Inter-Asia Cultural Studies

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Mela: festival scenes in South Asian cinema

John Hutnyk

To cite this article: John Hutnyk (2018) Mela: festival scenes in South Asian cinema, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 19:1, 129-147, DOI: 10.1080/14649373.2018.1422349 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2018.1422349

Published online: 01 Mar 2018.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=riac20 INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES, 2018 VOL. 19, NO. 1, 129–147 https://doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2018.1422349

Mela: festival scenes in South Asian cinema

John HUTNYK Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This article examines a recurrent film motif across a number of South Asian Festival; South Asia; film; films, mostly called Mela. It also offers some observations on melas, actual violence; partition; and allegorical, as represented in films but often seeming to exceed their colonialism; neoliberalism; containment in context so as to say more about the conviviality of life, where mela this is at issue, where life is at a juncture in need of resolution within the cycle of becoming. The issues of violence, loss, national identity, politics of interpretation and repetition in ideology are canvassed. While the essay is focused upon Mela films themselves, and South Asian film more broadly, it has of course been important to note work by scholars such as M. Madhava Prasad, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Anjali Gera Roy, Tejaswini Niranjana, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and the help of my students, some of whom are named below.

Dialectic of terrors and festivals programmes targeting the poor. Independence What is it to settle down in front of the screen was grasped enthusiastically but in due course: and think of how such a simple yet now univer- elite betrayal, neo-colonial reassertion, compli- sal experience still might have anything to city, complacency, renewed aggression, interna- teach? lised, externalised, patronising aid, development Often, perhaps too often, the film festival is hypocrisy, geopolitical machinations and proxy also a festival of violence – but the conviviality wars – the violence takes many forms, but more of the festival may also be an antidote. Film often than not is continually projected over and has long experience dealing with celebrations against South Asia. Violence is news, revolt is of violence, and the double vision entailed offers cinematic, and theorists writing about film a first moment of learning. Violence and rebel- address such concerns because there is violence lion in a history written “in letters of blood and on their screens, and mechanisms of denial are fire” (Marx [1867] 1967, 502). In the subconti- more or less inoperative. nent, this is history itself: colonial violence This story is also one of resistance through and resistance, leading to independence; par- projection – the necessary containment and tition violence as a needless tragic consequence; occlusion of alternatives, and a long struggle; the hangover of casteism and the postures of annals, blood, fire – inversely documented in nationalism that impact brutally on lives bifur- the ways the Global South as revolutionary cated by policy; social cleansing of Naxalites and anti-colonial movement is both screened and Maoists; endless prejudices and eradication not. The interpreting reader should not fall for

CONTACT John Hutnyk [email protected] Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ton Duc Thang University, 19 Nguyen Huu Tho, Quan 7, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam © 2018 John Hutnyk. All rights reserved. 130 J. HUTNYK a sensationalist focus, as if all that is newsworthy beloved from death. The oscillation at the is scandal. Of course, cultural festivals have their scene of violence is pronounced. non-violent sides, but scratch the surface hard enough and the hierarchical jealousies of any Ferris wheels community emerge in anxious concert. The work of Mahasweta Devi, made globally popular A feature of the films to be discussed in this by Spivak (1993), could offer a lesson where the essay is that of the most popular of pleasure term “encounter” in media reporting is registered park joy rides. Everyone remembers the Ferris as a euphemism for police execution. Films about wheel as fun, especially as I suspect the revisions the affective consequences of the Naxalite perse- of the experience have changed the interpret- cution are devoured in international film festivals ations so much that it is difficult to remember when they do appear – Mother of 1084 / Hazaar the wheel as anything other than a good ride. Chaurasi Ki Maa (Nihalani 1999) was lauded, Visitors to London since the millennium have but then forgotten – even as it was widely recog- hugely enjoyed the big wheel of the London nised, and denounced, that any “miscreant” Eye, despite British Airways sponsorship and could be murdered, labelled and tagged by the not exactly inexpensive ticket prices. The attrac- police, and were too often found to have been tion stands out from afar. Only “the great wheel “countered” and in subsequent investigations at the Empire of India Exhibition, Earl’s Court” found to have already been handcuffed when in 1895 (Times, 21 July 1895) rivalled the first killed. Another film festival success when large Ferris wheel, made for the World’s released, Mrinal Sen’s Calcutta 71 is also this Columbian Exposition in Chicago just two kind of known, but subsequently not so often years before. Replication of big wheels world- screened, story (Sen 1971). In this case, a youth wide is a competitive sport, and plans for wheels is chased and brought down in the street, killed in Kolkata, Mumbai and Bengaluru have been in the prime of life, in the centre of the city. floated with enthusiasm. As an unanticipated Sen was restating and emphasising the grotesque popular architectural structure, competitive regularity of this violent encounter as a politic of urban posturing manifests in curious ways. fear, and was aware that media exposure of Here it comes as bread and circuses, festivals extra-juridical killing did not necessarily undo and giving the public what the press says it the real or the ideological threat. What was a wants. national controversy in the 1960s and 1970s What if it were plausible to propose an inver- soon escalated to global proportions and ‘coun- sion of the usual perspective experiment and tered now also refers to those subjected to play out a scenario where an analyst would counter-terrorism measures, drone strikes and take the main tropes of South Asian film extra-judicial assassinations, endless “Afghan studies, and indeed its wider context in Marxist, wars” (Prashad 2002) – but even this awaits diasporic, postcolonial and subaltern theorising better film treatment. in general, and look – as if anew – at the cultural There are a number of films that counter vio- function of mela on screen? The multiple ver- lence with affection, the intimate and domestic sions of the mela motif each deserves extended alternative to policy and war. This is not just a treatment. subcontinental thing, but it was evident in the early partition films, it is there in the resolution The mela films of those films where warring brothers in the end reconcile, and it is the undercurrent of every The unavoidable key references of what I will scene of violent action that has a heroine call Global South Asian film and television capable of dancing on broken glass to save her studies must be those of Madhava Prasad INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 131

