s

Split Screen

Height of fantasy

The one thing that television allows its actors to do is live out their innermost fantasies. On Main Shekhar Suman gets to play a huge celluloid superstar - a sort of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan combined - who actually turns down a Filmfare award when it’s offered to him!

In real life Shekhar Suman couldn’t come anywhere near the Filmfare awards, let alone win one. It seemed rather funny, if not entirely phoney, when the remover-and-the-Shekhar assumed his best Bachchanesque baritone to bloom, “I’m sorry I cannot accept the best-supporting actor award. I’m not the supporting actor, I’m the leading man of this film.”

In real life Shekhar Suman couldn’t come anywhere near the Filmfare awards, let alone win one. It seemed rather funny, if not entirely phoney, when the remover-and-the-Shekhar assumed his best Bachchanesque baritone to bloom, “I’m sorry I cannot accept the best-supporting actor award. I’m not the supporting actor, I’m the leading man of this film.”
And I’m sorry, Vyjanthimala got there first. Remember how she turned down the Filmfare award for best supporting actress in Devdas? Now that Shekhar Suman has turned it down in Main history can rest easy. It has finally found a voice in the slush of soap.

It’s so sad when soaps get worked up into a lather of self-importance. Ditto the current affairs and the talk shows where participants seem to behave as if their life and ours depended on what was being said. STAR News’ The Big Fight on the Water controversy looked unbalanced, mainly because Tanuja Chandra’s defence couldn’t match up with the vocal arguments of the well-prepared RSS representatives and the cultural envoy from Uttar Pradesh.

Tanuja read out her carefully-worded defence for the freedom of expression. The other two spoke impromptu, thereby creating a sense of spontaneous urgency during the debate. Even when Sheshadri Rao made some outrageous comparisons between Fire and Water everyone seemed to have conveniently forgotten that Deepa Mehta made another very fine film 1947... in between) Chandra could only splutter in outrage.

Logic, not outrage, was the need of the moment. As accusations flew back and forth I wondered if terms like “freedom of expression” and “anti-women” have any relevance when politics enters the portals of art.
Art, ‘Archana Talkies’ certainly ain’t. Television’s loudest mouth (with due apologies to Shekhar Suman) Archana Puran Singh tries for a mix of the serious and flippant. Last week the guests were Shehnaz Sani, the woman who sued her airline employee for sexual harassment. Manish Malhotra the man who sewed his heroines’ sensual advancement. Archie flopped with Ms. Sani, flipped with Malhotra, who made her day by naming her as the best dressed female.

If Ms. Puran Singh believes that, she would believe anything. On a more serious note, the superstar-dress-designer expressed his wish to dress up Simi Garewal in a coloured outfit and Nandita Das in hip trendy threads. While he’s at it, he could also dress himself up in a steel armour. He’s going to need it after giving Dharmesh Darshan complete credit for Karisma’s makeover in Raja Hindustani.

Does anyone watch soaps on Doordarshan any longer? There are a lot of portable melodramas on air hoping to make a mark in the muck. Top of the line is B.R. Chopra’s Beta. Navnee Parihar had the rare privilege last week of reviving her screen-husband Pankaj Dheer.

The doctor shook his dead. But wife shook her head. She also shook poor Pankaj Dheer so hard, he simply jumped awake and of terror. All his life B.R. Chopra made films about logic, rationale and social responsibility. Now the software business seems to have softened his resolutions.

Aghaat on DD2 is also pretty dreadful. It to mirror a certain elitist lifestyle. But its comprehension and interpretation of elitism is tacky and laughable. Last week at a party the nasty industrialist Dhanraj Saxena caught hold of his business rival’s wife (Zarina Wahab) while Saxena’s wife (Sudha Chandran) watched in growing revulsion. Then she too downed a few stiff drinks and began flirting with a business man. Later at home, Saxena’s wife sobbed her repentance to their disgusted daughter. “I pretended to flirt with a stranger only to distract your dad from his bad behaviour.”

Everyone on Aghaat behaves badly. And that includes its director who seems to think the morality of alley cats is the prerogative of the rich and successful in Mumbai. Unfortunately, his budget doesn’t allow him to splurge on production values. Aghaat is like an orgy in a prison cell. Inopportune.

Mehmood made some opportune segments on Manna Dey in the one-hour special on DD’s Metro channel praising the legendary singer on February 13. The retired comedian remembered how Manna Dey was aghast when he was told he had to lose a singing contest to Kishore Kumar in Padosan. As though to counter the vanity of that revelation Manna Dey himself came on air to tell us how awestruck he was when he had to pitch his throat against Pandit Bhimsen Joshi for the Ketaki ghulab song.

The wide array of opinion-holders ranging from Basu Bhattacharya (‘Mannada’ wasn’t a playback singer. He was a singer”) to Shammi Kapoor (who remembered how Manna Dey’s Mere bhains ko danda in Pagla Kahin Ka was literally recorded overnight) gave the profile a roomy reflective and rightly layered mood. The best views were those offered by Mrs. Manna Dey. Her eyes shone with pride and possessiveness when she said her husband seemed to sing only for her.
A profile that’s well-pitched and very sure of its purpose is hard to come by on television. Genuinely heartfelt views on men and matters by men who matters were heard on BBC’s Talking Movies. Speaking on his latest film Antonio Banderas said he plays a homosexual boxer in it because he was stimulated by the paradox of a character who’s tough macho and yet gay.

If our own tough guys from Hindi films would take a cue from Banderas, they would stretch themselves on screen instead of flexing their muscles on their women in real life.

Subhash K. Jha