this man tried to get this film withdrawn from the theatres political pressure.

Sukhdev’s workroom

by exerting

and den at Rock House, Worli, Bombay,

was always cluttered up with medals, trophies, plaques and certificates. He was a Padma Shri and he was the youngest (36) among

men

to have received this

honour at that time.

He

won

five

national awards, which he received from five different Presidents of India,

two

Filmfare awards and other awards from Venice, Berlin,

Edinburgh, Leipzig, Mannheim, Karlovy Vary, Cracow film festivals. Two

earned

of his documentaries,

which

became

world

and

famous

other and

for him a dozen awards from abroad were ‘India ’67” and

“Nine Months To Freedom’.

3 For shooting ‘‘India ’67’’ Sukhdev travelled 15,000 miles all over

India in a battered car recording fabulous images of people and places. Out of 20,000 feet of shot material, he edited the final film of 5,000 feet with a perfect understanding of the language of the Cinema and the principles of ‘“montage’’, a /a Eisenstein. This film with no commentary is a most eloquent tribute to contemporary India with all its agony and ecstasy. Re-titled as ‘An Indian Day”, it still is a memorable film, 12 years after it was made. The other documentary was ‘‘Nine Months To Freedom’”’, which narrated

the

saga

of the birth of Bangladesh.

Shot under different

circumstances, often at personal risk this film narrated

the travails

of the refugees and the valiant efforts of the Muktibahini.

The late

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had this film telecast and shown all over his country. It was also screened in Bombay and Delhi at morning shows. Among

his other films, mention may be made of a few : ‘“‘After

the Eclipse’, was a film on prison reform in which he was as much before the camera as behind it, for he played the lead role in this story-type documentary.

“No Sad Tomorrow” was another film in which he acted the role of a drunkard with finesse. This prohibition film gave full scope to his histrionic talents. ‘‘Wild Life of India’, shot in eight sanctuaries was a tribute to the fauna and flora of India. One of the highlights of this film was a shot of two snakes mating, rarely filmed before. ‘‘A Village Smiles’ was a record of rural development in India, and “The New World of Power” likewise chronicled the rapid strides made in industrialisation. All the more remarkable were these achievements because Sukhdev stayed only for two years in college and did not have any formal training in any film institution. Whatever he learnt about film-making was from Paul Zils. After Zils left India, Sukhdev founded his United Film Arts in 1958 and started off on his own. Through intensive work and total dedication, he learnt everything about films. He was a man possessed while shooting and editing. Sukhdev made only one feature film—‘‘My Love”, featuring Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore. Even though it was just

another Hindi film and did not fare well, it was remarkable in two

4 respects.

It was

partly

shot

car rally was the highlight.

in Kenya—an

unusual locale—and a

An Auteur Sukh has acted in some feature films too—in James Ivory—Ismail Merchants’ “The Guru”, K.A. Abbas’ “Sat Hindustani” and in a Punjabi feature film produced and directed by Dara Singh. In this Punjabi film, alongside Dara Singh, who played the lead role, Sukhdev lived the role. Sukhdev

was

much

more

than a director-producer. He was an

auteur—a film-maker in complete control of all aspects making at all stages. He was his own cameramen and the

editors.

of filmbest of

Marie Seton, filmologist and author of biographies of Eisenstein and Satyajit Ray among others, once wrote of Sukhdev’s film thus :

“‘Sukhdev’s films reveal an increasing mastery of genuine

cinematic

language and an awareness common to many outstanding documentary directors of the impact of social realities, when handled with an immediate intimacy.” One can hardly improve on this tribute. No feature history of Indian Film or of the Documentary Movement can afford to ignore Sukhdev. The corpus of films he left behind entitle him to a page, if not more, in any such book.

REBEL

FILM-MAKER

(1968)

Jag Mohan

(This is a slightly enlarged version of an article originally published in “Filmworld” (Vol 5, No 2 of 1968—J.M.)

When Sukhdev was informed that he was due to become a “Padma Shri”—an honour conferred on distinguished persons by the President of India on the Republic Day each year—he was quite

confused

and

embarrassed.

Looked

at

from

one

angle,

it

meant official recognition of his talents as a film-maker. In 1968, he was said to be the youngest among men to be conferred this

distinction.

But,

from

another

angle,

this meant

an anti-climax.

Because, from the time of the Third International Film Festival of India, when his ‘“‘And Miles To Go” was awarded the Golden

Bengal Tiger as the Special Prize of the Jury, he had built up an image before the public through his films and life as an enfant

terrible anda rebel, a non-conformist and an anti-Establishment film-maker.

When interviewed at his hotel room, the Day, Sukhdev told a reporter : “‘Of course I more happy that the government authorities to the Documentary Fim and, that too, Movement in the Documentary.”

day after the Republic am happy, but I am have given recognition to the New Cinema

And he added, ‘‘I am happy that they have recognised my films in which the camera probes contemporary reality like a scalpel.”

Amita Malik had called him, “A Rebel witha Cause”. Chida-

nanda Das Gupta had hailed him as ‘India’s first Angry Filmmaker”. He had crossed swords with the Censor Board not only

over “And Miles To Go”’ but also over the

one

hour

long

“India

“67” and the one-minute long advertisement quickie on shoes in

which a man pilfers something and the latest style of shoes.

when

caught

shows

a pair of

Sukhdev has had a brush with the Chairman of the Jury for the National Film Awards some time ago, when his film, “After the Eclipse” was disqualified as a ‘documentary’ because it had

6 enacted scenes. He fought his case on a Delhi Television Progtamme, with the Chairman of the Jury G.D. Khosla and Amita Malik by his side. He lost the case but he paved the way for others to benefit. At a seminar organised by the Films Division, the concept of the “‘Documentary’’ was enlarged and revised to include enacted scenes by professional actors. Subsequently the Film Awards authorities accepted the new connotation. Then came ‘India ’67’’, a remarkable personalised of contemporary

India

in Eastmancolour.

Prime

interpretation Minister Indira

Gandhi remarked, in a letter to Sukhdev that ‘‘it is sensitive and made a well-rounded and thoughtful statement in contemporary language’. But the then Deputy Prime Minister Morarji Desai dismissed it as a film “of which I cannot make head or tail.”

The real bright feather in Sukhdev’s cap (or should it be turban, since he is a Sikh) came from the organisers of the San Francisco International Film Festival. In their 1968 programme-book, they hailed him with the following words : “‘One can point to the young

film-maker

Sukhdev,

as the Indian Cinema’s new Eisenstein—a

discoverer of truth, who suddenly bursts upon the scene witha brilliant, visionary power. “India ’67” is an exciting debut not to be missed.”

Early Life A “Padma thirties with achievement. Sikh peasant original name and Sandhu

Shri” for a documentary film-maker in his midthe background like that of Sukhdev is a creditable He was born on October 1, 1933 at Dehra Dun in a family, originally from Sanewal near Ludhiana. His was Sukhdev Singh Sandhu. The Singh was dropped was contracted to an initial prefixed to his name. The

family moved over

to

Bombay.

But

Sukhdev

lost his father,

the

bread-winner when he was in school at Don Bosco’s in Matunga. His mother, sister and brother-in-law did help him to get into

college. A rebel that he has been always, he cut off his hair, shaved

off his beard and discarded the turban, the comb and the bracelet while studying at Khalsa College and he lost his stipend for violating the Khalsa ideals. Sukh tried to enter feature films in some

since the cinema

had

capacity

a lure for him. This was

or the

inevitable.

other,

For

7 among his college-mates were Shashi Kapoor, Gulzar and the late K.L. Saigal’s son. The first feature film director, a fellow Sardarji, under whom he worked, expected him to be assistant while shooting and a chamcha at home. Poor Sukhdev had to teach his children English, run errands for his wife and also do odd jobs, Finally he left service because of an odd but significant incident. One day, Sukhdev had been to see “Julius Caesar’? a film based on the Shakespearean play. When his boss made enquiries, Sukhdev discovered that the producer-director had never “heard of Shakespeare among Bombay’s story and dialogue writers.’’ That finished Sukhdev’s apprenticeship. It was under

Paul Zils, the German

documentary

film-maker,

who had been in India for a decade and a half, that Sukhdev began

tackling the film medium at all levels. Zils was in second period of hey-days. He was back in documentaries after his debacles with his feature films, ‘Our India” and ‘‘Zalzala”. He was making films along with his partner, Fali Bilimoria. Sukhdev joined him first as an assistant editor and in a short while became Zils’ assistant and right-hand man. It was then that Sukhdev

small

roles

in the

met Kanta

documentaries.

Puri, who

In the film,

used to play

“A Village

in the

Punjab” she played the role of Sukhdev’s sister, little anticipating that a few years later, she was to become his wife. (Sukhdev has a daughter, Shabnam. Incidentally Shabnam is “Chutki” in “After the Eclipse’ and Kanta is the wife who comes to see the convict Sukhdev, in that film.)

Within three years of his joining brilliant film compilation on the career and stock shots. This film, not seen force. It was birthday gift to Zils, done

Paul Zils, Sukhdev made a of Zils out of photographs by the public was a tour de secretly behind his back.

Soon after, Sukhdev directed his first film, “Wazir, the Kaghzi’’, a film on the hand-made paper industry sponsored by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission and produced by Zils.

AFA to UFA Zils left a great impact on Sukhdev. Not only all aspects of filmmaking did he master under him, but he also travelled far and wide

in India and Ceylon. He inherited Zils’ flamboyance in dress and living, the love for recorded music, professional efficiency, flair for public relations and spendthriftiness. Sukhdev’s firm, United Film Arts—UFA—was so named by way of homage to the famed German UFA Studios where Zils had his grounding and about which Zils talked often. Sukh also wanted to establish the continuity of the traditions of the German “Kultur Film.” During the last decade, Sukhdev had made a registering steady progress in the mastery of his in his independent career, he dispensed with the only a joiner and he edited his films himself.

wide range of films, medium. Very early editor. He needed Later, he dispensed

with the cameraman. He needed only an assistant to check the

meter and distances. He began to wield the camera himself. Even in sound recording, he became an expert, always handling the knobs on the panel while recording. And, invariably, a /a Hitchcock, he began to make his presence

felt in his films. In the early days, he could be seen in a shot or

two. Or his voice could be heard now and again. Later on, he began to act the lead roles in the feature-type documentaries like “No Sad Tomorrow” (a film on Prohibition made for the Films Division) and ‘After the Eclipse” (a film on jail reform made for Khadi and Village Industries Commission.) He has now become a thorough auteur in the true sense of the word with complete control of his films at all stages. Incidentally he has scripted most of his films and he has even written commentaries. It is exactly because of his being an auteur that “India ’67” was such a personalised interpretation of India—one man’s total vision of India, with his signature stamped on every frame of the film and on every inch of the sound track. Sukhdev has certainly come a long way from the days when he used

to make

films for Anand B. Saran of the Khadi and Village

Industries Commission. Nearly a decade ago, when he made ‘“‘The Saint and the Peasant’’ and ‘“‘Man the Creator’’, they had his

imprint. And they have been screened at the Edinburgh, London, Frankfurt, Locarno and Mannheim Film Festivals. Since then he

had made films on wild life sanctuaries, castor, film homages to Lal Bahadur Shastri and Jawaharlal Nehru—all for the Films Division. About ten of his films are in the Films Division collection already.

9 This year, Sukhdev’s first feature film, “My Love’’ featuring Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore, shot in East Africa and India, is due for release. And he is due to venture into a colour biography of Mirza Ghalib featuring Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari in this year of Ghalib Centenary. He is also to direct a film for Sunil Dutt—a film about violegce and non-violence—set in Rajasthan. “India’s own type of Western, it will be,” said Sukhdev. His career as a feature film director will have to be chronicled later. I only hope he continues to make documentaries and other short films even while making feature films in the years to come. May it be well with him, as the Todas of the Blue Mountains say.

THE DOCUMENTARY IN THEORY PRACTICE

AND

S. Sukhdev

Here is one of the very early articles written by Sukhdev within a year of his joining Paul Zils’s Art Films of Asia unit. This was published in ‘Indian Documentary’’ (Oct-Dec 1956) edited by me and published by Paul Zils. In this particular article, Sukhdev revealed a remarkable understanding of documentary-making. He improved Grierson’s definition by adding one word. And, though he was a college drop-out. he had the gift of thea-. language. J.M.

This is the beginning of a documentary film. A telegram

Gram

from

a

Sevak in a new refugee town of Uttar Pradesh brings the

urgent news: “HARVEST STARTING TWENTY OCTOBER STOP COME IMMEDIATELY.”

SIXTH

News like this is like an air-raid signal. You must run for cover but here, for shooting! A film on rehabilitated farmers cannot be complete without the harvest sequence. Everybody is fired with excitement. There is an urgent session of the various members of the film unit. The cameraman, the assistant director, the scriptwriter and the research-worker are all summoned for an emergency conference with the Chief. Carefully the final instructions are dished out. “Starting tomorrow at noon. Reaching Agra next evening. Changing into another train at night, reaching Kescha...changing... reaching, changing, etc, etc.’? The Chief looks up from the railway guide-map and smiles at us. I know what is tickling in his heart— and that is why he always tries to smile, whenever we come to the end of a planning for a new film. As a last measure of precaution, he gives a meaningful glance to the research-worker, and hopes everything would be alright. Sure enough, it is alright from the very beginning! On October 26, the day we are scheduled to leave, we are still organising a retake for another documentary at 2 p.m. The Director arrives at

2.30. We barely finish shooting by three! And the train for Agra

leaves at 3.45! On the way to the railway station, I buy a sleeping suit and tooth-brush for the journey and, as we are hurriedly

11

loading our equipment into the train in a topsy-turvey

manner,

my

heart almost misses a beat as I head the cameraman yelling to his assistant. ‘‘Where’s the camerabox and the tripod?’’ I start cursing

someone.

The first train-whistle is given. We are still mystified about the missing camera and the tripod as our research-worker pops his head out of the air-conditioned coach and coos diplomatically, “Hey boys, what are you waiting for?

Get in quick, the train’s moving out.” “Thanks for the information brother,” I said, “but where is our

camera?”

“Why, I got it the first thing in my up...’’, he puts in.

compartment...

now

hurry

I breathe a sigh of relief and whisper, “Good thing you did brother. I think we'll need the camera there!” The engine gave out a muffled roar. The guard waved

flag. We

ran for

our

campartment

the journey began toa strange and making of a documentary film.

his green

and, like many a time before,

unknown

destination for the

Studios and Paddy Fields Sitting in the crowded train compartment, I tried to kill boredom by humming a film song—a feature film song. As I sat there, I also thought of many other things and many other places. I thought of the studios, the smell of grease-paint, the false whiskers and beards, the artificial walls, decorations and make-up. Above all, I thought of the glamour ‘queens’ and Roman-looking ‘heroes’, who sing songs while laughing or weeping; while eating or sleeping, songs like the one that I was humming to kill boredom in the train. Then I thought of the strange places we were heading for—the green harvest fields, the quiet and peaceful villages bathed in the glory

of Nature.

There

would

be the

village

maidens,

returning

home from the village well, with shiny brass pots balanced on their proud heads; and may be, an old man, almost hundred years old, resting in the hot summer afternoon under the shadows of a giant banyan tree. Then there would be the cool, fresh breeze from the mountains, scented with the sweet fragrance of freedom. And then,

12 as our research friend had

disclosed there would be the

“musketeers””—mosquitoes—anxiously waiting for us! How

Terai

different is the world of the documentary from the make-

believe world of film in the studios. But there is a challenge, a challenge of the documentary, the moment the film camera begins

the “effort to record and interpret the life of the real people, in their real settings.’ This is the time when the director should give up the comfort and luxury of the air-conditioned studios, and shed off the disguise of artificiality and make-up, and come out into the open, into the field of reality, into the field of documentary. This is the challenge of the documentary. In my career of film-making, I have found it easier to control a fighting mob of 500 strong in the studio than to induce a village belle to fill a pitcher of water from the village well and walk towards her home, a thing she has been doing since the day she first came to fetch water from that well, and a thing she would keep on doing in that village until she gets married and goes to the home of her man in another village.

The Camera and the People Everybody is entitled to at least one odd wish in this mortal world. And I have one, too. Sometimes, after a full day’s work on location shooting, I sit back in a lonely corner and say to myself : «How 1 wish I could shoot a documentary film without a camera!”

It is only an odd wish, as I have said. But it is really strange, and rather tragic to realize what the movie camera can do to a man who has never seen it before. I have come across people who forget

to walk in their normal way in front of the camera, who forget how

to address their dear ones in their own homes, and who even forget how to order a cup of tea in a restaurant that they frequent. Such is the magic of the movie camera for a man who has never seen it before! This may be the tragedy of documentary film-making,

but

then,

this is also the challenge. It is the measure of strength and patience

with which you meet this challenge on which the success of a docu-

mentary depends. And it is here, too that a documentary director has to prove his real worth. No doubt technical perfection helps to

13 better the quality but this is not all. of dust; it is only film direction, and

of a film and even supplement the overall effect, A film may not have a single scratch or sprinkle “the quality of human interest and sympathy in the use of a sensitive and perceptive camera to

show the natural scene, that hold the interest and draw the applause

of the audience.’ It is only the sincere ‘‘effort to record and interpret the life of the real people in their real settings” that can foster the art of true documentary.

It is this, and only this,

alternative or compromise that can North” or ‘The Louisiana Story.”

produce

and no

other

a ‘‘Nanook of the

Re-created Reality The true documentary, as I have read in some books by the great masters, and obten preached by many a present-day authority, is difficult to locate in our India. Dr. Grierson has said ‘‘Documentary is the creative interpretation of reality.” If I may be allowed to add a word to this very dignified quote to suit the present-day documentary climate, it would then

read;

‘Documentary

is the

creative

interpretation

of

RE-

CREATED reality!” To explain this I shall continue my journey to the Terai Plains where our unit had been filming the “New Life of a Displaced Person”’. After spending

thirty-eight restless hours

maddening jolts and discomfort Independence, we reached our

in the train in which

have luckily decreased location safely enough.

after The

instructions of the Chief were still ringing in my.ears : ‘Don’t miss

the harvest. If you reach there in the morning, start shooting in the afternoon. If you delay even a day, there won't be a single

straw left for you to shoot, etc., etc.””

So, there I was, the next morning in the rich and golden harvest fields, ready to capture on celluloid the most eagerly awaited

moment

of the season in a farmer’s life. The vast paddy fields

stretched out like an endless green carpet, framed in gold by the early morning sunlight. Our camera stood out like a Master of Ceremonies, Everything was gay and proper. I was happy. It was a fine start and the scenery was beautiful. I was eager to get the camera rolling. We whispered patiently

about

this and

that...and

we waited...and waited, but no farmer came to harvest the rich

14 fields ! Something had gone wrong. And I knew the troubles had begun ! The seemingly innocent and unsuspecting villagers, who had pro-

mised to help the previous night, suddenly changed their minds. Someone in the village, who was a learned fellow and knew a lot

about the phillum business did not like us at all. He told everybody what these phillum-wallahs are like. You should hear some of the things that go on in the shatudios. And the very idea of asking their women appear in front of the kamara. Our Chief arrived, a couple of days later just in time to witness the fun. Six times the shooting was fixed in various locations and with different groups of people. And everyone of them proved worse than the previous one. The phillum was taboo for those people and every time we fixed a shooting, it had to be cancelled just when we were ready for a take, There was always some wise bug who spoilt the show. But actually it was the Devil of Ignorance that was working against us. We were losing our precious time and money and patience—and worst of it all, we were losing the “‘real people in their real settings !”” No amount of persuasion, official pressure or religious fervour helped us to convince them about the sincerity of our purpose. All the people who had promised help to our research friend had backed out. Somebody had failed to gauge those people correctly, and had failed to impress them with the importance and earnestness of our purpose.

The New Technique Finally disgusted and puzzled, like a man who had lost his path

in a jungle at night, I prepared for the last resort.

Leaving our film

location in the Terai, I scouted in Delhi, Ludhiana and Jullundur and recruited people to act in our film. Although we were lucky in finding some very good “types” some real farmers and their families to act in the film I knew that they were not the ‘real people in their real settings.’ We were transporting some people to a strange place, moving them out of their ‘‘real’’ settings and making them live in a home that did not belong to them. We were asking them

to enact scenes that had no link whatsoever with their own lives.

We were trying to re-create scenes that had no first-hand link with the “real people in their real settings’’.

15 | We have not been the first people to do so. Every documentary unit, whether governmental or independent, has had to resort to this “technique”, if I can term it so. That is why I have dared to remark that most of the present day documentaries

interpretation

are “creative

of RE-CREATED reality.” This is not only true in

the case of India.

In other countries too,

believe in this and have used this technique.

documentary-makers

Having said this, I still want to be the first man to defend the documentary-maker. It is not that people in our country are incapable of producing pucca documentaries or are not sincere enough in their efforts, but the obstacles are

powering.

far too

many

and

too over-

Let me list a few for everybody’s consideration :

The Devil of Ignorance is one. For the umpteenth time I have seen the following story repeat itself with all kinds of people, from farmers to shop-keepers, from college students to lawyers and professors. Here is a typical meeting of a documentary man with the “people’’. I approach a mild-looking shop-keeper and whisper : ‘‘Excuse me, uncle, we are making a documentary film and there is a scene in which...”” I am cut short by a man at the other counter, obviously his partner, who yells to the man I am talking to. ‘‘What is it, Radheshyam ?” “‘Oh nothing,” coos the wise Radheshyam. “They are those gorment noos-wallahs, they want to take some Photus of our shop...”” And when I explained to him about our character, sitting in his shop as the shop-keeper, he flatly refused. “(How can somebody else sit on my shop ?” he protested. There are many prominent private institutions and generally

State

government

departments

the

who refuse to give active co-opera-

tion to a private producers of documentaries. Once I had approached a responsible enterprise for filming in their premises. I talked about dekumenteries and the worthy officer of that concern naturally

linked it with the gorment,

until unfortunately I happened to say

that this educational documentary about the

life of the

people

in

this ancient part of our country is sponsored by so-and-so. The clever executive pondered for a long minute and concluded : ‘‘That must be for publishity of that firm. And he would not allow us to shoot anything.

16 It is high time that some official measures are taken to help the worthy cause of documentary-making by granting private producers the same privileges as the gorment to carry on with the work. Let research workers concentrate more on the study of the real character of the people to be presented in a documentary. Apart from the purely geographical information about the location of the town school, the maternity hospital or the grain market, let them try to mix well with the people and try to be as one of them, so that we may have strong and authentic story backgrounds for our documentaries. Let a documentary

film unit be amazingly fast and technically

perfect in their job. It is tiresome

and

boring

to make

a farmer

pick up his plough and walk ten times through his fields—green or otherwise ! The director and his assistant should be experts at controlling their tempers, and be extra gentle in handling their raw and delicate artists from real life. If an assistant does not know how to handle a mill-mob coming out after work, he may have to go home

with

a fractured

skull

instead

of

a mighty

shot

millions coming out from the great working houses.

of the toiling

Cameraman and his Assistant It is needless to emphasize the importance of the cameraman ina documentary set-up. In a studio, you can ask the ‘hero’ to jump over the plaster wall as many times as you like or order a studio mob to attack the palace for the umpteenth time, but if you have missed a shot of a whole village being floated away in the floods, you may never get that shot again. It is very, very important to

capture

a documentary

shot

the very first time, because there are

some moments in our lives that will never be repeated again. And then, please look after your camera assistant as the gorment looks after visitors from Russia or some other country. Believe it or not, the assistant cameraman is a man who can drown you ! While shooting the Onam

Festival in Travancore,

assistant went slightly ‘out of mood.’

It was

rather

our camera

a

dull day.

The clouds looked very obstinate and very cleverly indeed, managed to shade the exact area of the river where we were shooting. I know we had overworked as usual and that the weather was not ideal for

perfect

shooting,

but then,

the festival could not be postponed to

17 an ideal photographic day. Somehow, I was praying to get a master shot. The great moment neared at last. I broadened my smile at the camera assistant and talked excitedly about the fine dinner that was awaiting us. We were shooting from the top of a bridge, looking down at the river. After two hours of patient waiting, I sighted the Onam Boats heading towards the bridge. Four giants, edge to edge, and oar to oar, presenting a mighty spectacle of the great Onam Festival, passed underneath the bridge. The camera clicked. I was excited. That was a million-rupee shot. “Wait till you see it in Bombay,’ I murmured to myself. I almost visualised the cheers in the preview theatre ! “Okay boys ?”” I inquired excitedly. The camera assistant was silent. I looked at him. The cameraman looked at him too, The assistant smiled like a friend. I really loved him when he smiled like that. “I’m sorry,”

he announced,

“I forget to fix the FOCUS !” I felt like jumping

into the river—after the Onam Boats!

On another occasion in our last film on the Terai, we gota report, after the negatives were developed : ‘‘Everything beautiful. Negative wonder. But one roll is MISSING !”” Now who will beat this. That was the prize roll about jungle clearance we had shot after covering the most difficult location of that picture—some 50 miles from our camp and many more miles into the jungle. Nobody knows till today what happened to that precious roll. God bless the camera assistants ! And

lastly,

but

not

the least, do not ever grudge the use of an

experienced “extra hand” for your production jobs on location. Once, we did not deem it necessary to hire a fellow fora few rupees a day. By trying to save on this we lost precious hours on location, because the man who was supposed to arrange our shootings, was

busy fetching the artists’ clothes from the laundry, was shouting at

the hotel-boys to round to the local while actually he responsible errand Well,

hurry up with the breakfast and was running bazar to get a feeding bottle for the crying baby, should have had been busy doing some more to speed up the work on location.

dear reader,

this has been

world of the documentary

my

humble experience in the

so far. I think

I should

say

more, because I have nothing else to say for the present.

nothing

18 If some of us can see light through our experiences and show it to those who are frank enough to feel the need of it, we shall all be in a better position in our “effort to record and interpret the life of the real people in their settings,” and then, definitely be better equipped to face this very responsible challenge—the challenge of the documentary.

IS IT A FAREWELL

TO

DOCUMENTARIES ?

S. Sukhdev

Cn this the second article published in the ‘Indian Documentary”, Sukhdev revealed his own progtess as a professional. This was published in ‘Indian Documentary’’ (about June, 1958) and, Sukhdev was prophetic too ! “Is it a

Farewell to Documentaries ? ’* he asked. And it became true when the Indo-

American Technical Programmes ground

Cooperation Mission’s and the Burmah-Shell’s film to a stop. Several documentary film producers faced

slump. The ‘Indian Documentary” was closed down soon after. Paul Zils called it a day

after ten years

of film-making

in India and returned to

F.R. Germany—J.M.)

In every walk of life, at some stage or the other, there comes a time when you must bid farewell to someone—say ‘‘Sayonara”’ to a

certain past. At a time like this you look back

and glance

over a

shoulder of the present at the past, standing behind, and slowly

receding into the distance. A few months back, I had said in “Bharat Jyoti” : ‘In India the documentary film is like an oasis of reality in the feature-film desert of artificiality.” Alas! The oasis is drying out now. There isn’t much water left in it today. The boom period of the independent documentaries seems to be over in India. The Peoples’ Film received a severe setback when the T.C.M. film programme chopped down its plans to a bare minimum. And when James Beveridge of National Film Board of Canada completed his term of office at the Burmah-Shell and, bid farewell to us

here, I knew it was our farewell to one of the finest documentary

activities in India. For some unknown reasons, which are attributed to “Government pressure,”’ the Burmah-Shell film programme has been stopped completely. Whatever the reasons, after these two giant sponsors have stopped making documentaries in India, there isn’t much water left in the oasis of reality! Apart from being a financial pinch, it is also a great creative loss to many, especially for some youngsters (like me) who have spent some of the best years of their youth learning the “art” of the documentary. And now, when the time has come for their show-

mapship, there is hardly any real show left at all! Nevertheless

the

last four years have been the proud years for any documentary-maker

20 in India. Many films of a highly creative calibre have seen the light

of day

during

this period.

A good lot has been done, a lot to be

remembered and constantly thought of as an inspiration for the years to come. And I can say one thing for certain ; documentarymaking is a great and grand experience. Not only that, it isa wonderful and exciting education in the toughest traditions of filmmaking. When you go out to make a documentary film, you

go out not

only as film technician, but also as a man well-experienced in the

ways of handling people—for it is no easy task to invade the privacy of a home or a temple with all the cumbersome film paraphenalia, and a film unit’s sure ways of upsetting everything while shooting!

Incident in a Temple I remember an incident in a village temple. The shooting was in full swing since early morning. The heat on location was doing its best to squeeze all the sweat out of our bodies, and it seemed as if we would all melt these troubles, a couple of wise “bugs” were forcing some hot communal arguments on the temple priest and objecting to some “suspected” Muslim members of our unit entering the temple. Now, as we were on no social crusade, we didn’t want to talk about the equality of all human beings and of the universal right of any man, of any faith, to enter a place of God. Arguments would mean waste of time. And keeping our Muslim brothers

out

of

the

temple,

would

mean

half the unit

down. So, with due apology to those Gods who could feel hurt, at a sacrilege like this, we used a little ‘“‘diplomacy” and changed our Khans to Rams! In the temple, our director-cameraman, surrounded by the multifarious idols of Gods and Goddesses, and agitated by heat and delay, forgot the code of the day and said, “Would you please,

Khan......!”

‘I pinched him before he could pronounce the last ‘n’ of Khan! The priest looked at us with terrible blood-shot eyes. And, I’m sure if he had any real holy powers, we would have immediately been turned into ashes. But his terror subsided as our wise cameraman—

2 the wisdom being the due effect of my pinch—said, “‘Oh yes, don’t

let Khan come here. Now Ram (he said to Khan) will you please .

move that thing a little ?””

“Move what? This?” And the fake Ram tried to touch an idol to shift it a little, so as to allow some light to fall on an object

behind it.

The priest moved like a panther. ‘‘No, no, no no, you can’t move the God! It has been here for generations and nobody has ever dared to push it.” Well,

the priest

was

right

in his wrath.

We filmwallahs, in our

usual hurry to capture the shot, often forget our surroundings and everything lying around becomes a prop as in the studios. But a documentary unit cannot afford to run out of patience and behave as people do on a hired stage. One false diplomatic move on location and, brother, the job’s off!

Chasing A Peacock On another occasion, we were hopping from one terrace-top to another in a village, chasing a peacock stealthily. The ‘‘scene”’ was a live peacock dance. Well...the peacock danced alright, sighing and swooning for his lost peahen, but the fellow was kind of a jittery peacock. He would do a small number on one terrace and then jump to another for the next one. At last, on the seventh terrace, when we caught him in a good style and the camera rolled impatiently, there popped up suddenly a white-bearded old Sikh gentleman—with a double-barrel gun! “‘Sh-sh-sh-sh !’’ I whispered to him softly. ‘“‘What are you doing on my terrace?’ He growled angrily. “Sh-sh-sh !’’ I sh-shed again. “What sh-sh-sh?”’ He yelled at me. “Don’t scare the peacock, please!” I pleaded. “I have not come to scare the peacock. I have come to scare

you!’

“Please,’’ I pleaded again.

“No please, please. Now get out of here. I know what you filmwallahs, are like. You have come to peep at my daughters and...!’”

He cut me short with a gesture of his double-barrel!

My

22 entreaties were of no avail. We learnt later that the old gent was an ex-military Kernal, and had a very sad love-life in some foreign land. Nevertheless, whatever his troubles, we missed our peacock-dance that day. Incidents like these are every-day affairs in documentary filming. In the T.C.M. style of films, which were mostly training films. there

was less of such troubles involved because, being the training type,

there was always some officials or specialized agency to help the unit around. And the people they had to deal with were the people whom that agency had rubbed shoulders with. But it is in pictures like the ‘‘Life in India” series of BurmahShell, that one had to really gear up to handle the people as they came—and no official ‘‘pressure’’ would be of much help. If you had tackled a village headman well, he may arrange for you to film in somebody’s home, which is really the most difficult thing to do in such films, If you had falled to convince that headman you may have to try another place ! The

village

series

of

Burmah-Shell,

initiated

by

James.

A.

Beveridge, had offered real scope for some of the finest documentaries in India. In fact this has been the only pucca dacumentary activity on large scale, apart from the Films Division.

TCM, Burmah-Shell and F.D. It was only after the coming of T.C.M. and Burmah-Shell that a widespread consciousness developed among the people and the film-makers. The Films Division is still not what it should be. For, let this not be misunderstood, if you mix politics and propaganda in your films, the documentaries cease to be documentaries for they

lose the real-life spirit of “documentary for the sake of documen-

tary,” and as such remain only propaganda shorts, It is not that all the Films Division films are bad. No Sir, there have been some

occasional

gems,

too.

But

they

are very few

often

lack

that

sense

indeed.

I think the

Films Division, always ina hurry to stick to its official schedule, often resorts to studio shootings and artificial sound effects cookedup in their ‘backyard.’ Most of their pictures appear to be artificial and

stagy

and

of reality, so important in

documentaries. It is unpardonable to build a refugee home ina studio, hang some dry fodder in a few corners and dress up a

23 couple of “extras” to resemble the sturdy village peasants and make them ‘act’ like refugees. In documentaries, my dear Sir, we do not bring a peasant home into a studio we take the studio to the peasant’s home. Today the trend is not only to send out the movie camera into the real homes and fields of the real people, but also the taperecorder to capture the real signs and songs of the real people in their real surroundings. It sometimes makes me laugh to see a “documentary

producer”

being born over-night in India. Anybody who has nothing to do, mostly the feature film failures, becomes a documentary producer by making a seventy-five feet ‘quickie’ about some Greasy Hair Oil or equally Greasy Soap ! It is really a great pity to note that there is no substantial short film education in India. Why don’t our people still differentiate between a publicity short and a documentary film, a training film

and a travelogue. I wonder who should take up this responsibility of education about the short films. Should it be the

Who else can?

Films

Division?

With the closing down of T.C.M. and Burmab-Shell, the future of the private sector of documentary producers is rather dark and unpredictable. The one way to survive for most of them is to “queue up for the quickies’ and be at the doorstep of the adver-

tising agencies. In doing so, some of them will no doubt secure the

necessary bread and butter, but for heaven's sake what about the creative side of film making? Frankly speaking the publicity shorts here can be anything but creative.

On the other side of the game, some State governments, and even the Films Division, offer such low rates of production, that one is compelled to insert a few stock-shots or do ‘‘stock-shot shooting,” to make both ends meet. And on top of that, the authorities want to cut this and cut that as they please, constantly harping on raw stock and foreign exchange. And that too often from a final finished film which results in disconnected visuals and painfully jerky sound tracks. The pattern of life these days is: Accept low rates, reduce your staff, chop their salaries, and cut each other’s throats by under-

24 quoting. Make publicity shorts or lose your bread and butter and be prepared to be told off by everybody—the censors, the row stock

controllers, the boards or the playboys in the advertising agencies.

If you are looking forward

to some

really good documentary

work, brother, pray for a miracle or search for a job elsewhere, for

it appears the “‘documentary for the sake of the documentary” days are over. I wonder if this is...the...farewell to documentaries !

SUKHDEV:

A MEMOIR

Sudarshan Sharma

(The author, though professionally a representative of a leading US publisher of magazines, has been very much involved with the stage and films. Heisthe founder director of Natya Shilpi in Bombay. He has acted in short and advertisement films. And he has scripted for several documentary films.—J.M.)