(1998), Rajadhyaksha (2009), Rajagopal (2001) 1975) has its mela sequence. A not quite com- and Niranjana (2006). Among the subsequent prehensive search found only two instances academic commentators that need to be added where scholars mentioned Mela: Rosemary are a range of studies released by their work – Marangoly George (discussed below) and Istiaq a reading list I have tried to include in a new Ahmed in the introduction to Gera Roy’s edited book (Hutnyk forthcoming), but by no means collection The Magic of Bollywood: At Home can I tag them all here. The sheer exuberance and Abroad (Gera Roy 2012, xiv). If only for of the screen apparatus imposes itself all the this reason I will risk a discussion of Mela but more when the plethora of magazines, newspa- it cannot be neutral towards film scholarship. per filmi sections, star appearances, radio My readings in this are impacted by both the shows, talk back and social media are taken extension of film studies in South Asia “beyond” into account. Furthermore, a few minutes lis- Bollywood to regions and diasporas (Das tening to talk back radio will confirm all experts Sharma 2001; Desai 2004; Kaur and Sinha to be relatively ill-informed compared with film 2005; Madhava Prasad 2014), and to objects fans. Alongside watching the necessary films, and contexts that are more culture industry or reading the available “Bollyliterature” is a con- political movement focused (Dudrah 2012; siderable commitment, and a secret pleasure Mankekar 1999; Rai 2009). (Nandy 1998), even if that carries with it ideo- It is necessary to remark that there are differ- logical dynamics that also need to be sorted. ent contexts for the same patterns in the films I That said, I have searched far and not found will discuss here. We can find in these films, much in the way of significant commentary on fairly rapidly, narrative material that indicates the mela films, at least as concerns any com- allegorical – even heavy-handed obvious alle- parative study of multiple versions of the film gory-making – for various projects. While the Mela. And yet like other big-ticket titles, Mela Jameson (1986) versus Ahmad (1987) debate comes in multiple versions. To date there are over national allegory in literature can only be three in Hindi: Mela of 1948 (Sunny 1948), discussed more fully in the book (Hutnyk forth- Mela of 1971 (Mehra 1971) and Mela of 2000 coming), Mela films have a set of fairly identifi- (Darshan 2000); there is a remake in Telugu able and rather straightforward national from 1956 (Raghavaiah 1956) renamed Chiran- contexts. These are: national reconciliation jeevulu but which sticks close to the “original,” after partition in Mela (1948); agricultural cam- then there are two somewhat divergent versions paigns and resolution of resistance under Nehru in Panjabi, the first called Bhariya Mela (Irani and in the early Indira Gandhi years in Mela 1966), and the second Mela from 1986 (Asakari (1971) and then organised “terror” gangs with 1986), there is one called Mela in Bengali in politicians in their pockets, verses worldly bat- 2010 (Mondal 2010) and one in Malayalam ting-above-average muscular prowess providing (George 1980). There are also many instances economic success in the Mela (2000) version. of melas in other films and of course a number After introducing the films in this way, it of documentaries that I will only mention in becomes possible to consider the development passing. The point is that despite a significant of the politics of fear as a rhetorical ideological repetition complex, Mela is not a film title framework for nation and national imaginary around which any critical literature is organ- in different modes, although each with psycho- ised, unlike say Roja (Ratnam 1992) in the logical characteristics that reach intimately into Economic and Political Weekly, the South identitarian desire, bodily and haptic affect, and Indian socials (Madhava Prasad 2014), any par- restitution of family and national bonds through ticular auteur, or the Bachchan genre films, the elimination of either personal regret, resol- though even the much-storied Sholay (Sippy ution of internal injustice, and/or unity against 132 J. HUTNYK

“external” threats. At least, as far as these films aspiration and perhaps even geo-political pos- might show. ition. If all goes well, then marketing the films There is a diversity of style within the collec- also gives rise to comments on markets in gen- tion: the three in Hindi are all called Mela with eral, and here there is cause to risk some impli- the same but different plots. Two of these are cations for film theory as a diminutive coda, “remakes,” achieving varied success with differ- and the credits roll out some citations and influ- ent stars and different contexts. All three are ences upon this writing. Might that be a convin- melodramas in the sense used by Madhava Pra- cing way to go? Let’ssee. sad (1998), but how should we write our way into I concede the conceit that sees Mela as a con- thinking about films that are “the same” across venient vehicle for wider exchanges. Yet, as with three very different time zones? They are not Madhava Prasad’s “speculative proposition” the same of course. There are also remakes in about discussing Roja as a way to trace “the Telugu (1956), and films of the same name in work of the ‘political unconscious’” (Madhava Punjabi (1966, 1986) and Bengal (2010) but the Prasad 2000, 165), it would only require a slight storyline is significantly changed. The differences indulgence to allow that the variants of the film are subtle or not so subtle in each, there are Mela, in the editions I focus upon here, can be differences in the set pieces, recurrent images, interpreted to confirm my diagnosis. If it were and contexts in which they were made that can not clear that real subsumption is replacing for- tell us what changes across time. Yet, how to pre- mal subsumption in the family drama of Mela sent an analysis of this? Perfunctorily perhaps, (1948), the repetitions between versions con- first of all there should be a quick synopsis of firm it, for example when Mohan is waylaid the films, noting also the date of production and cannot marry his childhood sweetheart, and perhaps some salient points of context. and she must choose to join the family of That context could of course expand exponen- orphaned Indian children as newly consecrated, tially, but not yet. Next should come some identi- yet calculatedly ascribed, mother protector. In fication and detailing of key tropes in the film, the Telugu version, this repeats with only a for example the opening sequence of a fair- slight variation where the lead character suffers ground Ferris wheel (bada chakka in Hindi), not jail but a temporary blindness, although still the scene-setting song and singer, then the key following the same responsible path and tragic romantic story, the challenge to the hero, the resolution. Ashish Rajadhyaksha might further main character roles, opposing figures through diagnose this in line with several films of the plot development and on to some hints – spoiler early post-independence period that offered a alert, the rhetoric of terror – at the resolution. bleak prognosis. Mela interrupted; not men- Without ever risking the suggestion that the tioning the films but one of the stars of Mela plots can be anticipated as always “the same”– (1948), Rajadhyaksha claims that in the earliest they most definitely are not – audiences do films of both Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, have expectations, and have learned and even happiness is not possible in the space of the become habituated to certain narrative moves. new nation: in their early films you have to Explicating these, and any disjunctive related leave by either going away to another country notes, would then be the basis for expansive or, as what happened in Shahid you can only exegesis that made more of the context, showing find happiness in the afterlife. (Rajadhyaksha 2013, 2015) a development across decades, broad brush and close argumentation both to make an overall Here, the films work with an idea of the case about the national or regional working national, which asserts, through both autobio- through of issues such as power, violence, class graphical individual and