Doctored Fiction

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So the evergreen hero of my generation of films has been snatched away. There was this cartoon in DC which showed Dev Anand on cloud nine shooting clones of St Peter in front of the Pearly Gates and happy with the locale. That about sums him up. Films were an obsession with him. Till the end. And he was different from the other two: Tragic Hero Dilip Kumar and Awara Raj Kapoor. Raj Kapoor is said to have Charlie Chaplin as his inspiration. And Gregory Peck was Dev Anand's, at least in mannerisms. My next gen had their 'He' man Amitjee and 'Her' man Rajesh Khanna. I lost touch with Bollywood films thereafter...before the term Bollywood was invented.

The handful of obits I read talked a lot about his Guide. Apparently it was a path-breaking film, not only in music, dance, and other effects, but the very theme itself. There was this doubt if adultery as a theme in a mainstream Bollywood film of the 1960s would do well at the Box Office. One obit put the theme in a nutshell: the hero dies and the heroine ditches her two men. Amen!

I was looking if any of those eulogies to the film Guide have at least a passing reference to RKN. They didn't. I suspect the Obiters may even be unaware that a novel of that title existed before the film was made.

RKN in his heaven would have been glad that his name is not mixed up with the film and its hero from what I gathered from his version of how the film was shot. His punch line was that he could poke the sky with his umbrella...a reference to the promise: "sky is the limit" for his royalties as the author. I bet he laughed to his heart's content at the film when it was released.

There is an underlying theme here. RKN must have had some sort of real-life figures as his Raju and Rosie; and the locale. Then comes 'his' fiction. He must have developed a readable story by doctoring Reality, if any, continually as the novel progressed. He must have felt that his end-product has very little resemblance to his initial mental pictures. And after publication of the book, and reading it the first (and maybe the only) time, his initial mental pictures would have completely dissolved and replaced by the pictures that appear in his book. SDM used to call the initial attempts, Scaffolding; and he was talking about the progress of his Research Papers...everyone who does creative work is aware of this continuous evolution, with occasional cutting of the Gordian Knots on the way. I would say that the finished product has as much resemblance to the seed as the baby has to the fertilized egg in the womb.

Dipak Munshi said it pithily in his entry for the 'gps autographs':

"If I knew what I were doing, I would not call it research"

This is true even with the Interviewer with or without her TV Camera. What appears finally after much doctoring and editing often has little resemblance to what the Interviewee wanted, who becomes furious and issues statements that he had been misquoted or quoted out of context...even these 'corrections' are at the mercy of the Editor.

So, Editors of the so-called Old and New Media are as powerful as Directors of Films. They have their authors at their mercy.

One fine evening when he was in his Final Year, Aniket brought two smart gentlmen into my room and introduced them as Correspondents of BBC and they wanted to interview me (of all people) about the Phy Dept and perhaps IIT KGP. I was smarter and excused myself saying that I am not photogenic and forwarded them to Professor STH Abidi who footed the bill to a Tee. A few months later, STHA told me that he watched his BBC program and was not too happy...and STHA is a born optimist...one never heard him complain.

Even more atrociously, the TV Crew of a popular private TV Channel led by a cute lady suddenly appeared in front of Raman Auditorium when my final End-Sem Invigilation was going on. I was the Boss of that Exam Hall by virtue of my donkey seniority. They were almost barging in saying they have the permission of the PRO and the Gymkhana President to film a typical Exam Hall at IIT KGP, after canning perhaps a typical Hall Mess. I uttered some platitudes about the sanctity of the Exam Hall and shooed them away. They appealed to the Prof-in-Charge of Exams; and I offered gallantly that he replace me for the period of the Shoot.

And that was that...



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