I met Sukhdev nearly 25 years ago, at the office of the late documentary producer and director, Paul Zils. I had to call frequently on Zils, as I was writing a script and doing research for him,

Sukhdev, being one of his assistants,

him as well.

naturally,

The immediate picture of those moments,

is the

I had

mobile

to

see

face of

Sukh, which easily broke into a smile. (Not that he was ever-smiling,

for, on several occasions, later on, I have

seen

and violent, although always with a reason.)

him

becoming

sad

It was later that I came to know him more closely. That was when Sukh got his first assignment as a director for the film ‘‘Wazir

the Kaghzi’’, a documentary on hand-made paper, for which I did the research and the script. K. Vaikunth, now famous in the commercial feature films, was his cameraman. (The documentary was

made towards the end of 1957.)

Day in and day out, I watched Sukh shooting, both at Junnar and Pune, with extreme care, discussing each frame with Vaikunth and me, if necessary. In the evenings, there were long sessions of discussion, on the day’s work, and then the preparation for the next

day. He did all this without any apparent fatigue.

For me, it was an object lesson in documentary production, watching him during every working moment. At this juncture, besides the point.

if he had a peg, he deserved

it. But that is

An Actor too Subsequently, I had an opportunity of seeing Sukhdev in another aspect that of the actor, before the camera. It was in a documen-

26 tary entitled ‘‘A Village in East Punjab’’ made for Burmah-shell by Fali Bilimoria, a competent cameraman-director and partner of Paul Zils.

The story was of a family from West Punjab, which had migrated to East after partition. The locale chosen was my own village, Pandori Nijaran, near Jullundar.

Sukh did the role of the hero, quite successfully. It was here that

he met Kanta Puri, who played the role of his sister, with no inkling

that that the wedding scene in the film was to prove the fore-runner of the actual scene in real life and she would get married to Sukhdev.

Her mother too played a role in the film.

The day the unit arrived in the morning at Adampur, it was bitterly cold and we were all shivering. Hot tea was being served all around. A character artiste refused the tea, stating that she was habituated only to milk with cream. That led to other artistes making a request for their individual requirements. Knowing a little bit of the conditions in which most of the junior artists live, sometimes minus a good meal, I was terribly annoyed by the airs being put on, and expressed my feelings to Sukh. Sukhdev was equally bitter, because he had to run helter-skelter for each individual requirement, but he never showed his feelings. Masking them with a smile, he did what was required. He suppressed his feelings because he felt that as an assistant and production in-charge, it was more important that every one was happy than illtempered.

Work is Worship This sense of duty pervaded all those productions, which I had the opportunity of being associated with, and not only in respect of junior artistes and characters in the documentary but also in his relations with the bosses and those who financed and sponsored the productions, He expressed his views strongly, but never made them Points of issue.

May

be because he felt that he had not “arrived” as yet and,

therefore, refrained from pressing his point and carrying it out.

I saw this quality amply demonstrated during the shooting of “Frontiers of Freedom’’, which was sponsored by Hindustan Lever

27 Ltd., as a contribution towards the war

effort during

the

Chinese

attack on India. The production was supervised by Alyque Padamsee and Pearl Padamsee—then well-known theatre and now cine personalities. There have been several shots on which there was

between

him

and

a controversy

Alyque, but Sukh quietly adapted himself to the

situation, although later, at night, he had expressed his bitterness to me quietly. In spite of his ability to amend and compromise, his spirit was independent, and wherever he had a free hand he demonstrated his skill, as in the films like “And Miles To Go” and later “Nine Months To Freedom”’.

This spirit of independence and greater confidence in himself was

possibly the reason for his breaking

away

from

the feature film

“Reshma aur Shera” which he directed for Sunil Dutt for a while

and then gave up. The

other

reason

may

be

that

he could

not compromise his

documentary background with a contrived feature film.

Inspite of fame and name, Sukh, however, was a modest

person,

definitely as far his friends were concerned, for whom he always had

afew minutes to spare.

I have a pleasant memory of it. It was at the time when several of his documentaries were praised and he was in the thick and the thin of ‘‘“Reshma aur Shera’’. I was walking along the Tilak Bridge at Dadar Bombay and I had not seen Sukh for a long time. Suddenly a car stopped a few yards ahead and Sukh got out to hail me. He was on his way to the shooting of ‘Reshma aur Shera” but he had time to stop and say “Hello” and enquire about my health. I was charmed and happy.

Passionate Involvement But in the long run, it was always his work that came first and he was passionately involved in the documentary work, to which he gave all his time, whether researching, scripting, shooting, editing or releasing a film.

28 He spent his days and nights single-mindedly, which was a praiseworthy trait in him—but was to prove fatal to him. Constant hard-work. running around and friction had their toll. Sukh had a heart attack some years ago. But he recovered, because of his hardy Jat stamina and Sikh perseverance, although he had left his beard, kanga, and kirpan long ago. But all this had their after-effects. While working on an assignment, died on the way to the hospital.

Sukh fell sick in Delhi and

Memory Sukhdev

died

like

a

soldier

on

the

front, working to the last

minute of his life. He was re-recording for a film he had shot and died but not unsung and forgotten, because, we, his colleagues, still remember him fondly on many occasions. When I close my eyes sometimes, I still see his sad and yet smiling face.

SUKHDEV: THE CREATOR Anand B. Saran

(The author, at one time a well-known dancer, fell for the glamour of feature

films.

But from the mid-fifties till early 1981, he headed

of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission.

As

the Film

its producer,

Section he

has

sponsored films made by Sukhdev and others like B.D. Garga, N.K. Issar, Homi D. Sethna, G.L. Bhardwaj and Mohan Kaul.)

To film Sukhdev’s personality and make a reminiscent, biographical prose-film is really a commendable effort. We the contributors shall do the coverages which Jag Mohan can compile and “edit”. In fact, it was Jag Mohan, who introduced young and

restless

Sukhdev

to me.

When they met me, I remember, Sukhdev

was working as an assistant to Paul Zils, the renowned German film-maker then living and working in India. Art Films of Asia, the film-making concern of Paul Zils was assigned to produce a film on the handmade paper industry of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission entitled ‘‘Wazir the Kaghzi’’. On the sets of the

film,

Jag

Mohan

who

was

working

Sukhdev to me for introduction.

with

Paul Zils brought

I, still remember, Sukhdev, a fresh man in films looking energetic and restless. I found out that he had no previous experience of film direction. He was trying for the first time as the director of my film.

I thought that a promising young man

given a chance

and

I never had

like Sukhdev should be

to be sorry for the decision of

assigning more and more films for direction to Sukhdev. He was

found to be an excellent technical person as I observed him working on the film—while shooting, editing and re-recording. He was inspiring others to work tirelessly. After he came in closer contact with me, and he was able to make “The Saint and the Peasant” based on the Gramdan movement

which was awarded a Certificate

of Merit

at the first Asian Film

Festival held at Frankfurt in 1960. It was really meritorious to

get

such a certificate, where 36 Asian countries participated and our

film directed

by

Sukhdev

was

declared

one

of the best

at the

30 Festival. That gave me an opportunity to travel for five months in Europe for showing this and other KVIC films in different countries

—at various universities and public institutions on a lecture tour.

From then onward the evolution of Sukhdev came under the public gaze as he made more and more films. The film ‘Man the Creator” directed by Sukhdev on the pottery industry of the KVIC also earned a certificate as an outstanding film at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1964. Sukhdev also made a film on jail reform “After the Eclipse’ which won immense appreciation all round and spoke highly of the technical quality of the film. His built-in dynamism and dashing temperament were responsible for shooting even a war film, in which great personal risk was involved.

The world of films is poorer by his passing away. He was still

young in his forties when film people generally make a start, But Sukhdev had made his mark in the history of Indian short films and it cannot be erased.

ABOUT

FOUR

FILMS

OF SUKHDEV

And Miles To Go: Black-and-White

15 Minutes Produced by Sukhdev on his own and later acquired by the Films Division for release.

1965 Awarded

the “Golden Bengal

Tiger”,

the Special Prize of the

Jury at the Third International Film Festival of India, New

1965.

Delhi,

From an article by AMITA MALIK published in “The Statesman”’, under the heading, ‘Rebel with a Cause” : “S. Sukhdev first erupted on the Indian film scene at the time of our Third International Film Festival. “TI use the word, ‘erupt’, quite deliberately because it was left to the highly distinguished Jury at the time, headed by Satyajit Ray and with such eminent Members as Andrej Wajda, Georges Sadoul and Lindsay Anderson, to recognise Sukhdev for the highly original and brave film-maker that he is and give him a Special Prize for his documentary, ‘And Miles To Go’... “And Miles To Go’ was eloquent inequalities in Indian society....’’

social comment

on

the

This film is built around the theme : “Man wants to live in harmony with himself and the world around him, but when the means of living and human dignity are hard to come by, he rises against the forces of moral and economic oppression. Individual men and women become the People. And the People speak with the Voice of History.”

(This passage is from the commentary of the film.) SATYAJIT

RAY : “Very interesting film”’.

LINDSAY ANDERSON (British film-maker and film critic) : “Brilliant... Moving...Revolutionary...” MIKHAIL

cinema”.

KALATOZOV

(Soviet film director)

: ‘Powerful

32 Prof. A.M. BROUSIL (Czechoslovak short film seen during my stay so far.”

filmologist) : ‘The best

CHIDANANDA DAS GUPTA (Filmologist and film-maker) : “India’s first Angry Film”.

No Sad Tomorrow Black-and-white 30 Minutes

Produced for the Films Division in 1965 JAG

MOHAN

in the course of a letter to Sukhdev :

“It isa mystery to me why this gem of a film has been ignored by the film critics. It is true that it is a feature-type documentary intended for rural audiences. But this film on Prohibition is one of the finest you have made so far. It is a featurette in which the story is told in a telling manner and in excellent cinematic terms, And you have shown yourself as a master of the Thespian Art. It is because I know you and your activities, I can very well believe that you have scripted, shot, directed and produced this film, on the top of playing

the

lead role. It is incredible.

It is a veritable tour de

force. Shot on location, it is authentic in atmosphere and characters. : it belongs to the genre of feature type of documentary, which s been frowned upon by the orthodox among documentary-

makers.”

After the Eclipse : Black-and-White

33 Minutes Produced in 1965 for the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. The Film Critics Association, Delhi, Award for 1965 was given to this film for ‘‘the creative interpretation of actuality’. Screened by invitation at the Cracow Film Festival, Poland, 1966, which was

attended by Sukhdev at the invitation of Prof. Jerzy Toeplitz.

33 LINDSAY ANDERSON : “And how happy I am to see “After the Eclipse—a poet’s film—and to know that my friend, Sukhdev, continues to show that India has more than one true, feeling artist

of the Cinema.”

DR. ROGER MANVELL (British film historian and film-maker):

“I think it is a remarkable and imaginative film and I wish it every

success in world distribution.”

PROF. ILYA VAISFELD (Soviet filmologist): “A beautiful film...First time I saw the use of modern montage in India... Makes wonderful use of the gesture and the close-up.” WILLARD VAN DYKE (Film Curator, Museum of Modern Art, New York): ‘‘After the Eclipse’ has joined the select and very small group of films that give us an insight into the relationship of man to man. Full of compassion for human frailty, Sukhdev has fashioned a film of great beauty.” PROF. JERZY TOEPLITZ (former Rector of the Leon Schiller Academy at Lodz, Poland and film historian) : ‘I enjoyed immensely “‘After the Eclipse”. I consider it by far the best documentary film in Indian Cinema I have seen.” RAVI SHANKAR (the sitar maestro) : ‘‘I was so moved by the sensitive handling of the film in ‘After the Eclipse”, I found such wonderful combination of the human and the technical touches in Director Sukhdev’s creations, I have become an admirer of his.”

Thoughts in a Museum Black-and-White 18 Minutes

Produced for the Films Division in 1968 HABIB TANVIR

(Film and Drama Critic) in the “Link” :

“Sukhdev’s 18-minute documentary on Jawaharlal Nehru, previewed for the press provides an example of a film-maker’s

compromise with his subject. Here, a distinction must be made bet-

ween a director, who looks after only the technical side of the job in a given script and a film-maker, who while directing a film must

34 concern himself with its soul—the script...Sukhdev seemingly plunges deep into a compromise with the fundamentals. How he emerges from the plunge is something rewarding to watch...” Though the documentary uses the Museum as its base, reverting to it again and again, the camera passes over its dull images so hurriedly that the effect produced not only is interesting but in itself makes for a pungent comment.

“Sometimes the sound and the image are hand-in-glove...At other moments, the spoken word is given full prominence and the visual is kept subdued.... “Among other things what makes the film interesting are its wonderful close-ups of common people, the clever use of the zoom lense that returns to an image again and again to lay emphasis, good use of stock shots and imaginative editing...”

POETIC MUSINGS of

S. SUKHDEV

(“Closeup,”” the journal of the Film Forum of Bombay, edited by Dr. Gopal Datt carried in one its issues poems of Sukhdev along with the drawings of his friend, Jatin Das, the well-known painter. Sukhdev had a penchant for writing poems habit of reciting them over

in English and Roman Urdu. And he hada the telephone to his friends—or to whoever

called on him when he was in the poetic mood—J.M.)

S. Sukhdev, our most important short-film-maker, sensitive, aggressive, volatile but always very sincere, obliges by giving us a

few glimpses of what he feels. Even when you do not agree with him, you like him. From helping with the melodramatic “Story of Kashmir” (made by Rajbans Khanna) to making his own very effective, though propagandish, ‘‘And Miles To Go’’, Sukhdev has

gone up many steps and has emerged as a force to reckon with. He

has always been very active, continuously making films. His “India 67” is the climax of his career up-to-date. It won Filmfare’s 1967 Award for the Best Documentary Film—(‘‘Closeup”’ intro: duction).

A Blurr the most pleasant memory of my childhood has become a photograph perhaps that was the beginning of my Cinema long ago and forever can NOW be captured

from the blurr of Time

made to Live ona Screen again and again

through darkness a beam of light

becomes ‘God’

men women children flowers love hate

Nero Hitler Christ anything

the unborn too

leap onto a patch of white from a piece of

FILM

A new Time is created by the FILM-MAKER time commanded by the

flick of a projector switch

A Situation What is cinema

“Image sound idea feeling the eye the ear the mind the heart learning to dream with the eye of a CAMERA a way of seeing

a way of wanting thing seen and a vision of the whole* through film discovering friends frauds the fallacy of one’s own complacent mood through film arguing shouting

painfully trying to feel the truth

*From an article by James Broughton

37 what is the truth?

Perhaps PEOPLE but only as INDIVIDUALS I don’t really know

A Discussion things like WAR

HATE ‘patriotism’ the wish to rain down hell on the ENEMY

to burn him alive kill for a kill eye for an eye

tooth for a tooth

endless WAR

is a Reality

SO IS LOVE

terrible images of death heroes who are blown to bits and pieces

in the name of the motherland fatherland

heroes who get a medal for KILLING A MAN invitation through film to make more heroes some of them may also DIE leave behind widows orphans

old mothers

cannot sing its praises on film cannot camouflage the ugly face of

FEAR HATE MURDER IN SELF-DEFENCE nobody wins a war

an act of death cannot be

a victory

A Documentary Film

taking scenes for a Documentary Film using Actors Make-up Anything

38 WHY NOT what is a mere

physical record of things on the photographic emulsion FILM must go beyond the bland Reality of Naked Vision a Creative Film becomes

a NEWSREEL

a fragment of life

that has either been

or SHALL BE

To camouflage

REALITY OR TRUTH

by some Cinematic TRICK or a pretty pop song

is

a LIE on Film

A Film Critic Very important person lavish praise

from a bad critic

may ruin a shallow beginner

forever

he may never discover the much in himself

once

a painter took a Camera exposed some footage and claimed Film to be a Painter’s medium! It is not possible for a crow to dance like a peacock

or vice versa the halo of a Prize given in darkness can be dangerous the applause of a phillistine audience misleading

39 the shock of being run down by a fanatic or a clown need not disturb a serious artist it is good to erase a self-made image more often tough Criticism from a balanced Critic may lift a bad film-maker to a better level in the future this is not a rule

a film cannot be judged in parts

it must be good or bad as a whole

like a painting perhaps

A Sound Image SOUND should not be made a slave to PICTURE it is more intense more visual in perception than picture Music is many things above all it is Sound Music need not be created only by

a musical instrument the wind can do it running water the cry of a bird

in the dead of night

even Silence can be Music SMELL perception may be possible through a MONTAGE

of SOUND Visuals and PICTURE

A Funny Day at uncle’s dingy bar in a prohibition state beer whisky rum

also gin

sometimes a police raid

but film discussion

somebody said Film is a Man’s Art a Woman cannot be a Film-maker Really ?I said Yess Yess

he said

Can you think of a Female God

Who could have Created this Universe ?

Only a Man God could have done That! I don’t know I said but a Woman can help Yess Yess That is possible he said Later funny day is not over an auditorium film people

a cup of tea film discussion

See discuss see discuss talk talk talk

little carpetbaggers of Cinema talking to make an impression some so-called serious ones talking to make another kind of impression pressure mounting to a breaking point cinema discussion turns to the gutter alley some people begin to worry about the

*TAX-PAYER’S MONEY’

I think of a petty politician ‘worrying about the sad lot of mankind’ words like commitment responsibility

are flung in the air for effect commitment

responsibility

to whom? I think an artist can only be committed to his ART

41 somebody says all such discussion is for goats

maybe

I begin to laugh inside

funny day ends.

A Post-mortem

One should not have to explain a Film in a lecture to make it Understood One can only try

to find out how things happened after a Film is finished like doing a post-mortem maybe a post-mortem could be

a profitable experience

it CANNOT Improve the Film Style

Meaning

is pointless it is not important for the meaning of a Film to be comprehensible to All Men

it is NOT POSSIBLE

it is NOT NECESSARY

“MY

LOVE”

NEARLY

KILLED

ME!

Interviewed by Mohan Bawa

(The “Junior Statesman,”’ more popularly known as “JS”, was the journal of the mod generation till it was closed down, The JS of September 16, 1972

carried on its cover a colour photograph of Sukhdev and an interview with him inside. Mohan Bawa is a well-known film journalist and the author of

a book on film Thespians.—J.M.)

Sukhdev

entertains his friends in his lounge-cum-den.

It is an

untidy room cluttered with piles of books and magazines. There is

a large framed photograph of Sergei Bondarchuk, the Russian director of ‘War And Peace,” on one wall and another of Marilyn Monroe on the other. A picture of Meena Kumari clipped out of a magazine is stuck on the air-conditioner. A pair of Indian puppets is staring glassily. Sukhdev’s friends have scribbled ribald messages and couplets on the wall. Sukhdev

wore

a lungi,

and

a finely embroidered

interview with him. His hair came was in a cast, after an accident national film festival where his Months To Freedom”’, was shown

kurta

at my

down to his shoulders. His leg at Tashkent, venue of the interlatest documentary film “Nine out of competition.

Q. The film, ‘India ’67’”’ won you the Padma Shri. How did this

film come to be made ?

Ans. The Films Division was planning a documentary for the Montreal Film Festival. They asked me to make it. My own discovery of India. I gave them a one-page script. How can you give

script

for what

is essentially

going

to

be your own discovery of

India ? This was going to be an experiment. I was going to present India to the world, and wanted to discover it with a fresh point of view, with an open mind, reacting to things as I went along. So we put our equipment into the car and started off from Bombay. We covered over 15,000 miles and came back with over one lakh

footage of exposed film. Q. Will

you tell us about the censor trouble you had with “And

Miles To Go”?

43 Ans. “And Miles To Go” was an earlier film I made, and it was my first experience with censorship and red tape. I’ll never forget the day I presented the film to the Censor Board. I was in the Films

Division

auditorium

with

the

mighty

Censor Board Chief.

After seeing the film, I remember, he turned to me and said, _ “Young man, do you think you can change the government ?” I said, “Sorry, Sir, I had no intention _ think one film can 7”

of doing that. Do you

Eventually, he said, ‘‘Come and see me in my office,’’ he was God or something...and in his bloody office I sat bloody months. He virtually rewrote the commentary for half of my film. He made some cuts here and he made there. He changed the title of my film to: And Miles To poetic. Huh!

as though for three the second some cuts Go—very

I will never, never forget this terrible experience. They tried to

kill me at birth itself. Luckily, I had the strength to survive. I did

not let them have their way without much of the original as I could.

a fight. I tried to retain as

Making this film was no joke. I make documentary films between my quickie ad films, but this one was tough. I had trouble getting

the film...I shot it scene by scene, bit by bit...and all the while

this

man was making life hell for me. He wouldn’t let me through. There I was, outside his office every day, waiting like a dog, feeling all the anger within me and unable to do anything because he had the power. Finally, however, the film was made. I remember the Third International Film Festival in Delhi where Satyajit Ray was the chairman. My film was down there. Lindsay Anderson, Andrej Wajda, Kalatazov, they were all there...Lindsay Anderson called me up and asked me, “How did you like your

film ?””

I said,

I liked

the first half but not the second half, because the

second half was made by the Censors.

Somehow, the film won a special jury prize. If that prize hadn’t come, it wouldn’t have been released and I wouldn’t be here talking to you.

44 Q. Will you say something about the “My Love’’ debacle ? Why was it so bad 7 Ans. No defence in this regard. I would like to tell you the inside story of “My Love.” To me ‘“‘My Love” was not a debacle. The - experience enriched me to the extent that I have no illusions about the Hindi film industry any more.

I have

the grandeur of the Hindi film world.

no

more

illusions

about

Yl tell you about it. This marvellous chubby producer came to

me and said, Look, I have a couple of songs...why don’t you write a story around the songs? Well, that was a mistake to start with, we shouldn’t have done it. He told me, I’ve signed two stars, Sharmila Tagore and Shashi Kapoor. So even before I started work I was told which stars I would be working with. Shashi was an old friend but I was meeting Rinku for the first time. I remember, I went shopping for her clothes. I bought clothes which fitted in with my dream of this girl in my film. An average middle

show

class girl who

off. I chose

thousand

rupees

knows a bit of singing but has no clothes to

simple

clothes

like white

saris. I spent

four

on her clothes. What shocked me, of course, was

that a few days later I got a note from Rinku saying, My dear Sukh, I’ve nothing against your taste but I’ll wear the clothes I like for this film. Of course, I admire Rinku tremendously, and she has always been a dream girl for me, but from that moment on the girl I had in mind for ‘“‘My Love” fell by the wayside. I had to tailor the role to the clothes that the stars insisted on wearing. I had to make her a singing star, who was already famous when she goes to Africa. When

we

got

to Nairobi,

more

complications

arose.

The man

making our arrangements walked out on his promises so that when we got there even our hotel bills couldn’t be paid. Making a documentary film is fairly simple and straight-forward, but the problems here were mind-boggling. I found myself waiting hours for a dress. Then I’d discover that the star hadn’t been paid her instalment and so wouldn’t appear on the sets. Or her hairdresser hadn’t been paid and her hair wasn’t done and so she wouldn’t come. Or the damn hotel bills had not been paid...how can you make a film under such conditions ?

45 But I had to go through with it. I knew it was a disaster but I had to swallow the bitter medicine. Halfway through the film the financier got the bright making me a partner. This was just a way to make me take more seriously. Of course, I was left holding the baby. I getting—from the producer—even the ordinary attention a gets. I found myself doing all the dirty work. I even had

idea of the film stopped director to get

dates from the stars, and they handed them out to me as if they were doing me a bloody favour.

How can you

make

a film under

such conditions ? I tell you, “My Love” nearly killed me.

Q. The documentaries made in India are normally so depressingly bad. People generally walk out of the theatre when a documentary comes on. Why can’t we make more exciting stuff. Ans.

I don’t think the documentary scene is quite as bad

as you

put it. Quite a few exciting documentary films have been made. But from the qualitative point of view, I agree that the majority of Indian documentary film are bad. In every trade, there are a certain number of people in it merely for the money. An exciting documentary can be made only by a committed film-maker, and we have only a few committed film-makers. Some work within the Films Division,

and others work

outside it. But the point is that India is

producing exciting fare. And world has said it, too.

it isn’t merely me

saying it. The

What the Indian documentary scene needs, however, is a catalyst.

We don’t have a dynamic person to guide the documentary film movement. In the Films Division people dole out tenders to people who want tenders. They want the film to be finished quickly and don’t care if it’s good, bad or neither. For a really exciting documentary

movement,

you

need

film-

makers who are willing to involve themselves. They must be creatively free to work as they wish. Within the Films Division,

individual film-makers are bogged down by fears and red-tape. No really creative person will be able to function in a large cumbersome organization. The Films Division has great potential. No one has realized what a vital role this organization can play in the documentary revolution in our country. Time is running out on us, If we are to compete with the West we have to educate our masses, We must inform them. They must know what their part is Good.

46 Documentaries are being made and they are making money for their makers. Take my film ‘‘Nine Months To Freedom’’. My God, it’s making money now. It’s showing to full houses. It’s still on.

“INDIA °67” “INDIA

°67” (Later re-titled as “An Indian Day”)

Eastmancolour

57 Minutes Produced for the Films Division in 1967. National Award for the Best Documentary Film from the

Government of India, 1968. Filmfare Award for the Best Documentary, 1968. Diploma of Merit, Edinburgh Film Festival, 1968. Prime

Minister INDIRA

GANDHI

(in a

letter to Sukhdev) ; “I

saw your film, “India ’67’’ some time ago and enjoyed it. It is sensitive and made a well-rounded and thoughtful statement in contemporary language. My congratulations and best wishes. I look forward to more of your work.” AMITA MALIK in her “Film Notebook” column in ‘‘The Statesman” : “‘Mr Sukhdev has made a most moving, original and forthright documentary, ‘India ’67’’. In the opinion of this writer, Mr Sukhdev is the one true rebel in the Indian documentary field.” MARIE SETON (filmologist and biographer of Eisenstein and Satyajit Ray) in an article published in ‘The Weekend Review”: “Each of Sukhdev’s pictures revealed an increasing mastery of

genuine cinematic ‘language’ and

an

awareness

common

to many

outstanding documentary directors of the impact of social realities, when handled with an immediate intimacy”’. DONALD

RICHIE

(American

filmologist

and

co-author

with

Joseph L. Anderson of the “The Japanese Film”’) in a letter to the Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting : ‘In particular, I would like to cite “India ’67’’. It is the best Films Division picture I have seen from any country and it is a credit to yourselves and to your country. This film should, I feel, be shown all over the world—every one of your consulates should have a copy. Sukhdev

has with a wit and a candour very rare in any kind presented the whole winning fashion.”

of India in an indirect and hence completely

From the programme-book of the EDINBURGH

VAL 1968 :

of film

FILM

FESTI-

48

“It is remarkable that this film was made at all. Government

sponsored films tend to be stilted and idealised, but this is an objec-

tive picture of the confusion that abounds in India today...The film is built round rapid cutting, which makes full use of radical juxtapositions. The pace, always, brisk and often frenetic, is accentuated by a montage of Indian music, classical music and pop, which replaces the usual vapid sound track.” From

the programme-book

FESTIVAL, 1968 :

of the SAN

FRANCISCO

FILM

“One need not fear that this documentary look at India is at all linked to anything about that country, which has ever been filmed before. S. Sukhdev’s film is a highly cinematic perusal of the contrasts and contradictions in India, the juxtapositions of things that complicate a Western explanation of its ways. The film sustains its compelling comment with no word of formal commentary and its images, drawn from every part of life, are eloquent and in rapport with superb utilization of songs music, prayers and naturalistic sounds. One can point to the young film-maker, Sukhdev, as the Indian cinema’s new Eisenstein—a discoverer of truth, who suddenly bursts upon the scene with a brilliant, visionary power. “India ’67’’ is an exciting debut not to be missed. Sukhdev

(who appears in the film during a home-coming sequence with his grandmother) takes his place confidently as the most exciting film master since the rise of Satyajit Ray.”

THE INDIAN DOCUMENTARY FILM IN 1967 Asok Mitra

(The author, currently a Professor of Demography at the Jawaharlal Nebru University, has been formerly the Census Commissioner of India and

Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. This note has been specially written for this book! And, it is a collective tribute to K.S.

Chari, S.N.S. Sastry and S. Sukhdev.—J.M.)

The world of the Indian documentary film weeps for Chari, Sukhdev and Sastry—they are dead! ‘Dead are their prime’, young Lycidases, ‘Who have not left their peers’. For, like the ‘Bicycle Thief”’ in Europe and ‘‘Pather Panchali’’ in India, the trio, ‘‘Face to Face,” ‘I am Twenty’’, and ‘India 1967” created a genre, almost a philosophy, in documentaries which has remained the staple of whatever has followed since. It is important to recall what happened in 1967. Devaluation of the Indian rupee in 1966 had cast a deep shadow over the entire Indian economy. The gloom deepened with the severe drought of 1966

and

the still severer drought in 1967.

The General Elections

brought little relief, except that Mrs Indira Gandhi emerged as the symbol of hope and determination —pace the Emergency—to raise the country by its bootstraps. An

Expert

Advisory

Committee,

attached

to the Ministry, with

strident supporters of ‘Mrs. G’’ and beneficiaries of her patronage, advocated that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting must make it appear that all of it in India was roses, roses all the way. That had been the ‘general line’ for years and had ever travelled a few paces away from Delhi to realise that that was aline that would not stand a moment’s scrutiny. The only plausible course for the official mass media in 1967 was to establish credibility with the citizen by first acknowledging that the worst that could have happened since Nehru’s death had in fact happened, but all was not lost and ‘‘we shall overcome’’. It is curious that those why mount round-the-clock vigils around the throne have hardly ever in history believed in this line—and official media in almost all countries are paid to mount’this kind of

350 vigil. But the common citizen whose fortunes are not so desperately attached to any one person or group of persons’ destiny is perfectly willing to accept the other approach as worthy of a trial as any other. Official media dread healthy scepticism, but it is healthy scepticism, that builds up an adult nation’s will to fight. What Chari, Sukhdev and Sastry did in the crucial year of 1967 was deliberately to build up this healthy scepticism and the will to fight. As the three films, ‘‘Face to Face”, ‘I am Twenty” and “India 1967’ came out in a row, the Board of Censors, the Minister

and the Minister of State were in a flap.

has never happened before!

Healthy

scepticism! This

The citizen cannot be trusted

to take

the rough with the smooth. They must be given it all smooth. And where was the question of the citizen overcoming? It was only the government that could overcome ! A senior aide of the Prime Minister remonstrated in writing to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on the disastrous film “India 1967” that was then going the round of cinema houses, the Board

of Censors

having

been

talked

received a reply from the Ministry succeed in re-educating him.

into

it.

The senior

aide

which probably did not quite

P.M. and the Minister The Prime Minister herself came one morning to see the film privately in the Films Division auditorium at Mahadev Road (Delhi) accompanied by her younger son and the late Padmaja Naidu. At this showing, the Minister, who had come unasked, sat all the time on the edge of his chair, anxious to catch the slightest movement of the prime among his equals. The Prime Minister did not oblige. As was her wont, she sat bolt upright through the whole hour with not so much as a motion of her head and left without a word, except to ask what the hotel was that followed the Bihar drought scene. (It was the Oberoi and not Ashoka as Amita Malik

would have it.)

Later the same day the Minister profusely complimented Sukhdev on his ‘‘genius’’. But it is possible that the Minister had got the message wrong. For shortly thereafter, there were strange difficulties

Sl over the availability of enough prints of ‘India 1967’’, the reasons for which were not quite known even to those in charge! Those who ought to know better often use the word ‘“‘controversial’”’” when referring to ‘India 1967’. Having been picked in the philosophy of my dear students for the last five yeare, “I find the word wholly misplaced. If anything, ‘Face to Face”, ‘‘I am Twenty” and ‘“‘India 1967’* had a streak of what we have come to know in 1979 as revisionism. I would not call them rebellious or controversial or non-conformist even for 1967. All that they attempted was to gain credibility for the official mass media and to prepare the citizen to give the government of the day a sporting chance. It was precisely

this that the government needed by way of mandate from its people in that fateful year of 1967.

Incidentally, nobody apppears to have bothered to mention so far that it was precisely these films, along with, of course, several other stances and the new winds that blew through All India Radio and the other mass media that gave Mrs. Indira Gandhi an abiding reputation of being a friend of creative, non-conformist and even rebellious talent. His integrity and vision have established Satyaji Ray as the greatest creative genius in India since Rabindranath Tagore. Ray has helped us to see, perceive, understand differently, to see the light that never was on sea or land. His integrity has kept him from being the type of thigh-slapping, percussive revolutionary, who in the course of one revolving moon could befriend and draw patronage from dubious regimes, and yet be the darling of all conceivable shades in pink. But I did not agree with Ray when he made the following remark on ‘India ’67’’. Said Ray: “I like India 1967 but not for its broad and percussive contrasts of poverty and influence, beauty and squalor, modernity and primitivity—however well shot and cut they might be. I like it for its details—for the black beetle that crawls along the hot sand, for the street dog that pees on the parked bicycle, for the bead of perspiration that dangles on the nose tip of the begrimed

musician.”

Ezra Pound once told T.S. Eliot that he did not have to attempt something which Alexander Pope had accomplished to such per-

52 fection before.

Nobody can

excel Sukhdev

in showing

the beatle,

the peeing dog, or the dangling bead of perspiration, all caught in their unique moments in his films. For, the Indian documentary film-maker, should he strive to be true to his salt, there is little escape

from

what

Ray

so

tellingly calls

‘“‘broad

and percussive

contrasts” in our life today. Besides, a documentary film-maker cannot help broad, insinuative, percussive statements within the short space allowed to him as distinct from one that can be as long and full as a feature film. For him there is little choice buta relentless pursuit of the contrasts that Ray speaks of so long regional disparities, income inequalities and tragic differences in the physical quality of life contiune in this ancient land. And the

Lord be praised that Chari, Sukhdev and Sastry did precisely this

in 1967, by catching the Ministry of Information in a spell of absent-mindedness.

and

Broadcasting

But, the Lord be praised again, the Ministry returned to its vigil round the throne in 1969 and went on tightening it until it defeated its own purpose by unwittingly helping to overturn the very source of power in the elections of 1977. That vigil seems to be on its way back again, this time through many cunning passages and contrived corridors. Boy, the things they do for India! Note from J.M. Even though the late K.S. Chari made

his name

with ‘Face to Face’’, he was only a co-director of the film along with

T.A. Abraham. Abraham started his career as an editor in the Films Division, then became a directer of some award-winning films and finally a producer after which he retired to make films on his own. Chari made his debut with ‘‘Face to Face” as a co-director

and

subsequently

directed

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

on

his own “Transition’’ and a film on

The Sastry mentioned in the article is the late S.N.S. Sastry. He started as a cameraman of documentary films and newsreels and later became a director and producer at the Films Division.

The Minister referred to is K.K. Shah.

MASS

MESSAGE

MEDIUM

S. Sukhdev

(in 1968, the Films Division celebrated its 20th anniversary by bringing out two publications (‘Two Decades of the Films Division’® by Jag Mohan and “Four Times Five’’ edited by Dr. Gopal Datt) and producing “And 1 make Short Films”—directed by S.N.S. Sastry. “Four Time Five’’ (which means 20) contained articles on the Films Division by diverse hands, including the following one by Sukhdev. It is a matter of great credit for all concerned at the

Films

Division

that

this

article

written

with

attitude was published at all—without any deletion.)

the tongue-in-the-cheek

On this joyous occasion when the Films Division is completing twenty years of its existence, one must say Happy Birthday. Spring is in the air. Centuries of burden have been lifted in a few decades —on film. Reel after reel is exposing the struggle of a nation to

defend its honour on all fronts.