filmic testimony, that or caste development, commercialisation, independence was not an easy transition. It INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 133 may be undecidable in the end, even when it is Mrinal Sen got his start in the Aurora clearly possible, plausible and legitimate, that Cinema Company (Bose 2017), but left there broken relationships, broken dolls, and the to make feature films, and in 1960 Baishey Shra- unrequited couple are smaller manifestations vana appeared (Sen 1960). This film, a pro- of the structural and the geopolitical, where found commentary on poverty in Bengal Pakistan and India cannot get along. The couple especially around the time of the 1942 famine can only be together in some other space, after resulting from British wartime grain manipula- passing through the unbearable trauma of the tions. A key sequence in the film is a five-min- actual and complicated real, through separation, ute section that drives the plot in a way that yet these best people in the village can only becomes familiar. This sequence seems to repeat realise their error and commit to an other- and condense a motif that appears in many of worldly (re)union. the Mela films, both the one in 1948 and In Mela (1971), at the outset, tradition is fro- those made after 1960, including some of classic zen and must be reaffirmed by stressing the standing. No doubt comparisons of Baishey difference between the traditional and the mod- Shravana (Sen 1960) with Pather Panchali ern while protecting the village family romance (Ray 1955) are plausible, but the capacity of – Kanhaiya comes to farm and restore the bro- Sen to go further into the condition of the ken village with agricultural science learned in oppressed and to go with less sentimentality, university, yet he does so by way of marriage is impressive. The film is already a critique of to a favourite village daughter and thereby Ray, but the part identified with Mela offers reconciles with his wayward, dacoit, brother the pattern of public and private tragedy, and and placates caste prejudices. the brutal reality of the wheel of life that in Although it would “be a mistake to see these some fundamental way repeats what fast filmsassimplyreflectingthechangesthatare becomes the Mela formulaic – a dramatic underway, of being superstructural representa- sequence in which the festival is interrupted tives of what is happening in reality,” the “ideo- by a howling gale, and violent nature causes logical resolution” of real subsumption in Mela the death of a mother. It is worth being specific: (2000) does seem to confirm that the tradition- 36 minutes into Sen’s film, building monsoon modernity difference has been displaced. The vil- storm clouds and a Ferris wheel (nagardola in lage and family romance is not rescued by any Bangla) express a growing anxiety. The storm “efficient army which captures the terrorist” destroys the fairground, people run helter-skel- (Madhava Prasad 2000, 165), but by the substi- ter, and in this instance, the protagonists, Priya- tutebrotherandhispiratetraderbusinesspart- nath and his wife Malati make it home, but a ner, whose postmodern pastiche of theatre, fallen mango tree spells disaster. A festival of music industry aspiration, Rambo posturing fun becomes chaos, destruction, and a family and wisecracking humour – plus a bumbling is torn apart. comic cop “Pakoda Singh,” played by Johnny On the wonderful resource that is Indianci- Lever – shows that commercial opportunism ne.ma, the Jadavpur University Media Lab can still appropriate a place within village India have annotated many of the films of the Bengali and win the day. new cinema. For Sen’s Baishey Shravana they offer interesting observations such as that Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray about the common childhood experience of being caught, or almost caught, stealing man- Everyday expectations of scholarship should goes. In Sen’s film as well as Ray’s Pather Pan- also be tampered with. So, we begin again, chali, this endearing moment, with accusations with another film. and excuses, is played out. In another passage, 134 J. HUTNYK the annotators also describe the mela sequence Japan into the orbit of Bengal in a delightful and the storm interrupting a mela and causing way that should also be examined as a medita- death of the mother (Maharghya 2015). In tion on alliances invoked but unconsummated other versions the storm invariably comes in a bifurcated nationalist “Asia,” the film is a after the mela and functions to waylay the tribute to the motif. hero. In Baishey Shravana, of course, this Baishey Shravana compares favourably with could be read without too much of a stretch as Pather Panchali, perhaps not in terms of cine- an allegorical storm with clear reference to the matography or the poetry of some images – impact of the British bringing their war to Ray’s water, his insects, his rain and the train Calcutta. It could be interpreted as a displaced – although many of Sen’s scenes match for ten- critique of British colonialism as such, or the derness – Sen’s clouds, Sen’s faces – and exceed advent of capitalist relations and mores, Ray’s masterpiece as a social commentary, as a bringing famine and disruption of life. The political version of a well-known story of pov- idyll of a pre-conquest marketplace of South erty and famine. The parameters of family and Asian generosity and openness – a mix of enter- community in conflict and despair are all tainments, pleasures and convivial trade – is there, but Sen’s resolution is more potent swept away and scattered by the violent tempest because it is not merely sentimental. Addition- of fate’s arrival, causing traumatic loss that will ally, if it were plausible to compare Apu’s life be mourned for some time before events course as tracked by Ray with the composite assimilate even these tragedies into the cycle figure of the angry youth that is shown in of birth and rebirth invoked again in the Ferris Sen’s later Calcutta trilogy, it seems the explicit wheel. political content to do with revolutionary poli- Sen’s five-minute sequence in 1960 is tele- tics – in the later films the Naxalite uprising graphed as if in code. As we will see, it invokes and its consequences – provides a more urgent the essence that drives the plot of Mela (1948) context. Working through those consequences and it sets out the powerful openings years was Sen’s contribution not only to film, but to later of Mela (1971) and Mela (2000). The Fer- sociology and an urban political ethic, even as ris wheel features each time – it too is potent the texture of the films are as cinematic and as symbolic image for the karmic ethic of tem- auteur-masterly as any of the careful esoteri- poral return that some will say governs Hindi cisms of Ray’s rural idyll. The difference is cinema. Gera Roy (2015) points out that this is worth noting because the shift in approach not the only factor, and other philosophical shown in a comparison of the two films is and religious elements demand account, but from an idealised India with romantic tragic the repetition is insistent, and how it is read resignation to an anguished but real-world poli- matters too. In Bengali cinema the formulaic tic interrupted by the storm of famine. Both are is repeated later, also in Aparna Sen’s film, ostensibly responses to the famine of 1942 but The Japanese Wife (Sen 2010). Indeed, this their universalisable appeal can extend to film features a mela with a very small Ferris other and similar trauma, and for this reason wheel, appropriate to the restrained romantic, it may be plausible to see this as an allegory of even syrupy, story.1 The storm that comes the market before and after colonisation; mela much later nevertheless portends disaster, as an open market and a festive space that, although the exotic trimmings, the wrapping with the arrival of the colonial powers and papers for the gifts from Japan, and the beau- their forts, became a closed and protected tiful kite sequence, may have anticipated but market, a series of walled compounds as built had not prepared us for the unbearably sad by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, British and ending. Nevertheless, as well as drawing Danish.2 INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 135

