lost gems

The 80s, a time when Hindi cinema was probably at its nadir, with movies like ‘Justice chaudhary and Nagina making it big, was also the period which saw the emergence of some of the greatest Indian film-makers, whose brilliance was given the recognition it deserved much later. The period when the audience’s sensibilities were being insulted so rampantly, when even Amitabh Bachchan was becoming unwatchable with disasters like Mard, Geraftaar and the likes, also witnessed the emergence of a wave of brilliant film-makers churning out phenomenal works consistently under the ambit of NFDC. Unfortunately, even before these films were made, they were graded as esoteric and arcane, and in a bizarre and hostile classification, ended up being identified as ‘art’ movies. There was absolutely no attempt to change this perception, or maybe there weren’t enough resources to do so, but due to these slants, these brilliant works invariably ended up on the idiot box, shown during the least-watched time-slots and with so little enthusiasm that they were destined to flounder and fade away from memory. I’m quite sure movies like Mandi, Trikaal, Disha and many others would have appealed to a huge audience which was being tormented at the hands of lewd 45 year old men jumping around earthen pots, winking and trying to grab at the asses of south-indian women playing coy. But it almost seemed as if NFDC did not want to sell these movies, their only concern was to get them made and their job was over. In a way, the fact that it was a non-profit organization, which in the first place allowed such movies to be made, turned out to be their bane, as the producer didn’t seem to give a damn about the film’s success, which is the reason many of the remarkable works of art from that era are now untraceable.

Thankfully, some of these movies, like Ankur, Mirch Masala etc. are available to us now in DVD/VCD formats. Additionally, some are legally available online such Party, Massey Saheb etc. But there is still a surfeit of movies which have been forgotten. Probably NFDC didn’t preserve the prints because it didn’t seem worth it to them or maybe they were not considered commercially viable, the fact that we are unable to retrieve some of the masterpieces of our times is really distressing.

The few I can recall from that era as being breath-taking but probably not available anywhere would be:

• Sudhir Mishra’s Ye Woh Manzil To Nahi: College politics captured remarkably well, a precursor to hazaaron khwahishen aisi. One of the best acts from pankaj kapoor
•  Prakash Jha’s Daamul: Rural Bihar and the tragedy it is (i'm sure it still is, despite all claims to the contary by the nedia on Nitish Kumar's magic)
• Current: Don’t know who made this, but it was smashing,  a simplistic premise of how one farmer (played to perfection by om puri) depserately tries to get electricity for running his tube-well and how he finally smashes it in despair
• Aziz Mirza’s Albert Pinto ko gussa kyun ata hai: Funny yet tragic, aziz mirza's best
• Mani Kaul’s Bagh Bahadur: Pavan Malhotra was outstanding in this, similar to kafka's take on trapeze artistes
• Goutam Ghose’s Paar: Brilliant premise of a couple trying to cross a river with their livestock, can you imagine anything like this being made today?
• Basu chatterjee's Do ladke dono kadke

I’m sure many of us could think of quite a lot of other such movies from those years. If anyone reading this post knows where they can be acquired from, do share it.