The Short Film-maker is passing through a boom period. Documentary

Film

Production is good

business.

Tender

after

tender is being sent out to every corner of the land by the Films Division. Film contractors are busy with progress reports. Barring a few idiots, most of them are very loyal and friendly people. They are even honest and efficient in their dealings. They fulfil their

contracts to the very last detail. There are many faithful people, like

these film contractors, working in the Films Division

to such films, many of our national calamities have

from the scene.

too.

been

Thanks

banished

Famine has disappeared after a report on Famine. It is only a historical record in an out-dated film. If you happen to meet Famine, down the road where you live—near a skyscraper maybe, it’s your own fault. Your eyes are deliberately looking at its gloom in

the

eyes

picture.

of a slum-dweller.

Not

focussing on brighter side of the

With a patriotic song, we can ward off the Chinese.

With the rattle of Machine Guns on the Sound Track we can keep any enemy at bay. Break-through in agriculture is complete. Madhoram, the peasant from Haryana, has said that in a truthful

54 recorded interview. The camera and the tape-recorder cannot lie. If there is any shortage of food, hundreds of cargo ships from all over the world will rush to our aid from friendly countries. We are

proud of this friendship.

And the Ministry of Food and Agriculture will make a cartoon film to prove our perpetual gratitude. Moreover cartoon films are

so much fun to see, especially when they are in colour.

Family Planning is found to be a great success. teenth LOOPS have found their resting places.

So many

ump-

Now there will be less mouths to feed. More food for all. Make films that say: A small Family is a Happy Family. Go now to the nearest Family Planning Centre Music UP Fade Out. “

before

Stop at the sign of the Red Triangle.

* DON’T question the LOOP. DON’T question the Five-Year Plans. Its not your business ? DON’T question our Gods. Do your duty. Be Patriotic— especially Aggression.

at the

time

of Chinese

or

Pakistani

DON’T be a FOOL. Don’t resign your job if Russia attacks Czechoslovakia. Make films about our Regional Heroes and irritate the minorities. Dig up old sores. After all you are only showing a historical TRUTH. You can’t change History to suit the cry for peace today. History is sacred. It is a record of our glorious past. It is very clear. The meaning of a film must also be clear. Film to be Music. It must not confuse.

is not supposed

The order of things in a film must be understood by everybody. You can’t write the Alphabet wrong. After A there must only be B. And Y always comes before Z. Any kid knows that.

55 Of course, the world is changing. You

can have

Vodka

called a Commie Agent.

on the rocks in America without being

Before the Czech invasion, you could also have had Scotch in the

Kremlin Square without being arrested. Yes the world is changing.

Vietnam has become a way of life. It seems a very just war. After all everybody is dying there—the Americans and the Viet Cong. We shouldn’t make films about Vietnam. That is not our territory. The Gandhi Centenary is here.

Time for more celebrations. Time to make films about Gandhi. It is good to make a man a God. It is good to put a great leader on a pedestal. It is good business to make such films.

Let us make more films about our National Heroes. How they defend our borders with their lives. It is their job to give up their lives for our Motherland. Jai Hind!

Someday some fool is going to make a film about what killed Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. But in the meantime... Let’s make more films about our Cultural Heritage. It sells like hot cakes with the tourists. Very good business!

JOURNALIST

WITH

A CAMERA

K.N. Subramaniam

(The May 19, 1972 issue of ‘Filmfare’? had an photo of a documentary film-maker instead of that maker or singer. It was that of Sukhdev with Months To Freedom,” his film on Bangladesh.

unusual cover—the colour of a film star, feature filmstrips from his film, “Nine Inside was the two-page

article by K.N. Subramaniam reprinted here—J.M.)

The Sukhdev cover in this issue of ‘‘Filmfare’’is essentially a bow to the creative spirit of the small film-maker in India, surviving on the fringe, numerically over-shadowed by the Establishment but far from

awed

by it, concerned

with

the realities of life around him

and using the tools of sympathetic observation and, where necessary,

protest.

Sukhdev is more articulate than the rest, more energetic and volatile. In personal life-style, he is more Greenwich Village than Worli Hill, where he lives. His flat is an open-house where kindred spirits foregather to talk cinema, bicker or attack the ‘bureaucratic Mafia’’.

Sukhdev has hung photographs of current favourites—the

Russian film-maker Sergei Bondarchuk, Meena Kumari and a nameless girl in the nude with light streaming over her head. On the wall are scrawled a quotation from Che Guevara, the late Cuban revolutionary, and various messages from Sukhdev to himself, or from Sukhdev and friends to themselves. On a door post, Sukhdev has mounted a spent bullet from Bangladesh, with the sombre inscription, “This killed a man’”’. There have been two phases in Sukhdev’s career. In one, he really bloomed. He made the noted documentaries ‘And Miles To Go” (winner of a Special Jury Award at India’s Third International Film Festival), “After the Eclipse” and “India 67” (winner of Film-

fare’s Best Documentary award). Side by side, he was rated among the best of advertisement film makers. He won a Padma Shri. And he started directing his first feature film “My Love’’.

The Long Wait Then the second, arid, phase commenced. “My Love”’ proved a failure at the box-office. He got a second feature assignment but

57 soon bowed out of the job. And. suddenly, the little queue of producers wanting to make films with him, seemed to melt. He was as full of plans as ever but, quite clearly, he was at a loose end. Nothing quite seemed to work out. At a party one night, a young, beginning-to-be-talked-about cinematographer tried to snub him by

asking, ‘‘What have you done lately ?’’ If he didn’t get hurt badly,

it was only because Sukhdev generally takes himself quite lightly. In recent months, there seems to have been another change.

Sukhdev made ‘‘Khilonewala’’, a touching little film on communal integration. From UNESCO came an assignment to make “Science 4”, a documentary on four UNESCO-aided technical projects in India. After shooting the film here, Sukhdev went to

Paris

to edit

it, thanks to Jean Bhownagary of the UNESCO. On March 25 this year, he showed in Delhi an unspent bullet he had brought from

Bangladesh—a 70 minute colour film, ‘‘Nine Months To Freedom : The Story of Bangladesh.”

Mrs. Indira Gandhi called the film “a fine tribute by a perceptive film-maker to the spirit of Bangladesh’. Albert Johnson, director of the San Francisco Film Festival, after seeing the film in Bombay, wrote to Sukhdev : ‘I consider you one of the finest film-makers in world cinema.” Satyajit Ray said, ‘‘ ‘Nine Months to Freedom’ is the most deeply felt film made so far by Sukhdev, our most talented

maker of documentaries.”

The Delhi release marked the first anniversary of the launching

of the

Bangladesh

Films Divison never shown.

struggle. Sukhdev’s

cameraman

covered

grouse

is that,

though

the release, the footage

a

was

Sukhdev says his Bangladesh film began ‘‘in the canteen of the B.B.C. in London’’. After finishing the ‘Science 4’’ assignment in Paris, he had gone to the British capital. He found a group of B.B.C. employees, natives of what was then East Pakistan, reacting with anger and bitterness to the military terror let loose upon their land. Earlier, in Paris, Sukhdev had encountered people asking for photographs of the happenings in Bangladesh. The Pakistani version of the sequence of events was being energetically publicised. Sukhdev realised there was a serious ‘‘information gap”’ and decided to bridge it in the manner he knew best, by making a film.

58

“Tyranny” : A Short Actually, soon after the beginning of the military crackdown in East Pakistan, Sukhdev had made in Bombay, a one-minute film

called “Tyranny”’, A lyric by Kaifi Azmi, decrying notorious tyrants

down the ages, was incorporated in it. But the short never did get

released.

India had not entered the Bangladesh

struggle then, and

word was passed on to Sukhdev that the government could not allow any referenceto Yahya Khan, then president of the ‘“‘friendly”’ State of Pakistan, as a tyrant. Sukhdev says that India had once struggled hard to gain freedom,

and ‘it was the fact that the people of Bangladesh were struggling

for the same objective that fired his enthusiasm. Probably there is a simpler explanation. Sukhdev with his camera is essentially a journalist. A story was breaking, and he had to be there. After his return to India from London, he went to Delhi. Official approval and support for his film project were forthcoming. In Bombay, Mrs. Mehroo R. Boga, mother of the film-maker, Sohrab Boga, a public-spirited lady, backed him. Sukhdev commenced shooting in August, covering the arrival of

Edward

Kennedy

in

Calcutta.

Almost

immediately,

Sukhdev

committed a faux pas. At the end of a tough day’s shooting at the Salt Lake refugee camp, noticing one of the American visitors picking up a Coke bottle from a crate in the boot of a car and raising it to his lips, Sukhdev trained his camera on him. “I did it almost by reflex action,’’ he says. ‘I didn’t reason why or even know then whether I would eventually keep the shot.” But the Americans had their own views, and word soon came around that they didn’t particularly care to have this “Smart-Aleck” cameraman trailing them. The result was that, when Senator Kennedy took off for his next stop, Sukhdev was excluded from the flight. Shots of Edward Kennedy moving among the refugees are there in Sukhdev’s film. What he really wanted was an exclusive camerainterview with the Senator—the kind any good journalist would have wanted. Later, Sukhdev got a statement from Andre Malraux, the French

intellectual, and an interview with John Stonehouse, a British MP. French television sources

supplied

the

former.

The

Stonehouse

59 interview was personally conducted by Sukhdev in London. “Nine Months to Freedom”’ also carries other first-person narrations, including eye-witness accounts by Nur-ul-Qadir, then commissioner of Pabna, and Col. Khalid Musharraf, the Mukti Bahini commander. The young Dacca film-maker, Zahir Raihan, gave Sukhdev some of the grisly footage he personally shot of the atrocities, including a view of a corpse with a dog pulling out its innards. Later, Raihan himself was killed by the pro-Pakistani Al Badr forces. During his three trips inside Bangladesh, Sukhdev got considerable encouragement from Amir-ul-Islam, member of the National Assembly. Once, meeting Tajuddin Ahmad, Prime Minister of the

Bangladesh provisional government, Sukhdev told him, “IfI make

a bad film, you can hang me. But if I make a good one you must give me citizenship of Bangladesh.” “‘NowI think I can go and claim the citizenship,” says Sukhdev.

Indian

century

film-makers generally use equipment

old.

Sukhdev

found

his heavy

35

at least a quarter

mm camera and acces-

sories no match for the sophisticated equipment

used

by foreign

cameramen. Another vexation was the limited. mobility he had in combat terrain. Correspondents are given the ranks of captain,

obliged to report to the nearest major and this, he says, makes for neither fluidity nor comprehensiveness of coverage. ,

“Nine Months to Freedom’ records the events in Bangladesh after March 25, and also recalls the political backlog. Sukhdev has used excerpts from a television interview of Yahya Khan and from films made in Pakistan. Of the material not personally shot by him and included in his film, Sukhdev says, ‘The editing is mine and the interpretation.”’ In

Bombay,

the

film

has had a week’s run in morning shows as

also in Dethi’s Shiela Cinema.

The first-morning attendance for ‘‘Nine Months to Freedom”’ was thin but the film picked up tremendously in the following days, according to Sukhdev. Waheeda Rehman, attending one of the shows as a special invitee, took the mike and pertinently asked the public to support “this kind of film-making also.”

REVIEW

OF “NINE MONTHS FREEDOM”

TO

Jag Mohan

The following review of ‘‘Nine Months To Freedom” is reprinted from “New Wave’’ the Delhi weekly dated Feb 27, 1972. The author was associated with the film as a researcher and otherwise.

The film as graphic, visaul history. The film as a lawyer’s arguments, tellingly told aud illustrated. The film as a tract of humanism that stirs the conscience. These qualities of the film, which are inert in the strip of coloured celluloid and which are made manifest the moment film is projected are realised in an abundant manner in S. Sukhdev’s ‘Nine Months To Freedom: The Story of Bangladesh’’, a 70-minute documentary. Through images and sounds, in an authentic manner Sukhdev narrates the history of Bangladesh right from the days of the partition of India in 1947. Long forgotten but rare newsreels have been intelligently edited to give a continuous story of the creation of the two wings of Pakistan. All those doughty champions of the Two-Nation Theory and the rulers of Pakistan flit before the eyes— Jinnah,

Liaquat

Ali

Khan,

Ayub,

Yahya

Khan

and others. The

basic conflict that arose between the two wings of Pakistan—the language problem, the riots, the demands for freedom from exploitation and for self-rule—everything is brought to the screen ina graphic manner. Then the crackdown in March last, the exodus of refugees, the nine-month struggle, the genocide and the rapes and the mass destruction—nothing has been left out. The story of Bangladesh is narrated by a score of persons: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, Major Zia (now

Gen

Zia-ur-Rehman,

President

of Bangladesh)

and

others

including Gen. Yahya Khan, who naively talks about democracy and restoring power to the people. Then there is the testimony of a wide range of people—Mother Teresa, John Stonehouse, M.P., Gunnar Myrdal, Andre Malraux, an Australian diplomat, a Canadian student, the Bangladesh film-maker, Zahir Raihan and so on. All of them feelingly narrate all that happened in Bangladesh

61 since last March. The auditorium becomes an international court and these witnesses give testimony more in sadness than in anger. And as they testify in the manner documentaries,

the

camera

cuts

away

and style of the best of TV from

them

and

piles

up

evidence of genocide—gruesome sights of bodies in rivers, bodies being eaten by dogs and vultures, raped women, emaciated refugees, terror-stricken children—all in Eastman colour. The colour accentuates the pathos. Through skillful editing, pieces of film shot by Sukhdev himself in Bangladesh, in India and elsewhere and by others fall into a pattern and become a tract of humanism. It is a compelling film of great compassion.

(The

present

writer,

who

has beenin

the Film

Society Movement, a guest lecturer on films at the Film Institute and a former Member of the Censor Board and as such has seen hundreds of films has never seen a more moving documentary film than this produced during the last two decades. Sukhdev’s ‘‘Nine

Months To Freedom” will come to be hailed as a minor classic.)

Originally entitled as ‘‘Genocide 71’’, later christened as ‘The Year of the Vulture”’, and finally given the present title, this film has been in the making since last August. Film-maker Sukhdev, who made front page news with his “And Miles To Go” at the time of the Third International Film Festival in New Delhi and who has sustained his reputation as an enfant terrible of the short film since his ‘India 67’’ travelled extensively in the eastern part of India and in Bangladesh to make this film, twice at risk of his life, when shells exploded near him. With the unstinted cooperation offered by our Ministry of External Affairs, thanks to S.K. Singh of the XPD the Defence authorities and the Mukti Bahini leaders, Sukhdev made at least two complete versions having shot nearly 70,000 feet. But the rush of events was such that he had to re-edit the earlier versions, add fresh material and make the story of Bangladesh complete after it was liberated and declared as the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh after the Banga Bandhu, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Dacca. “Nine Months To Freedom” is a memorable film for it is a firstrate documentary in which the subject matter has dictated the style and structure. Sukhdev, who has shot most of the film, edited, directed and produced the film (script by N.V.K. Murthy and

~

62 others) has wisely refrained from

resorting to camera

gimmickery for which he has a penchant.

In fact,

those

and editing who

have

been familiar with Sukhdev’s earlier films will find very little of his brand of filmcraft. Yet, every shot and sequence has his ocriture writ large and spread over as another coating on the celluloid. Sukhdev has emerged as another Joris Ivens or a Pare Lorentz with an acute sense of social awareness and compassion. In this year of the Silver Jubilee of Indian Independence, we have at last a superb film to show to the world that portrays our national ethos. This is a film that should be shown all over India and in Bangladesh—if possible in Pakistan and for Richard Nixon and Mao Tse-tung. Surely they too will pause and ponder when they see the film, which includes some excerpts from a Pakistani newsreel full of propaganda and a damning indictment of the same by Zahir Raiban, the film-maker from Bangladesh. The credibility gap is bridged by these and other sequences. This is surely a film witha purpose and it fulfils it. It also atones for the sins of Johar’s “Joi Bangla’”’!

SUKHDEV: WHILE SHOOTING AND EDITING Jag Mohan

(These

two

pieces on

Sukhdev’s

unorthodox

methodology of work were

written on my birthday in 1977. I happened to be away from home in Bombay. As usual, I met Sukhdev and he promised me drinks and dinner

but “‘no present’’ he added. But I had to wait while he was editing his latest

film—I forget which. I snatched some paper from his bag and wrote these two pieces in one stretch within an hour orso. And I gave them to Sukh as

“a present to mark my birthday’’—and he accepted it gladly—J.M.)

Shooting Sukhdev shooting. There is much more than alliteration. When

Sukh shoots with the camera, it is much more deadly than the gun or harpoon or some such thing. It is a sight to see Sukh shooting.

Invariably with his dishevelled

hair, ill-kempt appearance, inspite of his Chiragh Din shirts or Luknowi kurtha. Some times an odd cap picked up from the way side would crown his head. Some faded jeans. And Kolhapuri chappals. But these’ details fade into insignificance. His gesticulations, contortions of face, shouts at the unit members, coaxing and cajoling of characters, curses at the equipment that has let him down, and above all the passion with which he shoots dominate. Sukh always gets much too involved when he shoots with his Arriflex. The camera become a part of him. It can be said the other way too. He becomes a part of the camera. With the tripod, it is a five-legged creature that is hopping, jumping, running about. And like Shiva, he comes a Three-Eyed God, constantly changing the lenses. The shooting may be in the ghats of Maharashtra after the monsoon, in the desert of Rajasthan on a wintry morning, in the dense forest of a wild life sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh or the hills and valleys of Himachal Pradesh. Or he may be shooting in a plant of a public sector enterprise or in a juggi-jonpuri in Delhi or in an operation theatre. Wherever it may be, he is in complete control of the lighting conditions, as it were. He knows in his mind what precisely he wants for his shot. Accordingly he decides on the

64 apertures and lenses. He leaves it to his assistant to decide about the exposure and distance. The assistant is there to hand over the filter and to check whether the cable is connected to the battery. Nothing more, nothing less. But the camera is his exclusive prerogative, which he hugs and caresses, focuses and pans, tilts up or down. Then Sukh gets possessed. He is the creator par excellence. He cannot put up with rules and regulations, laws of lighting, principles of optics, conventions of photography, et al. He scorns and scoffs

at them.

His prime consideration is the subject matter of the shot,

which he must record on the celluloid to the best possible advantage. In a singular manner. In a memorable way. No lyrical photography for him. None of the considerations of the salon photographers for him. His is the hard-edge treatment of reality. The

dynamic

angle. The

minutest

detail.

The

panoramic

vista.

The penetrating, probing shot. To get this recorded to his instinctive satisfaction, while shooting, he must fiddle with the lense— especially the zoom lense. He must fret and fume. He must become fidgety. Shout at the assistant. Direct the characters, For a moment he contorts his body; he twitches and turns; shooting is a whole exercise of the body for him. Then, a few moments later, he is serene, though a bit exhausted. Whether

he

is shooting

a peasant

in the

field,

worker at his machine, Indira Gandhi at her residence

or a factory or a Mukti

Bahini fighter (in Bangladesh, 1971) his approach is the same. A careful scrutiny of the script, a momentary pause during which he mentally reckons with the preceding and succeeding shots, and then the actual shooting. The editing process starts right there while shooting.

Sukh is the Lord of the Camera and the accessories. He has an instinctive understanding of the film, black-and-white or Eastman-

colour;

Orwo

or Indu.

He

knows

the alchemy of photography—

which lense to use, what should be the aperture and the lighting pattern. He never learnt all this from any institute. Nor by working under famous Cameramen (Exceptions being Fali Bilimoria and K. Vaikunth, but then he worked with them asa colleague with various other responsibilities including those of a camera assistant). Years of practice. Hard, patient work under

different conditions. And a computer memory, which is his greatest

65 asset. That’s why he invests each shot with passion, with sincerity, with commitment, with affection. He spreads his personality on each shot. And he knows at the moment of shooting the metereology of weather, the chemistry of colours, the physics of optics and the mechanics of the camera as much as he knows the lines of his palm.

There is no question of a ‘retake’? with him. Every shot isa nominated shot. No slip, no error, no miss. He works in white intensity.

While

shooting

he is like God—and

then the

reality,

which he re-creates on the celluloid. And no shadows in between. The camera perfected by engineers and technicians is his plaything. Its working becomes his second nature, He is much too fond of it, hugging and embracing it. Running and dancing with it. And it must behave as it wants. Once a foreign film-maker on seeing Sukh at work remarked: “He is no producer nor a director but a devil of a cameraman.” There is some truth in that. For, when Sukh is shooting, he is devilishly selfish, arrogant, egotistic. He cannot brook any interference—even from the minions of law. He must get what he wants, And nothing can stop. How else one could have got shots as he did for his film ‘‘India ‘67’ about police and processionists? What is documentary film-making? Shooting reality—natural settings, real people doing their day-to-day work, speaking their lingo. Yes, Sukh is great in recording the aural reality too with the Nagra tape-recorder. For him visuals and sounds are like the

obverse

and

reverse

of a coin.

They

must

be perfectly match.

Sounds, real, natural sounds must be integrated with the appropriate shots.

So Sukh goes out of the way

to record the sounds.

Sound effects are Sukhdev’s forte. He specialises in them and he always uses them creatively. And quite often he can afford to dispense with commentary. In the series of interview films he made,

he worked like a television cameraman but with bulky, unwieldy outdated equipment. Their weight did not daunt him. He can work wonders with the portable video and electronic equipment. The script is only a guideline for him. He is a man who believes in improvisation on location. He is prone towards impromptu innovations.

He may be shooting an Adivasi woman seated in her

66 courtyard picking stones from rice. In the distance he may see a hen. He will coax the hen to come into the frame. He may be shooting a worker at the lathe. Some where else he may see a picture of a god or goddess. Quickly he will fetch the picture and put it on the wall near the worker.

a woman.

He will remember

Or

he may be shooting a close-up of

to have a flower in her hair.

The

“Sukhdev Style’’ emerges only out of this meticulous attention to details, to the infinite care devoted to each frame, each shot, each

sequence.

It is while shooting itself that Sukh is planning his montages of shots, the continuity, the transitions, the cuts and ‘inter-cuts. A pastmaster in the language of the cinema and a craftsman wellversed in the grammar of the cinematic language, he can conceive the shape of the film minutely while shooting. This is where Sukh is Sukh—an auteur with complete control over everything.

Editing As with all good film-makers, so too with Sukhdev, editing is a

most

crucial penultimate

stage in the birth of each film.

Sukh undergoes the birth-pangs

editing.

very much like a woman

In fact,

while

After all the required shooting is over and the rushes are printed | and checked, a multitude of cans are assembled. Also, the credit titles, the art work, the animation shots if any, the SST, the tapes and so on. By now Sukh is in a frenzy—and in a hurry. As is the habit with him, he first fixes the date of the preview of the film—to enable the sponsor to okay the film—at least the rough-cut. Sukh is by then in desperate need to collect the next instalment of payment from the sponsor. The target date then becomes his obsession. It seeps into the conscious and the unconscious of not only Sukh. His assistants, and

down starts.

friends

too are made

aware

of it. The count

With the date fixed, the birth-pangs start. The cans start making the rounds—from his office to the editing room and from there to the

laboratory

and

back

again

in

the

without the knowledge of the excise chaps.

reverse

order—with

or

67 Sukh starts monopolising the editing room and the laboratory. He is here, there and everywhere. He is one moment coaxing the technicians; next moment he is supervising the developer; a few minutes later he is arguing

with

the

excise

man;

half and

hour

later he is pleading with some ‘“‘hundi-wallah’”’ to hold on fora few days more. In fact, during editing, there is a big song-anddance routine interspersed with moments of tension, outbursts of temper, and drinking sessions hot, cold and strong drinks. While editing each film, Sukh is a picture

mood.

of tension,

worry

and

black

During the days and nights of editing, the editing room is his home. No regular meals. The bath is missed. Even the clothes may not be changed for a day or two. Sukh works with rare intensity—with his blood pressure rising up. The finest hours of creativity with Sukh

are when he is editing

surrounded by celluloid strips of varying length—and

by assistant-

editors and friends. Sukh is once more the creator in the editing room. Thousands of images are floating in his head. Images of the film that is being edited and images from the earlier films. Sukh works asa computerised man while he is editing. The script and the daily shooting reports are there to guide him. But, as he runs through the shots backwards and forwards on the moviola again and again, peering at the lighted ground glass, his brain is racing. Bells tinkle and ring in his mind. With an unerring instinct he begins to use the scissors. A five metre "shot is clipped and chopped into a one-and-a half metre or a half-metre shots. Some shots are only two dozen frames. Some intercuts are added. The strips hanging and the strips in the bin are snatched and scrutinised. Sukh cuts here and clips there. In between he passes, remembers a shot taken a decade ago or just a month ago. He orders his assistant to order a dupe. He adjusts the frames and hands over the bits of the negative to the joiner. Even while they are being joined up, Sukh is already working on the next montage of shots, all the time pondering over continuity— visually, aurally or otherwise. What

is the film?

images, joined together.

projector.

Insipid, inanimate

strips of celluloid

But the inert matter becomes

alive

with

in the

But it is editing that endows the film with the dynamics

68

-

of movement and meaning. The juxtaposition of shots, long and

short, medium close shots and close ups, trucking shots and zoom shots, transition and jump-cuts. It is through these devices that the shots get animated, they acquire a new existence. Out of editing evolves the grammar of the film language—the sentences, simple, compound and complex. The way the shots are strung together is like a sentence with clauses.

But when

Sukh

edits, he not

only

writes filmic prose. He composes poetry with clusters of images.

Yet, while editing Sukh is on a par with some of the greatest directors of the world—not numbering more than a couple of dozen. In most cases, the directors leave editing to their reliable editors who have the script and shooting reports to help them. Only a few auteurs insist on spreading their style on the final endproduct. Only about two dozen film directors insist on writing their signature large on the celluloid. They spread their entire filmcraft on the celluloid as if it were another chemical coating on it. Sukh belongs to this precious minority. How

does

Sukh achieve all this ? By intensity of vision.

By an

inborn understanding of images—their tones and textures, their colours and movement. It is all the more remarkable that Sukh never learnt all this from some institute, here or abroad. Only from Paul Zils and Fali Bilimoria—that

too not for a long time.

A little over two years.

But Sukh learnt much by seeing films and studying them. He learnt all about

montage

of the classical

Eisenstenian

variety.

Of the

direction.

He has always had a remarkable flair for understanding

French Cinema Verite type. Of the New York Underground cinema. These he learnt much late in his professional life. But by then, he was already fumbling his way through in the right the mysteries of editing at a fairly early age of 25 or 26. It is in the editing rooms with his own efforts, he perfected his techniques. In the very first film of his which made headline news, ‘And Miles To Go”’, when it won an award at the Third International Film Festival (1965) at New Delhi, Sukh displayed his virtuosity in both handling the camera and in editing. Within a matter of 15 minutes he showed the dramatic and sickening contrasts of Indian life through telling images—with the sounds accentuating the

contrasts.

69 Sukh had ample scope to reveal his entire “bag of tricks” as some one nastily remarked when Sukh made “India °67’’. It was a veritable four de force. The India of 5000 years with a continuing Civilization as seen in all its facets in 1967 was recorded by Sukh in an original manner. He opened the eyes of the audience through the contrasts of life in India, freeze shots, jump-cuts, visual transitions and aural continuities. What he did in fact was to remove the mote in the eyes of most of us and enable us to see India ina

new way.

Sukh didn’t do any “‘sleight of hand”’ trick for he had

wandered

10,000 miles all over India in the old jalopy and another 10,000 miles by plane, train and bullock cart. He literally slaved over the film. And he was able to sustain the interest of the audience without a single word of commentary for nearly 50 minutes. This was an achievement indeed. Later in 1971/72 when Sukh made the memorable film, ‘‘Nine Months To Freedom’’, on the birth of Bangladesh, it was hailed as the most significant political testament in celluloid. He made the

film with the same spirit that animated the poets and writers who

were in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. He made this film as a committed film-maker. He got stock shots from mysterious sources—including Pakistan—and he graphically

portraryed

the

then

East

Pakistan

realities.

The

rationale of the Bangladesh movement under the inspired leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Tajuddin Ahmed and others— who all have been assasinated subsequently. But Sukh’s film is there. It is perhaps a unique film because it has recorded the birth of a nation, which underwent nine months of agony and ecstasy. Then there is the film on bonded labour “After the Silence’’, which won an award at Sixth International Film Festival, New Delhi,

1977.

It created much of a rumpus because Sukh managed

to interview one of the tycoons of bonded bars. An achievement indeed !

Ultimately we come

labourers behind the

back to the editing room. It is here that

Sukh is the unquestioned master.

What is Sukh’s secret. It is open for everybody to see in every film of his, right from ‘‘Wazir the Kaghzi”’ (1958) in which he got the credit line of “Director” for the first time. Editing is Sukh’s

70 forte. He knows exactly what shot must go where, how long it must last on the screen to make the impact on the retina, and what should follow—and also which shot will establish the ‘filmic connection’’ between the two shots. He does his editing not with any manual by his side—but by sheer instinct. Sukh edits his film as a ‘‘split character’’, with one eye he looks at editing in a manner that will suit the sophisticated elite. With the other eye he edits the film to suit the ordinary man who sits in the “pit” class. Sukh does tight-rope walking balancing between the demands of both. The film must please the ordinary man and at the same time the cognoscenti. To achieve his ends, Sukh gets into a frenzy while editing. He is, in fact, in a panic, to meet the deadline. He fights against time. And to have the film ready for the show, he will break all rules, including the injunctions of his doctor.

To

Sukh,

each

film is a

fragment of his alter ego. And he is hell bent on completing the film at all costs. He is a devil for work who can rush through negative cutting, the re-recording stage, the final print stage in record time. The fact that Sukh is a Jat is of relevance. For with relentless energy he works in the concluding stages of each film. If he treads on

other's

corns,

it is their business, not his. Sukh must complete

the film at all costs. And then when he has a tiff with the censors

or the bureaucrats that’s yet another story. It is in his nature to ignore briefs, to forget rules and ptrotocol. It is his psyche to be non-conformist and anti-establishment. He will not give in easily. He must fight for his viewpoint, his film. And invariably he has won!

ON “THUNDER OF FREEDOM” EMERGENCY

AND

Interviewed by Vikram Chopra

(Reprinted from “Youth Times” (March 5-18, 1975)

At 5.15 p.m. on the 10th of February 1976, the lights at the Banquet Hall of New Delhi’s Ashoka Hotel were switched off and the angry sound of a mob on the rampage filled the room. The images flashed on the screen ‘showed, in the starkness of black and white, ravaged classrooms and burning buses. The preview of S. Sukhdev’s latest film “Thunder Of Freedom’’ had begun. This film deals and chaos which interview various way in which the freeing of bonded of slum dwellers,

with the Emergency. After shots of the violence existed before the Emergency Sukhdev goes on to people living in Delhi and Haryana to record the Emergency has affected their lives. He shows the labour at the Badarpur mines, the rehabilitation the beautification of the Jama Masjid area. One

of the best moments of the films is one, where

an old Harijan says,

“I am 60 years old but when I got a piece of land I became young again.”’ Sukhdev also records some complaints against the Emergency, including one froma noted journalist.

After the film came the inevitable coffee and criticism. The audience seemed to have found the film disappointing. Some people had apparently expected an attack on {the Emergency. Others thought it too conservative and felt that “‘the rebel has joined the establishment.” Dom Moraes, in the next morning’s ‘Indian Express’, wrote that Sukhdev in defending the Emergency had

remained a rebel because “most of his shoddy competitors’’ would

have criticised it just because it would be fashionable to do so. However, he too felt that the film had flaws; it could have analysed the causes of the pre-Emergency violence, for instance.

I went to interview Sukhdev on the morning after the previow. I had heard from a mutual friend that, upset by the reactions of his audience, he had spent most of the previous night consoling himself with a bottle of whisky. But when I met him, he seemed to be neither despondent nor suffering from a hangover.

72 Sukhdev is of medium height and stocky.

His hair reaches down

to his shoulders and his sideburns almost meet at his chin. He speaks with the passionate intensity of a man committed to his work.

Instrument of Change Sukhdev, what do you think is the role

in India?

of the

documentary

film

Sukhdev : I believe that the documentary film is the most potent

weapon we have for bringing about social change. In India, as nowhere else, the documentary film has a captive audience of 30 lakhs everyday in cinema houses all over the country. If our documentaries can reach ‘out to these people, if they can act as

reflections of the public mind and as forums for debate and discus-

sions of our problems, if they are able to arouse the people to action, we will make tremendous progress. This function of the

documentary, as an instrument of change, isto

important function today. Art boggling things can come later.

and

my

aesthetics and

mind

its most

all the mind-

Has the documentary been fulfilling this function ? Sukhdev : Unfortunately this national asset has been completely wasted. Most of our documentaries leave us cold because either they deal with petty things like ministers alighting from aeroplanes and giving speeches or else they are used as platforms for sloganmongering. We are over-eager to pick up a slogan and allow it to become the end-all, Thus, our films about, ‘Garibi Hatao” or the ‘Twenty Point Economic Programme” without exploring how poverty can be removed or how far the economic programme has been implemented without pointing out how much remains to be done or the difficulties in the way of implementation. Since thinking people cannot be aroused by mere slogans, these films are dismissed as blatant government propaganda.

Why has this been happening? Is it because we lack good filmmakers? Sukhdev: No,I think we have some very talented film-makers,

even in the Films Division. Unfortunately they seem to make films only

to

please

their

superior

officers. So

they depict only great

73 achievements. Now while the establishment has not to do

this, they have

allowed,

ordered

them

and therefore encouraged, them to

make such films. At the same time, while a few in-depth films have been permitted such films are generally discouraged. My first film “And Miles To Go” was almost banned in 1965 because it showed that the gap between the rich and the poor

had

increased.

I don’t

really understand this attitude because unless you allow a frank debate you lose your credibility. Take the family planning programmes, for instance. Why has it got nowhere? One reason is that the doctors who have been going around inserting loops have not bothered to follow up each case. Users of this contraceptive have had some problems and so it has got a bad name. Now our family planning films deal with all kinds of statistics saying we have done this and achieved that, but they don’t talk about the problems faced by those poor women who used the loop.

Thus, while our films keep telling people that family planning

is a good thing, their friends tell them it is terrible. The government loses credibility while the authorities relax behind their statistics. How if the films discussed the whole problem frankly, the people would understand that it is not the programme that is bad but the implementation. Then the doctors would have to do their job properly.

Emergency : Unique Revolution Now

you

have

just

made

a film

on the Emergency.

maker how do you view the present situation ?

As a film-

Sukhdev: I see the Emergency as a unique Indian revolution. We have had a genius for missing revolutions but we can’t afford to miss this one. People have been saying that Mrs. Gandhi has

declared the Emergency just to

keep

herself in

power.

That

may

be part of the truth. But I don’t care who is in power as long as that person does something for this country. Now I believe and I

want to believe, that Mrs.

Gandhi intends to do

something for the

people. Her Twenty Point Programme is not new but it provides us with a vision of India’s future. No patriot can deny that. And as a socially committed artist— ‘committed’ has become a dirty word —but I am committed to ‘‘wipe the tears from every eye’’ and to remove the dirt and the poverty that has bogged us down. It is my

74

job to help realise this vision. People ask why didn’t she do all this earlier. I say, what the hell, let’s do it now at least. How do you intend to help realise this vision?