A mela for the Memsahib This colonial fantasy can be kept in mind when thinking of mela as a festival in the In Bollywood, as a rule, the British colonial sense of a bread-and-circuses event that, subtly record is, to put it mildly, of “a type.” And prob- or not, provides ideological cover for the devel- ably deserved. Not half an hour into the film opment of market and state control. Control Mangal Pandey (Mehta 2005), the recently may be too strong a word, but I am taken by introduced characters all attend a colourful Madhava Prasad’s picking up on an observation mela, with Ferris wheels, food stalls, acrobatic from de Pangerville that “Melodrama, as a thea- kids, a painted elephant, barber, bangle sales, trical tradition, was defended as a means of pop- snake-charmers, promenading guests and musi- ular education, in which ‘people were not cians pounding the ubiquitous dhol as if all for shown the world as it is, but how it should the entertainment of the very English visitor be’” (Madhava Prasad 1998, 70). Madhava Pra- Emily. This sequence sets out the familiar tropes sad’s own take is that melodrama “aspires to the as if citing other Mela films in homage, the same transcendental, ceaselessly sublimating the rea- scenes in the same order, but moving through a lities of existence into mythical moral cat- discursive parable about the East India Com- egories” (Madhava Prasad 1998, 71). Here we pany excusing slavery and interrupted this can then see how “foregrounding the political” time not by a storm but by money and the buy- (Madhava Prasad 1998, 20) in a “representative ing and selling of female slaves. Ostensibly a cel- aesthetic form of a democratic society” (Mad- ebration of resistance against the British, hava Prasad 1998, 56) can permit films that Mangal Pandey can best be interpreted as a are not explicitly about politics to be understood series of clichéd set pieces, for example the clas- if melodrama is taken as a “symptom of the sic white man saving a brown woman from ideological resolution of conflicts within the brown men, although with the assistance of social formation” (Madhava Prasad 1998, 23). ’ one brown man, Pandey, as Tonto to Gordon s At the most general level, mela as a site of repressed Lone Ranger figure as the one hon- exchange should be a bazaar and a meeting ourable white man. Of course Gordon takes place, a cornucopia of variations upon pleasure, the sati as his lover, but is unable to rise to Pan- desire, commodities, consumption and connec- ’ dey s defence even though he knows he should. tions. There are food stalls and trinkets, rides ’ It is not impossible to think the film s writing and speakers, show tents, traders, gambling, team had access to the reading list of certain pickpockets and illicit labour of many kinds. postcolonial teachers. The plot surely here is Mela as metaphor for hustle and bustle is not the colonial era working as allegory for the pre- accidental. sent, not in any simple way that Jameson would Perhaps it is the most obvious thing to say call national or homology, rather a circuit how mela is framed in the sequences under dis- (Jameson 1986, 73), nevertheless, national cussion, in that the motif presents itself as an chauvinist at both ends. The Indian state foun- allegory of conviviality disrupted. Whether dation myth is given a heroic back-story, bol- national, colonial or postcolonial, the invariable stered in real life by exhibits such as those at repetition is understandable both as a represen- the museum at the Red Fort. The British are tation of lost idyll and as a plot device reliant portrayed judiciously, with some mad-in-the- upon the crisis of adolescence or naivety that noon-day-sun puffed up popinjay generals, will be overcome, via adversity, the liminal but Gordon learns to be honourable through movement of maturity. Depending on the sub- his association with Pandey, no longer merely sequent picturisation, any resolution is either conflicted and paralysed by a system that does despairing resignation or nostalgic. Neither not reward true valour. Happy ever after. option is fully redeeming of an eschatological 136 J. HUTNYK hope where wish fulfilment has stalled, is post- however, before flashing back in time to a fram- poned, or must be traded for a lesser realist res- ing shot of the market as the village community, olution on the road that unfolds forever further. and the fateful childhood meeting of the charac- Despite their setting, in Mela, the films dis- ters who will motivate the dynamic relation- cussed under this motif cannot show the par- ships of the plot. In the two later Hindi ticulars of market exchange nor do much versions of the film there is a return to the political work explicitly – although there is a scene of the mela in order to move the plot reproductive health booth in the background towards its denouement. In Mela (1971) the of the second Mela (1971) and a Government song – music by R.D. Burman, sung again by Minister is, almost incidentally, assassinated in Mohamed Rafi but with Lata Mangeshkar – the third Mela (2000). The films do not cele- establishes the close relationship of the male brate the market as a market so much as threa- and female leads. Without any flashback ten it, or update it with development of a small needed, here it is through the dance that they trader ideology. Of course, in other film genres, move from being practical strangers, having the shop or the circus could be tracked, but here met just once before, to, by the end of the the clincher that confirms this significance is song, being able to contemplate marriage, as that even in the paradigmatic mid-1970s bro- of course the audience fully expects. Quite dif- mance masala movie Sholay, there are several ferently then, the song in Mela (2000) – music shots of, and from, Ferris wheels at a mela, by Surinder Sodhi, opening song sung by but little time is given to any commercial aspect. Roop Kumar Rathod, Sonu Nigam, Shankar In what looks like an intentional copy, this time Mahadevan, Alka Yagnik and Jaspinder Narula a colourful celebration of a Holi festival, loudly – has a deeply nationalist introduction, but then and violently curtailed by an attack from Gab- the danced narration of the marriage arrange- bar Singh and his bandits. A firestorm leaves ment, enacting Roopa’s importance to and the mela rides burnt and the town in fear – Sho- immanent departure from the village, is one lay translates as cinders in Hindi – the pattern that brings order to the chaos of the market- affirmed again. place, only for this to be disrupted by an attack Perhaps, given the terror angles, we can call by dacoits, who have their own more synco- these melas festivals of fear because the politics pated musical theme – and markedly less col- of fear is marketed as if at a stall. Each film starts ourful clothing. with a song at a fair, and at a fair with a Ferris I will go further into a description of each of wheel as a feature, and also balloon sellers, dan- the films in a way that tries not to give up too cing, and the male–female dance negotiates the much in terms of spoilers, nor impose anything wiles of seduction and power, so things begin as but the most visible, and even intended, in many similar films – each aspect discernible interpretations of the meaning of motifs. Yet at the level of motif. But closer inspection the arrival of the dacoits to the drum pattern shows there are different contexts for this refrain of the opening song sequence in Mela same pattern. What can be singled out now is (2000) does indicate a trajectory that is impor- just how each film opens with the fairground tant for both the ideological work of each film, song sequence: in Mela (1948) we are first intro- and how this changes according to “external- duced to a singer – the music is by Naushad, the ities.” Another echo with Sholay in that the song is sung by Mohamed Rafi (more below) – dacoit leader’s name is Gujjar Singh, channel- and a world-weary or aged character, Mohan, ling Gabbar, and the film starts with a tribute wandering through the mela past the balloon to every film that ever had a police or army sellers, the Ferris wheel, the merry-go-round hero figure return to the village of their birth and the stalls. This is a retrospective moment, – no surprise this happens in each version of INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 137

