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Feudal lords to ISI
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From tugging heart strings to yanking G-strings, Mani Shankar on what works for Indian cinema
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The inside story Mani Shankar
Mind it! The mind-numbing one-liner from Telugu and Tamil films would have been best forgotten if Shah Rukh Khan hadn’t revived it in Om Shanti Om. Clad in red leather trousers and shirt, he did a ‘quick gun MuruganR
17;, reviving the phrase and paving way for Dhoni to repeat it for a cola ad. “Watching such dumb films where heroes wore tethered leather outfits and said things like ‘Mind it’ served as a stress buster,” said director Mani Shankar. The film-maker was addressing a focussed group of audience, members of Manthan, at Vidyaranya School on Saturday. Manthan is a forum to promote learning, debate and public discussion.
Taking the audience through the different eras of Indian cinema, in his talk ‘From tugging heart strings to yanking G-strings’, Mani Shankar feels that Hindi films of 1950s and 60s reflected the colonial hangover. The hero’s father had to sport a cravat, smoke a pipe and announce, yeh shaadi nahi ho sakti and we took it as the done thing. “Making films was easier those days when the villain behaved in a certain way. With time, viewers have become smarter, making our task tougher,” quipped Mani Shankar. He pointed out that if the villains in the 50s were the feudal landlords, later on it was the builder, followed by politicians, cops and now the ISI. Drawing from personal experience, Mani Shankar drew attention on the clannish system in Bollywood where awards are ‘sold’ ahead of the awards function.
“My film 16 December was nominated for a few awards. The organiser informed me that the award was already ‘sold’ to someone else, and that I could still attend the function and that my flight tickets and hotel bills would be paid for.”
He again, drew from his film, Rudraksh, to point out how Mr. Money Bags could alter the script, insert a few necessary item numbers and thereby change the product.
Departing from films, Mani Shankar also brought in refreshing clippings of music videos, short films and ad promotions from his repertoire. A four-minute visual story called The Global Symphony, starring Arvind Swamy, traces pre-Independent India from 1942 to 1947. Backed with some lilting music by L. Subramaniam and the Berlin Philhamonic orchestra, the film shows how Indians let the British quit India gracefully post Independence.
The idea of patriotism has changed over the decades, he said. This generation doesn’t relate to tales of sacrifices and fighting for freedom anymore, he says. His closing music video, Apna Desh, featuring Nagarjuna, encapsulates this change and shows what freedom means to an artist of this era.
SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO
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