Sukhdev : I would

like

to

take

up

each of the Twenty Points

individually and make films onthem. My films would discuss what has been achieved in each part of the country and what remains to be done. They would identify the delays in implementation and the people responsible. Such a probe will naturally expose vested interests, including those which may lie to the ruling party. But it will also revolutionise the process of change because a frank debate will involve the people and will make the Twenty Point Programme which was conceived by Mrs. Gandhi, their own charter. Will the censorship laws and the Emergency regulations permit you to initiate such debates which, as you yourself, said were not encouraged even before the Emergency? Sukhdev: Let me be quite frank. When the Emergency was declared something in me seemed to die. I was scared because I had been outspoken at times. I was in Europe when all this happened and I even wondered if I should return to India or settle in

Europe

on

some

free

island.

But

finally

I decided to return

because my wife and daughter were here and because I wanted to live in my own country. For along time after my return, I kept my mouth shut. But nothing happened. I was ‘not put in jail. In fact, I was asked to make a film on the Emergency. I made this

film because I like problem films and because I was assured that I could interview anybody I wanted to. Now everyone keeps telling

me that there is no freedom of expression, that you can’t talk about things you are not happy with. In ‘‘Thunder Of Freedom”, I have a man complaining that an officer had had refused to hear his grievance, that he had been thrown out of a government office. Is there any documentary made before the Emergency which shows a government officer being criticised?

According to the old censorship code you cannot show a policeman in a bad light. In my film a woman compalains about police harassment. The press people say that they are shackled, that they can’t say anything against the Emergency. In my film Abu Abraham says that as a press man he is unhappy with the Emergency. Now this film was seen at the highest governmental level and I am

15 still not behind bars. Even the censor has passed it. What freedom have we lost, then? We have perhaps lost ‘the freedom to throw

stones but that was not a very desirable freedom.

Committed Artists Do you then feel that the establishment has realised the value of

the documentary film and that it now intends to use this medium a forum for debate and, therefore, as an agent of change?

Sukhdev: may

be too

I don’t know if this realisation has dawned early to say. My

as

as yet. It

film has certainly initiated a debate.

Since I had been scared by all this talk about lack of freedom, my film was a kind of experiment to see how far I could go. That is why it has just touched the surface. I have been encouraged by the result. Now, as I’ve already said, I intend to explore deeper. There may come a time when I will be stopped. If it does, then I shall withdraw from this whole business. But I feel that it is my duty, indeed

it is my

right, as a socially committed artist to be involved

in this great revolution. I will make my films and I will show them to Mrs. Gandhi. Even if she decides to censor them my purpose would have been served, because she, who is the person in a position to give orders, would be made aware of the true facts recorded by my camera. She would know how far her programmes have been implemented and she would know of the problems and the opinions of the common people. This I feel is very important because I am scared of the slogan-mongers. The people on whom Mrs. Gandhi has to rely for information are keen to show that they have done a great deal in a short time. By shouting slogans like “Twenty Point Economic Programme Zindabad’’ and ‘Indira Gandhi ki jai” they hope to come closer to her. I don’t mind all this provided they actually do what she says. But I am scared that

this opportunity for revolution my also be lost amidst the din of the

slogans.

DOCUMENTARIES:

CRISIS OF CREDIBILITY

Interview by Suresh Kohli

(The following interview with Suhkdev was splashed on a full page in “The Sunday Statesman’’ of July 4, 1976 with illustrations. The interviewer is wellknown as a poet, anthologist and editor of a literary journal—J.M.)

Sukhdev, says Satyajit Ray, is our most talented maker of documentaries. Surprisingly, Sukhdev did not undergo any formal training in the art of film-making: he got into the profession because he was in urgent need of a job. Over the past decade, he has made a large number of short films and advertising commercials. Many of his films have won awards at ‘international festivals. His most commendable work, claimed as a mini cinematic masterpiece, is ‘Nine Months To Freedom’’, depicting the Bangladesh struggle for liberation. His latest work is ‘Thunder of Freedom”. Here in an exclusive interview he answers some very pertinent questions relating to documentaries and raises a few of his own. (‘The Statesman’’ introduction) The documentary film is the most potent weapon in the fight for social justice. About ten million people see documentary films

every day in India’s cinema halls. Nowhere else in the world

such a captive audience. India

produces about

ries every year, the highest among all countries.

300

exists

documenta-

“But’’, says Sukhdev, “the documentary film has lost all credibility and is dismissed by the general public as mere propaganda.

Apart from the Films Division, there are about 400 independent documentary film-makers in the country. There are talented docu-

mentary film-makers both inside the Films Division and among the independent film-makers. Why, then is it that the documentary film is at its lowest ebb in India today ?”’ With that as the launching answers that followed :-

pad,

here

are

the

questions and

Q. Sukhdev, you have been hailed as a rebel and a controversial film-maker, a protagonist of the suffering lot and so on. Such titles can make or unmake an artist whether he admits it or not.

71 How would you define yourself in the light of these titles forced on you? Ans. I suppose when journalists try to hold someone they must have a label. These are nice cliche labels. To me it does not hurt but then it does not even matter much in that sense. I would say, to some extent though it is over-played they do point to a man’s attitude. The fact is that in my very first film, ““And Miles To Go”, I tried to portray the widening gulf between the havesand have-nots. There was a great deal of anger. Being a film-makerI have no other weapon except the cinema to try and undo the evils of our society. I think this continuous chain of subjects which I have chosen (whenever I have a choice) points to our social evils in very definite terms.

Weapon of Cinema We are losing time. What is happening is that though we have a lot of things done, there is a lot more to be done. And if one does not conquer speed with time (to be honest about it), if we do not build the average Indian with a certain character (I wonder if one could do that), the purpose is lost. I want to do whatever I can in

the process of building a new India through the weapon that I have, the weapon of cinema— the mass medium.

Q. What do you think is the role of a documentary film-maker? What has been happening so far and what should be his future tole?

-

Ans. I think one has to work, as in every other field, in a different mood and in a different spirit. It is imperative that the documentary film change its lethargic and pretentious mood created over the years by the majority of lifeless and stereotyped documentaries of the Films Division variety, where the director works like a bureaucrat and is content to fulfil his obligation to the file on the completion of a film. The stress has mainly been on quantity rather than quality. And, the independent film-maker is also given some contracts (about 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the documentaries made by the

78 Films Division) without taking into consideration his preference for, or attitude towards, certain subjects. Sometimes a producer who would do well at making social documentation films is asked to make a film on hockey sticks. He does it to earn his bread. One can easily understand his frustration over the waste of his creative energy on a subject that does not involve him totally—heart and mind, We can now stop wasting public money on silly newsreels being made by various State Governments, and often by the Films Division, about the official arrivals and departures and tree-plantation ceremonies. We should use the celluloid to probe the social scene and trigger off a debate among the ‘people, involving them in the various problems facing our country.

Documentary Films as Feed-Back I think the documentary film should ‘not only inform

and

moti-

vate the people but also serve as a feed-back to our leaders and planners to understand the nation’s problems at the grass-roots. level and take corrective measures where these plans are not succeeding. Only a socially committed documentarian allowed to probe the scene with a free camera can create credibility for this medium among the people. A documentary film-maker has to be a kind of a revolutionary with the camera, who can understand and interpret the socio-economic programmes to the people. Without the people’s participation, programmes will lead us nowhere. The documentary film is the most potent weapon social justice. The tragedy of the documentary film being misused by the official machinery but that it wasted for lack of proper understanding of the possibilities in the battle of ideas.

in the fight for is not that it is is being utterly medium and its

It is imperative that the documentary film finds a new image and integrity to ring true in the eyes and ears of the general public. It must show achievements in a humane and identifiable manner. It must not talk down to the people like the voice of God—the commentator dishing out figures and charts. Where necessary, it should point out the failures and search for possible answers through the eyes of the public and make people participate in the debate on

79

how to achieve our socialist dreams.

It is not enough to make a

socially relevant film once in a while; one has to create a series of

films based on experiences and presenting possibilities fora better .

tomorrow.

Such films should be comprehensible

man-in-the-street

tary

film-maker

dreams

ments. The

and

can

is his

reality

documentary

himself

identify

spokesman,

in terms

to the people; so that the and feel that the documen-

who

is

not

be

trying to

connect

of the actual experience and achiev-

film-maker

must

a mere agent of the

official propaganda machinery. He must not be a slogan-monger. He has a great responsibility to the people and the government. When he works as a socially committed artist he must undoubtedly applaud the genuine achievements of the government but by no means should he overlook the problems that have still to be solved. As a fighter, he must pinpoint any hurdles that stand in the way of the people or the government in achieving the professed national goals.

Social Commitment Q. In what sense can the commitment itself ?

of a film-maker reveal

Ans. I cannot see any artist unmoved by the poverty country. Poverty in more ways than one : physical poverty,

in our mental

poverty and the poverty of the petty politician for lack of vision and of the political sychophants in simply sloganizing the message of the leaders of our land. The cinema has to be committed because we are bringing about the silent revolution in this country.

After 30 years, where are we really ? At this moment we have a certain euphoria to build upon. We always talk about what we have

done but never about what we have not done. That is where the committed artist, who must get his facts and figures straight, could wake up those in power and also those who are at the receiving him. There are also those who are not receiving enough because a rich minority is stealing the real gains from a weak majority. The leader can only guide.

80 It is for the official machinery to put it into practice instead of passing on the guide-lines to others down the ladder and making the people sick with more slogan-mongering. We Indians have a genius for missing all kmds of revolutions. I hope we do not miss the present economic and social revolution. Q.

What

role

do

you

think

the

documentary

film-maker

has

played in projecting a proper and correct image of India abroad ?

Ans. The Indian documentary film-maker has almost played no role in projecting India abroad. The only place where the Indian documentary films are seen are at film festivals or at limited embassy showings. There are hardly any possibilities of theatrical viewing abroad The television networks rarely touch the documentaries of the Films Division, which are dismissed as mere official propaganda.

Moreover, the independent Indian documentary film-maker is hardly ever sponsored by the government to make an independent film about some aspect of Indian life and then be given the facilities to go out and sell in the highly competitive international market. The result is that the average foreign audiences have only seen Louis Malle’s India. I think it is high time the government realized the value of the independent documentary film especially made for projecting the India of today to a sceptical Western world. One

could

also have a look at it the other way round and try to

project the world to an Indian audience that will never leave the shores of India and {which is forever enamoured of the Hollywood image of the West and other parts of the world. The Indian Documentary-maker is hardly seen training his camera around the globe. This is a great pity.

Feature and Documentary Films Q. How are the roles of feature and documentary film-makers different in this remarkable medium of mass communication ? And if they are really different, why can’t they be clearly demarcated ? Ans, I think they are not just different but poles apart. The feature film industry is concerned mainly with cheap entertainment and spinning money in black or white. The documentary film, on the other hand, has a clear objective : Interpreting reality to the

India 67

Nine Months

to Freedom

India 67

India 67

And Miles to Go (S. Sukhdev)

Po:

India 67

a @

|

After the Eclipse (Kanta

Sukhdev and daughter Shabnam)

India 67

After the Eclipse (Sukhdev and his daughter Shabnam)

A

A

Village Smiles

Village Smiles

And Miles to Go

\

On the occasion of the inauguration of a ‘Session of Sukhdey’s Films”, organised by the Delhi Film Society. To the right of S. Sukhdev is Ashok

Mitra and left Jag Mohan

81 people and motivating the individual to play an active role in the reconstruction of society. It takes upon itself the difficult task of informing and educating the people. Any social problem in a

feature

film

is

almost

invariably

romanticized,

fantacized

melodramatized. The documentary film has to communicate out banking on such clap-trap.

or

with-

Hence, the documentarist cannot be a mere photographer or a romanticist. He has to be a socially committed person with a vast knowledge of human affairs and political philosophy. He is totally different from the commercial cinema director who can afford to direct Hema Malini and Dharmendra while sipping whisky or beating rhythm to a copy of a favourite Hollywood tune. It is high time the length of the average Hindi film was restricted to an hour and a half so that more playing time could be made available to some worthwhile documentary film-makers in the theatres. It is also high time an international documentary film festival

and

the

was

held

general

documentary.

in India to expose the documentary film-makers

public

to

the

revolutionary

power

of

the

The Golden Nightmare Q. What really ails the Indian film industry especially the over-

commercialized Hindi cinema 7

Ans. The commercial cinema is a golden nightmare! The trash that is produced as Hindi cinema is proof of the stunted mental growth of the majority of the Hind film-makers. They represent certain values which are totally hypocritical, money-minded and tasteless. The Hindi cinema is a perfect set-up for rotation of black money with its stars and super-stars, monopoly financiers, distributors and exhibitors. The big producers are a perfect vehicle for this black money operation. Unless something drastic is done to check this vulgarity, we shall not only havea silly generation of youngsters cultured by the Hindi cinema but also a nation of nincompoops who would be unable to meet the challenges of tomorrow in a highly competitive and fast changing world.

Films for Doordarshan Q. Why has Indian television not been used by the documentary

82 film-makers as a medium of mass communication ? What prevents them from doing so ? Ans. There are two reasons: 1. Most seasoned documentary film-makers find TV a highly low-paid proposition; and 2. The infrastructure to make films in 16 mm does not exist on an all-India basis. Most independent film-makers have 35 mm _ production equipment and the government has not helped the independent film-makers acquire 16 mm technology, which can reduce the cost of production tremendously. There is also little initiative by the authorities to entice the really professional documentary film-makers to TV production. Moreover, the TV ception that anybody TV programme ! And the Hindi films are

viewer.

Perhaps

authorities probably suffer from the misconwho can hold a 16 mm camera can produce a then, of course, Chhaya Geet, Chitrahar and always there for the average Doordarshan

it shall only be an unfulfilled wish that Indian TV

should acquire its own personality some day. But now I hear that ad men are going to jazz up the idiot-box with all the pomp and pageantry of Hollywood magic. The intrusion of Hindi film into the bedrooms of people has begun, in a big way. The unsuspecting villagers are going to be dazzled by the ad men with the magic of new lipsticks and newer soaps. I think we must really study this phenomenon of the urbanization of rural India via television. I am not quite sure what role the committed documentary filmmaker can play in such a situation vis-a-vis television. I would surely find it hard to lure an audience to watch a motivational programme after the invasion of “Sholay”’ and the like ! I am keeping my fingers crossed. But may be some new TV personalities will emerge and, given proper support, the documentary film-maker will assert

himself

and give a new meaning to TV in our battle of ideas

between cheap entertainment and education of the masses,

THE SILENCE”

OF “AFTER

REVIEW

Jag Mohan

The following review of ‘After the Silence” is reprinted from “Socialist

India’, (the AICC Weekly of Indira Gandhi’s Congress) dated November 27, 1976. The author was the Executive Editor of the journal, now defunct.

S. Sukhdev’s 20-minute, black-and-white documentary film, “After the Silence’’ is not merely made with the traditional celluloid. A coating of nitro-glycerine has been added to it, so much so when the film is screened, there is a veritable explosion of images and sounds. But it is no subversive film. It is a film on the bonded labourers in our country packed with such intensity that it stirs the conscience.

Sukhdev

is much

more

than

the enfant

terrible, who

made that remarkable film, “And Miles To Go”’ years ago. He matured a lot since he made “India 67’ and ‘‘Nine Months Freedom’’. He has become a sociologist and a surgeon too. He used the camera like a scalpel to rip open the sore spots in national life and reveal the gangrenous vitals with all the filth

puss,

has To has our and

Within a matter of 20 minutes, Sukhdev manages to tell filmically

all that

could

be

said

about

two

aspects

of the

problem of the

bonded labour—girls mortgaged for their lives and turned into prostitutes and the bonded labourers in the rural areas. A committed film-maker that he is, he packs his films not with soul-less facts and figures but with images and sounds that induce catharsis, which is expected of any great work of art. ‘After the Silence’’, researched and scripted by Rina Gill, starts with

shots of bird-like virgin girls offering flowers to the gods in a temple at the call of the odd-sounding horns that grate on the ears. But these girls are destined to be caged birds for the rest of their lives, since their kith and kin sell them into the oldest profession. The sound track incidentally carries bird sounds. The scene shifts from the village in a U.P. hill district to the brothels of the big city. A fat dolled up “‘madame”’ sings and entertains lecherous men with leery looks and watering mouths. Then the film cuts to shots of the sordid conditions in which our “forlorn sisters’’ live. They are not shown either soliciting customers

84 or entertaining them. less condition with through their faces. convincingly, without

But they are shown in their abject, utterly helpvacuity writ large on their faces. They tell They also tell their tales of woe, haltingly but remorse or guilt.

The first sequence is so authentic and impressive that it can be used as a model for teaching students of the cinema about the greatness of the documentary approach in film-making. The real people in real settings are speaking with real voices the untutored truth. This is the greatest virtue of this film.

The second part of the film, provides first-hand accounts of aspects of bonded labour from a district commissioner, a labour ministry official and several bonded labourers, bent with age, but with sad memories. It is a mosaic of voices, not pleasant for the ear since what they say reveals to what extent man’s inhumanity to man

can go. A high point of the film is reached when Sukhdev interviews a neatly clad, almost benevolent-looking individual behind

the bars.

He is a notorious one-time pramukh who had undisputed

away over 65 villages in Bihar. Now he is cooling his heels having been nabbed under MISA. And he confesses that but for the Prime Minister’s 20-Point Programme, he would

surplus land and released too late by then !

never

have

parted

with

so many bonded labourers. But it was

The film, when released by the Films Division and when shown by the Field Publicity Directorate all over the country, will stir the conscience of the nation. The eyes and the ears of the multitudes would be opened to the anomalous conditions in our socio-economic set-up. The victims of bonded labour will speak after seeing

“After

silence,

the Silence’. After years the 20-Point

Programme

of

exploitation

and

enforced

has endowed them with the right

to speak—and to be freed. It is for social workers, Youth Congress workers and for Congressmen to hear patiently to them and do the

needful to free them. The film will naturally put fright into the hearts of the money-lenders and sahukars, who

in our villages and industrial cities. Sukhdev

must

be congratulated

lead

parasitic

for not only making a

lives

first-rate

film, which in its present form must be released without any tampe-

ring by the Censors, the Film Advisory Board and bureaucrats. Sukhdev has also made a good beginning with his group of fiim-

85 makers called, “Film 20°’, consisting of talented documentary directors from the private sector and from the Films Division. This

“Film 20’ Group

is expected to make films that will take the real

meaning of the Prime Minister’s 20-Point Programme to the masses through the medium of the film in the most effective manner. Let there be more films like Sukhdev’s ‘‘After the Silence.”

THE

POLITICAL

FALL-OUT

IN BIHAR

A, Raghavan

(The “Blitz” of November 17, 1976 carried on Page 3 the following report on the political fall-out in Bihar as a consequence of the release of Sukhdev’s film, “After the Silence’’, through the Films Division’s circuit of cinemas

all

over the country. A. Raghavan is the Chief of the Delhi Bureau of “Blitz”. —J.M.)

NEW DELHI: The release of S. Sukhdev’s telling documentary film, which exposes the utter inhumanity of bonded labour (Blitz. Nov. 6, Page 1) has been held back, thanks to the machinations of those who profit from this abominable practice. Part of Sukhdev’s expose turns on the 500-odd bonded labourers recently freed in Palamau District of Bihar. The camera focuses on dozens of these men, women and children, and also records their tales of unspeakable cruelty suffered at the hands of the landgtabbers and money-spinners. In the course of the series of on-the-spot interviews, a woman, all skin and bones, with an emaciated child thrown across her

shoulders, narrates how her husband, who had a small loan to repay, was brutally murdered by men of the rural oppressor, Dattu

Pathak. An

old man

horror story.

of the

village, Jogikhura,

Another narrates how Narayan

of villagers of their land. Incidentally,

same

‘‘Dattu’’

Sau

corroborates her deprived

scores

Pathak was detained under MISA,

but he

managed to secure his freedom within 12 hours because of his highlevel political connections.

This satrap, with his immense political influence in Patna, prevailed upon the Delhi authorities to issue the directive that Sukhdev’s documentary film shall not be exhibited unless the unsavoury reference to him, namely, the dastardly murder of a hapless tribal, is deleted.

The ministerial injunction is eloquent testimony to the formidable importance of “Dattu’’ Jaga Narayan Pathak. His family, as

87 has come outin the probe conducted by the research workers of the National Labour Institute in collaboration with high officials of the district, is stated to own hundreds of acres of land, including unauthorised bhoodan land. The Bihar State Lac Marketing Federation was set up to help the

lac farmers. Lac farming is an important part of Palamau’s economy. Thousands eke out a bare subsistence out of it.

forest

The Government had fixed Rs. 3 per kilogram for lac, but in the

district of Palamau, the Federation agents did not go out to buy the product from the farmers in time, so that they had to sell it to

the local banias at throwaway prices. Subsequently, the Federation bought up the stuff from local dealers for a sizeable consideration. Uncle

Pathak joined the syndicate

when

the Congress split in

1969, but later defected to the winner’s side. He

Assembly

contested

a State

seat in the 1972 election, but lost when even lamp-posts

won under the Indira wave.

That was an index of the popular revulsion against him in Palamau. As a recompense, however, his patrons got him up in the upper chamber of the State Legislature. Jaga Narayan Pathak keeps like-minded company. An arresting character in Sukhdev’s film is Narayan Sau, one of the most notorious parasites in the district.

Confession of a Sahukar He has been arrested under MISA by the daring Deputy Commis-

sioner

of the district, B.P. Sinha.

Sau was taken into custody from

the air-conditioned guest house of the Japla cement factory owned by the Dalmias. At the time of his arrest, Sau was in the company of Pathak

Council.

and

another

female

dignitary

of the Bihar Legislative

The film-maker ‘‘shot’”’ Narayan Sau inside the Daltonganj Jail, providing thereby, enormous credibility to the Prime Minister’s new economic programme, which includes the eradication of bonded labour. -

Sau

has

confessed-—and

this

is part

of the documentary—that

but for the 20-Point Programme he would not have surrendered 55 acres of land which, according to the local population, is onlya

88 small part of his holdings. Narayan Sau lords over 65 villages, which are supervised by his 65 musclemen. And to boot, Sau is the Panchayat Samiti Pramukh. One can gave glimpses of Sau’s rapaciousness from an article in the latest issue of the ‘Bulletin of the National Labour Institute’’, which is doing yeoman service in freeing and rehabilitating the bonded slaves. K Gopala Iyer, in his piece on “Palamau Revisited”, has given a detailed account of Sau’s depradations.

Sau has been charging fantastic interest ranging “from 1,450 per

cent per annum to 3,200 per cent per annum’’ on the miserable loans he doled out. The amount of land he grabbed from the poor peasants was ‘‘colossal.’’

Concrete instances of Sau’s concerted and successful attempts at dispossessing the rural poor not only of their precious land and livestock but also of their women-folk have been given. In one case, a tribal who had borrowed Rs. 50 from Sau, paid back Rs. 160. Even then, he demanded Rs. 200 more. When he was unable to pay it, Sau’s men ‘‘took away his wife and children. The poor wretch had to sell his goats to get back his wife and children.” Iyer, who accompanied the film-maker to the jail, found this oppressor ‘‘dumb’’, but exuded confidence that his ‘political mentors would be able to secure his release.’’ What pained them most was that, even in detention, he was enjoying “royal privileges.’’ Jaga Narayan is a bosom friend of Narayan Sau. He did not, however, have the courage to intervene on his behalf and demand a sizable cut in Sukhdev’s documentary. He has done so only on behalf of his nephew Dattu who had a taste of MISA only for half a day. The highest in the Bihar Government seem to be backing pathak’s demand on Sukhdev. Evidence of it is provided by the absence of B.P. Sinha, Palamau’s Deputy Commissioner who was involved in the film-making from the current Delhi seminar on bonded labour. On inquiry it was stated that his travel to Delhi could not be cleared in time as Chief

89 Minister,

Dr. Jagannath

the AICC session.

Mishra,

had

to go to Gauhati to attend

Sukhdev’s documentary, ‘‘After the Silence’, has been seen and appreciated by several Ministers, including Home Minister Brahmananda Reddy, and high officials. A curb on such films now is nothing but an insult to the letter and spirit of the Prime Minister’s new economic programme. Vidya

Charan

Sukhla

is not a feudal. It is to be hoped he will

shake off the political wire-pullers and permit maker to show his documentary unabridged.

the

inteprid film-

ON

“AFTER

THE

SILENCE”

Interviewed by Raghu Shergil

Reprinted from “Youth Times’’ (February 4-17, 1977)

Social legislation in India has remained an area of darkness. Not because of lack of it. But because of the excess of it! Having passed a piece of legislation, everybody who was anyone, sat smug on

it, wishing the malady to disappear.

As if the medicine had the

capacity of self-application. What was forgotten was that the medicine had to be administered by the physician, in adequate quantities and in a degree of purity to be effective.

Whatever the intentions of the legislators and policy planners, all the measures for bringing the teeming millions of starving Indians, into the national mainstream of life somehow got watered down by the time they reached the grassroots. If anything, they became counter-productive. How else can we account for the reprisals against Harijans and other weaker sections by the influential landlords? This unequal fight for survival—direct offshoot of social legislation—at times threatened to make life more difficult for the unfortunate for whom the measures were intended to serve. One such problem has been the practice of Bonded Labour, so very prevalent in our villages. Despite constitutional provisions against it, the “barbarous practice’’—as the Prime Minister called it—persists to this day. It has acquired newer and keener edges with the spread of education and with the proclamation of Emergency, a total war has been declared on the vested interests. To focus films, can mitted and “Film 20°’. each of the

attention on the problem, the mass media, particularly play a very vital role. With this end in view, a few comenterprising film-makers have created a group called This is engaged in making documentary films covering 20 Points in the Prime Minister’s programme.

“Documentary”,

bers

of the

Film

says S. Sukhdev, one of the most

active

mem-

20 group, “instead of being a cheap propaganda

91 tool with the government, should be a means of genuine communication.”” Sukhdev has just completed a bold documentary film on the problem of bonded labour—‘After the Silence”’. I interviewed Sukhdev seminar on films.

at New

Delhi, where he was attending a

A film that Probes What

labour ?

was the brief with which you started making

on bonded

Sukhdev : The idea was to make a film that probes into the work so far done to identify the barriers which stood in the way of the implementation of the various schemes for freedom and rehabilitation of the labourers. This, of course, included the peripheral issues and problems which directly stem from bondage. The choice of the area was difficult. The problem manifests itself in different shapes in different areas, and is so widespread that it boggles the mind. After considerable thought, two areas having the highest concentration were chosen for study—Jaunsar-Bhawar in Uttar Pradesh and Palamau District of Bihar. I must add that I wanted to make a film which would be different from the ordinary run of propaganda films, It may invite the wrath of some certain interested quarters, but I must be true to my sponsors, true to the country, to the silent and peaceful social revolution that is taking place in the countryside. Having studied the

situation

in two

high

concentrated

areas,

do

you think the measures taken by the State Governments are adequate ? How far are the official estimates of incidence of bonded labour correct ? Sukhdev: The problem is deep-rooted in our socio-economic system.

In a way, the conditions in the countryside are such that the practice

is not only perpetuated, but more and more bonded labourers are added. The official estimates do not reveal the true extent of the problem. They do not take into account the people who are not in formal bondage, but who have no choice except to work on a big landlords’ fields or perish. Technically, these people are free. Are they ? More than 50 to 60 per cent of the agricultural labourers are

bonded.

:

92 Nearly 60,000, who, according to official statistics have been freed from bondage, are the ones who directly came under the purview of the legislation passed by the State Governments. The point to ponder here is : Are the landlords or others who employ bonded labour so foolish as to have such agreements which would make them liable to punishment, when they have other and equally potent means to extract free labour from the victims ? They are using every possible means from social and economic pressure to coercion, including physical violence. Keeping all these in view, one has a feeling that the official estimates are not correct.

Again, no measures which do not make adequate provision for

rehabilitation of freed labourers, are going to succeed. In bondage, they at least get fed, no matter how meagerly. But what kind of freedom

is it which might force them to starve or sell their wives or

usurious

landlords.

daughters to keep alive ? Many return again into the fold of the The

challenge, therefore, is to create economic

opportunities in the villages.

The task is colossal, but now is the opportunity. We have a determined leadership, and the present mood of ‘seeing things done’ should not be allowed to slip out of our fingers. You mean changed ?

the present definition of bonded

labour

needs to be

Sukhdev : There is definitely a need to review and perhaps widen the scope of legislation. It must include those agricultural labourers who are only technically free. And make planning village-based, rather than city-oriented.

Vested Interests But

labour

what and

happens the

when

measures

Anti-Untouchability

like the abolition of bonded Act

remain

unimplemented

through either inaction on the part of bureaucracy or obstructions by

the vested

interests ? Did

you

course of making your film ?

come

across

such

cases

during the

Sukhdev: I agree, we have had laws prior to the Emergency. For 27 years (since we became a Republic) nothing substantial happened. Not at least in this area. Prior to the Emergency, the states were only too busy

denying

the

very

existence

of bonded

labour.

And

it is

93 interesting that since the Emergency the same states have been vying with each other in the numbers of bonded labourers freed. Communicators in such cases must be given a free hand to expose such cases. They are not always innocent mistakes; they may be part of a well-considered plan to keep the status quo intact by the vested interests. Such interests are there, I must say, in powerful places.

Another very dangerous tendency is the practice of sycophancy. This is a cancerous growth which has eaten into the very vitals of our national character. Why are campaigns and weeks organised only to coincide with the visit of some VIP 7? Could there not be consistent work throughout until a problem has been solved? Those

who engage in such gimmicks are only interested in sloganeering; they only catch the eyes and ears of those who matter, to serve their own

selfish

ends.

The

forgot to make Indians.

Founding

Fathers

made

India,

but

they

Yes, I came across many such instances of vested interests harassing honest and dedicated workers. At Dehra Dun, I met a

young social worker attached to the Nehru Yuvak

Kendra.

Almost

single-handedly, he has been carrying out a war against the selling of poor girls to brothels in cities like Meerut and Delhi. These girls are the daughters of poor Harijan landless labourers from the hill areas of U.P., who are sold to the landlords and other traffickers to buy freedom from bondage.

This young man has been harassed by

these vested interests. He has faced many court cases, ironically, on charges of trafficking in women ! Then

there is the case of a young Deputy Collector in Palamau

district of Bihar.

He is up against a whole lot of kulaks

for trying

to free their bonded labourers. They have even threatened to kill him. You will be surprised to learn that people who appeared before our camera for my film on bonded labour have been assaulted. Even I was pressurised, albeit vainly, to delete references to certain people in my film. Should a committed documentarian like me pack a gun with his camera and lenses before he ventures out to make a film about the exploitation of the poor people by the money-lenders and other greedy people. If these interests can kill and rape someone for just speaking the truth before the

camera

of

a documentary-maker, they may also try to silence the documentarymaker.

94 No Governmental Pressures Has there been any pressure from the Government to highlight only the so-called achievements? Do you expect any Censor trouble ? Sukhdev: No, far from it. Had I been asked to make only a wishywashy documentary saying that the problem has been solved just for

putting a law in the statute, I would not have undertaken the project. You’ve

seen

the

film

and

you

know

it is

not so. I think I have

succeeded in identifying the problem, the elements which obstruct progress, and thereby put the focus on the real issues. That is the

limit to which a documentary can go. Should the censors insist on any cuts, I will do my best to convince them about the truth of it. They must verify the truth. I will always fight if an over-zealous censor official tries to suppress the truth. It is the biggest disservice

to the country not to let the facts of a problem reach the appropriate levels. It is disloyalty to the nation and national leaders. Suppose even then some cuts are ordered ? Sukhdev : I am not going to commit harakiri. I will not accept an unjust decision without making more than a formal protest, however.

I fight as long asI can. But I would hate to perish from the scene. You cannot attack a tank with just a walking stick. However, I

hope there is nothing in the film which the censors would object to.

You suggest implementation

truly

exploitation-free

employment

for the

agarian

of land reforms, society

and

landless in the village.

establishment

alternative

of a

sources

of

Is it possible without

a blood bath or what many call a class war? As a committed communicator what do you think ?

Sukhdev : Yes, certainly. Since the Emergency, there has been a tremendous upsurge of youth. If only it could be harnessed and everyone could be made to do his part without indulging in slogan-mongering, almost anything could be achieved. The literacy drive of the Youth Congress is an excellent step forward. The main task before their leaders should be to keep the swashbucklers out of the way. Everyone in a college or university should be compulsorily made

to

live in a village for some months, if only to know how the poor live.

The present attitude of college boys and girls going to the village on a sort of a picnic, only evokes cynicism from the villagers. Their

problems have to be taken seriously.

GOLDEN PEACOCK FOR “AFTER THE SILENCE”

The newspapers of January 17, 1977 splashed on their pages photographs of Sukhdev receiving the Golden Peacock the then President, the late Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed for his “After the Silence’, adjudged as the best in the category of films at the Sixth International Film Festival at New Delhi.

front from film short

The previous evening at the awards function on the concluding day of the Festival, when Satyajit Ray, Chairman of the international jury announced the award there was thunderous ovation from the audience for Sukhdev—as well as from the distinguished film personalities on the stage that included Akira Kurosawa, Elia Kazan and Michaelangelo Antonioni. Till a few hours before the function Sukhdev was shooting the Films Division film, ‘‘Four Great Directors’’.

(This film was

about the meeting

of Kurosawa,

Kazan, Antonioni and Satyajit Ray at Delhi, the discussions among them and trips of the visiting directors to the tourist spots. But Sukhdev was not allowed to complete the film and it was finally ditched by the Films Division for reasons best known

only

to

the

bigwigs there.) One hour after the function, at the dinner to the award-winners and delegates hosted at Ashoka Hotel by the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, V.C. Sukhla, Sukhdev was again shooting some more footage [for his film, unmindful of the award. At this Festival, the Japanese film, “Mon and Inas’’ directed by Tadashi Imai won the Golden Peacock in the feature film category. The Silver Peacock for best direction was won by the Soviet filmmaker Ali Khamraev for his “The Man who follows the Birds’. The Silver Peacock for short films was not awarded by the jury but the Bronze Peacock went to the Australian short, ‘Squeaker’s Mate”. The Hungarian actress Jana Plichrova and the Swedish actor, Carl Gustaf Lindstedt bagged the Silver Peacocks for best acting.

FILM-MAKER’S PURPOSE: “PERSONAL CINEMA” OR “SOCIAL RELEVANCE”

(The following is the full text of the paper read by Sukhdev at a seminar

organized by the Indian Institute of Mass Communication and the Directo-

rate of Film Festivals at New Delhi in early January, 1977 coinciding with the

Sixth International Film Festival of India. In this paper, he gave

full expres-

sion to a Marxian viewpoint about the cinema that surprised all those present, This paper was reproduced subsequently in the “Communicator”, the journal

of the IIMC—J.M.)

Before we proceed with the main discussion, it is imperative that we clearly understand the concept and meaning of the two terms—'‘Personal Cinema”’ and “Social Relevance’. I will first take the term ‘Social Relevance’. Social relevance in art means that the artist, through his creation, tries to present, analyse and expose the social reality and thus tries to create, among

the spectators, an awareness which ultimately becomes a motivating force to change or improve upon the existing social norms, institu-

tions and human behaviour. This function can also be served, and is served, by means other than art like non-fiction writing, essays, lectures, etc. Then what is the need of using any art-form to achieve this end? It is a very apt question.