Mela – but in 2000 the dacoits-miscreants have The opening feature song, sung by taken on the universal look of the pagri-wearing Mohammed Rafi in Mela (1948) is Ye Zindagi “terrorist.” It is unfortunate that the actors, led ke Mele. George sees that the framing song by the totally unsympathetic Gujjar, have trou- urges “acceptance of life’s ups and downs and ble trying not to march in step to the hulking the inevitability of death, and can easily be beats, and they do not match Sholay’s bandits glossed as referring to the losses induced by Par- for grit. Unlike the bad guys in the previous tition” (George 2013, 196). Although some Mela films, the contemporary terrorist has no viewers insist they did not watch it that way chance of redemption, and is neither a lovable (personal observations of Fiza Vasudeva’s rogue nor a lost brother separated in a storm. grandparents, with thanks) certainly the timing would suggest no reason to withhold such an Mela (1948) interpretation and, as already noted, Rajadhyak- sha would confirm taking the song at an even The film begins with the release from prison of greater metaphysical register. The availability Mohan, portrayed by the legendary Dilip of multiple interpretations is obvious, and Kumar, and we see him wandering through each not without interest. This was noted in a the mela detachedly observing the joyful cele- contemporaneous Film India review where the brations of the people. A few congress-cap film was denounced for “emotional masochism” and kurta-wearing figures lead the crowd in and the “illegal” portrayal of suicide (Indian dance as it arrives in the background at the Penal Code 309) with calls for censorship fair. Mohan looks at the singer and at the according to the then production code, which worker turning the (wooden style) Ferris specified that “no crime shall be presented in wheel through his own awesome strength. He a way which will create sympathy for it or soon has walked through to the edge of the vil- inspire its imitation. Sympathy of the public lage and contemplates the spot where, as we will shall never be thrown on the side of crime, find out in the main film flashback, he passed wrong-doing or evil” (“Mela Should be” 1948). blissful days of youth in the company of his beloved, played of course by Nargis. The story Other Melas begins again in the past with the children arriv- ing at school, the scoundrel who will cause The Telugu version of Mela, renamed Chiran- Mohan’s tragedy is caught smoking by the tea- jeevulu, appeared in 1956 and it reworks the cher, covering the teacher with itching powder, story by changing the affliction of the Mohan and picking a fight with Mohan. Later he role – played by N.T. Rama Rao – so that he becomes the somewhat slapstick-army- must overcome blindness rather than a jail returned, bad-English Hobson-Jobson-style term. Some other changes include a younger troublemaker, and contrives, after Mohan is widower, a more dramatic denouement, and waylaid by a storm, to have Mohan’s bride-to- notably, at the start, an extended song sequence be married off to an old rich widower. The by the co-stars as childhood best friends two who were destined to be together cannot together, just as in 1948. Unfortunately this meet, and even when they discover a chance aspect is not repeated in later versions, thus to come together again, they refuse to meet abandoning the scene-stealing skills of the because of propriety and reputation. When it child actors, in this case, Master Babji and finally becomes possible to be reunited, there Baby Sasikali (as the younger Mohan and Sar- is disaster. The meeting is impossible, against ida). Nevertheless, the convolutions of this nature, in this lifetime at least. Perhaps in plot add to the suicide theme, death by anguish, another. and the final stormy sequence, with the younger 138 J. HUTNYK widower elevated in the plot as a complicit account of him wearing a Hindu pendant, she agent/saviour of Mohan. Far from South brings him up loyal to his birth faith. The India, this time in the Punjab, there are two older brother is meanwhile brought up in his films worthy of attention: Bhariya Mela, the home village by an abusive and drunkenly vio- 1966 Pakistani reworking with Naghma, lent uncle. Eventually this brother becomes a Akmal and Munawar Zarif, does include the bandit, Shakti Singh, played by Feroz Khan, usual components of the sequence – the fair because his sweetheart was raped and killed by with Ferris wheels and balloon hawkers, a a landlord, and for this reason he swears an storm that disrupts the festivities, and violent oath to never allow anyone to plough the family consequences – the rural story has close affi- field. The grown up younger brother, named nities with the Hindi Mela (1971). What it Kanhaiya, a version of Krishna, is played by adds however is yet more melodramatic ten- Sanjay Khan, and after passing first at college, sion, which by the time we get to its reappear- he comes to the village and unknowingly buys ance in an even later Punjabi version, Mela the family field from an uncle, planning to (1986), we see that the theme of blindness fea- farm it with modern methods – and a tractor. tures again. This itself can be interpreted as a A romantic song sung by the village girl Lajjoo, question of interpretation echoing the blind played by Mumtaz, seems almost as much in Imaam S’aab in Sholay (1975), played by com- devotion to the tractor as to Kanhaiya. Per- munist freedom fighter A.K Hangal. In the Pun- mission to marry the beautiful Lajjoo is refused jabi (1986) version of the story, this time an Kanhaiya by the village Panchayat council as his action drama directed by Hassan Asakari and caste is unknown, and anyway he plans to featuring Sultan Rahi, Anjuman and Mustafa plough the field and will likely be shot dead Qureshi in leading roles, the action begins by Shakti Singh if he does so. However, after with the now expected sequence of a mela inter- sneaking in disguise into the mela so as to rupted, a stand-off and fight results in tragedy – donate gold bars to the goddess at the rural tem- eyes taken out with two spears – which in this ple, Shakti Singh’s escape from the police is example emphasises the accumulated themes aided by Kanhaiya, albeit under coercion. The of gangsters raiding the festivities, killing, police trap was ineffectual and somewhat slap- brothers separated, revenge declarations and a stick, but shots are fired and the bandit later heroine fighting for justice resolved in another sneaks into Kanhaiya’s camp looking for ban- bloodthirsty dénouement. dages. As an upstanding and humane citizen, Kanhaiya dresses Shakti’s wounds and they Mela (1971) form a bond, with Shakti noting he owes Kan- haiya a debt. Because of this debt, still not The first Hindi remake of Mela (1948) came knowing they are really brothers who had some 23 years after partition and no longer again met as foretold by goddess Kali, Shakti had this traumatic backdrop so clearly as con- hesitates when Kanhaiya begins to plough the text. In Mela (1971) two brothers bunk off field. The scenario almost inevitably leads to school to visit the nearby festival, are separated the brothers fighting a to-the-death battle, and in the storm and, as they are returning late, their only towards the end, having wounded each mother – looking for them in the forest – is other and ripped their shirts does Shakti see killed by a falling tree. The boys are orphaned that Kanhaiya has the tattoo – of the sun god but still separated, with the younger one suffer- – which he and his young brother had both ing amnesia. He runs from the hospital and is had done at the mela 20 years before. Mortally hit by an automobile. The car’s Muslim owner wounded, Shakti has at least been reunited cares for and eventually adopts him. On and redeemed with his lost sibling. INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 139

