Jaladhar Sen writes to Manindranath at Surendranath’s death, c. Nov-Dec 1929

February 23, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

In the days before radio, Bengali society had literature and the arts to keep itself company (besides politics). Writing and reading poetry was a common hobby.  Three principal literary journals were Bharatvarsha, Probasi and Bichitra. The long-standing editor of Bharatvarsha was Jaladhar Sen, and it was he who had introduced Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya to Manindranath when Sarat had returned (in impecunious circumstances) to Bengal from Burma, probably with a request that Sarat be supported and sponsored.

This was a letter received by Manindranath from Jaladhar Sen expressing condolences at the passing of his father, Surendranath, who died on November 11, 1929. (Surendranath likely died from his injury sustained along with Ardeshir Dalal from Bhagat Singh’s bomb on 8 April 1929.  https://independentindian.com/2008/06/17/surendranath-roy-1860-1929/)

jaladharsentomnroy1929

“Brother Manindra,
I have just returned to Kolkata and cannot express how heart-rending is the news of your father’s demise. You know what a genuine well-wisher he had been for me. God alone knows how shocked I am to lose such a friend who stood by me though thick and thin. May you be strong at such an hour and may the departed noble soul be blessed.  An article by the late Surendranath had been printed already in ‘Bharatvarsha’ before he passed away. But that edition has not been published yet. It is going to be published next month. So please send me a photograph of him before that. I shall be visiting you soon.   Your well-wisher,  Jaladhar Sen.”  (Translation by KM.)

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Posted in Bengal, Bengali modern literature, Bengali poetry, Literature, Manindranath Roy, Roys of Behala, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya, Surendranath Roy. 2 Comments »

Is “Slumdog Millionaire” the single worst “Best Picture” ever? But then, Hollywood’s critical sensibility has been declining for years….

February 23, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

What I said about “Slumdog Millionaire” in what may have been the first Indian review on December 31 was this:

“How sad that “Slumdog millionaire” is SO disappointing!

Slumdog millionaire seemed an excellent idea for this holiday season given all the favourable foreign reviews and awards as well as a jazzy joyous energetic trailer. Sad to say it turns out a pathetic disappointment, just another moralizing caricature of India — at least Katherine Mayo seemed authentic, this has no authenticity anywhere besides a final Hindi song-and-dance routine which at least looks like a Hindi song-and-dance routine. The young Brit Dev Patel in the lead role might turn out to be a good actor when he grows up but seems here to have been plucked out of a school-play and asked to do his best impersonation of Ben Kingsley impersonating an Indian person. The lines given to all the actors from India are completely and consistently hopeless – imagine a Mumbai-mafia boss coming home and asking his moll to make him a sandwich! Real men in India don’t eat sandwiches at home by choice, and a real Indian gangster’s moll would have had hot pakoras or kebabs and rotis waiting for him. Somebody needed to tell this Director a million little things like that, though you realize within minutes of the start that this is not supposed to be at all the real Dickensian tale from modern Mumbai that the trailer makes it out to be. Rather it seems to be something intended to pander to silly Western stereotypes about India that come most easily to mind — poverty and bad sewage systems in the slums, Hindus assaulting Muslims, men assaulting women and children, gangsters plucking out eyes of beggar-children, tourists being robbed at the Taj Mahal, incompetent call-centre staff mishandling calls, gangsters, gangsters and more gangsters and every one of them cheap and worthless, not a Bill Sykes or Nancy or Fagin among them. Even the throwaway lines peddle Western trivia mentioning Benjamin Franklin and even the Edinburgh Festival. We can only imagine how wonderful a real movie might have been with this same story-line. It should have been done in Hindi or Mahratti throughout with subtitles, and aimed at Indian critics not Western ones. Shekhar Kapur would have done splendidly though even the average Bollywood song-and-dance man might have done well enough. Slumdog millionaire has practically no art in it because the presence of any art requires an honesty of purpose, and that means, first of all, no pandering to the audience. The slight art that exists in it comes from the street-children who at least run like the wind.”

On February 2 I added a postscript

“It is amusing to hear it said in the American and British press that there has been a “smear campaign” against this movie, and one moreover that allegedly started in India. I think my December 31 review here at this site was the very first from India, and it had absolutely nothing to do with anything other than disappointment that a nice New Year’s Eve was rather spoilt by watching a badly made movie. Far from there being some kind of mysterious “smear campaign”, there appears to have been an obvious, calculated and paid-for promotional campaign in the guise of “Entertainment News” conducted on India’s influential English-language TV channels — without a single serious contrary opinion being allowed to be expressed. If the movie receives awards, it may speak more about the quality of the awards than about the movie itself. But of course there has been a general hyperinflation in awards all over in recent decades, from Nobel Prizes downwards.”

Now that it has won Hollywood’s highest acclaim (giving it its 15 Andy Warhol minutes in the limelight), I am led to wonder if it might be the single worst “Best Picture” ever. I cannot admit to having seen all  the movies below and yes there are several real  turkeys among them, especially in recent times,  but I would have to put it right up there with “Dances with Wolves” and ahead of “Titanic”.

1951 An American in Paris
1952 The Greatest Show on Earth
1953 From Here to Eternity
1954 On the Waterfront
1955 Marty
1956 Around the World in Eighty Days
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958 Gigi
1959 Ben-Hur
1960 The Apartment
1961 West Side Story
1962 Lawrence of Arabia
1963 Tom Jones
1964 My Fair Lady
1965 The Sound of Music
1966 A Man for All Seasons
1967 In the Heat of the Night
1968 Oliver!
1969 Midnight Cowboy
1970 Patton
1971 The French Connection
1972 The Godfather
1973 The Sting
1974 The Godfather Part II
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1976 Rocky
1977 Annie Hall
1978 The Deer Hunter
1979 Kramer vs. Kramer
1980 Ordinary People
1981 Chariots of Fire
1982 Gandhi
1983 Terms of Endearment
1984 Amadeus
1985 Out of Africa
1986 Platoon
1987 The Last Emperor
1988 Rain Man
1989 Driving Miss Daisy
1990 Dances with Wolves
1991 The Silence of the Lambs
1992 Unforgiven
1993 Schindler’s List
1994 Forrest Gump
1995 Braveheart
1996 The English Patient
1997 Titanic
1998 Shakespeare in Love
1999 American Beauty
2000 Gladiator
2001 A Beautiful Mind
2002 Chicago
2003 The Lord of the Rings
2004 Million Dollar Baby
2005 Crash
2006 The Departed
2007 No Country for Old Men
2008 Slumdog Millionaire

Hollywood needs to look at the list and then look in the mirror (which it does all the time except it probably sees nothing back).

Subroto Roy

Posted in American popular culture, Britain, Britain in India, Film and cinema, Hollywood, Literary Criticism, Literature, Mumbai massacres, Mumbai terrorist Kasab, Mumbai's Police, Mumbai/Bombay, Slum dog millionaire. 10 Comments »