The answer perhaps is that art, in a general way, is the most refined form of normal human expression. In their extremely refined form, words become poetry; sound becomes music. Thus, artforms have an intensity which the normal expression of daily life lacks. It is this intensity of art-forms that evolved, and was used by man to communicate to his fellow human beings, his feelings, and his comments about life and all that it encompasses. During the primitive age, Art was used to frighten away one’s enemies and bad spirits. Art

was

ethics of living.

also used

to perpetuate

beliefs in the norms and

This function of Art still continues, because it is this function of Art which has justified its constant existence and development through the ages. By the very virtue of the communicative power, art has always remained a very potent weapon. This weapon could be used effectively only by a super-sensitive person who has an intense feeling and understanding of life. It can be used to fight

97 untruth and

injustice. Therefore,

the exploiting classes of all ages

have been afraid of Art. There is an

old saying in Arabic:

‘‘...the

words of a poet are more fatal than a sword because the wound of a sword

healed.”

gets

healed,

but the wound

inflicted by words

is never

Due to this peculiarity of Art, it has been sought to suppress people in different societies by the exploiting classes right through human history.

Enlightenment of the Masses When the printing

press

was

invented,

a minister

to the king

advised against it, telling the king that the printing press was a very dangerous weapon. The minister was very much right. The printing press, by producing cheaper books in great numbers, liberated human knowledge from the confines of the rich man’s library and made it available to the common man. The poets and writers gained

a vast audience for their thoughts, and many false conceptions and lies were demolished from the common man’s mind. This potent means of enlightenment of the common masses was too dangerous for the exploiting class and, therefore, censorship was imposed on the book. If the craft of printing had not been invented, book censorship would have never been instituted. In the past, it was enough to put Christ on the cross for delivering his Sermon on the Mount. But now, the sermon came out on the printed pages of books and newspapers. Moreover the printed words

had

redicalized

the common

mass

and

had effected many

revolutions. As a result, the despotic rule of many self-willed kings and war-lords, had been replaced by Democracy. The {bourgeoisie democracies, though basically serving the interest of the exploiting class, were not as free as the kings of yore to use brutal force to suppress ideas,

Moreover, the ruling class now, was more educated and sophisticated and, therefore, had adopted the very subtle device of not

tuling directly, but through the so-called popular parties, which apparently were elected in the so-called free elections. And, just as

they had discovered that ruling through the ballot instead of the bullet was much more profitable and peaceful, they also realised that to counter the enlightening and radicalising effects

of the Art

98 media the best weapon was a counter ideological war. And through the intellectuals, consciously or unconsciously. committed to the status quo of exploitation, many theories about Art were propagated through the mass media. Some of these theories were quite old. One of them was: “Art for Art’s sake”. The purpose of this theory had always been to disconnect

Art

from

its essential function

of

enlightenment and radicalisation through the exposure and analysis of social reality. Oscar Wilde, shocked by the Victorian age, had

useless”!

His words are not stating the truth

about

said “All

art is

art. His words

are merely giving expression to the deep-rooted wish and dream of the exploiting classes that all art should become useless. In other words, all art should stop exposing the social reality.

Exploiting Classes and Their Art In our times this wish and intention is expressed by the exploiting class under the garb of many theories. The words and idioms may

differ but the essence and meaning remain

“All art may be rendered useless.”’

the

same.

For

example

As technology developed as also the rate of education and other media of communications, the exploiting classes used these powerful means to counter-attack real art; ‘“‘Abstract’’ painting was praised sky-high. A Jackson Pollack is sought to be glorified—because what he created in the name of painting was the safest form of Art for the Capitalist. Pollack’s creations communicate nothing. They are

just so many daubs of brilliant colours which

give

a visual

sensa-

tion to people of jaded tastes. And this visual masturbation is imposed upon us as great art. The limit of this theory of Art is the recent news of a so-called ‘Artist’ hanging white plastic panels for several kilometers in U.S.A. at the cost of more than a million dollars. He could only get such a huge amount of money only in a society, where many genuine poets, singers and writers die in

poverty.

It is in this era—ruled by the most alert and politically exploiting class—that man invented the most potent art form, the Cinema. By the very virtue of Cinema’s technical requirements—equipment, taw-stock, etc.—a fairly huge layout of capital is required for the

very act of creating a film. A writer cannot be stopped from writing

99 a book through lack of money—a pencil and some paper is enough

for him to complete his creation to the last full stop. But a filmmaker cannot do so. A film-maker needs a substantial amount of money to start the very act of making a film.

This peculiarity mortgaged Cinema at its very birth in the

of the capitalist and his book-keeper. In the beginning,

list patronized

the cinema

as a means

hands

the capita-

of making profits—from

modest to huge—without any ideological hang-ups. But, as many film-makers began to use this powerful medium for social analyses

and exposing social realities, the exploiting classes realized the terrifying powers of this art form. They immediately sought to

suppress those film-makers, who tended to use this medium as a weapon in the battle for social change. The cards were heavily stacked against makers.

the committed

and true artists among

the film-

First and foremost, finance was denied to such film-makers

when

some

of them

like

Jean

Vigo

managed

but

to make films like

“Zero de Conduit” with a very small budget through ingenuity and even at the cost of their own health, then the weapon of the Censor was used and Vigo’s film was banned from showing just as Bunuel’s films were banned later on. But this could not be a permanent

solution.

So a whole

school

was created to perpetuate the old humbug—‘‘Art for Art’s sake’’. But, now it was given many slick names and one of them was

“Personal Cinema’’. This in no way means “Cinema with a personal style”. The two terms are totally different.

What

is meant

by

“Personal Cinema’’ is that this cinema is not obliged to say, communicate or commit itself to anything except the personal aesthetics of the maker.

Exercise in Form; no Content Since their ‘Personal Cinema”’ is not obliged to say anything or

communicate

anything it becomes

a mere

exercise in form.

form, when practiced without content, is reduced to gimmicks.

But

And

gimmicks are rarely original. That is why, in the realm of ‘Personal Cinema’, one fails to find such great creators of new form like Eisenstein, Bergman, Antonioni, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Ray and many others. Form in itself cannot be art. Form is a vehicle to be used to communicate a given truth.

100 Since each truth has its own peculiarities, every time an artist wants to state a truth through his art, he does invent, consciously

or otherwise, a new form or radically changes the existing form. That is why all the great innovators of the form of Cinema were

people who

were highly committed to the improvement

socio-economic and human Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Lang,

realities Godard,

of the

of their times. Griffith, Renoir, Bergman, de Sica,

Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Polansky, Ray, Fellini, Vigo. All of them, without exception, are people who passionately strove or are striving to communicate in order to reveal the social reality and thus

bringa new awareness among the masses.

None

of them

sought to

create a mere ‘‘Personal Cinema.”’ What they strived and achieved is a cinema which is committed to social relevance—with a highly

personal touch of style. With

the passage

of time,

the exploiting capitalist classes have

become more sophisticated in their modus operandi. Today, we find total suppression of human liberties in many parts of the world under regimes which call themselves democratic or socialist or social-democratic and so on.

Power of the Cinema The fashion was started by Hitler who called his party of antipeople hordes as National Socialists! And, like Hitler, many a dictator uses slogans lifted from the socialist text-books and democratic traditions but these slogans are completely twisted in

their meaning and application. When dictators of such regimes talk about welfare measures they only mean a total submission of

the working classes to the rapacious exploitation by the vested interests. When they call upon the masses to work for national prosperity they only mean working for a handful of rich families owning monopoly business houses.

Everybody sympathises with the poor. Some even give some money to remove poverty. But nobody really talks about the real cause of poverty, Unless and until the worker, either in factories or in the fields, is paid in full the real value of his labour, poverty and slums will continue to grow and under-nourishment shall remain a common phenomenon. The same exploiter, who becomes rich by depriving the worker of his real wages, opens charitable institutions

101 for the poor. But he will see to it that the masses never become wise to the methods of his exploitation. And this is achieved through several means. Education is turned into a saleable commodity and quite costly. Thus, a huge majority of the common people remain illiterate. Newspapers and other media are controlled and used to further condition the masses. All this creates a society where the majority of people remain illiterate. The few among them who get education become conditioned to accept the status quo. Books and newspaper articles stop being

fewer

effective, because very few are able to read them, and still

can

comprehend

them.

In

such

a Situation,

the Cinema

assumes a very special status, Unlike any other media, the Cinema

is able to record, in its minutest detail, the actual reality of places, people and events. The photographic reality and the immeasurable effect of montage, become comprehensible and arouse a consciousness even in those who are illiterate.

A shot of hungry children, rummaging for food in a garbage tin,

tells more about the state of poverty than a million written words. And then again, this same shot juxtaposed with a shot of a champagne party at the house of the owner of the mill, where the parents of these children work, conveys the underlying truth about

poverty much more effectively than some thesis of exploitation

paper.

In short, the truth that remains a tedious theory in essays

abstraction

in other

on

or an

art media, becomes a living, vibrating feeling

and fact on film that not only standing of reality. Such is the It is only through the Cinema the fundamental truths about to bring about a social change.

invites but compels an instant underpower of the medium of the Cinema. that the common masses can be told human society and can be motivated

This quality of the Cinema is recognised and understood not only

by the film-makers but also by the exploiting classes. And, therefore, every means is used by these exploiters to curb the honest use of the Cinema. The financing, distributing and exhibiting agencies are monopolised by the capitalists. And then, patronage through

money and media is extended to those

who

consciously or other-

wise are ready to serve the status quo. This class perpetuates the theory of “Personal Cinema’. In other words, subjective cinema

102 which, like any subjective thing, has no involvement with objective reality has nothing to do with socio-economic problems. Since all intimate human problems arise out of a given socio-economic setup, the so-called ‘Personal Cinema’’ ends up by avoiding the truth about all such things. It is like a cracked mirror of the film-maker’s

fantasies, At its best, itends up as a mere exercise in form which is mostly

repeitive

and

meaningless

like a man

practising

how to

write the letter ‘‘S” without knowing whether he wants to use it for

the word SAINT or SWINE!

Avoiding Reality is not Art Basically there is no difference between the commercial feature film and the arts arty ‘Personal Cinema”. They both avoid reality. They both hate social involvement and they both are acceptable to the exploiting classes because they both send the spectator into a coma—the commercial film through the opium of glamour, melo-

drama and fantasy, and the ‘‘Personal Cinema’ through the gloss of

mere form and intellectual masturbation. It is true that they use different sets of cliches, but they are in total agreement in their dishonesty and both condemn the meaningful and socially involved cinema as “‘propaganda’’ and not art. For them, art is only that which says and comments on nothing, which is mere art for the sake of art!

For an artist who is aware of his social role and responsibilities, it.is his duty to use the cinema as a weapon to expose the truth about his society. He must tell the poor masses that they are poor because a handful of exploiters take away the fruits of their labour, that nothing shall free them from the clutches of poverty unless they revolt against this exploitation. In today’s world, the responsibilities of a film-maker have become more acute. Cinema, in today’s context, is not a mere art form. It is a very potent weapon in the fight for the abolition of poverty, hunger and exploitation of man by man. Fascism and imperialism in any form cannot be averted by the act of neutrality by an artist. Freedom to express subjective moods without respect for objective reality is no freedom buta betrayal of suffering humanity. If a film-maker sticks to the view that creative activity is metaphysical, subjective and unrelated to

103 class interests in a given society, he may be permitted to cherish the pretence of ‘‘freedom”’ to compensate for his impotence. Therefore, there is nothing like ‘‘Personal Cinema’’ or “‘Social Relevance’’. It is not a question of this or that. There should not be a cinema, personal or otherwise, without social relevance.

THE LAST: INTERVIEW Aruna Vasudevy

(A

fortnight or so before Sukhdev died, Aruna Vasudev (film-maker and

author of “Liberty and Licence in Indian Cinema’) had interviewed him in Bombay for no reason, but at the spur of the moment and with intuition, perhaps. It was scheduled to be published in the ““Youth Times” of March

16-31, 1979. But then Sukhdev passed away on March 1. By then the pages of YT were being made up. Anees Jung (Editor, ‘Youth Times”), Aruna Vasudev and

myself proceeded

Delhi, straight to the

from the electric crematorium at Nigambodh Ghat,

YT

office at Daryaganj, after Sukhdev’s body

reduced to ashes—and collected.

Anees Jung, friend of Sukh,

was

quickly

made the decisions. The cover was changed. Gopi Gujwani took a photograph

of Sukhdev in my bag and designed the cover within half an hour. ‘Sukhdev Remembered”’ became the cover story. One of Sukhdev’s poems, which also I

had with me, was taken for superimposition on a photograph. Aruna Vasudev rewrote the introduction to her interview and updated it. The same day or the next, Ances Jung wrote her editorial (“Flash Points”) on Sukh, which is also reproduced in this book. That is how the Sukhdev memorial issue of YT came out. Here below is Aruna Vasudev’s interview—the last that Sukhdev had given and published posthumously —J.M.)

Sukhdev, controversial, volatile, articulate, lived his life fully and

flamboyantly. Dismissed as a charlatan or showman by some, admired and looked up to by many others, he had an indisputable

talent as a film-maker. Whether he himself was to blame for diffus-

ing it, doing too much himself—writing, photographing, directing, On occasions acting, sometimes even giving the commentary himself

for his documentary films—or whether he, like many others, was trapped in a system that does not allow for talent to find free expres-

sion, will remain an open question.

When I went to talk to Sukhdev for the last time, it was a cold, wet, miserable day in February. His room, thick with cigarette smoke, was pleasantly warm. There was a small heater in the corner, books and papers scattered across an unmade bed, the table

beside it laden with cans of film, a writing table over which

dev huddled, still shivering, in a black silk

dragon embroidered on the back. Sukhdev

poems

kimono, with

was looking through a file of papers,

in Urdu

by various friends, some

Sukh-

a golden

of poems,

of

in English that he had

105 written. At his elbow were two more books—Ernest Barker’s “‘The Birth And Death Of Meaning”, and ‘Dog Detective Ranjha” by his friend and film commentator, Partap Sharma. “Given a choice I would make political films’’, he announced, leaning back and lighting a cigarette. “And I think the Films Division is the biggest

vehicle

for political

cinema.

It can really

have a major impact which a single feature film cannot do. Here we have a new film every week and a captive audience for it. In the cities, people ignore the documentaries. But in the small towns and villages, they really believe what they see in the films.” “However, the Films Division’s efforts are being wasted because it just doesn’t want to encourage debate and discussion or allow

any sort of exposure. wastage of government

For instance, once a guy madea film on expenditure. He was delighted when the

film was passed. He came back saying, ‘I made a very clean film.’ I said, ‘What do you mean by that?’ You knowI

get very worried

by this ‘clean’ business. He said, ‘I haven’t touched the problem at all.’ All that his film said was things like ‘Switch off the lights

when you go home. Don’t leave the fans running’, etc. But this is of course not wastage! The real trouble is that no one is interested in concepts. It is at the planning stage that things go wrong.”

Government and Film-Makers Why doesn’t the Government involve film-makers

Stage?

(He reached absent mindedly was by now empty).

for my

packet

at the planning of cigarettes. His

“We film-makers could help prepare the people for new methods, new ideas. We are always travelling around the country. We meet all sorts of people, see where the government is failing to meet their needs,

“In my film on bonded labour, “After The Silence’, (made during the Emergency as part of the Films 20 programme), I went to this village where people were so poor, so heavily in debt, that they had to send their daughters and wives to be prostitutes in Delhi. Twenty years later, some of them came back in the same

106 rags and tatters in which they had gone there, with nothing to show for their bonded labour. ‘What is the difference’, one of them said, ‘It was the same wretchedness there as it is here’. It was terrible.” But that means you can make these films. The

censors

you from highlighting such problems?

don’t stop

“Oh yes, they do. But if you fight for it they say, ‘Go to Delhi. If Delhi approves, we will pass it’. It is always the same things.

There was a lot of trouble over this filmeven tually it was passed.

in

Delhi,

but even-

And I remember that it also won the Golden Peacock for the best documentary at the Sixth International Film Festival in Delhi in 1977. Generally though, the feeling is that documentaries— whether made by Films Division itself or for it by producers from outside—gloss over everything. They follow the government line and rarely if ever, criticise. “Let me tell you about this film I made

over, what even thing So I there

on the foodgrain take-

called ‘“‘Behind The Breadline.” I started by trying to find out the food policy was, what the reasons were for this action. I went to see the then Food Minister. But I couldn’t get anyspecific, nothing that showed there was a food policy at all. quoted facts and figures from the Five-Year Plan to prove that was no shortage. When the film was finished, ‘they’ said that

my facts were wrong, that it was a bad film. So I said OK, the population has doubled, furious”’.

but so has food production. They were

“Anyway, they took the film. When it was released, a friend said to me, “Ah, so you are doing chamchagiri’. I couldn’t understand why he said that. So we went together to see it, and I found that the commentary had been changed without my knowledge. That’s the way it works. When you sign a contract, you have no rights on your film.”

During the Emergency You have been accused not only of toeing the government line, but of actively supporting it. It is said, for instance, that you enthusiastically defended the Emergency?

“Politically, how can one ever support

a thing

like that? After

107 the Emergency was declared, I made this film “Thunder Of Free-

dom’’, for the Delhi Administration, not for the Films Division. It’s catchy title—may be that’s what gave the impression that I had been sold out. I know you didn’t like the film, but I am sorry you didn’t see it again. I tried to raise some questions in it. Like this lady, a social worker who said, ‘If they can change the Constitution why can’t they change the municipal laws to benefit the people?’ “I also went to the Food Commissioner's office because they were claiming that people could get ration-cards in two days. So I went to film over there. While I was setting up the lights to take some shots, a little chap come to us. He must have thought I was the big boss because he said, ‘Babuji, please listen to me’. He said he had been trying to get a card for three months. I went to the Food Commissioner and asked if I could bring this guy into his office and let him make his complaint. He refused. So, I asked if the chap could just sit there while the Commissioner talked on film. He agreed to that. After the Comissioner had gone off, I took the little guy outside and filmed his statement. Then I intercut it with what the officer had said earlier!’ “You say I am supposed to have supported the Emergency. If you expected me to say at that time ‘To hell with the Emergency’, obviously I couldn’t do that.””

When you started, your early films “And Miles To Go”, ‘After The Eclipse,” ‘India 67”, were just marvellous. Then something seemed to go wrong. What happened? “Nothing really. In fact, I think my most beautiful film was made later. ‘Nine Months To Freedom,” which is about Bangladesh.’ There was a long gap between ‘India 67’’ and this one. “Well, I lost money on ‘India 67’’. It was a one-hour film and I spent too much on it. I had to make other films for money. So I

went back to Shyam Bengal (who was still working for an advertis-

ing agency in those days) and said, ‘How about a film, yaar?””

Industrial Films Do

vision?

yo

think

making

commercials

“No, I don’t think so. Not really.

affected

AndI

didn’t

your make

cinematic only

ad

108 films. I also continued making

industrial

India, helped me to understand

another

documentaries,

which

I

country.

I

enjoyed very much because through them I discovered industrial India. I made films for Bharat Heavy Electricals, Bharat Earth Movers Limited, that sort of thing. They gave me another vision of

would call these films even political.

aspect

of our

“In fact, I wish these films could get more widely shown. The problem is that the public sector has a fixed budget. It gets the film made, and then forgets about it. If the film gets an award like this one ‘“‘New World of Power” did, they call you in, shake hands, say, ‘Congratulations. It was great. Thank you very much’, and

that is that.

“I showed one of them, “New World Of Power’’, at the Tashkent Film Festival which as you know, is a Third World Film Festival. Some Arabs who saw it refused to believe it was about India. So I asked the Russians to tell them that it was. It was fantastic, their reaction. They kept saying, ‘Is this really India?’ That sort of thing is very satisfying.” Two weeks later, Sukhdev died suddenly, brutally, in the middle of a recording session for a film. During the conversation which lasted three hours he was as gay and as full of zest as ever. None

of his brushes with authority, nor

his professional frustrations

affected his personal warmth and generosity.

Over the years he had gathered a crew of young people around him. Their fierce loyalty and absolute devotion to him and belief in his talent, helped him to keep trying, although at times the extreme frustration of not being allowed to make his films his own way, was

very great.

Sukhdev drank too much, smoked too much. People will say he died of his excesses. But the smoking and drinking were only an

escape from the maddening conditions of work.

When he died, he was beginning to feel he had surmounted many of these problems. He was ready to start on the feature he had always wanted to do. We shall never know what it might have been.

POST-MORTEM

DEATH

OF A MAJOR

TALENT

M. Shamim

(This is the moving tribute that the film critic of the Delhi ‘Times of India’’ paid to Sukhdev, a day after his death through the columns of his paper. Shamim was a close friend of Sukhdev.—J.M.)

He

asked

for a glass

of water,

according

to his friends

who

happened to be around. The music recording session in the CET/ NCERT studio was in full swing for a film, he had shot—Rina Gill’s “‘Khilone’’. He was his usual self, urging every one to do his best and do it fast. His unit, engaged in making a documentary for the Haryana government, was waiting at Rohtak, he said. And in between

he had

planned

to have

a small

brandy

with

a

friend before he drove off to meet the members of his unit. Then all too suddenly the heart of S. Sukhdev stopped. He was declared dead minutes later at All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. In Tetrospect, no other manner of death could have satisfied Sukh, as his friends called him. He died at work : mixing the refinements of technical equipment with the esoteric quality of music. In his 46-year span of life, Sukh had travelled both mentally

and

physically a long distance from a remote village in Punjab to the check-point of contemporary civilisation—Bombay. He never surrendered his credentials. His rustic sense of humour stood him in good stead in the highly competitive and fraustrating world of documentary film-making. He retained his sharp instinct for survival when most others had given up the struggle. In a quarter of a century Sukh almost literally walked out of a poster of a popular brand of soap in which he appeared as a handsome young man taking a shower and shook the documentary film-making right down to its foundation. In a developing country, where film-making enjoyed low priority and documentary exhibition was a government monopoly, which applied its unrelented strangle-hold on the creative film-maker, this took some doing.

In the late’ sixties Jehangir Bhownagary, who had an eye for talent, saw the possibilities that some young film-makers in the country offered. He picked four film-makers to revolutionise the

112 static world of documentary films over which he briefly presided. Sukh was a major discovery. His ‘India ’67’’ changed the style, the

sweep and the purpose of a documentary.

This is not to minimise

the efforts of the three others in the same period. They were K.S. Chari, N.V.K. Murthy and S.N.S. Sastry.

Of the four, only Murthy, who subsequently disengaged himself from film-making, is now the lone survivor. The other three died young withina stretch of few years. It is time someone tried to answer the obvious question: Is the series of deaths more than a mere coincidence ? The answers could be found at various levels. There are some who believe that it was because of the stresses and strains of working life that death claimed them young. What have we to offer to an enterprising documentary film-maker, who lives an intense life? He has to make a film which can be released through government-

owned Film Division. It is the only distribution outlet in the country. This puts severe restrictions on his aesthetics as well as his freedom of speech.

Sukh surprised everyone including this critic by agreeing to make a film on the railway strike. During a chance encounter at Press Club of India I berated him for having become the ‘chamcha’ of the

government. As usual, Sukh aggressively defended his decision. He was against the railway strike because he saw in it the hands of

facist forces. Whether or not it was true, the point sincerely believed in it.

was

that he

Later, he undertook to make films on different aspects of the Emergency. He interviewed cartoonist Abu, who suggested that the Emergency could succeed only as a short-term measure. Another journalist, Dileep Padgaonkar, expressed, though in a more guarded manner than Abu, his doubts about the merits of the Emergency even as a short-term measure. Sukh met me afterwards, grinning

from ear to ear, excited like a school boy, who had successfully perpetrated some mischief. In another short film in Bihar, he interviewed a landlord arrested under MISA. The man apparently was a supporter

of the

Congress

Party.

Sukh

was

asked

to delete the

sequence. (But he did not. The film was withdrawn from the Bihar

cinemas.)

113 One may not have agreed with Sukh’s analysis. But there was no doubt

that even within the limited scope of a documentary film, he

did probe all aspects of a subject. This, more often than not, got him into tight spots. It was easier for him to delete some of the controversial passages in his documentary. But Sukh was made of sterner

stuff. A

film

was

not

merely

a

celluloid

strip that

ran

through the “magic box”. It was a document of a man’s faith in himself and his fellow being. He always, and always, stood his

ground.

If the medium did not deny anything to Sukh and readily yielded

to his magic touch, Sukh also denied

nothing

to it. He

lived

and

died for it. He never shirked his social responsibility as a creative film-maker. He was forthright in his criticism of Louis Malle’s

controversial series on India, which was shown by BBC. It did not unnerve him to find himself in the minority of one. Sukh could

weather any storm.

Like all artists he lived in the eternity of his creative world, a

failing, which made him at once a major talent and an easy prey

the limitation of time and space.

to

CONDOLENCE

MEETING (DELHI) AND RESOLUTION

Ata well-attended meeting held on Mar. 3, 1979 at the Press Club

of India, of which Sukhdev was a member, tributes were paid to the “restless genius’ of Sukhdev whose contribution to the making of documentaries has earned him world-wide fame. The meeting was jointly sponsored by the Press Club of India and the Directorate of Film Festivals. Among those who spoke were R. Raina, A. Raghavan, M.L. Kotru, K.N. Malik, O.P. Kohli and Jag Mohan. Sukhdev’s widow, Kanta Sukhdev sat through the meeting, sobbing all the time. Film critics, litterateurs, journalists, apart from

officials of the

Directorate of the Film Festivals, recalled some of the outstanding works of Sukhdev and it was

instituted

either

suggested

that an annual

award

be

by the Poona Film Institute or the Directorate of

Festivals to honour Sukhdev’s memory. Sukhdev,

with

Chari,

comparatively young age, mentary-making in India.

who

like

pioneered

the

former

also

died

at

a

a new era in the art of docu-

Sukhdev had virtually remained unchallenged as the most outstanding maker of the short film. Not that he had not tried his hand at feature films but he essentially remained a man of documentaries. The following is the text of the condolence resolution passed at

the meeting.

“The Press Club of India, the Directorate of Film Festivals and the many friends, admirers and colleagues of S. Sukhdev are deeply grieved over his sudden and untimely demise. His films reflected an unceasing search for truth, combined with a fresh, often provocative way of looking at things. They raised questions. They posed a challenge, insisting that our national experiment was too precious to brook complacency. This approach, with all the excitement that goes with it, was also the cause of the frustrations of which most creative people have an intimate knowledge in our society. But Sukhdev never really gave up. His concern for his fellow-beings emerged again and again in bold,

115 masterly cinematic works, works which

eventually

won

him

the

highest honours in the land despite the difficulties with which they were made and shown. ‘*We

share the sorrow

heartfelt condolences.”

of his bereaved

family

and extend our

SUKHDEV

REMEMBERED Anees Jung

(Here is reproduced the editorial tribute paid column

of Anees

Jung,

through

the ‘Flash Points”

in ‘‘Youth Times” of March 16-31, 1979.

It was

made the Sukhdev memorial issue and it carried a photo of Sukhdev on

couer and Aruna Vasudev's last interview.—J.M.)

the

The phone rang as if from another distance. Sukhdev is dead the voice said. The funeral is at 10. It was morning already but it did not seem like it. Beyond my window, it was grey; the clouds were heavy and unexpected. I will not go to the funeral, I said. Ido not want to see him dead. He never brooded in my presence, was never silent. ‘‘Zindabad’’ was his usual greeting. And that’s the way I want his memory to be—alive, joyous, full of fun, camaraderie. The body, I know, is destructible. But is the spirit? Can it not continue to be revived, remembered, reaffirmed? A house of red bricks in a Punjab village. A man dressed in faded jeans and a sweat-shirt, his glasses stuck over his head, a camera slung over his shoulder, stoops low, enters the door that is smaller than his own frame. A toothless old lady grins and greets him. She withdraws to the kitchen, begins to make for him a glass of tea. The man looks estranged. He stares at the pillow on the charpoy.

‘Sweet Dreams’ is embroidered on it with

a bright

thread. His eye leaves the pillow, roams around the courtyard. goes back to the little door, stands stooped in it and looks His eyes have a lost look as if he is searching for something in vast empty spaces. The train whistles in the distance. Time

passed,

The man is Sukhdev.

The

old

lady

is his

aunt.

pink

He out. the has

The red

brick house is his ancestral home in the village of Sanawal near Ludhiana. It is a scene from Sukhdev’s own film “India 67”. I

remember

it as more

than a film for that’s the way Sukhdev was

and remained—a callow village youth, who once left his village, never outgrow it, nor returned to it. He found for himself a larger and more complex world but he moved in it as he would have, back in his own village—with gusto, with simplicity, with candour, with passion. The bigness of a big world never really over-

whelmed him. He tackled it on his own terms, with his own tools,

117 He lent the world a fire and made it go around at his own pace and rhythm. I first met him in 1968. The first piece

of writing

I did

was

an

interview with him for JS (‘Junior Statesman’’). “The flat he lives in has some of the madness whichis a part of him,” I-then wrote. “There is a bit of the jungle in his room—wooden men with arms raised and arrows poised; rag dolls hung on threads from an antique lamp ; African masks, books, paintings, posters, slogans, a stereophonic hifi booming with the drums of Herbie Mann and on a wooden

shelf,

his trophies—the newest one, a red ribbon with a

silver medal, hung around the ear of a grotesque wooden head.” “Yes, that’s the President’s Award I was given a few weeks ago,” he said. ‘India 67” has managed the medal but not yet managed to reach the public eye thanks to

our censors.

I will not

rest till

I’ve seen it the way I’ve made it and everyone sees it too.” He sits

back in his chair and flails out.

I forget the masks, the posters, the

jungle look of the room. There seems a method in his madness.

Years went by. Sukhdev’s room remained the same and so did he. He was busy, exuberant, never quiet—even when he had no film assignments and no money. ‘‘It will all come”, he said. And it did. He made films. Some were good, some indifferent. Whatever he did, he did with fervour, with involvement—whether it was an ad short on shoes, whether it was a documentary on bonded

labour or an extravaganza like “Reshma began but was never allowed to complete.

Aur

Shera’,

which

he

His visits to my house were frequent. He would zoom in at odd hours bubbling with love, with energy, with ideas. Sometimes, he would want dal-roti, sometimes a glass of warm brandy, sometimes a dash of perfume on his old coat. He would call the servant “*beta’’, he would hug my mother like a son come home,

stir up the whole house in a few minutes and leave.

he would

People who did not know him called him crazy. For them, he was too natural to be normal. Those who knew him accepted him as their own. For he was a friend, a staunch friend. Not only to those who worked with him and shared his journey but to nameless others whom he encountered down the miles he travelled alone. “Some day, I will take you to hear my sweetheart’’, he used to tell

me.

And one night he did.

He drove me to Foras Road, Bombay’s

-

118 red-light area. We walked up a dark wobbly staircase and knocked on a bright blue door. We are closed tonight said a voice from inside. ‘This is your bandhu, Sukhdev’, he shouted. The door flung open. His sweetheart emerged—a large elderly lady with a flabby face, her mouth stained red with pan. She hugged him and he hugged her. Soon, there were musicians inthe room, beer in plastic glasses and strings of jasmine. “Sing for me’’, Sukhdev said and she did. Sukhdev sat on the floor like a child entranced. When she finished her song he went up to her and touched her feet. “She is mother”’, he said. There were tears in his eyes. And in hers the joy of recognition. The morning of his funeral I heard my servant talking to himself. ‘What is it” I asked. ‘‘He was a good man”’, he sighed. ‘‘He never made me feel that I was different from him.”’ A tribute from a man who

neither

good man.

knew

his genius

nor

his

work.

Just knew him as a

GENIUS, CLOWN, FRIEND EXTRAORDINARY Partap Sharma

(The following article is reprinted from the Bombay monthly magazine, “Debonair” of April, 1979. The author is the celebrated playwright, actor, commentator, film-maker and teller of children’s tales, He bslonged to the inner circle of Sukhdev’s friends. This unusual obituary article was befitting the man—J.M.)

The loose use of words has always irritated me, especially

words

like “‘genius”’ which are often showered as freely as confetti. How does one proclaim a man a genius: by reference to his IQ, by token of his comparative achievement,

by

virtue

of his temperament

in

action? So, I am usually loathe to use the word like a knight’s sword on anyone’s shoulder for fear the sharp edge of the compliment may cut through to the bone and reveal a very ordinary.

human being.

But having been closer than

the

proverbial

valet to

Sukhdev, who was certainly the greatest Indian documentary filmmaker that ever lived, and having seen more of his raw side than any butler ever saw of a notable, I can—as one of his most, intimate friends—vouch for three descriptions that I know would have fitted him simultaneously: genius, clown, friend extraordinary.

He often used to joke about his early apprenticeship in films, saying that he had begun as a combination of peon, pimp and procurer for Paul Zils, the German film-maker who worked in India. The fact is, he learnt a great deal during those initial years— film editing, camera work, and some aspects of direction. So much so that just last month, even when he himself was not in good health he made anxious attempts to fly to Ceylon, where Paul Zils was reported to be seriously ill. Yet the clowning side of Sukhdev was ever-present, even at moments of personal distress. In dissuading Sukh from going at a time when his own blood pressure was

high and likely to add to his history of heart trouble, I inquired

solicitously about the nature of his guru’s illness. With a totally straight face Sukhdev said, ‘‘The poor bugger’s probably dying of syphillis!”’

All Sukh’s flippancy and wryness were always delivered casually, his barbs were made of chocolate. He was affectionate even when

120 he mocked.

He did not talk much and when called upon

to

speak

in public, he never ‘‘specified’’. I have seen him address so many meetings laden with dignitaries, Indian and foreign. I have seen him among film-makers, journalists, ministers, politicians, students, workers. When his turn came to speak, he would invariably make a few self-disparaging gestures in silence and then mumblea cogent, carefully-reasoned phrase that evoked laughter even as it enlightened by putting a totally new construction on the case. Those who had been dealing with the subject under discussion at that particular meeting or seminar would slowly emerge from their laughter and tealise that he had indeed shown them another aspect, and they would often wonder why they had not come up earlier with that thought themselves. Sukhdev’s solitary phrase, often swimming against the tide of general opinion, was always like the one that got away—the

fish

that

everyone

would

have

that grows bigger as it becomes more elusive.

liked to catch, the one

Sense of Humour Sukhdev had about 31 awards and citations—both national and international—to his credit. He valued them and attended international film festivals all over the world, often as a member of the

jury,

sometimes

as a participant in a seminar or the winner of an

award. But at the same time he was quite capable of using the award as a door-handle or a paperweight. The ribbon and medal that denoted him a Padma Shri was left to hang jauntily from the neck of a statuette. Sukhdev’s sense of humour never left him. Look at any of his photographs and you will see what I mean. Set amidst a dignified group, he is quietly winking ; receiving the Golden Tiger at the Third International Film Festival in New Delhi,

his twirled moustache, obviously prepared for the occasion, the moment;

asked to pose with his baby daughter, he spoofs the

doting parent by going cross-eyed and holding to the child’s lips. There

was

mocks

this grand

semi-diplomatic

party

a bottle of whisky some years before

which the hostess had requested Sukhdev and another departed friend, K.S. Chari, to bring along people who they thought would

help

to

enliven

the

proceedings.