The bandit here is someone we can under- The story of Mela (2000) is of the precarious stand and have sympathy with, despite his mur- working class fighting against corruption and derous ways, and his opposition to ploughing terrors that destroy forever the village idyll. the field. He cannot however survive because That such a narrative should not inspire the agricultural sufficiency of the nation is immediate mass audience support perhaps has more important than the specific – read to do with the opportunist pay-off of neoliberal- regional – grudges and complaints that stem ism in the rhetoric of “shining India.” The film from past injustice. What should be recalled as flopped at cinemas. Nevertheless, in terms of context here is how Indira Gandhi led a govern- the production it works as a fulfilment of the ment as Prime Minister which still followed, in pattern identified. The transformation of the some sense, the Nehruvian path, but with the market in the first decades of the century this introduction of green revolution technology film inaugurates, offers a clarifying context. and anti-poverty drives, self-sufficiency and Moving towards an online and cashless econ- rule of law, etc, despite hidden corruption, omy – consider Modi’s one fell swoop erasure vote-rigging and favouritism that was to be of large denomination bills in December 2016 exposed in the coming years, leading to the as a forced roll out of card machine tech – erases “Emergency” suspension of democracy for two mela in the old frame. Already Mela (2000) was years from 1975. marked by such tendential shifts, with a post- MTV Bollywood fantasy sequence, a terror image evoking the sort of siege soon to afflict Mela (2000) the parliament and Mumbai, and a road movie car chase sequence format that displaces In the third Hindi edition of Mela (2000) it is the “space” of the Mela. In the previous ver- surely worth noting the deaths at the beginning. sions, transport was by foot or bullock cart. Ram, played by Ayub Khan, is crucial to the Even as Mela (2000) begins within village plot. The movie opens with his return to the vil- space – the dance ground wholly within the vil- lage to arrange the marriage of his sister Roopa, lage – this presentation is a frozen nostalgia, Twinkle Khanna, to a border force army com- with nationalist character, soon destroyed by rade. This plan, and the mela to celebrate the foreigner intervention. The music sequence nuptials, is interrupted, as noted above, by the confirms a heavy handed modernisation: the murderous intervention of Gujjar Singh. Ram, special effects contrast starkly with the rest of a terrific shot, is nevertheless overwhelmed by the film, even as it offers a tribute to slapstick the band of “terrorists,” who had also killed fight sequences and other routines. The early the parliamentary dignitary and all his body- but extravagant divergence into fantasy – guards. Also killed is the small boy Gopal who Kishan’s musical item dream has him achieve had been prominent in the opening dance MTV level celebrity stardom – comes at a cru- sequence, with Ram and the boy both taking cial moment in the plotting, its incoherence as the lead for large sections of the first two a dream sequence unlike any other style of the songs. No other male sings apart from the film. In Mela (1948) the doll figures play out Eunuch Ghungroo. These key figures, Ram the symbolism of home and family. In Mela and Gopal, are killed less than 15 minutes into (1971) it is chalk drawings on the wall of the the film, so as to set up the rest, in which even- house, and a tattoo of the sun – an icon tually Roopa teams up with itinerant lorry dri- inscribes first the family connection then iden- vers Kishan and Shankar, played by the “real tity across difference. At this point Mela life” brothers Faisal and Aamir Khan (of Man- (2000) forgoes inscription in favour of a fantasy gal Pandey fame). item number in which our protagonist imagines 140 J. HUTNYK celebrity success in a way that makes sense only this happy disposition at the end means it as the phantasmagoric aspiration of the precar- should be no surprise that the film is often ious in post-idyll neoliberal Asia. Aspiration screened on terrestrial channels on 26 January, shifts from family to village to globe. Republic Day. Yet, this recuperation of the wayward and Global South Asia precarious to the fictional-national and emble- matic village gives us a reason to recognise This point had been made already in the 1990s Mela (2000) as unsuccessful because it does by various authors, for example Nandy (1990) not offer a Global South Asian nor a specifically and Pinney (1995) who indicated a shift in Bol- local reference. Nor does it do the work of lywood film address from the national uplift redeeming convivial association, except perhaps narrative of family and Mother India, to films as linked contingent individuals performing directed at an audience figured as “the urban unfounded or ungrounded ambition. It presents single male migrant in search of sex, violence no future for either the national or regional, and and the remembrance of his absent family” indeed it is wholly precarious in terms of theme (Pinney 1995, 11). This indexing of the male content and plot. Episodic narrative dominates migrant labourer marks a moment of nostalgia after the disruption of the village mela tradition; here as well, still perhaps before dislocation of a roadside cafe, temple, picnic grounds, and Global South Asia from a geographical referent celestial reward all appear along the road. The in the war on terror, although Nandy (1990) truck drivers keep driving on their never-ending was already alert to this part played by terror quest for the main chance. Unlike the long before, but what is conspicuous is the nationalist promise of an emergent economy, agency of this migrant labourer. In turn, the this precarious allegory cannot guarantee suc- seeking subject of a commercial film that pan- cess – not that shining India can, but its entire ders to lowest commonality will of course content is that it makes the claim. Precarity can- seem to favour sex, violence and amoral dislo- not cohere the whole, which remains a string of cation, but another possibility is affirmation of episodes if the audience has lost the habit of col- community, longed for reconnection, and lective interpretation with reference to a recog- marking time in a global struggle that would nisable (re-cognisable) frame. Neither partition be the condition of Global South labour univer- nor independence contain the aspirations of sally. This of course is not what Mela (2000) this unfolding and unpredictable path demonstrates, even as it can also be understood Why did Mela (2000) have to kill off Ram at to conform to the argument made by Nandy the start of the film? There is no indication that and Pinney. In contrast to an affirmation of Ayub Khan was too expensive to hire through- community, in Mela (2000), by the end, the vil- out – indeed, his ghost appears again briefly at lage has been irrevocably changed by the battle the second mela toward the end. No indication against terror, the protagonists no longer have a is given in the movie gossip press that Khan’s rural place, and must return to the road. The role had to be truncated; so far as I could see, inconsequential consumer pleasure of Aish- the plot scenario that called for his demise is warya Rai’s cameo drop-in at the end is a last- not a surgical repair. While a speculative expla- ditch effort of Capital to tempt the globalised nation is proffered below, it is perhaps first working class with the luck of the lottery. Fight- worth looking elsewhere to realise that such ing the terror has not brought rewards except plot devices are not unknown, and indeed fairly through the sweet luck of fate, and this is frequent, in cinema. In Mrinal Sen’s Ek Din dangled seductively before the audience. Along Achanak (1989) the professor walks out of the with the Mera Bharat singalong at the start, film early on, and never comes back. Initiating INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 141 that same device in the earlier Ek Din Pratadin of more global significance, Mukhopadhyay (Sen 1979), Sen had refused to answer viewer notes: requests to know where the daughter had been – As the flames leap higher and higher, we when she did not come home on time remember the foreign network footage, incor- although she did at least come home in that porated earlier in the film, showing the burn- film. Ek Din Achanak returns to the “same” ing of Marxist literature during the last days of device some ten years later, with the film’s the Soviet Union. It brings out the essence of internal time frame longer, a year rather than change in the greater world in the context of a small family. (Mukhopadhyay 2009, 198) a day, and the father has still not come home, and never will. The family falls apart in the As happens in quite a few controversial films, aftermath, as we perhaps too willingly see. again we see burning books attend a history of That Sen is showing the inner demons of the violence; fire cleanses as it is reified in mythical middle-class to the middle-class is all the stories and in figures as diverse as Ram, the more disturbing given this familiar framing. In Soviet Union and topical newsreels of violent Mela (2000) Ram’s death after the first song, protest. It can be expected that each director inaugurates a story about repairing the and/or writer of the later Mela films had seen damaged family, afflicted by terror from the previous Mela(s), and so some degree of his- outside. torical inter-reference could be built into the There is perhaps an oblique commentary in subsequent versions. Also, everyone has seen another of Sen’s works, where an early death – Sholay so it is not only coincidence that in a mother hangs herself – sets up Sen’s film Mela (2000), at one point Kishan is renamed Mahaprithibi (Sen 1991).3 The use of newsreel Kanhaiya as the village prepares the mela as a footage may invoke associations with another trap for Gujjar. This name change is poignant film where an early cinematic death features – as, at the same time, he is (too) slowly falling a character who exits in the first reel was already for Roopa, which means basically he is transi- on display in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane tioning into a replacement for the murdered (Welles 1941), with opening scenes showing Ram. The new son of the village no longer Kane’s death followed by a newsreel summary redeems the broken sibling relation to heal of his life. Even if the rest of Mahaprithibi is rifts and reclaim a lost brother from the strayed not so much a sequence of flashbacks, the path of dacoity, but instead enlists his reluctant removal of a key character to drive the plot is brother in the work of out and out revenge. an uncommon motif. Whether it works or In Mela (2000), Kishan is afflicted by a near not, the dilemma that drives the film becomes inexplicable despondency, until one remembers one of understanding why the mother has that in Mela (1948) and Mela (1971) the hanged herself after the return of an estranged promise of an idealised marriage was never son to the family hearth. She leaves a diary, questioned. The lead couple were always a and the “repair” of the family occurs through couple, always committed to each other, even another significant motif to do with setting when forced to marry someone else – they pages alight. Shomu, the returning son, pro- never betrayed true loyalty. In Mela (2000), poses reading the diary so as to discern his Roopa is loyal only to her brother, but Kishan mother’s state of mind and find clues to her does not know that. He has resisted the matri- suicide. It turns out that none of the grieving monial path until now, but once he meets his family can face the task, and only when the match, he is fully committed – only to find it diary is burnt can Shomu be reconciled with was a false move. Roopa of course is slowly rea- his father and take his place with the rest of lising that she does love Kishan, and actually the grieving family. In an echo of recognition wants to marry, but only through the mediation 142 J. HUTNYK of replacing her brother with Kishan’s friend and sisterhood over traditional sexism. Tan- Shankar and in the collective defeat of Gujjar nishta Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, Surveen Singh. In this process, Kishan as Kanhaiya shifts Charla and Lehrer Khan are actors able to from being the heroic but aloof and individua- ensure that Parched does justice to the signifi- listic Rambo – his poses and dress evoke the cance and sweep of the story. It was made Stallone icon – to reaffirming his commitment with high production values and a dramatic, to fighting alongside Shankar and then as part sometimes profound and other times funny, of the collective. Ram died to be replaced in plot that seductively modulates affective associ- Roopa’s hopes and desires, after a time, by ations. There are similar camera angles on the Kishan. The potential military match was Ferris wheel featured in Parched to each of the ditched, giving way to a convenient husband other Mela films discussed. This accesses a by found on the road, reworking an exogamous now established repertoire, even as the film alliance in precarious times. While the village also sometimes has the look of a Rajasthan structure must be defended, family structures Tourism Board promotional feature and sur- have suffered a devastating blast and the prisingly does not end with the dulcet cadence couples, with Shankar delivered of his celebrity of the Discover India in-flight arrival video or cameo love interest, drive off into the uncertain the mobile phone ring-tone that so much pro- future. The village idyll has been redeemed sym- duct placement seemed to anticipate. bolically but not practically, the heroes cannot settle, and so drive on and out of the film. Motifs of Mela in heavy rotation