The

hostess

was

not a

little

surprised. I am sure, to discover that the group they had decided to bring along was a rollicking, clapping, sari-lifting band of hijras.

121 There

was another

night,

this time

in Paris, when Sukh and I

among others were the dinner guests of a Viscountess. After the champagene and soft talk, Sukhdev’s spirit rose unbridled and, to the strains of the gentle music, he asked the Viscountess to dance.

I was a little startled and did not think that Sukhdev knew

rudiments

of the waltz leave alone the foxtrot.

the

The lady seemed a

little surprised too and then it was plain that she was delighted, for Sukhdev without missing a beat swirled into something that could not have been anything but the Punjabi bhangra. I felt at that moment that Zorba the Greek could not have held a candle to Sukhdev the Punjabi. Sukhdev had no pretension in him.

Along with

his nonchalance

he cultivated a deaf ear anda Nelson Eye. He could not brook pettiness, puffery and prudery. He sailed through them all and when midway, in the very heart of a storm of hollow sentiment, he would turn about and sheepishly deliver his solitary deflating phrase. When he balanced a moment like that, he always did it compassionately. He was direct but always understanding. I can

quite

believe

that a whore once flung her cupboard open

and offered him all the money stacked in it if it would relieve his

depression. He loved to tell that story again and again. He was a romantic. If it had happened to him once, he liked to think that all whores had hearts of gold. In those days, he stalked into such joints for emotional relief. He gave away his money, but he never used a girl. I know. I was there with him. He loved women. He had no inhibitions about writing poems to beautiful women with whom he had only a passing acquaintance. Ifa lyric occurred to him at midnight he would think nothing of trunk-calling his friends wherever they might be to recite his ecstasy, even in the dead of night.

Totally Uninhibited In other ways too he was totally uninhibited. As a member

of a

film festival jury in Tashkent, when told that he had worn his Uzbek coat inside-out, he had no hesitation in turning it round and

wearing is correctly; but then he seemed uncomfortable with the way it felt. With a slight gesture of despair that delighted the vast distinguished audience, he turned the coat inside out again and

122 donned it the way he liked it—wrong but comfortable. He smiled in his helpless way. The audience burst into cheers and applause. Though I had known Sukhdev a long time, he made

me one of

his dearest friends about 11 years ago when he saw the first documentary film I made, called “The Framework of Famine’’.

Though we had been filming together in Bihar, we had gone about

it in our separate ways. The following month in Bombay and rather

nervously, I showed him the film I had made. He said nothing all through it. Then I saw the tears coursing from his eyes, and he embraced

me.

That

most loved friends. Years

was

all.

later, introducing

From that day on, I was one of his

him

referred to him, as “our greatest

moment’s

pause and with

had made Partap’s

to a

visiting Australian

documentary-maker’’.

lady

Without

I

a

a half-smile he said: ‘But I still wish I

‘The Framework of Famine’.

That was the sort of man he was—totally generous, totally genuine, totally frank, sometimes to his own cost. He was capable also of getting drunk and pitching into a bureaucratt with wellaimed words at the risk of losing all the contracts he might have got. Part of his turmoil stemmed from his feeling that officialdom was seeking to reduce him from being a creative film-maker to being a mere film contractor. He once wrote a laconic poem about that and sent it for publication in an official volume celebrating the progress of documentary film making in India. There was an opportunistic side to him too and that caused

him

further travail and heart-searching. He was a very aware man. He welcomed doubts. He questioned himself unremittingly. His barometer of political assessment was the condition of the common man.

I suppose

he was

a humanist,

a democrat.

He never wore

political colours on his sleeve though many were attributed to him. As a film-maker he was quick and unobstrusive and had a remarkable eye for the unremarked.

He did not fuss;

he was not finicky,

but he shot only exactly as he wished. He worked as though the camera were an extension of himself; he edited true to himself so that he always produced a film that was full of love, whimsy and an individual point of view.

He could also be deeply indignant at injustice and atrocities, as when he made the film “Nine Months To Freedom” in sympathy

123 with the liberation of Bangladesh and the one he made on bonded labour. In fact, he was so involved at that time with the suffering of the people of Bangladesh that he wanted to become a guerilla and take up arms alongside the Mukti Bahini. I protested that he would best serve that cause by making a film about it. I pointed

out that he was in no way

trained

in the

use of firearms or in the

art of combat. But he refused to listen to reason. Among the gathering that evening were a journalist and a retired Indian

ambassador.

They

too tried to make him see that good intentions

were not in themselves enough in such matters. Finally, I laughed and said, ‘‘Think of the practical aspect of it. You don’t even know Bengali. Being a Punjabi you might be mistaken for a Pakistani and get shot by the very people you are trying to help.”

At that, he strode across and thwacked me hard on the shoulder saying, ‘“You damned intellectual !"” His distress at being unable to be of active asistance to the Bangladeshis was so great that he seemed prepared to take it out on me physically. He continued to batter and thump me vigorously on the shoulder despite my jocular plea that he was flattering me by colling me an intellectual. Eventually, I realised that there was only one way to check his wayward indignation from the course it was taking. I got up from my chair and, before the startled gasping company, I picked Sukhdev up horizontally off the ground and held him out over the railing of that third floor balcony. In a flash, his good humour returned. “God!” he said. “You’re fit’”’.

Sukhdev’s Films Sukhdev’s first documentary ‘‘Evolution and Races of Man” (made for NEIF)* was the forerunner to his later work, where the focus was always on man. ‘‘And Miles To Go” and “After the Eclipse’ fetched him awards and international recognition, a Position he consolidated with documentaries like ‘India °67” a collage of the people and mood of the time, ‘‘Kumbhamela’’, that caught the spirit of the festival and “Nine Months To Freedom”, * National Education and/Information Films Ltd.

124 the documentary of Bangladesh. His first attempt at feature filmmaking was ‘‘My Love” (starring Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore) but the film flopped. He also directed ‘Reshma and Shera’ with Sunil Dutt but withdrew from the film after a while.

Postscript (A letter to the Editor ‘“‘Debonair”’ published in its issue of June, 1979) with reference to Partap Sharma’s article.

BONE

BROTHER

Sir: I, being the thank you for sparing him (Apl ’79). And, Sharma. From out of

the incorrigible, clearly.

‘“bone-brother”’ of the late S. Sukhdev, must more than three pages for the obit article on also for choosing the fittest person—Partap the pix and the impeccable prose of Partap,

ubiquitous

personality

of Sukhdev

stands

out

In portraying Sukhdev in the true Hogarthian style, ‘warts and all,’ Partap has made one serious error, which tarnishes the memory of Sukh’s guru, Paul Zils. (Incidentally, he passed away in Germany on March 30 and not of syphillis but of cancer). Partap quotes Sukhdev saying that he started his career as film-maker

under Paul Zils by being a ‘combination (of) peon, pimp and procurer’’ for Paul. This is a silly and absurd statement.

I have been a friend and associate of Paul from 1946 andI became a friend of Sukh from that distant day in 1955, when he joined Paul’s unit, Art Films of Asia, as an assistant editor. I will vouchsafe Paul never treated or exploited Sukh as a combination of “‘peon, pimp and procurer”’. If I remember

right,

Sukh

used this alliterative epithet for his

first boss, a fellow Jat and Sardarji, who was a feature film producer-director and whose name began with a ‘K’. Sukh had to be a sort of “Man Friday” to this Sardarji film-maker and also to his wife. Sukh had to get bread and eggs, escort the firewood cartman and fetch the rations for the wife and do all sorts of things by way of errands for the husband. Sukh lasted there for about a month and then drifted to Art Films of Asia.

125 I hope Partap won’t mind my clarifying this point. I am loyal to the memories of both Sukh and Paul. And, as I said earlier, I am a “bone-brother” of Sukh.

got fractured while

concerned about me.

In the mid-fifties,

on a hurried When

trip to

I returned

to

when

my

Bombay

by

Delhi,

Sukh

right leg

was

the

very

then

night plane service, Sukh was at the Santa Cruz airport at about 4.30 a.m. with a wheel chair on the tarmac. It was then I called Sukh my “‘bone-brother.”’

JAG MOHAN

SUKH

AND

HIS

“DUKH

Partap Sharma

(In the same

month

Partap Sharma’s hilarious obituary appeared

in the

“Debonair”, another article, slightly longer, by Partap Sharma, was published in ‘“‘For You’’, another Bombay monthly, now defunct. S.V. Vasudev, who has written commentaries for scores of documentaries and

who also belonged to the ‘‘gang”’ of Sukhdev’s friends, was the Editor of the journal. Partap Sharma presents a multi-faceted portrait of Sukhdev in this article reprinted from ‘For You”’ of April, 1979.—J.M.)

While India’s greatest documentary film-maker, S. Sukhdev, was alive much was written about him and about his films, especially about “‘And Miles To Go”, “After the Eclipse”, ‘India 67” and “Nine

Months

To

Freedom”; now that he is dead even more will

be written about him. This is in keeping with the pattern that dogs highly creative lives—the shadow lengthens when the man is no

longer there.

Which is not to say that he was not recognised in his

life-time. He was. He had received 31 international and national

awards and citations. He

was acknowledged

happily

not

as

that

pompous thing ‘the father of Indian documentary’ but as its enfant terrible. He was acutely conscious of this and, on occasion, played the part to the hilt. But what I mean is that, from being another harassed hundihaunted short film-maker striving to stick to his say while fulfilling schedules, he has now stepped into the realm of the archival. From

being

buffeted

and

bruised

by

criticism,

from

being buoyed and

boosted by appreciation, his work will now be evaluated as part of a tradition. It is a modern tradition this, the art of documentary film-making but like all traditions it will endure. So will Sukhdev’s influence on it and through it. The impact of his approach to a subject was always noticeable because it was always unique in its little visual footnotes and humorous asides. Remarking on this, Satyajit Ray said: ‘I like Sukhdev’s India ’67, but not for its broad and percussive contrasts of poverty and affluence, beauty and squalor, modernity and primitivity—however well shot and cut they may be. I like it for

127 its details—for the

black

beetle

that

crawls

along

the

hot

sand,

for the street dog that pees on the parked bicycle, for the bead of perspiration that dangles on the nosetip of the begrimed musician.”’ Even the technical ploys Sukhdev used to elucidate his viewpoint were often paid the compliment of imitation by other documentarymakers. Ten years ago, the eminent film critic Bikram Singh noted, ‘Ever since Sukhdev used the zoom lens as a kind of yo-yo in ‘‘And

Miles To Go”’, almost everyone has tried to play with the gadget.” But, my intention here is not so much to assess or evaluate his

work as to provide some glimpses of the little-known facets of Sukhdev the human being. AsI said, much has been written about him

recently, since Thursday, the Ist of March, 1979, when he died

at the age of 46 while working in New Delhi on the sound-track of a new film. Since then, I have myself written a piece for another magazine in which, as one of his most intimate and constant companions, I described him as being simultaneously genius, clown and friend extraordinary.

More than life-size But there were other sides to him too which few people saw. That is not to say that there were any particularly secretive aspects to him.

He lived life openly and more than life-size; he believed

the grand moment and the telling gesture. But because propensity for public drama, the private aside was looked. For instance, all of us, who have ever sat with room, being inundated by a cacophony of high fidelity

in

of this very often overhim in’ his sound from

his massive amplification system have initially been led to believe that

this was a reflection of the vulgar side of him, the side to make a formula, commercial feature-film that would the box office. But I could see too that this deafening orchestration and shrill singing represented to a large storm within. It was as though Van Gogh were painting in volatile violent strokes of sound. This sort of mood

overtook

Sukh

that wishes overwhelm melange of extent the his canvas

even when he had

invited

people specifically for some purpose or discussion. In order to drown out pointless conversation and meandering debate, in order

perhaps to flood the arid desert that was somewhere parching his spirit, he would suddenly unsolicited, unasked, fiddle with the

128 switches of his machinery and, with a crescendo of sound blast all inanities into silence. Yet, when he really wanted to listen to music, he could do it softly enough. At such times he usually preferred to use his earphones. He loved music though he was not a great connoisseur of it. Nevertheless, he undoubtedly knew more of it than most people guessed. He once sang a Punjabi folk song under the baton of music director, Vijay Raghav Rao. It was tecorded and used in one of his documentaries and no one realised that it was Sukhdev himself singing. But

still,

earthy,

lusty,

expected and what very few people know is that he was also

found

vigorous

all

Punjabi

this

son

could

be

of the

expected

soil.

What

from

you

an

would

not have

of playing Chopin on the piano. When I first came upon him doing that in the cavernous interior of a deserted recording studio, I was amazed. I listened carefully. Was he fooling around ? But no, he was truly immersed in it. He was no pianist—the hands were moving with the hesitation of nostalgic recall—but the notes were welling from the heart. I dare say the Chopin composition was to him what playing two-

fingered chop-sticks was to others, but I have also seen him listening to recorded symphonies and I have heard him talk of their magnificence and grandeur. There was a time when I was learning

the classical Indian flute and it struck me then too that Sukhdev’s ear was attuned enough to spot an erroneous note and cadence in a practice raag.

Very Witty Too Sukh could be very witty in a quiet, casual way. One instance communicated to me by a mutual acquaintance concerned a documentary film I had directed ‘“‘The Framework of Famine’. Sukh was moved by the film and liked it very much. At a party where I was not present, Sukhdev happened to praise the film, whereupon a smart young advertising company executive said, ‘‘Why, any fool with a camera could have made that film.” “All right, said Sukhdev. ‘“‘Here’s a camera, you are the fool.” But for a really telling example of his incisive tongue-in-cheek manner, I would refer you to the congratulatory article he wrote when Films Division completed 20 years of existence and was cele-

129 brating its anniversary. To Films Division’s credit I must say that the piece was faithfully printed in the celebratory volume. (It is reproduced in this book.—J.M.)

To say that Sukh had a zest for life is to make an understatement. He loved its hurly-burly, its political cross currents and was deeply concerned with the social implications of the policies enunciated. But he was swayed as much by the heart as by the head. The very same qualities that made him personally a devoted, loyal, unflagging friend came into play when he took up a socio-political cause and therefore, understandably, it became

difficult

to dissuade

from anything that he saw to be his immediate goal or ideal. in this nature not to believe in halfway measures. We often and disagreed, but always as friends. He often pretended at my views or reservations about current developments, never prevented me from having my say.

him

It was argues to scoff but he

During the Emergency Indeed, at the height of the Emergency he filmed me making anti-Emergency statements, and tried his utmost to see that the

interview

reached

the

public. At

that time

he

had

a

sense

of

personal allegiance to Mrs. Gandhi. I had great admiration for Mrs. G. But as the momentum of events swept the country into nights of terror and days of tyranny, I began to protest vehemently in letters to him and other friends and in our conversations. Quoting a letter I had written to Jag Mohan, who was then the editor of “Socialist India’’, which was the ruling Congress Party organ, I said “I fear the politicians are now vying fora place in the son, pardon my pun. Don’t forget that even Nepoleon rode to head a dynasty on the democratic solgan ‘Liberte, egalite, fraternite’.”” “Will you dare to say this sort of thing in a film ?”’ asked banging the table.

Sukh,

I was a little startled and would have been afraid had I not known that Sukhdev was incapable of being anything but genuine. Despite his eye for colour, he honestly could not, in his ardent espousal of a cause, see the shades of grey between black and white. “All right”,

I said. “Tell me

shall present myself.”’

when

you want to film me and I

130 “Now !”’ he said. That too was typical of him. He was never not working and when he had an idea he set about it without

delay.

“Very well’’, I nodded and quickly downed three neat pegs of whisky. Then I added, “I have just one condition. I am going to make

a scathing

indictment

of the Emergency in both Hindi and

English but you must promise me that you will put all your efforts into seeing that my views are screened in the cinema halls of the country.”

“Agreed”’, he said. ‘‘I’ll do my best.”

Midnight Shooting Right there and then in the middle of the night,

the camera,

lights, the recording machines were set up in an outer room.

the

- His co-worker, Rina Gill, asked me the question. ‘‘What do you

think of the present situation ?’’ And I began.

Speaking in Hindi in order that what I had to say might more easily be comprehensible to the mass of the people. I said that though only my face appeared on the screen there were, at that very moment, between 10 and 15 people in the room and this included the film-crew and its director. I said that what I was saying reflected to a large extent the things they all felt but were afraid to voice. I said that I could never have visualised in my worst nightmare

that

who

at

such

an

atmosphere

of fear would prevail in my

country. Elaborating on this, I pointed out that though I may not share, as an ordinary citizen, the opinions of the various politicians, were

imprisonment view. I said

that

time

in jail,

I was

nevertheless

against

the

of people simply because they held another point of

that

as

a

playwright

I had

always

fought

against

censorship and now the Press knew what it was to be censored; by shutting its own channels of truthful information, the Government had made itself deaf and blind.

The interview went on for a considerable length of time. The more I spoke the more indignant I became. The sum of it was that I asked for the Emergency to be withdrawn forthwith and for the equality before the law to be restored to all citizens immediately, irrespective of their political stance. I think I did make it clear also

131 that

I was

not

a political

partisan of any party but only another

citizen who believed in democracy.

Sukhdev did include some of the most relevant portions of the interview in a short film which he subsequently made in anticipation of the elections. That film was largely pro-Emergency and I was one of the only two dissenting voices—the other being a ridiculously helmeted and goggled teenager on a motorcycle, who said he disapproved of the Emergency because it was not Fascist enough! When asked whether he voted, the youth replied that, of course, he did not because he was not yet of voting age!

No Stooge At All Though I realised I was in ridiculous company, I was glad I was there making my point for whatever it was worth. I saw too that it was Sukh’s way of letting me have my say. Unfortunately, that film was not allowed to be released and the reason was clear. Sukhdev had made an issue of the Emergency and it was not supposed to be one. As it turned out, the elections were fought on the issue of the Emer-

gency. The reason I go into all this is that Sukhdev has often of late been plastered as a stooge of the Establishment of the time. It was not so at all. the

The personal dilemma for him was that the aims professed

Government

were

ideologically

by

his own too; at the same time

he did see that there was a vast gap between the profession of those aims and their implementation in practice. He kept hoping that somewhere, somehow, the situation would rectify itself. But it did

not. And he was swept along. I understood this clearly, for, I too shared the same ideals, but I was inclined to be critical at every step of the way. To his unbounded optimism, it appeared thatI was

quibbling. To him it seemed clear that there was no point in argument if there was no alternative path of action. Nevertheless, I dare say my increasing disillusionment influenced him just as I must admit that, in the beginning, his utter single-mindedness influenced me.

Offer to Make a Film But

capacity

there

and

came as

a

a time when friend,

all

he

his

offered

me,

film-making

in his personal resources

and

132 Rs. 20,000 to under-write the costs, if I would make the sort of truthful film I envisaged about the Emergency. Then I put to him a condition which was very difficult and indeed impossible to fulfil. I asked him to ensure that I could interview some of the politicians and citizens who were at that moment languishing in

jail.

Here

again,

I must make it clear that though I may not have

espoused all the causes for which they were in jail, I was concerned that they should be free to have their say.

_

Sukh’s offer was no idle one. It was made in the presence of the well-known film historian and documentary-maker, B.D. Garga. In the months that followed Sukhdev realised he was astride a tiger and could not dismount. It was in fact running away with him. Like a bit of flotsam he, a creative independent film-maker, was drawn from the periphery of the whirlpool into its political vortex. Indeed, using this metaphor, I said to him: “It pleases you to be drawn to what you think is the centre of power. But I tell you it is a whirpool and it will suck you down.” He was appreciative of my

concern

but,

all said

and

done,

he

was

under

great strain.

Sometimes, it seemed, he did not wish to let himself think as events were becoming extremely painful and he saw them taking place at

close quarters. He spent four days out of the week in Delhi.

In

order to conquer his anguish he fell back on his unbounded enthusiasm for work. He was then making a longish documentary on family-planning with the guidance and co-operation of Sanjay Gandhi and Ruksana Sultana. He thought Ruksana was beautiful and he even wrote a poem about how she wore French perfume and went into the slums. I was delighted that he was meeting a beautiful woman, but was apprehensive of his involvement with unelected political ‘leaders’.

Haunting Fear Sukhdev’s sensitive spirit could not remain unbruised by the callousness of the power-play he was witnessing at such close range. At its height there was a temporary phase when I feared for his sanity. He returned from Delhi overwrought and teetering between a semi-religious megalomania that was quite unlike him and a paranoia that I could never have expected from so robust a person. Till today I do not know all the stresses he may have undergone. His

133 other friends and I easily dissipated the megalomania within a few hours by using the sharp edge of humour, but the paranoia remained

with him for some time.

That phase passed as did the Emergency. Sukhdev’s family planning film remained incomplete and unpaid for. On top of his other problems, he was financially devastated. He went into a slump that lasted many months. Then gradually his indomitable spirit revived and he was himself again. As a postscript to that period, it may be worth remembering that

only Sukh, among all the film-makers, came to loggerheads with the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting V.C. Shukla. It was Sukhdev’s insistence on including in a documentary an interview with a powerful landlord, who was admittedly the owner of a number of bonded labourers that caused a furore in the press. Sukhdev refused to cut out the interview despite a strong lobby that had successfully

influenced

the

Minister.

Sukhdev

eventually

wrote to Indira Gandhi saying that he would be disillusioned if the Government gave greater weight to politics than to the principles it professed. Sukhdev’s was a fight from within but this is too often forgotten and made to appear that, in the last few years, he did not fight at all. Sukhdev never abandoned his principles, it was the politicians who abandoned whatever little they had. In conclusion, it all points to one sime fact : The documentary film-maker never had the freedom and autonomy to function as he would wish and, despite the so-called freedom-loving Janata of today and its election promises and current policy statements about a free media, the documentary film-maker will not

have

autonomy

to-day or tomorrow or in the foreseeable future. For creative, interpretative people in the sphere of documentary films, the ‘‘Emergency”’ has continued right from the day of Independence.

REMEMBERING

SUKHDEV

S.V. Vasudev

(For

nearly

three decades,

“SVV”

has

been writing about art and books,

painters and writers in “‘Marg”’, “Illustrated Weekly of India” and elsewhere. This is what he wrote about Sukhdev in his column, “Instead of. . .”’, in

“For You” of April, 1979 of which he was the Editor.—J.M.)

Maybe it is just a random thought but, at times, it so happens that Death strikes certain personalities in a determined professional

group in quick succession.

of this department directory. Sometimes

philosophers

it

and

seems

It appears

to

happens to so

on.

realm. Anyway, coming passing of Sukhdev. In the documentary-film Pati,

Arun

be

I have

to

whosoever

scanning

poets;

what

noted

though

other

this

a

classified

times,

scientists,

the

mind—the

only

is disturbing

is in charge

in the creative

field, Ican begin counting dead friends

from Dr. P.V. Pathy onwards. Pramod

be

that

Later, it was K.T. John, K.S. Chari,

Chowdhuri,

S.N.S. Sastry, and now Sukhdev.

I should also mention Patole, a young editor of the Films Division. “Bubbles’’ Padamsee is another name that should appear in the list, though his exact place in the order of events confuses me. Only a few months ago, Sukhdev had gone in the hearse with Sastry’s body and, every time I had met him on any ‘‘dead” occa-

sion

he always

had a

bottle

of gin or rum in the bag and would

pass it round to friends for a quick swig, ‘‘Come on, have it neat!’’ was his war cry against death. Eventually, death seems to have come to him neat. So,

Sukhdev,

is dead.

He

is gone—gone

for ever. And

one

scratches one’s memory to find out where one should begin to draw a picture of him.

Around 1950, when I was working with “Marg” (in Adelphi, Bombay) Paul Zils had his office next door. And I knew him slightly.

135 It was

quite some years later when Souza, the artist, returned to

Bombay for the first time that, I believe, I got to know Sukhdev

in

earnest.

Sukhdev made a film on Souza’s exhibition at the Taj. This, I believe, is what really and finally gave him the confidence to think of himself as an independent short-film producer. Then on he went right ahead and never stopped or looked sideways. He, perhaps, looked sideways once when he branched into feature films. That atrocious “My Love” even if he did not say so must have convinced him that he did not just have it to enter the Hindi film world. Good. Anyway, from that Souza film onwards, Sukhdev was a permanent figure in my world, though neither he or I tried to cultivate each other. To him, I was always the ‘‘Godawalla”’ (bless the horses and the race-course!) and that is how he introduced me to all and at home. The years with Chari inevitably brought Sukh, “Pat’’ Sharma, Jag Mohan and a few others in a sort of a circle. It was a loose circle but whoever were in that circle learnt to stand by each other,

without asking any questions or waiting for any answers.

To case the net of memory far without any directions in mind,

remember the day Sukh, Souza, Jag Mohan and myself made a fulllength trip of the Red Light area in Bombay—in honour of Souza’s return. Our idea was to peep into every house and have a ‘‘dekho”’ to the fill—with options left open.

I

It was prohibition in Bombay, at that time. And after a dozen calls, I told Sukh that we couldn’t do this without drinks. Sukh scratched his head and went straight to a policeman on patrol duty. He addressed him familiarly as ‘Sakharam’ and asked for guidance. ‘Sakharam’

directed

us

correctly

(‘‘Are

you

listening,

Mr.

Morarji Desai ?’’) and we told the “‘baidawalla’’ at the entrance to

make

us all a ‘desi’?

sandwich

and, except for the reformed tee-

totaller Souza, we had a quick peg snack and resuming the rounds.

or two,

before

collecting

the

Since I was the only bachelor in the crowd then—and even now —I should mention that no one made use of any option and the

136 wives concerned need not pick up any quarrel escapade. Late

that

night when

I asked

Souza

why

on account

of this

he didn’t

“wanna

woman’’, he blamed Jag’s incessant talk about wives and marriages! Which, incidentally, reminds me that all our efforts to get Chari

involved in our forages in Foras Road always failed, no matter how hard we tried. But that’s besides the point.

It may appear silly to talk only about girls and drinks when thinking of Sukhdev. But then he was one of those bred-in-the-raw Punjabis. This fact one should keep in mind even when one thinks of him as a superb documentary producer. I had always felt that Sukh himself was very much aware of this : for, to my mind, he always seemed to be awestruck by the creative spark in him.

Maybe, no one else in his family had ventured into a creative career and he always felt against that he had done it! This explanation should also hold good as to why he never discussed the art of filming with anyone—and that he considered every assignment as a job to be done. There was never any intellectual browbeating in Sukh’s company. The oftenest used word was ‘‘Fucks’’, with a felt explanation mark. Sure,

he

had

his own

way of doing it and he did things mostly

all alone. Only once, he called me to write a commentary for a film on “Brahma Kumaris”. A little surprised at this request, I called on him. ‘‘Godawalla!” he said, “Only you can do this job. Don’t ask me what to write. Just write.’’ The last time I met him was about a month ago and he insisted on my featuring in this magazine with a pic on the cover, a venerable looking Urdu poet from Hyderabad. It might have come to pass, if Sukh had been still around. There was always a poet or a reciter around Sukh and, at times, a musician. Perhaps two eminent names I can think of as having contributed

to his

mental

make-up

are

Kaifi

Azmi

and

Sarangi

Pandit Ram Narain. And the fact remains that Sukh’s only child, a daughter, bears the name Shabnam. Wine, woman, song, work—Zindabad! That was Sukhdev. The: order of preferences changed with the need of the day and hour. (I

137 have purposely kept female company in the singular, because

is how I understood shore).

that

Sukh. Not that he didn’t flit from shore to

He’s gone. Yes, we have to repeat it to ourselves to make sure of

the act. But then, he never was, Sukh never was.

He was always

is

and he will remain is. This is not to say in the style of the cliche

that the void can be never be filled or that he will live in memory forever. That would be stupid and silly. It is more correct to say of characters like Sukh and Chari—he never was, he always is.

Which is why I forget, in the first instance, to put down the name of Chari in the list.

Death, be not proud ! You are at best an insatiable head-hunter.

HIM

REMEMBERS

AS K. VAIKUNTH

Ali Peter John

(The “Screen” of March 16, 1979 carried two articles on Sukhdev by way of tributes to him—one by Ali Peter John (reproduced here) and the other by me.

John’s article is mostly

based

on

personal

reminiscences

by K. Vaikunth, the well known cinematographer—J.M.)

of Sukhdev

Everytime I think of S. Sukhdev, I remember my first memorable

meeting with him. He was sitting in the study of writer-film-maker K.A.

Abbas.

He

had just

completed his documentary ‘‘Khilone-

wala’. He was happy, in a state of excitement. He talked about the film. Everything about him talked. His eyes, his hands, his face, everything. From ‘“Khilonewala”’, he switched over to talk about the next documentary he was planning. Then he talked of plans to make many other films in time to come. By the time he had finished, he had made a lasting impression on me. And, when he left, Abbas sat back in his chair and said: ‘What a man. What a talented young man. really.” After

that

memorable

morning,

we

met

on

several

other

occasions, The last time was at the Holi celebrations last year at R.K. Studios. There was a riot of colours everywhere. Revelry had reached new heights. Everyone there was in a mood for fun. But Sukhdev had other plans.

With a camera on

his

shoulder,

he ran

from place to place. He wanted ‘‘to capture reactions, moods’’, something that he loved to in all his many documentaries. I will always remember him as a man who was an artist first, a man

with

a compulsive urge to work hard, a man who was in love with life, who lived on his own terms and for whom work was life.

And like me, there are hundreds of his fans, friends and admirers who will remember him for all that he was, for all that he did. There is K. Vaikunth, the well-known cinematographer, who saw “the rise of a boy from a peasant family in Punjab from just a production manager to an extraordinary creative artist, a genius.”’ Vaikunth, who first met Sukhdev when he was in the early ‘twenties and who has seen and worked with many other men said ; “I’ve yet to meet a man like my friend Sukh.”’

139 Vaikunth met Sukh when he joined the unit of Paul Zils (the German film-maker who had settled down in India for a while as a cinematographer. Sukh was the production manager. He wasa very hard worker and was liked by everyone in the unit, said Vaikunth. ‘I saw something extraordinary in him. He was always experimenting, always trying to learn things. I could see the fire to do something different in him. So I decided to encourage him.” Vaikunth

There

first taught

was

M.I.

Sheikh,

him

Paul

the

rudiments

Zil’s

of

cinematography.

editor, who also took a lot of

interest in the young man. He taught him the essentials of editing. And, within no time, Sukh was ready to launch on what was to be a very brilliant career. ‘‘He was quick to learn things, very quick’, Vaikunth reminisced. It was

Paul

Zils

Sukhdev made

himself who

“Wazir

the

gave

Kaghzi’’

and

Sukhdev

showed

his first break. promise.

Then

followed ‘‘The Saint and the Peasant’’ and his talent was ‘really recognised’’ and he was flooded with awards. From then onwards winning awards ‘‘became a habit with him.” “He won acclaim everywhere.

festivals. He by

the

was

He won awards

in nearly

all the

on the jury of many festivals. He was honoured

Government of India.

He

was

friendly

Minister and top officials and business magnates.

with

the

Prime

But with friends

he was always the friend he was. He never changed. Nothing changed him till the end. The restlessness, the excitement, the urge to experiment, his love for work, for life and his friends continued

till the very end”’, Vaikunth said about his lost friend. Sukhdev

had

his

own

style of working.

Vaikunth

went

on;

“Time had no meaning for him. Day and night made no difference.

When

he

had

an

assignment

on hand, he worked at a stretch for

twenty and twenty-two hours. When all his assistants were fast asleep, Sukh worked like a man possessed.” The men who worked with him loved him for what he was, There was the case of an assistant whom he paid a monthly salary of just four hundred and fifty

rupees.

The

assistant

was

offered another job on a very high

salary but he preferred to stay back with Sukhdev.

He was always a man on the move. He was always travelling both physically and mentally. He was always ahead of his times. He accepted challenges and defied risks. Vaikunth spoke of that

140 morning in 1968 when Bombay was rocked by a serious earthquake: “Sukh came to my house in his car at four in the morning. He wanted me to joinhim in a drive through Bombay to study the reaction of people to the quake and I had to join him. One just couldn’t say no to him, because the word ‘no’ never existed for him.” Sukhdev always loved to work under stress and severe tension, “but he never looked tense. He was always in a mood to laugh, to have fun”. He had two serious heart attacks before the fatal one. His friends asked him to take things easy. ‘‘I told him that he had achieved enough for a life time but Sukhdev didn’t stop. He worked even harder after the two attacks. With his camera on his shoulders he rushed where healthy men like me feared to go. That was Sukh. No one could stop him from getting what he wanted’, Vaikunth said. Sukh was very humane, very sentimental. A journalist friend remembers: ‘‘He was in Tashkent for the festival when news came of Prithviraj Kapoor’s death. He cried like a child for more than three hours and no one could stop him.’’ He was also very generous, specially to friends. There was this friend who wanted to go to London for some important job. Sukhdev also had to go. But, when he heard that the friend wanted to go and did not have the money, he took all the money he had, gave it to him and saw that the friend went to London, while he himself stayed back. Sukhdev worked right till the end. There were seven documentaries he was planning for the Haryana Government and three more for business houses. There were others nearing completion. He also had plans to start a feature film with new stars and two songs had already been recorded. Next to work, Sukhdev loved travelling. He travelled, like he worked, till the end. Just a few days before the end came, he

flew

from

Bombay

to

Bangalore,

supposed to leave for Haryana. journey had come to an end.

then

flew

to

Delhi

and was

Death stopped him in Delhi.

The

A DIALOGUE WITH SUKHDEV AT LEIPZIP Neil I. Perera

(Neil

I. Perera,

a well-known

filmologist

of Sri Lanka wrote a book in

English-Sinhalese entitled ‘Film Festivals:A Third World Assesment”. This

Cinema Asia-Cinema Africa publication, brought out in 1979 and distributed at the Bangalore Filmutsav in 1980 contained the following item by way

of a tribute to Sukhdev—as a film-maker of the Third World. Neil I. Perera’s reference to Sukhdev with “Singh” pre-fixed to his name may look and sound odd. Probably at Leipzig, Sukhdev may have emphasised on his

Sikh ancestry—J.M.)

“A little weary, his face showing tiredness, but with a smile in his eyes. Singh Sukhdev arrives for our conversation”. This is how the last interview with Singh Sukhdev, “the most exciting filmmaster since the rise of Satyajit Ray’, was introduced in the “Leipzig Festival Bulletin of 1978. The 46-year-old, India’s foremost documentary film-maker, passed away a few months after the Festival. I met Director Sukhdev at New Delhi Festival in 1965, and we became good friends. Again we were together at Tashkent in 1972, then at Leipzig in °77. It was both pleasant and educative to be with him. He was also very knowledgeable in all arts and literature.

Singh Sukhdev is the son of a Sikh peasant from

Ludhiana,

India.

A self-studied film-maker, he gained a better knowledge in filmmaking when he worked under the German documentarist, the late Paul Zils. Paul Zils once told me that the most intelligent assistant he ever had was Sukhdev. He further remarked: ‘Not only did he master the subject quickly, but, became the most creative documentary film-maker of India”. The death of the guru and the

disciple

within

a matter of a month has created a void not easy to

fill for a long time to come.

Singh Sukhdev’s first independently made film, “The Saint and the Peasant”, on Acharya Vinobha Bhava, was chosen to inaugu-

rate the Asian Film Week at Frankfurt in 1964.