Parched Consciously planned or not, discussion of Mela as a film staple allows historical commentary All of which raises the relevance of yet another and reflection on how approaches to “topical- film featuring a mela, Ferris wheels and a more ity” might change over time. Sometimes films or less intended allegorical projection. In Leena do explicitly embrace the role of translating Javed’s Parched (2015) the breaking of patriar- national concerns into the register of the family chal normative sexualities gives the film a joy- drama – trading rhetorical formula for allegori- ous and successful escape from poverty and cal purchase and doing duty for chauvinisms or prejudice. Although, despite uplift – that their debunking, according, in turn, to mocks the trinket-exotica NGO handicrafts interpretation. The degree that audiences, and project that brings satellite television to the vil- critics, buy the story is not necessarily depen- lage – the film also shows the practicalities and dent on the degree to which the film evokes or setbacks of informal sector survival. At the end occludes its pertinent renderings. Sometimes a of the film, Thelma, Louise and Lajjoo are still dacoit is not the Maoist insurgency writ large, left with nowhere to go but out of the film thea- sometimes the drunken uncle is not the wasted tre, and in this it also echoes the non-resolution potential of a narrow-minded peasantry who of Mela (2000). Of course, it makes sense that doggedly refuse to adopt green revolution tech- films may often set their finales in fairs, and nology, genetically modified seeds or develop- fairs will almost always have Ferris wheels. In ment loans. Parched, the various interrelated strands of the Mela (2000) was not a box office hit perhaps plot converge in the spectacle of the Dusehera because its narrative failed to sufficiently invoke festival, itself represented by the construction points of topical connection in changed circum- of the effigy of Ravana and the giant wheel. stances, perhaps because the heavy-handed The spectacular denouement resolves the plot recycling of motifs was too subtle – the regis- in terms that promotes the triumph of love tration of the getaway truck was Hum 420, INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 143 invoking the spirit of Raj Kapoor’s Japanese “imperso-nation” (Chakravorty 1993, 4) where shoes in Shree 420 (Kapoor 1955). I am inclined the self-questioning of nationhood is offered to favour an interpretation that suggests a too as exemplar. Mohan’s point of view, reflected ready acceptance of a central government line in the mela years after events that will be told on terrorism made the film unsuccessful, in long flashback, could be the apotheosis of because this line was either not criticised or the tragic hero who dies with redemption and was not anywhere near allegorical enough. knowledge in a world that no longer has a While elements of Mela (1971) are blatantly place for any regret for what is lost. This is pro-Nehruvian in theme, and hardly subtle in utterly useless for the protagonist, since he negotiating Hindu-Muslim relations or the falls off the cliff and out of the movie, but as caste hierarchy, by way of a resolution it turns an instructive parable for the audience, is poss- out that caste prejudices soften over time and ibly also useless because it is patronising in its “different” couples can marry after all, allegorical bludgeoning. especially if it turns out the boy from a Muslim In each of the versions discussed here the vil- family was really Hindu and of the village from lage can be understood as a more or less the start. In a hardly subtle way, there is at least unblemished fortress of identity, with, in the here recognition through an explicit reality-fic- remakes, the mela as its performative laboratory tion compact with the audience. More curious is through which process and change in the eter- that the separated brothers acting in the film are nal and cyclical path of life occurs – explicitly “real” brothers in real life – Sanjay and Feroz associated with the Ferris wheel in the first Khan – and as their names suggest, Muslims song of Mela (2000). Kaur’s study of the Gana- playing Hindus, with one of them brought up pati festivals of Maharashtra illustrates well how in a Muslim household holding on to his the political space of a festival can be used to Krishna devotional identification.4 Distance work through political meanings, incorporating perhaps makes it more difficult to judge the many contemporary issues and imageries, topicality of Mela (1948) where the contrived alongside the icons of tradition and faith or forced separation of the two who were (Kaur 2003). In Mela (1971), the film does from the start meant to be together may or need to work through old prejudices about may not provide grounds for an instructional caste and community by getting the village pan- reading of how they let pride prevent any recon- chayat to permit love match marriages and a ciliation until it was too late, but I do not know marriage between Lajjoo and Kanhaiya despite how to, or even if we should, decide. What is no one then knowing Kanhaiya’s caste and hav- available is the possibility of reading the film ing to get past the revelation that his adopted in this way, and mapping that onto the sub- mother is Muslim. And then also to accept the sequent versions and the different instructional marriage of Billoo and lower caste Bansilal, topicalities provided there. By the time we get to achieved through the wiles, and finances, of Mela (2000) however, the fissures of caste and the prospective wife, but perhaps accepted hierarchy are occluded in the all-singing, all- because both characters are somewhat comic, dancing opening scenarisation songs, with the and the father-in-law is a sweet softie who variety of regional identities rendered as if only pretends to be a strict stickler for tradition. they were only styles of dress amidst a multicul- The panchayat itself performs a similar role to tural ensemble of village unity, threatened only the mela grounds in that it provides a protective by the stereotypically dark material outfit of the moral space around the village. In the Mela terrorists from abroad. (2000) iteration, the mela itself is physically sur- In Mela (1948), Mohan could be considered rounded by the village. In the earlier versions, an example of what Sumit Chakravarty calls first it was the village surrounded by a wall, 144 J. HUTNYK and the open mela, through which Mohan wan- through revolution, and the set fails or succeeds ders, is far from home, reached by bullock cart. according to how the participants perform. In the 1971 iteration, it is the mela that is sur- In perhaps too simplistic terms, would it be rounded by a wall, perhaps indicative of private plausible to say that the different versions of property, and thus the space of the market fes- Mela provide differing moments in a dynamic tival changes over time and in each film it may of the public’s relation to social politics? To be showing the encroachment of privatisation, interpret Mela (1948) and Chiranjeevulu as against which, even when, as in Mela (2000), only searching for ways to move past the trauma the wall is a line of people that an outside threat of a broken relationship and serious childhood must first break through. At the end of the song attachments would bring out only one aspect in Mela (2000) the way the terrorists walk up in of the films: the impossibility of the relationship time to the Dhol drum rhythm of their signa- between the two protagonists interrupted by ture tune helps mark them as outsiders as real world concerns, storms, prison, honour, much as their much plainer, less colourful, so that there is no place in the film for the clothes. couple – in this imaginary, the unity of Global A catalogue of blood shots might be another South Asia – and only being thrown outside way to get into the melodrama of it all. In the of the film into the next life can bring the second of the Hindi Mela films, Shakti Singh desired connection. So also in Mela (1986) is shot twice, and in each instance his brother’s and Parched.InMela (1971) we again have hands are covered in his blood. Both times he the storm of separation, but a reconciliation of holds his hands up to look at this, the first communal and family partition is seen in the time not knowing, of course, it is sibling blood suture of the brother’s two divergent paths, – they were separated in youth. The viscosity one legal, and one illegal. This resolution fol- of the scene, and the era of splatter effects, lows the village farm development model, the may seem dated now, but the charge and the heroic Nehruvian path, a misguided but under- meaning of negotiating blood lines is vibrant. standable individual distortion into rebellion is The “trinketisation” of motifs is evident in the forgiven, and – in the lesson of the film – can repetitions. The Ferris wheel and merry-go- be reconciled by coming back into the nation round are seen in each “remake”–and of course from insurgency, albeit in death. Think here also found in Sholay,inMangal Pandey, of how the Comintern required the national Parched and, as we will see, Pinjar (Dwivedi communist parties to intervene and suspend 2003). sub-national uprisings like Telangana in the The convivial idyll of the village mela inter- interests of the emergent nation state. A less rupted by the storm of colonial arrival, par- socialist narrative in Mela (2000) has commodi- tition, loss, Naxals or terrorists, is the rite of fication and terror join hands to disrupt the passage hook for the films. A cinematic working ideal of the village, yet in the journey towards out of trauma through back-projected nostalgia modernity new alliances can be found to satisfy and the wheel evokes the cycle of life, its pro- the lost ideal – of Ram. This ideal can be offered found meaningless, ongoing-ness resolved – even to those who are not of the village if they as, often noted, also with collecting – through can prove themselves in aspiration and effort the circular play that moves those currently to be worthy of the rewards of belonging. incarnate as life forms inexorably along a It is impossible not to notice how a certain cycle. If you could hold up the hands of the col- rendering of national level violence and per- lectors of trinkets you can see a political and sonal experience of suffering is shown in Mela family affinity in repetition. The point is that (1948). The lovers are separated by a horrible with mela, the turning achieves resolution storm even as the prize – marriage, jewels – INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 145 was close, then, however painful, they maintain and aspiration – in its popular and unpopular the terms of their enforced separation – par- choices? It is possible to note the relevance tition – and only in the next life can unity pre- here of how several times Spivak has spoken vail. Message: this life and its pain are illusory, about teaching literature where, with a good and to see so, and stick to duty and your own, teacher, and with better students perhaps, can redeem hurts in the long run – while others there is a possibility of learning to read in a build the nation. Mela (1971) comes as a heavy- way that breaks with the certitude of unme- handed agricultural allegory, also explicit – the diated authority.5 With Gujjar Singh so badly wayward brother is a worthy fellow maltreated, maligned in the later film, there might be a not nurtured, in the past, his younger brother, chance to see where to begin to unlearn the pri- not knowing of their bond, nevertheless shows vileged arrogance of belonging to the culturally care, and has a tractor to grow the nation. dominant, even perhaps learning how an open- Through the younger brother’s selflessness, the ing to the difference that enters with a politics of wayward brother is released from his pain – interpretation which cannot be finally “won” in the psychological dynamic and the secret certitude might be a good thing: might be desires both coincide with the national agricul- “salutary”: “ ” tural development, but the problem the plot When we seem to have won or lost in terms of works through is the psychology of nurture certainties, we must, as literature teachers in and care – important for plants, relationships, the classroom, remember such warnings – let and politics. Mela (2000) shifts the context in literature teach us that there are no certainties, which the village sits to the outer-national that the process is open, and that it may be where the threat is from abroad, and cannot altogether salutary that it is so. (Spivak 2003, 26) be reconciled without going through the trau- matic conflict. The terrorists are vaguely Mus- That Mela involves a number of differently lim, coded visually at least as from Pakistan, similar film motifs cannot be unthought and or even as the Taliban. They arrive and destroy removed from a history that is also not the the village, kill Ram and capture Roopa. A only context in which viewing might take worse storm could not be imagined. But despite heed – Ferris wheels, agricultural subplots, the odds, what must be done in response is done assassinations and army intrigues all give through a scrupulous resolution of cultural space to a range of trading stalls on a field traits, prowess and skills found in unlooked of marketing, mixture and myth. The mela for specificities of the home-grown make-do. space where it comes together in multiplicity. Roopa escapes and teams up with two brothers This should not suggest a “linear-causal whom she sees as no-hopers heading at least in relation to consciousness and identity” in the the right direction. The resourcefulness of a for- representational frame of cinematic narrative tuitous preparation however means that what- (Rai 2009, 3). Instead we might recognise ever is needed is already at hand – as if the the “patterning” of pleasures that can be rein- gods provide the needful by arranging for who- terpreted with the times, especially in knowing ever and whatever is required to have always- remakes and reimaginings of previously popu- already been available. lar motifs. Unpacking these pleasures amidst To identify allegorical overcompensation can screen and real violence nevertheless leaves nevertheless still signal important contextual the emotional charge of Mela (1948) as so aspects of the ideological framing of village much more affective than the neoliberal future and nation. Does it matter if the allegory is of Mela (2000). Nargis and Dilip Kumar uni- heavy-handed, unacceptably cartoonish in its ted forever in a suicide tragedy stains the stereotype, yet instructive – about precarity screen every time it is shown. 146 J. HUTNYK

Notes of Exotica (2000), Bad Marxism (2004) and Panto- mime Terror (2014). Global South Asia on Screen 1. If male desire (naagor is male lover) and back will come out in 2018. and forth movement (dola) are resonant in the meaning of the Bangla word for Ferris wheel (nagardola, hat tip Abhijit Roy) then this ORCID film has an appropriate symbolic icon for a story so poignantly delaying gratification. John Hutnyk http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4826- 2. This is the theme of a future book and an 8949 initial effort to map the concerns is forthcom- ing in the chapter “Marx Reading India Sources” in Goswami (forthcoming). References 3. The film is also a “remake” of sorts, and was Ahmad, Aijaz. 1987. “Jameson’s Rhetoric of originally going to be called Calcutta 90 Otherness and the ‘National Allegory.’” Social (Mukhopadhyay 2009, 200) as a follow-up to Text 17 (Autumn): 3–25. the documentary-like film about the violent Asakari, Hassan, dir. 1986. Mela. Film. Pakistan: death of a Naxalite in Calcutta 71 (Sen Nadia Production. 1971). The latter film was plundered for the Bose, Anjan, dir. 2017. Aurora Bioscope. newsreel footage shown in Mahaprithibi. Documentary film. India: Film Division, 4. This again raises the ongoing cultural impor- Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. tance of Pakistan for Bollywood, since it can- Chadha, Gurinder, dir. 2017. Viceroy’s House. Film. not be disregarded that the economic UK/India/Sweden: Pathe International. interests of distributors can trump the ideo- Chakravorty, Sumita S. 1993. Indian Popular logical agendas of governments. Despite ban- Cinema 1947–1987. Austin: University of Texas ning films, border controls, restrictions and Press. so forth, Bollywood and especially the music Darshan, Dhiamesh, dir. 2000. Mela. Film. India: of Bollywood, owes much to Lahore and Kar- Venus Records and Tapes. achi from its earliest years, and beyond. Cer- Das Sharma, Biren. 2001. “Beyond the Visual: the tainly the name Shah Rukh Khan might not Case of the Delhi Durbar Films.” Journal of the have the same resonance if, as noted by Gera Moving Image 2: 140–149. Roy (2015, 1), so many families hailing from Desai, Jigna. 2004. Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Peshawar or Faisalabad – for example those Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film. of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, the New York: Routledge. Bachchans – had not entered the movies. Dudrah, Rajinder. 2012. Bollywood Travels: Culture, 5. I thank all those referred to in the text for their Diaspora and Border Crossings in Popular Hindi work, which has been so influential on how I Cinema. London: Routledge. view films. The most influential person in all Dwivedi, Chandra Prakash, dir. 2003. Pinjar. Film. this will have been Abhijit Roy, but he has India: Lucky Star Entertainment. expressed his embarrassment at my constant George, K. G., dir. 1980. Mela. Film. Malaysia: Visal refrain of deserved praise. Here it is again. Movies. Thanks. The initial ideas for this paper were George, Rosemary Marangoly. 2013. Indian English worked out in a class in Film Studies at Jadav- and the Fiction of National Literature. pur University, and then developed with the Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. fantastic support of my Bengali film studies Gera Roy, Anjali, ed. 2012. The Magic of Bollywood: course students at the Institute for Cultural At Home and Abroad. New Delhi: Sage. Research, National Chiao Tung University, Gera Roy, Anjali. 2015. Cinema of Enchantment: Hsinchu City, Taiwan in 2015. Perso-Arabic Genealogies of the Hindi Masala Film. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. Notes on contributor Goswami, Niranjana. Forthcoming. Desiring India: Representations Through British and French Eyes John Hutnyk Faculty of Social Sciences and Huma- (1584–1857). Kolkata: Jadavpur University Press. nities, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh Hutnyk, John. Forthcoming. Global South Asia On City, Vietnam. He is the author of several books Screen. New York, Bloomsbury and Kolkata: including The Rumour of Calcutta (1996), Critique Setu Prakash. INTER-ASIA CULTURAL STUDIES 147

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