He was awarded

the ‘‘Padmashri’”’ by the President of India in 1968 for his outstanding contribution in the field of the short film. His films like: “And

Miles

To

Go”,

“No Sad Tomorrow”, ‘After the Eclipse’’,

142 “India ’67”’. ‘‘Thoughts in a Museum’’

almost

all Film

Festivals

in the

had been

world—Venice,

represented at

Cannes,

Berlin,

Mannheim, Oberhausen, Leipzig, London, Edinburgh, San Francisco etc. He has served as a member of the International Jury in Berlin, in Moscow and in Leipzig twice. Lindsay Anderson, the British film-maker said: ‘‘...Sukhdev continues to show that India has more than one true, feeling artist of the cinema’. When he sat with the ‘Festival Bulletin’ reporter, Harold Mohr, Sukhdev remarked: ‘‘...made it again. Had to use my eyes and

ears’.”

“Satisfied ?’’ questioned the reporter.

“Yes, today’s performance was very good indeed. When good films, I feel very well. When I see bad films then...’’ Answering

the usual questions,

I see

he said: ‘‘...not all people, for

example, understand the tragedies in this world. We documentarists

can still better explain with these films the world to the peoples of the world. Thus, the festival will not only live for one week but for

a whole year’’.

The following is an extract from the interview: Q. What subject are you working on at present? Ans. At present I am working on some films about the problems of society in India. There are religious problems in our country and also problems of minorities. These are subjects to which I attach great importance. Besides, I am trying to make a film about the

position of the multinational monopolies in India. of my films myself. Q.

I finance most

You have come to the documentary film via the feature films?

Ans. The feature films, which are made in India are mostly films that are not always concerned with the real conditions, I have come to the documentary film because it is this kind of film that gets to the roots of the problems. If I had not become a documentary film-

maker, may be I should bea politician today. The documentary film is one of the possibilities to recognise the problems of the country.

Q. During last five years the length of the documentary film has increased. How would you assess this fact? Ans. Long footage films must not be boring.

143 Q. Do you think that long films have led to the development a new style of documentary film?

of

Ans, I haven’t discovered a new style. What is important for me is that many film-makers are concerned with problems which the whole of mankind has very much at heart. Films about Africa for example. The emphasis always lies on the struggle against imperialism...”” Q. Aren’t the films from the Socialist countries less burdened with problems because they represent their own society, that is to say, themselves? Ans. The

tendency

films

from

the

towards

uniformity.

Sukhdev’s

fearless

Socialist

I have

world

sometimes

the impression

things are seen in a too undifferentiated manner. self-critical films about Socialist everyday life... Singh

expression

of

views

show

a

as if many

I think we need and

ideas

was

equally evident in what he said and wrote and in what he filmed.

WHO

KILLED

SUKHDEV?

Anon

(This unsigned piece appeared as the obituary note on Sukhdev in “India Today”’ of March 16-31,

1979. It’s authorship

has been

traced

to a well-

known film critic and film-maker but at his request, he has not been named. This is a honest-to-goodness obit that would have pleased Sukhdev.—J.M.)

At 7.30 p.m. on March 1, 1979 S. Sukhdev, 46, India’s finest short film-maker, was mixing the sound-tracks of a film at the

Centre for Educational Technology in New Delhi, when sed

in his chair.

he collap-

For Sukhdev, death could have come in no other

way. He had had several heart attacks before, but had gone on working at his usual furious pace. Sukhdev did everything with passion, and without a care for the consequences. Sukhdev’s formal education was minimal. He began his career as an assistant in the German documentary film-maker Paul Zils’s unit in India, around 1955. His work consisted of carrying the camera and putting on the lens. But his imagination made up for his lack of education. It did not take him long to excel as a cameraman. For some years, he made routine short films for a living. It was, as it were, a period of hibernation. Around 1964, he made a seven-minute film on the painter

F.N.

Souza, which showed a new feeling for the cinema. This was quickly

followed by “And Miles To Go’, a film on poverty, riches, and police repression which won a prize at India’s Third International Film Festival in 1965. With this angry little, cinematic essay, Sukhdev discovered himself. And the nation discovered Sukhdev. He suddenly had a very personal insight into the basic truth of modern India—the growing disparity between the privileged few who were taking off towards the 21st century, and the masses who were left coexisting in various centuries from the 19th to the palaeolithic. This contract obsessed him and found expression in a series of films. His spiritual growth kept pace with an increasing technical mastery and creative vision.

145 Perpetual Trouble Few film-makers in India could be said to compose a compelling

image every time they placed a camera before a face or a scene, but Sukhdev was one of them. His visual sense was equalled by his ear for sound. Many of the sequences in ‘‘Nine Months To Freedom”’, his film on the Bangladesh freedom movement, were brought to life by the telling use of sound. Despite his receiving national and international awards, Sukhdev perpetually faced problems especially with films by which he will be best remembered. His feud with the censors was unending. “And

Miles To Go’’ was heavily censored for being too revolutionary.

“India

In

’67’’, the shot of a dog urinating was reinstated only after

the intervention of a minister; “Nine Months To Freedom” had outlived its political utility by the time it was made and was not released; in “After The Eclipse”, a moving film on prison life,

Sukhdev acted the role of the prisoner with characteristic passion only to find a Film Division seminar unwilling to accept it as a documentary, because there was ‘“‘acting’’ in it. Politicians tried to suppress ‘‘After The Silence’’, a film about bonded labour because a bonded slave-owner confessed his sins on camera and raised fears among his compatriots. A close friend of Sukhdev, K.S. Chari, another fiery film-maker,

also

died

an

untimely

death.

Chari too, had a rebellious spirit of

fierce honesty, ill-suited to the norms of a hypercritical bureaucracy in complete control of the production, distribution and exhibition of short films.

Symptoms More than down on the to cry out Government

cal films

and

specific encounters with the establishment, what weighs sensitive documentary-maker is that he is expected not against injustice. He must sing undiluted prajse of policy. There are also great hurdles in making politifilms

of strong,

direct

social criticism.

fate of “Kissa Kursi Ka’s” simplistic satire.

It is said that Sukhdev

Witness the

like Ritwik Ghatak and K.S. Chari

wasted his talent and drank himself to death. But this is an instance of mistaking the symptom for the disease. The unending

146 frustration of having to kowtow to officials who see their relationship to creative film-makers as one of master and servant, of not being able to cry out for a just society and shout “I Accuse”’ in a loud and clear voice was what ate into their souls and undid them in the end. The short film in India is a medium whose doors are closed and whose every crevice is sealed with reinforced concrete against such honesty.

Tronically, Sukhdev and others of his kind were not opposed to the declared goals of the country. They were their ardent supporters. They, therefore, felt outraged whenever they saw their goals being betrayed.

There were times when Sukhdev had to give in. Sometimes, he had to give his conscience a rest and fall in temporarily with the powers

of the

day.

But

neither he, nor others like him, could go

the whole hog to make that grand Faustian deal to sell their souls. If they half-compromised at times, it was because one half of their soul wanted to live and to go on working; the other, to die. The trouble is that the devil is not content with half-deals; for him, it is all or nothing.

THIS DOOMED

OF TALENT

CARAVAN K.A. Abbas

(Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, the veteran film journalist and film-maker had been

a consistent admirer of Sukhdev. So much so, Sukh was invited to act in “Saat Hindustani’. Every time

tities, Abbas

“The

Saab

Last Page’’

Sukhdev got

into trouble with the autho-

(as he is more familiarly known) threw open his column,

in the “Blitz” to defend Sukhdev. This particular article,

however, he wrote in the ‘‘Screen’”’ of March 23, 1979. It is a sociological study of early deaths in the film industry written in a poignant manner. It is

rich with sentiments but not sentimental—J.M.)

Shailendra, the popular film lyricist and progressive

died at a young age—barely above forty.

Hindi

poet,

The well-known documentarist, K.S. Chari (who had made progressive and thought-provoking documentaries like ‘‘Face to Face’’ “Transition’’ and ‘‘Badshah Khan” for the Films Division) died at about the same age. Ramu Kariat, the film-maker and writer, died in Kerala ata little over 50 and, alas, I missed even the news of his death. He was the first film-maker from the South to receive the President’s Gold Medal for his lyrical-realistic colour film, ““Chemmeen.” And now my friend, Sukhdev, has left us at the young age of 46 and we shall miss his progressive dynamism, his passion and compassion for humanity, whether it was in Bangladesh or about the landless labourezs of Uttar Pradesh. What was common about them and their deaths ?

Sensitive to Pain That

each

of them

was

a shining symbol in his own branch of

film art, each was sensitive to pain and humiliation—specially pain and humiliation of others. Another

thing

they

had

in common

was

the

that, though much

younger than I am they were my friends whom I loved and admired

for their creativity and courage.

148 Shailendra had produced (in co-operation with Director Basu Bhattacharya) his first picture, ‘‘Teesri Kasam,” a poem on celluloid which won him, posthumously, the most-coveted President’s Gold Medal. The making of this realistic picture involved him in a series of debts, the humiliation of which a sensitive soul like his could not bear. He took refuge in drink. He was always fond of drink but formerly

it was

a pleasure—now

it became

an

escape mechanism. He drank more and more—but (as he told me once) that did not help him to forget. Because, apart from his sensitivity. Shailendra was a highly intelligent man whom I had known and admired from the days when we were both in I.P.T.A. and his revolutionary songs used to thrill us and electrify thousands. When Shailendra died, those songs, that kind of poetry, died with him. That’s why his death was a double tragedy—it was the death of an incomparable artist and of his art. The same could be said of K.S. Chari. He a journalist,a writer and a poet before he came mentaries. It involved him in financial losses—to forget which he sought refuge in the drunk,

he

potent. One whisky, he called—and was also the

did

not

care

what

was a creative artist, to making his docucomplications—even bottle. Once he was

he was drinking—so long as it was

day, not having money to buy Scotch or even Indian drank country liquor—‘snake juice’, as it has been that was the end, the end of a creative film-maker. It end of his creative film art.

Act of God I remember

the day

when

we

both

went

to

the

funeral

of a

fellow-member of IDPA*. Walking among the graves, the question suddenly popped up in my brain. Why do sensitive film-makers die young? I asked Chari, and he said: ‘‘The matter certainly needs investigation.” A year later he himself died without solving the problem.

A young film-maker, Sikandar Khanna, also died at a young age. That was a great tragedy for he was at the threshold of his brilliant career—but it could not be helped. For, he died of cancer, a *Indian Documentary Producers’ Association.

149 dreaded and (as yet) incurable disease. That was an act of God or Destiny or the historical forces which none can undo, On the occasion of Shailendra’s death, film writers held a condolence meeting at which I said: “Sensitive poets (in which I included creative film-makers) are a treasure of the nation. They are sensitive to the core—they are fragile like the thinnest glass. They have to be protected—and they must protect themselves—from the ‘slings and arrows of fortune’, from the stones of economic necessity. They are so fragile that they have to be protected even from bottles of

liquor. For, in a clash between the two, sensitive) element will be broken.”

the more

fragile (and

That occurred to me when I heard of the death of my old friend Ramu Kariat, who always proudly showed me his films whenever he came to Bombay for editing and re-recording, I stayed as his guest in Kerala—and what a host he was! He took me by car from

Trivandrum to stay in a seaside guest house in Cochin where, at the glorious hour of sunset, we would sit on the beach and discuss art

and literature but mostly films and how they could be made a vehicle of art and serious content. He had umpteen plans—including making films in Hindi in which he sought my co-operation which was immediately assured to him. But, once the sunset hour was over, he would have an early dinner with me and, after that, he

would leave me in my room to have his drinking session with

some

other local friends. At the end of that, he would have to be carried to his room !

After Two Warnings He had a first warning, then a second warning of heart attack. For six months, he gave up drinking—but, once the body is drugged with an excess of liquor, its malfunctioning continued even after the

drink has been discontinued.

The end

comes

suddenly—invariably

it is called heart attack. I know that his last picture was not a commercial success but what must have irked him more was that it was not hailed as an artistic masterpiece. Meanwhile, the more artistic pictures in Malayalam (some of which were also commercially success-

ful)

were

being

Institute of India.

made by young alumni

of the Film and Television

Was that his last thought, like Ernest Hemingway—that his creativity was now at an end ? If that was so, it was nothing but a

150 delusion, for Ramu Kariat, the ever-jolly Ramu, who was known for his spontaneous laughter round the world wherever his “Chemmeen”

had

gone

with

him,

could have guided and trained

innumerable apprentices, even if he could not raise finance to direct his own films. Only drink-induced melancholia could have overpowered the ever-jovial, the ever-optimistic Ramu Kariat. These melancholy thoughts have recurred after the news of Sukhdev’s death. What a meteoric career he had ! From seeing him as an assistant

to Paul Zils, personally lugging camera and batteries and other equipment to the making of his own “And Miles To Go”, which was screened at the first meeting of our Film Forum* and then entered (at my suggestion) in the International Film Festival of India of 1964, at which I was a member of the Jury which gave it the Bengal Tiger Award. I remember the night the announcement was made. Sukhdev had returned to Bombay. He had to borrow the money to fly to Delhi to receive his award dressed in a jacket that was obviously borrowed from a friend, for it was too tight for the broad-chested shaven

Sikh lad from the Punjab.

I remember that occasion very well. For I had promised Sukhdev any present he might desire if ‘‘our” picture won a recognition. When I asked him what he would like, he innocently

demanded

“a

bottle of Scotch whisky”.

Beinga teetotaller, I had

never bought a whisky bottle in my life—but, in that happy and exhilarated mood, I ordered the whisky bottle for him and he shared

it with his friends in my hotel room, insisting that I took a

sip from his glass to start the drinking.

No Borrowed Ideas Sukhdev might have borrowed that jacket on that night of the first triumph. But he never borrowed any ideas for his films. And,

at all the

dressed.

awards

that

he later received, he was always informally

From that onwards, we became such friends that we used to call each other’s films “‘our” films. He worked in our “Saat Hindustani”

* *A leading film society in Bombay.

151 as a wounded soldier of the Goan freedom struggle. He was inquiring what role he would play in ‘‘Naxalites’’—which he, called “‘our film !”’ I told him that it would be a role in the scenes. That climax will have to be shot without the

always again, climax robust

—at

Delhi.

personality

the

of Sukhdev.

All

India

Characteristically, he

he was

CET.*

His

Institute died

own

of

climax

came

earlier in a room

Minutes

before the attack,

Medical

in harness.

Sciences

in

recording a song for a documentary he had shot for the

But I still feel that Sukhdev need not have died at the young

age

of 45 or 46. It was not death—it was suicide—no, it was murder by a demon called drink.

Those Unmade Films When

I think of Sukhdev

and

his brilliant series of docu-

mentaries—from “And Miles To Go”’ to the brilliant ‘India ’67” and ‘“‘Nine Months to Freedom” to ‘‘Khilonewala” to the tragic

story

of ‘‘Meena Kumari,’’ which he had completed just before his

death—I grieve for other artistic films (documentaries and features)

remaining unmade because of his sudden and premature death, and

I say : “Damn that whisky bottle that, in my folly, I presented him twelve years ago !”’

to

Meena Kumari and Ritwik Ghatak I have not mentioned in the list of these tragedies. One was a tragic poetess, a self-consuming flame, which illuminated so many lives but burnt herself to death. The other was a genius who was not able to get the resources to keep pace with the rush of ideas that came to him ina flood. The last time he met me, he was thinking of making a Bengali-Hindi film. Jasimuddin’s

“A

Field

of Embroidered

Quilt’’, He, above all of

them, was an alcoholic—and like my friend, the poet Majaz, he, too, had to be treated in a mental hospital. But both Majaz and Ritwik succumbed ultimately to the enticing demon who resides in a bottle. Or, may be, it is a she-devil, like the sirens of the deep sea

who captivated sailors by their beautiful appearance them to their death !

and

then led

But why choose for this destruction—or self-destruction—some of the most sensitive souls in Indian cinema ? *Centre for Educational Technology (NCERT), New Delhi.

152 Can nothing be done to stop this doomed caravan of talent marching on to self-destruction? The tensions, the suspense of

failure or success, the sudden

rise to fame

and

fortune,

the

chamchagiri and the sycophancy that goes on—all this is more than what a sensitive soul can bear without the (supposed) help of intoxication. But, surely, something can be done to wean away our talented artistes and directors from excessive drinking. I have never been a prohibitionist. I have never objected to my friends enjoying their drinks. But drinking a peg or two along with your dinner (as they do in Europe) is one thing and the kind of excessive drinking (without

eating) that can be seen at filmland parties is quite another—where

the host has to have an unlimited stock of bottles and the guests think it their duty to down every drink that the host’s hospitality

is duty-bound to offer them. But sometimes

it can have

comic,

tragic and even fatal conse-

quences, as was demonstrated in the Juhu

drama

that

was

stages

the other day (or night)—complete with fist fights and filmic revolvers being fired. That was also the result of inebriation. But the greatest danger lay within each of the several talented actors—the timeless atomic bomb of excessive liquor. Even if it sounds like preaching a sermon, I will say to them: “For God’s sake (or for Man’s sake) save your art and save yourselves. That is your duty to yourselves, to your families, to you fans—and to your art !””

SUKH

AS I KNEW

HIM

N.V.K. Murthy

(N.V.K.

Murthy

has been

a positive determinant

in Indian films during

the last two decades. A former faculty member of the Osmania University, Hyderabad, he has been incharge of the Newsreels at the Films Division in

the ’sixties. He radically changed the contents,

style and

formats of news

presentation. After a stint as the Registrar of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, he had been the key executive of the Film Finance Corporation. Now

he is the Director of the Film and Television Institute of India, which post he had

held

earlier

also.

Though one of the seniormost officers of the Central

Information Service, he has been known for his non-conformist views, his support for new talent and worthwhile causes and for his bold initiatives.

—IJ.M.)

I cannot now recollect exactly when I first met Sukhdev. I always had the feeling that I had known Sukh all my life. It was sometime in the early ’sixties, when I was in the Films Division looking after newsreels that I ran into Sukh. He used to come to Films Division as an ‘‘outside producer’. What struck me first was his ebbulience and joie de vivre, and his scant respect for

authority of any sort.

But,I soon

found

that

his casual

were only a facade. Deep down, Sukh was a very serious being concerned about fellow human beings. In those

manners

human

days, there was a lot of give-and-take between film-

makers within the Films Division and free-lancers working outside. It was acommon practice for us to see one another’s films and

criticise each ‘other ruthlessly. Some were put off by such criticism. But most of us did not mind this at all and took this as a part of self-education. Sukh was a very active member of this group.

The first time when we got together in the process of film-making was when he started his celebrated documentary ‘India ’67”” and I was producing a film on the Bihar famine, which was later titled as “Framework of Famine’’. I had succeeded in persuading the Films Division to try an experiment of getting the film made by one who was absolutely new to film-making. I chose Partap Sharma, a very sensitive, earnest, talented young man who had made

a mark

as a

154

writer and journalist. Sukh decided to start shooting “India ’67”’ in Bihar. So, the three of us, Sukh, Partap Sharma and I set off to Bihar. Sukh’s unit and our unit were to join us a little later after we had done the preliminary surveys. Sukh had as his constant companion, a tape-recorder with him. This came in handy to us because we recorded a number of interviews with some key people in Bihar, who were able to educate us on the factors that led to or contributed to the famine. Sukh not only willingly allowed us to use his tape-recorder but worked as the recordist and systematically

recorded all the interviews.

This

generosity

was

a part

personality. Whenever there was any worthwhile cause, always depend on Sukh to help you out.

of Sukh’s

you

could

Another film, which brought me and Sukh together more closely, was the long documentary film which he made on Bangladesh. I had left Films Division by then and gone on

Bureau.

to

Press

Information

But my interest in films and my close friendship with Sukh

continued. Both of us felt intensely about the suppression of the people of East Bengal and its repercussions on India. When Sukh thought of the film he did not have any definite idea as to how he

would get the finances to make the film. But, he was convinced that he had to make it. This again was typical of Sukh.

When he got an idea, it would become ar obsession with him till he was able to work it out. He had long discussions. We read up all the historical material that was available. Our idea was to present the conflict in the historical perspective and trace it to its origin. I wrote out a treatment which we went over several times before we came up with what we thought was the right one. Then I went to work on a detailed script. Sukh said that I need not bother

about the sources from where he would have to get the visual material. He asked me to include whatever I thought was likely to be

available anywhere in the world.

When he finally made the film he managed to get shots from

over

the

world

including

the

United Kingdom and Pakistan.

all

He

made several trips into war-torn Bangladesh risking his life. The long documentary that finally emerged was entitled as ‘Nine Months To Freedom” and was shown all over the world and made a great impact on all those who saw it.

155 Sukh also tried his hand at feature film-making. But, that was not his cup of tea. He was at his best in the documentary medium. Though he had an excellent eye for the visual image and an equally

excellent

ear

for sound

and

music,

his forte

was his editing. He

was just brilliant when it came to editing. His editing was so effective that the spoken word became unnecessary. This was highlighted in his “India ’67”, which carried no commentary. We shared a tremendous faith in the potential of the Documentary Film to bring about far-reaching social changes in the country. We were planning to make a film on a project undertaken by some idealistic young men and women in the Gondwana belt of Madhya Pradesh. They have successfully tried out an innovative method of teaching science, which develops the student's capacity to think for himself or herself. We felt that the work being done there needed

to be brought to the notice of fellow Indians, so that they could

enthused

to do similar work.

sometime in April-May, 1979.

We

Duty

be

were to start work on this film took

me

out of the

country

for a few weeks in February, 1979. When I came back, the first news I got was that of the sudden death of Sukh. It struck me like a thunderbolt. I could not reconcile myself to the idea of Sukh being dead.

But, Sukh is not dead. He lives on in his films and in the hearts of those who were privileged to call him a friend.

STRAY

THOUGHTS ON

A FRIEND.

B.D. Garga

(Bhagwan Das Garga, film historian and noted documentary film-maker, belonged to the Sukhdev “‘gang”’ of friends. Garga, who has won several

national and international awards for his films, has specialised in ‘‘personality’’ films on Satyajit Ray, Amrita Sher-Gil, Sarojini Naidu, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya and others. Here is a moving tribute to Sukhdev.—J.M.)

Sukhdev’s place in the history of Indian documentary film is assured. During his long film-making career, this enfant terrible of Indian cinema made some of the most thought-provoking films. But Sukhdev really came into his own with “India ’67”—a film of extraordinary visual beauty and unfailing compassion. It was a lover’s film charged with passion. It was by no means a flawless work, with its rather loose structure, and occasional self-indulgence.

But these were the excesses of a brilliant talent, who enjoyed every moment of what he was doing. That it aroused diverse and extreme Teactions

was

a tribute to its maker who despised neutrality in art.

It is reported that Morarji

Desai was (naturally) appalled

by the

film. Marie Seton explained : ‘‘Some pepole were bound, and are bound, to dislike the film because it does not conform. The courage

evident in this uninhibited film has the positive virtue that it is difficult to say that what is shown on the screen is the truth doctored up.” Always suspicious of Authority, almost to the point of paranoia, Sukhdev loved

nothing

more

than

to hoodwink

or humiliate

it.

Once he whisked off cans of his new film from a laboratory without excise clearance (‘‘What a pain in the ass they are !’’) to keep his promise to show it to a friend. It is this defiance of the Establishment that permeated all his work. Matched with this contempt was his concern for the oppressed. When the Bangladesh pogrom began, Sukhdev was one of the very few Indian film-makers, who was in the thick of the action at considerable physical risk. The result was ‘“‘Nine Months To Freedom”’, a work of compelling power. He was essentially an apolitical person, always suspicious of politicians and their machinations. But wherever oppression raised its head, he was always to the fore.

157 I remember in 1968, when the Soviet tanks rumbled through the cobbled streets of Prague at the Czech “invitation”, (Someone asked: ‘What are these hundred thousand Soviet troops doing in Prague ?” “They are looking for

the man

it wended

Soviet

who

invited

them

in’,

replied the wag.) Sukhdev immediately organised a film-makers’ morcha in front of the Soviet Consulate. To the discomfiture of the Chief Producer, the procession started from the Films Division. As its way

towards

the

Consulate

on

Nepean sea

Road, the police herded us all into a waiting van and drove

to the

police station.

“What party do you belong to ?”” questioned the Authority. “Film-makers in his eyes.

Party”,

replied Sukhdev

with a mischevious glint

“What party ?”’ repeated the arm of law. “Fiim-makers Party’? answered Sukhdev. “Congress, Socialist and Communists parties I know of but this must be a new one” mumbled the perplexed policeman. Thus was baptised the “Film makers Party” inside a police station. (We were let off soon after.)

Sukhdev must be shots at heavenly measure of a man more than most of

causing a lot of commotion up there, taking pot gods just as he did at earthly tin ones. The is how much he would dare. Sukhdev dared us.

AUTEUR OF THE INDIAN DOCUMENTARY Chidananda Das Gupta

(The

author

is an

aficinado

of good films, a filmologist and a film-maker.

Actively associated with the Film Society Movement

has made

documentaries

(‘‘Dance

Ferry’’, etc.) and the Bengali feature

study

of Shiva’’,

for three decades, he

‘‘Birju

Maharaj’

film, ‘Bilet Phirat’’.

His

“At the

perceptive

of Satyajit Ray and his films appeared last year. This year, “Talking

about Films’’, a collection of essays, has come out.—J.M.)

When the fog lifts, one can see for ever. With some artists this happens suddenly, miraculously ; with others, it is a long and arduous process. And, of course, there are many for whom it never happens. Sukhdev had worked for three years as an assistant editor, a camera assistant and an assistant director in quick suceession in the Paul Zils unit, without displaying great portents of talent. Later, when he graduated to director under Paul Zils and still later, making a film on a British bank on his own, his highest achievement was a kind of smart, but mindless film-making. There was no sign of the vision—the ability to see for ever—that was to make his future. Suddenly, vision dawned on Sukhdev. Take his very short film on Souza, for instance. The film begins with scenes of the opening of an exhibition. As usual, at such occasions, a lot of people move, and meaningless chatter fills the ears. One is hardly able to see the paintings in the far background because of the people coming and going or to pay attention to them because of the noise. Suddenly, the camera closes in on one of the paintings, and the sound is switched off. In the

come

complete

silence

that

follows,

the

paintings

to life, one by one. It is no longer an exhibition full of noise

and movement; it is a silent world of form and us in its own mysterious language.

line,

signalling

to

But it was with ‘And Miles To Go”’ that Sukhdev found himself.

His anger had found a focus in India’s dire contrasts of wealth and poverty, progress and reaction, which became the theme of his later films. At the Third International Film Festival in Delhi in 1965

159

Jehangir Bhownagary, then adviser to the Information and Broad-

casting Ministry on loan from the UNESCO, saw the film and made his discovery of Sukhdev. It was largely Bhownagary’s effort that broke through the bureaucratic indifference of the Government’s Films Division, and brought to Sukhdev a little of the recognition he already deserved. But for Bhownagary, Sukhdev would not have made his memorable one-hour documentary

“India ’67”’. The film is a vivid portrait of India’s struggle for social change, in all its heroic, tragic and funny aspects, and above all, its indomitable vitality. Pictures of ancient gods are stuck on modern machines

in a factory;

a fat woman

struggles

with her bra at a

river; a street dog urinates on a bicycle; a car winds its way through the virgin lanes of a village; a cinematographer (Sukhdev himself) records the gaunt old face of a woman (his aunt)—images like these,

kaleidoscope

bringing the centuries together, are fitted into a turning

without

any word

of explanation. A poem of Kaifi

Axmi’s, read in the poet’s rich voice, provides the only

comment:

“Everyday

I go forward

and

intellectual

find I am back whereI

had started; I break doors open, and find Iam again.”

knocking

at them

In time, Sukhdev came to be known for his extraordinary closeups. In a film he made for the Khadi and Village Industries Commission, he shot the faces of prisoners and their visitors to make them so memorable that both his audience and his sponsers forgot that he had set out to make a film on prison reform through the Charkha. Typically, he broke down the compartment set up by idle academics and rule-loving bureaucrats, and

mixed

actors

and

actual prisoners in this film ‘‘After the Eclipse’. He and his wife both acted in it, with remarkable success, Even their daughter was

there in the film.

What he sought to communicate was his feeling for human beings. He did not care if he broke rules or went miles away from his sponsor’s brief. He not only acted in some of his films but shot and edited and set them to music. He was, in the fullest sense, the auteur of his films, controlling everything that appeared in them. He was one of the few Indian film-makers, who could almost invariably put a frame around a scene that instantly made the scene powerful and meaningful.

160 It was

trouble.

precisely his passion

and his vision that

got him into

In the much-ordered world of the short film, so completely

controlled by the bureaucracy and dominated by the sponsor, public or private,a ‘break-through’ is either impossible or worthless, or both. In the feature filma breakthrough is significant because it means the approval of the public and not of a few individuals, In the short film area, no matter how reputed a film-maker you are, how many prizes you win, you remain a cog in the wheel, a servant of the system if you are to continue to make films and make a living. All your protests must, in the end, make peace with the rule-maker and the sponsor. In the process, protest, anger and passion can be worn on the sleeve; they can become useful decorations. This is the inner death that Sukhd2zv suffered. Others, less talented and more perspicacious, who loved film wisely, if not so well, avoided this predicament from the beginning as inevitable. Sukhdev, like the classic hero of Tragedy, went straight into it. Had he been born somewhere else or at some other time, he might have shot into international fame and won almost limitless opportunity. In the particular setting given to him, he struggled nobly but not without a certain necessary cunning, a prolonged exercise of which can steal the nobility and kill the spirit, the means

defeating the end.

When Ritwik Ghatak could

not

make

films

as

he wanted to make them, he took to drink and perished. Sukhdev tried to defeat the system from within, fighting it with its own weapons, and

failed.

Towards

the

last few

years,

he

was

it, regardless.

Perhaps he perceived it as his only solution.

in

no

doubt about what was happening inside him and drove himself as hard as he could. He drank like a fish, worked like a demon and brushed aside his- doctors even after several heart attacks. For years he had known how he would end, he headed straight towards Sukhdev was not an intellectual; he could not structure social analysis or resolve the contradictions he set up. He felt passionately, saw vividly and heard musically. That is what gave life to his films —a life denied to hundreds of documentaries churned out by the bureaucratic apparatus and lying around like dead flies.

APOLOGY

FOR

SUKH

CHACHA

Neelima Mathur

(For Sukhdev, Neelima (nee Jag Mohan) was a sort of mascot whom he always fondly called ‘‘Chinky”. She, as a child of three plus inaugurated Sukhdev’s company, UFA by cutting a cake and distributing it, She and her

husband, Pramod Mathur, have worked with Sukhdev.—J.M.)

This is a book on Sukhdev—known to many as just Sukh. But I

was born into this world knowing him only as Sukh

Chacha—and

it is difficult to refer to him any other way. Though I was asked to write about the odd occasions when I was with him at work, I’d rather talk about the man. For most of the world, people exist as architects, or scientists or technocrats or writers or film-makers. But behind each isa man— who makes himself known as something else. Sukh Chacha’s life was a continuous striving for being at peace with that man in him. Life, people, circumstances had all created a state of conflict within him, And he spent many years of his life trying to resolve that conflict. Moral obligations, consciousness of right and wrong, emotional pulls, drove him to a state of neurosis;

when ultimately he never knew why he was doing just did it.

something—but

There were—are—many people who never understood Sukh Chacha. Who dismissed him for his drunkenness, for his spasmodic meetings, for his ‘‘selfishness’”. Those people may never even bother to go through this book. But if one does, then this small memoir is an explanation. A defence, if you like. Sukh Chacha had too large a heart. And that was his problem. He never had enough time to please all the people the way he wanted to please them. He knew there were hangers-on, stooging on his drinks and his telephone day in and day out. But he could never tell them to get out. But what he earned went into paying for the bottles of rum ‘“‘X”’ drank or the trunk-calls ‘““Y”’ made. And then he never had enough to pay his staff or such-and-such person. So, Sukhdev was a bad paymaster.

162 Domestic hang-ups can frustrate the strongest of men. Who was tight or who was wrong, is not for me to say. But I do know that it made him one of the most insecure men I have met. It made him clamour for friendship, for understanding, for rapport. And at

every party or on every location he would be watching for a spark

to latch on to. And at almost every attempt, that spark diminished

too fast.

One day, you found Sukh And some months later on to many. No long-lasting ties. still searching for his alter ego. day,

he

would

have

Chacha literally surviving on “‘X”’. “Y”. That may seem inconsistent Yes. But he died too soon. He was But he died too soon. May be one

completed

his treasure-hunt with a winner.

May be not. God never gave him the chance. How many people Sukh Chacha enlivened with his bubbly presence only he knew: how many wandering youths he trained

and helped only he knew; how many people he assisted with money or work only he knew. He died with all that and ingratitude

from them within him. But he never told anyone. He was not the one to tell. Life was too important to be marred with such petty complaints. He

moved

on.

Trying

to forget the hurt or abuse his “‘friends”’

inflicted on him. Trying to find something else to smile and laugh about. A piece of music to get excited about. A line of verse to Tave about. Anything, but anything, to forget the pain that steadily accumulated within him. It was of course that very pain that gave power to every frame he shot. To the concept of every film he envisioned. Whether it was the life of a jailed man or butchered masses in Bangladesh. His pain made him aware of the dullest shadow in anyone’s eyes, And that was not something everyone knew. At the end of this memoir of Sukh Chacha, I want to apologise to him wherever he is, He would have hated any justification of himself. But at least a dead Sukh Chacha deserves that. Though even without it, he must be happier wherever he is. Any life would be better than the wretchedness he had amongst us.

IN MEMORIAM Sarala Jag Mohan My mother did not give birth to him. And he was not my brother in that sense. I never tied raakhi on his hairy wrist.

And he was not my brother in that sense either. But he was indeed my brother all along.

For he always called me ‘‘Behn’’—his sister.

Whether I greeted him with a glad eye—or a sad eye

I was from the time I knew him, his “‘Behn’’. For Not Nor But

me too, because because because

he was my brother, true and real. he stood by’in times of need. he enveloped me with irrepressible warmth. I felt him such in my blood.

He was jesting and laughing only a moment ago. He always did that in the face of Death.

But suddenly darkness spread before his eyes.

That closed without his knowledge in final rest. While he lived, he was a tornado. A dynamo with infinite power to blow up things. Whether he worked or greeted or hugged.

He did everything with tremendous gusto. His He His Of

“Third Eye’’ caught everything which threw on the screen with full-blooded passion. swinging, zooming images gave a glimpse the bubbling, restless spirit that he was.

Friends called him a “devil for work’’.

Indeed he worked on till he was taken by surprise. And even after seeing his flesh consigned to heat It is difficult to think he won’t call out ‘‘Behn”’ again. Sorrow has flown through floods of tears. And many hearts have experienced gnawing void.

Death has taken him to an unknown destination.

But such a one like him who belonged to life never dies. New Delhi

March 2, 1979

(Soon after Sukh was Cremated.)

F.N. SOUZA’S TRIBUTE

in the course of letter written to me from New York dated April

12, 1979.

E.N. Souza, the painter paid the following pithy tribute. Sukhdev had made

a dazzling Art

Gallery,

newsreel

type of documentary on Souza’s exhibition at the Taj

Bombay,

held

in

1960.

Sukhdev’s

hand-held camera

roved

through the Taj Art Gallery and caught the images of people seeing the paintings and the images of the painter. He welded these images with superb musical

and

other

sound

effects. The

film

had

no

commentary.

conveyed the creative fervour of Souza in a telling manner—J.M.)

But

it

Sad news about Sukhdev’s demise. ‘‘Let’s make a movie”’, he used to say when it was time to leave. Well, he has at last made his final movie ! Adieu, Sukhdev !

PERSONAL

POSTSCRIPT

Jag Mohan

The saddest 38 hours in my life of 58 years were between 8 p.m. on March 1, 1979 when the news about Sukhdev’s death reached me and 10 a.m. on March 3, when Sukhdev had been reduced to ashes and bones at the Nigambodh electric crematorium. On March | till about 5 p.m. I was with Sukhdev at the recording studio of the Centre for Educational Technology (NCERT)—within the premises of the Sri Aurobindo School, more familiarly known as Mother’s School, just a little off the “IIT Gate” crossing on the Mehrauli Road. We had talked about this and that—his shooting of the sequences

for a film on “The Scientific Attitude”, a CET film then being directed by Sukh’s long-time associate, Tapan K. Bose. He was at

one time my assistant when I was editing “Socialist India’’, the AICC weekly and he joined Sukh’s unit from the Bangladesh film onwards as a multipurpose associate. This film had been scripted by me. Sukh had shot some sequences of the latest gadgetry of the medical world at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Tapan Bose was, of course, there. So was Rina Gill, my fellow-consultant

at the CET, yet another former associate of Sukh, who had done the research and script for ‘‘After the Silence’’, the film on bonded labour and other films of Sukhdev till she had joined the CET. She was directing a film on Indian toys entitled “‘Khilone’’, for the CET —and Sukhdev shot the entire film as a gesture of goodwill to CET and Rina Gill. Then there were T.R. Madhok, the sound recording expert formerly CET.

of the

Films

Division,

who was also a consultant at the

Sukhdev had come into Delhi from Bangalore just that day by plane and he was on his way to Rohtak for some shooting. His

unit

with

Salim

Sheikh

(son

of M.I.

Sheikh,

long-time editor of

Paul Zils and Fali Bilimoria) in charge was already there. Sukh came to my table to do a couple of telephone calls—one to Raj Paul Chowdhury,

Editor,

‘Delhi Recorder’, with whom he was to con-

clude a deal about a tourist promotion

film and the other to the

166 late O.P. Kohli, the drama critic and an associate of M.S. Sathyu. Sukh asked Raj Paul Chowdhury to get a bottle of French brandy —cognac—to celebrate the occasion that evening. And he told Kohli he would meet him at the Press Club and interview a couple of stage artistes, whom he wanted for some bit roles in his latest film being shot at Rohtak. It was already getting on to 5 p.m. and nearing the closing time at the CET. ‘Doctor’, he called me as was usual with him. (Some

times, it was “Doc’’, other times, ‘‘Boss’’; some times it was “Juggie Boy’; yet other times, ‘““You, old codger’’. These were his pet names for me, though he had started with ‘“‘Jug’’ way back in 1956.) Then Sukh whispered, “Would you like to have a swig? I have Old Monk”. And he tried to pass on the half bottle of rum he had in his capacious bag, along with some odds and ends like his diary, address book, a huge wad of currency notes, some filters, medicine

bottles,

et al. ‘No

Sukh’,

I declined.

He

went to the

toilet to have a swig and returned. (Later, how I wished I had last drink with him.)

the

A little later I left him saying ‘‘Will see you some time when you

return

from

Rohtak’.

And

he

said

‘“‘Chow’’,—the

mod

way of

saying bye-bye. And he went to meet Vijaya Mulay, Principal of the CET and ‘“‘Akka’’ for everybody who have known her. Though a bit tired-looking that day he was his usual bouncy, ebullient self, with a mischievous glint in his eyes, his hair in disarray and his

jerkin all crumpled. At

about

8 p.m.,

That was the last I saw him alive.

there was a knock at the door at my flat. My

daughter Neelima and her husband, Pramod Mathur entered with sadness writ large on their faces. Neelima rushed to me and broke down into tears even while Pramod softly said “Sukhdev died suddenly at CET. His body is at the AIIMS. We just got a telephone call and we rushed here.’’ Sarala, my wife and I were stunned. “Don’t tell me. I left him safe and sound three hours ago’. I said.

“But, Daddy, it’s true,” whispered Neelima. ‘“‘Let’s rush to Akka’s place’. We sped by the taxi that was waiting—the four of us frozen into silence and each lost in thoughts or memories. Akka’s place in the Professor’s Quarters was in gloom. The pall of sadness was spread over the drawing room. Even Sheroo, the barking dog, was unusually silent. There was a quick narration of

167 events—how Sukh was re-recording music and sound effects for Rina’s film with Madhok and the technicians, how Rina went to telephone, how Sukh asked for a glass of water, how Madhok also went to telephone, how a teehnician had brought the glass of water, how Sukh had collapsed and his body was crumpled up, how artificial respiration was of no avail and how he was rushed to the AIIMS, only to be pronounced dead by the doctors. Sukh’s heart which had withstood nearly half a dozen attacks over the years and all the stresses and strains of Sukh’s reckless life had no doubt been that of a Jat sustained by the doggedness of a Sikh. And it had been reinforced and kept going by innumerable medicines from and devoted care of Dr. Vyas in Bombay. But it was stilla human heart, suffused with the heartiness and warmth of Sukhdev.

Some day it had to collapse and it did on March 1,

at 7.30 p.m.

1979

Akka’s house was made the headquarters even though Sukh’s body was in the mortuary at the AIIMS, keeping company with other bodies, whom he had not known in life. Tapan Bose, Suhasini Mulay and I made innumerable telephone calls—tocal, STD and trunk calls. Sukh’s wife, Kanta, in Bombay, who had been widowed so suddenly and their only daughter Shabnam, who had been rendered fatherless, his unit in Rohtak, the news-agencies and news-papers, the All India Radio and a whole lot of friends and associates had to be informed. Decisions had to be taken and some had to be kept in abeyance. Akka was distraught, but she kept her sorrow and sadness, under

control.

She

was

giving

us instructions and

Sanewal

to fetch

Sukh’s

sister and mother.

reminders.

Rina Gill

had become a sobbing bundle, who had to be quietened down with a pill. Suhasini kept her cool. We all were there till Salim Sheikh with the unit turned up. And the private taxi had to be rushed to meet again in the morning at the AIIMS.

Then we dispersed to

That night and the whole of next day was a long stretch of time for me. I indulged in the proverbial game of rememberance of things past. Flickering images of Sukh during the 24 years of our friendship rushed past before the mind’s eye. His familiar voice was dogging my steps. He was such an audio-visual personality and

168 a media man through and through that he had left a permanent impact on my senses, mind and heart. Sukhdev at the start of his career at Art Films of Asia in 1955. Invariably dressed in white, sporting a tie and occasionally a bow, shy, reticent, submissive but always quick in doing things, completing jobs efficiently. Sukh at the editing table, picking up the rudiments of editing from M.I. Sheikh, Fali Bilimoria and Paul Zils and from Hari S. Dasgupta and Jim Beveridge and from the late Dr. P.V. Pathy and Jean Bhownagary. Also Sukh handling the battery, tripod and camera, the lenses and filters, first hesitatingly. (Later, they all became playthings for him.) Sukh on locations attending to a hundred odd things. Sukh at home in a one-room tenement overlooking the King’s Circle Park, in Dadar-Matunga, where at one time, U.S. Mohan Rao (the long-time Director of the Publications Division) was his neighbour, mentor and well-wisher especially after Sukh had lost his father. His mother and sister had a hard time till the later got married to a large-hearted Sardarji. Sukh in his haunts—the tree-lined avenues and roads near Don Bosco School (his alma mater) and Khalsa College, where

he used

to meet his friends Narender Bedi (son of Rajinder Singh Bedi) and the son of the late K.L. Saigal.

By 1958, within a matter of three years, Sukhdev had changed considerably. By the time Paul Zils left India in 1958, Sukh had become a Director, with one film to his credit—‘‘Wazir the Kaghzi”. And he had acquired a personality—not the spurious, meretricious filmi personality. He had acquired a taste for smart, colourful

clothes,

a taste for music, a taste for quiet efficiency and

many other tastes—mostly by sedulously following the life-style of Paul Zils—except in one respect. The images flickered in my mind. The projector furiously threw the images before the mind’s eye as I patiently waited at the AIIMS with other friends on the morning of March 2. Kanta Sukhdev was to arrive by the afternoon plane. And I remembered how on a rainy monsoon day, at the crack of dawn, Sarala and I had escorted Kanta to a gurudwara in Bombay and officiated as her “honorary’’ parents, since her parents were not in favour of her marrying Sukh—at that point of time. Sukh had very correctly given the traditional sari to Sarala, his ““Behn’’. And I had

169

to put a piece of white cloth over my head, squat on the floor, and

give Kanta away in marriage to Sukhdev in the presence of the Granth Saheb. He had graduated from a colleague at AFA to my closest friend between 1955 and 1958. First, he had become a sort of a younger brother—the age difference between us being ten years. Later, he became a blood brother and a bone brother as well. It was only at about 11 a.m. that I had a “darshan” of Sukh in the mortuary—his rugged, slightly swollen, huge body, lifeless and inert. At first glance, for a split second I could not help but

imagine that this was one more of his put-on acts and that he would

suddenly shake himself as if out of slumber and shout “Hey

Doc.”

It was not to be so. Death is a cruel reality—all the more so after

the post mortem examination had been done. (The lady doctor who

was in the medical team that did the post mortem herself could not believe he could be dead. Only a few days earlier he had filmed her when he did a coverage of brain-scanning apparatus and how it is used at the AIIMS for the film on the Scientific Attitude.) A second time I had to go to the mortuary along with Partap Sharma, who flew into Delhi all the way from Bombay just to pay homage to his ‘‘dearest chum’. With just a sweater in his hand, this ever-smiling playwright-cum-film-maker-cum-actor-cum-commentator landed up at the AIIMS but with a sad look, not befitting him. He was a picture of sorrow. And when we went into the bowels of the AIIMS, to the mortuary at the basement, he and I broke down into tears and did not like to face each other. For a few seconds we looked at opposite directions to regain our composure. By early afternoon flight Partap returned to Bombay—not waiting for the next day’s cremation. A noble friend of Sukhdev

indeed (as he had been of the late K.S. Chari as well). Partap

Sharma,

Chari

(whose full name

was

Kilambi

Srinivas

Chari), Sukhdev and I at one time formed a formidable gang of the Documentary Movement. B.D. Garga, the well-known maker of “personality films” (on Satyajit Ray, Amrita Sher-Gil, Sarojini Naidu and others) and S.V. Vasudev, who has written the commentary for innumerable Films Division Films also belonged to the gang. We made a lot of noise at seminars and symposiums, issued statements and tried our best to improve the Documentary Move-

ment,

Pramod

Pati and

Arun

Chaudhry,

S.N.S.

Sastry and K.T.

170 John all dead now belonged to the gang in spirit though not wholeheartedly. They were at the periphry but not at the core. The sixties were enlivened by all of us. The films of this period are enough proofs. While driving to the Palam airport to receive Kanta many memories of Sukhdev emerged out of the sub-conscious, the days and nights we had worked together. In those days whenever I had scripted a film, he would insist on my accompanying him while

shooting

it.

I had

scripted—‘Castor’,

‘Man

the

Creator”’,

“Kathak’’, “Wild Life in India’’, the film for the National and Grindlay’s Bank, the coverages for Mukand Iron and Steel Works, the film on the Tachograph for International Instruments Ltd and

so on:

I recalled

how

on the very evening

Sukh and I were to entrain

for Calcutta for the shooting of the film ‘for Grindlay’s my father had died at Madras sundenly while playing cards at the club. Sukh went alone to Calcutta and I flew to Madras that night. The next day I set fire to the funeral pyre, being the only son, and the day after I performed the traditional ‘‘milk ceremony’’ for his bones. The day after that I flew to Calcutta to join Sukh as the script was still in my head and not written down. Four days later after the shooting was over I left Calcutta and rushed back to Madras for the ‘‘sixteenth-day’’ ceremony to mark the end of mourning.

was our friendship.

Such

It was a creative collaboration. And quite often I used to get him started on new projects or introduced him to new clients. It was mutually profitable for both of us. In 1969, I had shifted from

Bombay to Delhi. But after 1971, I lost track of him for a while, except that I had done the preliminary research and outline script for ‘“‘Nine Months To Freedom’, since I had already compiled and edited the book ‘The Black Book of Genocide in Bangladesh.”’ Only one project of ours did not materialise—‘‘Ritusamhara’’ based on R.S, Pandit’s translation with which Dr. Vinayak Purohit was also connected. Sarala and I, among others, received the sobbing Kanta Sukhdev

and

escorted her to the AIIMS.

After a little while, with Kanta

making the decisions we worked out the details of the funeral the

171 next morning. By then Sukhdev’s sister had arrived from Ludhiana and later his mother also arrived from Punjab. In the course of the day, I could not but buy a quart bottle of rum and tuck it into my hip pocket. This was a token gesture of camaraderie towards Sukhdev—and also Chari. So, I thought. The three of us were uncrowned Kings of the “Uncles” and “Aunties” of the Prohibition-ridden Bombay in the ’sixties. From Colaba to Andheri in Bombay we knew almost every worthwhile bootlegger. Sukh was invariably the discoverer of these places; he was a patron of these illicit joints and he invariably enjoyed credit facilities too. Once Sukhdev and I went to complain against a drunken taxi driver but the tables were turned against us and a case was registe-

red against us for we too had earlier imbibed some ‘‘snake-juice’’. Months later the case was heard and we paid Rs. 50 each as fine

for the non-cognisable offence. This happened a few months before Sukh was awarded a Padma Shri. And the most ironical thing that happened much later was that Sukhdev was appointed Chief Executive Magistrate by the Government of Maharashtra!

While having quick swigs out of the rum bottle, I remembered the nights and days we had spent at the hooch joints, where Sukh and I were treated as ‘“‘members of the family’’ by the “Uncles”

and ‘Aunties’.

And we in our turn were ‘‘Uncles”’ to the children

of the operators of the illicit joints.

As I remembered and recalled how when Sukhdev’s directorial venture, ‘Evolution and Races of Man” made for the Aggarwal Brothers of National Education and Information Films Ltd was given a national award, Sukh decided to make a trip to Delhi to receive the award personally and he insisted on my accompanying him. This was in 1962—three years before he hit the headlines with his “And Miles To Go”. Between the two of us, we managed to gather a couple of hundred rupees. We travelled by third class from Bombay, stayed with my then permanent Delhi hosts, the Jayarams (E.D and Hema) and travelled from their home in Kidwainagar to Vigyan Bhawan in the four-wheel ‘“phut-phatia’’. That night we could not get a drop to drink till we landed at my friends T. Drieberg’s place who celebrated

son

happened

to

be

a drummer

the occasion.

His

step-

in the band of the Angle-India

172 Gidney Club. Thither we repaired for there was a bar. The next day we contacted the Aggarwals to get the dough to return home!

And I

recalled that Sukhdev’s subsequent award-winner ‘“‘And

Miles To Go”’ would not have materialised but for the assignment given to Sukhdev to cover the presentation of the million-signature petition against high prices and corruption organised by the Communist Party of India. It was the CPI that had asked Sukh to make

exposed

a

duration.

sort

of newsreel

coverage

of this

protest.

And

Sukh

with

high-

quite a few reels and hurriedly edited a film of half-hour It was a tremendous coverage in filmie terms

key photography, unusual camera angles and dramatic cuts. original film could not be traced after Sukhdev got the award his ‘“‘And Miles To Go”’ in which a few “‘reject’’ shots of the film had been incorporated. According to Sukh, a copy of this is supposed to be in some vault in Moscow!

The for CPI film

Sukh’s mild flirtation with communism started with a casual business deal. But towards the end of his life, he was veering more and more towards Marxism. His trips toGerman Democratic Republicand the Leipzig Festival, his exposure to the films of Joris Ivens and his serious reading of the writings of John Berger and Ernst Fischer, all had their impact on him. The paper which he read at the seminar on ‘‘Film-maker’s Purpose: ‘‘Personal Cinema”’ or ‘Social Relevance”’ surprised one and all with its strong Marxian overtones. (This paper is included in this volume.) But it was no surprise to me. Earlier too, he was vitriolic in his attack on Louis Malle. I was happy with these developments for in the early days of our friendship he used to pooh-pooh my own involvement kyism.

with

Trots-

Yet, Sukhdev marched to the Soviet Consulate with Partap Sharma, K.S. Chari, B.D. Garga and others in protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. For Sukh, serious politics was abominable. It was something to be flirted with, abandoned and then to be taken up again—as with a mistress. The day dragged on.

And we were

all at the

AIIMS.

Arrange-

ments for the funeral the next day were finalised. Thanks to S.K. Misra (now Chairman of the ITDC, who at one time commissioned Sukhdev and other film-makers too to make a whole lot of films on Haryana), a place was provided in Sikandra Road, where Sukh’s

173 body could be kept “‘in state’ for a while, after it was collected from the mortuary at the AIIMS and after the due formalities were gone through. Then a few cars were arranged for the funeral procession to go from there to the electric crematoriam near Nigambodh Ghat. Tapan Bose attended to all these details and co-ordinated with others. I preferred to be a bystander, lost in my memories, which were engulfing me. By the night of March 2, the mass media had splashed the news of the passing away of the one-time enfant terrible of the Documentary Movement. That night of March 2 was a restless night for me, when I went home. Reminiscences of Sukhdev were overpowering me. I rummaged through my collection of cuttings of Sukhdev, his photographs, and a very few letters he had written me. That night I vaguely made up my mind I would writeja book on Sukhdev—if not two. I wanted one to be factual—and the other fictional. Within the last two years since Sukh’s death I have accomplished both self-

chosen tasks. One is this Documentary compiled

in the

manner

Montage which

has been

and style that would have pleased

Sukh.

And the other is a novella, in which the hero is compounded out of three “Characters” ; Chari, Sukhdev and myself.

It is called

Late Gobind Rajah: King of Drinks.” On the morning of March 3, when

I woke

up but lazed in the

bed (acccording to my diary) I remembered Sukh

at various times and

places—at

Prime

‘‘The

with

his camera

Minister Indira Gandhi’s

residence, recording her election message; at the Technical

Area in

Palam airport when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman got down from a RAF plane en route to Dacca; at Vigyan Bhawan where Sukh was shooting the four ‘“‘Greats’’—Satyajit Ray, Akira Kurosawa, Michalangelo Antoniani and Elia Kazan, before and after receiving the Golden Peacock from the late President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed; at the wedding reception of Sharmila Tagore and ‘Tiger’? Pataudi in the Race Course Club lawns, Bombay (and he had covered the Calcutta and Delhi receptions and had done a special coverage at the home of the Pataudis also): at the press conference Sukh hosted at the Old Taj Mahal hotel to announce about the production of “My Love’.

174 Soon I got up and along with my wife rushed to Sikandra Road. A few of Sukh’s friends including me, ‘bathed’? his body as is customary and dressed him up hurriedly. Then the wreaths started coming—from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Directorate of Film Festivals, the Haryana and Punjab Governments et al. At the crematorium, there was a sizeable crowd—including the members of the staff of the Centre for Educational Technology. By

then CET’s Principal, Akka had made up her mind that ‘‘Khilone’’ should

be

dedicated

to

the

memory

an

active

of Sukhdev.

(Later, CET/

NCERT donated a medal in Sukhdev’s honour for the best film at a Festival of Amateur Films held in Bangalore. And, it is a pity that till now the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association of which

Sukhdev

was

member

worthwhile to honour his memory.)

has

not

done

anything

Time passed quickly. After observing silence for a minute, Sukh’s mortal remains were consigned to the electric chamber. Through the peep-hole I could see his body being reduced to ashes. It was then I realized that long years ago, when I was in early thirties—and soon after my marriage—I had contracted tuberculosis and part of one of my lungs has been calcified. I have survived and lived with that damaged lung—and of course smoked 20,000

cigarettes and more since then. When Chari died, I knew a bit of my heart also got calcified metaphorically. Another bit of my heart was also damaged at the moment when Sukhdev was no more—but

a heap of bones and ashes. And I have continued to live. Oddly enough in the very same month of March, 1979,

in which

Sukh died, on the 30th, his guru and mentor and my one-time “‘Boss’’ and more than that my friend, Paul Zils, died in Federal Republic of Germany—of cancer. This book on Sukhdev oddly enough was completed on the last day of the four-day retrospective of films by Paul Zils organized by the Max Mueller

Bhawan,

New

Delhi in March, 1981. I compiled and edited a brochure on Paul Zils and his contribution to the Indian Documentary Movement.

The Documentary Montage on Sukhdev is the second book I have written for the National Film Archive of India—the earlier one being a monograph on Dr. P.V. Pathy, the pioneer of the

175 Documentary Movement in India. Now with a salute to the memory of these three stalwarts of the Indian Documentary Movement, I can put down the final full stop to this meandering personal postscript.

FILMOGRAPHY Sukhdev's Compilation

(The following is a statement sent by Sukhdev to the Films Division, dated December 31, 1974, in response to a questionnaire sent to him and other

short film-makers in connection with a book I was commissioned

Though

the

book,

entitled, “Films for the People of India” has been com-

pleted, it is still to see the light of the day.—J.M.)

Name of the Producing Concern along with individualls operating as producer/s.

UNITED FILM S. SUKHDEV

ARTS

Address 14 Rock House Worli Hill Bombay 400018 Phone 395814 4.

Telegraphic Address As above When Established

1958 Brief History

(Attached separately) Types of Films produced Educational films,

Industrial films,

Wild Life films,

Agricultural films, Children’s films, Science films,

to write.

Social Documentation films, Advertisement films and Feature films etc.

177 8. List of Award-winning films

(Attached separately)

9. Any other distinctive feature of the company that is to be taken note of.

1, S. Sukhdev was awarded Padma Shri in 1968 for his outstand2.

ing contribution in many short films. Appointed as Justice of Peace by Government of Maharashtra

in 1972.

3. Member of the delegation to Tashkent Film Festival. Member of the Jury, International

1973.

Film

Festival, Moscow,

Appointed as Member of the Jury in the XVIth: International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival held at Leipzig

in 1973.

. Appointed as Chief Executive Magistrate by the Government of Maharashtra in 1974. Member of the delegation to XVIIth : International Leipzig Documentary and Short

1974,

Film

Festival

held

at

Leipzig

in

BRIEF HISTORY

Born: October 1, 1933 at Dehra Dun. Son of a Sikh peasant from Ludhiana. Educated in Bombay. Gave up college studies and took to films. Worked with Paul Zils, the German film-maker, who had settled down in India for a while. First directorial venture “Wazir made paper industry. (1958).

the Kaghzi”,

a film on hand-

First independently made film ‘“‘The Saint and the Peasant’’, on Acharya Vinoba Bhave. Made for the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. Was chosen to inaugurate the Asian Film

Week at Frankfurt (1964).

Another film made

for

the

Khadi

and

Village Industries Commission on pottery ‘‘Man the Creator’? was screened at Edinburgh, Lacorno and Mannheim Film Festivals. “Evolution produced

by

and

Reces

of Man’’ the next directorial

venture,

National Education and Information Films

Limited,

was given an award by the Government of India as the “best educational film’. It also won a Certificate of Merit from Karlovy Vary Film Festival (1964). Among the films produed and directed are ‘Castor’, ‘No Sad Tomorrow, “Wild Life Sanctuaries of India’’, “Homage to Lal Bahadur Shastri’, ‘India ‘67” (‘An Indian Day”) and ‘Thoughts in a Museum” (on Jawaharlal Nehru) etc. (All for

the Films Division), Industrial Films for Mukund Iron and Steel Works Limited, International Instruments Pvt. Limited, State Industrial and Investment Corporation of Maharashtra, a film on defence, “Frontiers of Freedom”, sponsored by Hindustan Lever Limited

and several advertisement quickies.

Directed “My Love”’, a feature film in Eastman Colour, starring

Shashi

Africa,

Kapoor

and

Sharmila

Tagore,

short in India and

East

179

ASPTANS *§ aoprNg ‘sg

UOIssTuIMIOD

solljsnpuy

oselA

Pue ipeyy

UoIssrarm05 solijsnpuy

ose IA

’

Teanysoy

Tq ‘premy 80115 wNLY

MOdBID—BuMa2INg JOJ payosjag

961

Teanse,y

SUI] UeISY Jo [BANSO]

7961

YNAUBIY—IWJOYW_ JO oeogIIED, TRANso.y WoyTURW—jHI9~W Jo o}BOTIED 7961

7961

Pue iPeyy

SU

vax

jo

Teansa,y Are,

sywoyNse

uom papay fo sjmjaq

AAOLeyY—IWEW

7961 Yysinquipg—qey Jo ayeoyHI05 spremy 7961 [euoNeN—wTI!4 ;euoRonpY seg uoneur ~Josuy puw vonevonpy euoNeN

dosuodg

WOIsIAIG saonpolg

“PYT salty

APPTANS *§ AopyyNg *s

AapTNS *g dojzaq

SWTIT ONINNIM GUVAV JO ISIT

asdipoq og} Joy

Jojyeal oy) uepy

ue jo soowy pue wonnoag oy

uyLy ayi fo auvyr

180

Pa

x

ApyyNg'S [L6]

LET

=

ASPTANS “S§ APPYANS "§ UOISIAI SUPT

L96]

996]

L961

8961

€L61

ASPTANS *S AOPTANS *S

UOISIAIG SLY

eyemouoyy

‘

BAST Brzdiay] 38 CAO JOATIS

soplug OBeTIIA V

~~

spiemy [euoNeN— woreywoumnsod [esos 1s9g

Wily

BIFBAOTSOYIEZ_ “UAT

WIgINOL

—uyLy Areyuoumns0q 389g

ansgppuidg = ‘Jealysol

UT UlJog ‘[BANse] WILT [BUOeUIO emoldiq jo —Uonedonmeg TqPPC MON ‘spremy TeuOHeN—W]Y vorEUIOsUy 3s9q

ysinquipg ‘Teaysey Oly

>

wif 241 fo WON

OD OL Soft PUV

JO eMIO]dIC [edonEUso}UT—II0W premy oey Arequaumood 389g (Keq ueIpuy Uy) L9, PIPL -WPA—wla

TIP MeN sqeansog WY JeuoNeUsSyOy TIT soBI, Uapjogp—eztid Aang Tetoods

ASPTANS *S ABPTANS “S

9961

Tq}9d MON ‘premy [eUOHEN, Teansog

S96l

uom paony fo sj1viag

jo vMofdid APyINS S

02X

UNFOBA—WIW

APPAANS “Ss AspyANg"S

dosuodg

9961

daonpold 40j20.1q

181

SUT

pL6l

UOIsIAIC,

PPG

ToIppiyo

jeuoneusauy

WNdNndddv 3

Wily

TBAsey

Aleqy ‘oureyeg

JOJ

: Wp A103

-218D AqdeiZooH—ozIIg puooeg

Jo solrenjoueg rT PIA

—_TBANSog Stadio] 3¥ oAOG JoAlIg Wopsss] OL sHJDOW OUIN

so1u9A—onbeYIg JOATIS SIBJUNLJ—UW]LT WoYs 30g

vIpuy

*re9K OUTBS IBY} PIT speorjooy AAvoPY JVIeY_ JOJ opeur ,.JOMOg JO PLJOA\ MON,, SIq Joy ArBUOMINDOG, 1S9g 93 Joy SNOT UapjoH Jo pleMy WIf{ [BUONeN oy} pue LL6T Ul BIPUl JO [eANse] UL [eUONeUIOUT YI9 94) IB ,,2OUdTTIG 94} JoIY,, PIpIIUS ‘Inoge] papuog oY} UO WIY sIy OJ Yoooveg uspjoH oy} posseq aopyyng ‘JOYCUI-W]Y OATJVOIO B SB INIA wN[nII4INI STY—syJORJ JO JUOUID}EIS SIG} ZuIpuss sty 0} JUoNbosqng

AOPTANS “S AoPTANS 's

ZL61 ZL61

TLE

suegy Teusoyxg

ASPYANG “g AapIPNg’s Jo Ans

SUKHDEV’S FILMS IN THE FILMS DIVISION COLLECTION (Alphabetically Arranged)

“A FEW MORE QUESTIONS” B&W 12 mins A

probing

strike of 1974.

film

on

the pros

“AFTER THE SILENCE” B&EW

and

cons

21 mins

The film shows how money-lenders

and

1974

of the national railway

unscrupulous

1977

landlords

had in the past exploited and forced poor and ignorant villagers to

work

as

bonded

labour and how the situation has changed during

the implementation of the 20-Point Economic Programme.

“A VILLAGE SMILES” B&W 17 mins 1971 A film on the Nagarjunasagar Dam which shows how the new and old jostle side by side in the emerging patterns of industrialisation in India.

Award : National Award, Best Social Documentation (1971). “AND MILES TO GO”

B&W

15 mins

1965

India’s first ‘angry’ documentary, built on contrasts arising from inequalities of Indian society. Seemingly revolutionary, finally a

plea for democratic processes.

“AN INDIAN DAY” (Originally entitled “India ’67’’) Col. 57 mins 1967 Kaleidoscopic view of the contradictions in India, juxtaposition of new with old, western thought encroaching on tradition, technological advance propelling an age-old history, revealed with perception and humour. Award: Filmfare Award 1967 National Award for Production and Direction. President’s Silver Medal for Best Information Film.

183 “BEHIND THE BREADLINE” Col. 25 mins

:

1974

The film depicts the predicament of people due to shortage of essential commodities. It goes on to explain a public distribution

system can overcome shortages.

Award : Rajat Kamal Award for Best Social Documentation ’75.

**BREADLINE” Col.

11 mins

1974

A shorter version of the above film. “CASTOR” B&W

25 mins

An instructional film that explains growing castor to ensure a better yield.

1962

the

scientific method

of

“COOPERATION IS SUCCESS” B&W 19 mins 1973 The film explains the co-operative policy programme, procedures and practices. It depicts the relationship of co-operatives with other social, political and economic institutions.

“HOMAGE TO LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI” B&W A moving

Shastri,

homage

to

the

9 mins late Prime

Minister

Lal

a humane document of an extraordinary human

1967 Bahadur

being.

It

has been made without any commentary and has only music and sound effects on the sound track.

“INDIA TODAY” Col. 20 mins —~ Shorter version of the film ‘‘An Indian Day’’/“India ’67’’. Award:

1967

Ist prize with Special Award for Artistic Merit—International Festival of Tourist Publicity Films ; Spindleruv Mlyn, Czechoslovakia.

“KKAL UDAAS NA HOGI” (“No Sad Tomorrow’) B&W 25 mins Emphasises how abstaining from alcohol helps social harmony.

1965 domestic and

184 “KATHAK”

Col.

22 mins

A film that shows the development of Kathak

its classical

style

and

dance is covered.

recent

adaptation

1970

as a dance form,

to dance drama and fold

“KHILONEWALA”’

Col. 19 mins 1971 A good-hearted toy-seller, loved by children, is attacked by selfinterested parties representing communal factionalism and mob

violence.

Award : Silver

Dove-International

Film

Week

Germany.

for Cinema

“MA KI PUKAR” Col.

Leipzig

and

Documental

Television,

9 mins

Leipzig,

Short

E.

1975

A campaign film against violence. It candidly depicts the futility of violence. It emphasises violence doesn’t solve problems.

“THOUGHTS IN A MUSEUM” B&W 20 mins

1968

Ostensibly about Teen Murti (Prime Minister Nehru’s residence for 17 years and now a Memorial)., the film is a personalised view of Indian political history as seen through Nehru’s lifetime. “THUNDER Col. The

OF FREEDOM”

film deals

with

the

31 mins situation

1976 that prevailed in the country

prior to the declaration of Emergency, the scenes of violence in the streets of Delhi and other cities. The film also highlights the plight of poor people who live in the slums of Delhi. “TOMORROW

MAY

BE TOO LATE”

Col.

10 mins

1970

An appeal to preserve wildlife in India by not killing animals for

pleasure, greed and vanity.

“VIOLENCE WHAT PRICE, WHO PAYS” B&W 2 mins 1974 Another striking film of two minutes that brings forth the futility of violence.

185 “WILD

LIFE IN INDIA”

Col.

26 mins

A film on the wild life sanctuaries

and

national

1966

parks

in India

B&W 3 mins This quickie is on self-vigilance in the matters of daily as fair price shops and other public utility services.

1973 life such

with two interesting sequences showing the mating of snakes and a group of lions feeding. Awards: Golden Sputnik and Diploma of Merit (International Nuclear Electronics, Tele-Radio and Cinematographic Fair, Rome Italy) 1st prize—International Film Festival for Youth, Paris, France. 2nd_prize—International Film Festival for Children, Salerno, Italy. “YOU

MUST

BE YOUR

OWN

POLICEMEN”

Other Films by Sukhdev in F.D. Collection (Donation Films) (Films made by Outside Producers)

“AFTER THE ECLIPSE” B&W

19 mins

1967

The film brings out the reformation in the mind and outlook of a

man convicted and jailed for murder. The charka gives the prisoner a means to earn some money while in jail and helps him to adjust to life in the outside world.

“EVOLUTION AND RACES OF MAN” (N.E.1.F. Ltd) B&W 27 mins 1961 The film shows in graphic detail the evolution of Man. The

final sequences show the three

main

stocks

into

which

Mankind

186

can be categorised and reiterate that all differences which are

existing among human beings today are superficial. Awards: Certificate of Merit, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 1962. Certificate of Merit—President’s Award, 1962 “FRONTIERS

OF FREEDOM”

(Citizen’s Central Council)

B&W 17 mins 1964 A jawan just returned from the front to his village realizes that the war has not made any impact on the villagers. He impresses upon the villagers the need to be always strong and prepared to defence the country’s frontiers. “MAN

THE CREATOR”

B&W

(K.V.I. Commission)

13 mins

A film about the delicate art and craft of pottery practised through the centuries in India.

“WAZIR THE KAGHZI” (K.V.I. Commission) B&W 11 mins

1964

as it has been

1960

This documentary tells how Khadi and Village Industries Commission has given impetus to the revival of hand-made paper industry.

Acknowledgements The author is thankful to 1, The Executive Committee and the Curator of the National Film Archive of India for commissioning me to do this book ;

2. To all contributors to this volume, who were invited ; 3. To all friends of Sukhdev, journalists and others whose articles or interviews published earlier and which have been reprinted here; 4. To the publishers and editors of the journals and newspapers from which these articles have been extracted; 5. To the Chief Producer and Public Relations Officer of the Films Division for providing a list of Sukhdev’s films and photo-

graphs ;

6. To J.M. Rodrigues who typed the entire text of the final version of this book in record time; 7.

To

the

typists

and

stenographers

of Centre

for Educational

8.

To Partap Sharma, who has encouraged me at various stages.

Technology, who as a gesture of goodwill to Sukhdev’s memory typed the first draft of the book, shocked though they were by his sudden death in the CET premises; and “

A NOTE The author regrets that it was not possible to include any material from such good friends of Sukhdev like Jehangir S. Bhownagary, Tapan K. Bose, Ram Chattopadhyaya, Hari S. Dasgupta, Dom Moraes, Irshad Panchatan, Niaz Baba, Vijaya Mulay, Shyam Benegal, Goverdhandas Aggarwal and Fali Bilimoria,

Most

of them were contacted; and some could not be reached in time.

TM .

UNIVERSITY OF i

LOAN

8 9015

01193

5080