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A.SCRWBOOK RAHAAB ALLANA COLLECTION Foreword by SHYAM BENEGAL With text contributions by KAUSHIK BHAUMIK, DEBASHREE MUKHERJEE and RAHAAB ALLANA NIYOGI BOOKS Published in association with ART IIHERITAGE • ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • • Again I am reassured by Kandinsky • • the need to take from an outer environment Published by • • and bring it an inner necessity. NIYOGI BOOKS • D-78, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I • NASREEN MOHAMED! , • (1937·1990) New Delhi-110 020, INDIA • Tel: 91-11-26816301, 49327000 • • Fax: 91-11-26810483, 26813830 • Email: [email protected] - Website: www.niyogibooksindia.com Text ©: the Authors The moral rights of Kaushik Bhaurnik, Debashree Mukherjee and Sam Maneckshaw Rahaab Allana to be identified as authors of this work are asserted. Images ©: The collector chooses not retain the copyright/usage rights of images from the scrapbook Fabien Charuau FiImi Jagat. Copyright to individual images, apart from those from the scrapbook, remain with the Benedicte Alliot authors or as identified in the publication. All images from the Rahaab Allana Collection uniess noted otherwise. Images with accession numbers credited to ACP refer to the AJkazi Collection of Photography. Thank you for sharing Editor: Nandita Jaishankar Cover design: Rajiv Gautam Book design: Dsgn Unplugged Scrapbook reprography: Tanvi Mishra ISBN: 978-93-83098-40-8 Year of Publication: 2014 An exhibition by the same title ("FiImi Jagat") was held at Art Heritage Gallery, New Delhi in December 2013 All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrOnic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission and consent of the publisher. Printed at Niyogi Offset Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India • ••· • • •. ...............................:. .• · .....,. ...... jIo:~.::.::. ::.. • ••• · ·...... ..... .. •• ••• ••• •• •••• •• ••• ••• ·• . ••• . •• ••••• •••••••• ••••••••• ••• •· •.... • • • •. • .. ..... -.. -.. -~ ....... t:.:.:.:.• •••••:.:.: ..• •••••_••...•....••.• ••••••••• ·• ...... ••••• • .. · ............. •• •••••• • • • • • • • ..: ........... •· • ..... • • • • • . ••••••••••••••• •• ••••••••••• • • • • •• ..•..•....•... ~ • ••••••• ••••••••••••••• • ·• .• . • . • . • . • . :.:.:.:.:.:.:. •• ••••••• • • • • • • . ••••••• •• ••••••• •••••• •••••••••••••• •• •••••• • • • • • • ••••••••••••••• • •• •• • • •• • •• • • • •••••••• • • • • • • •• • ••••• • •• • • ••••••••••••••• ·• ......•••••• .. •............... • • • • • • •·• •••••••...... ••••• .• ....... •• ••••••• ..·· . ... .. .. .. ••••••• •••••••• • •••••••• • • • • • • I •••••••• ••••• • •• ••••••• • • • • • • •• ••••••• ••••• • •• ••••••• •••••• •· •••••••..... .. •• ••••••• • • • • • • • •• ••••••• ••••• '....... • •••••• . • •••••• ·• .........• • • • •.. ..• . •• ••••••• •••••• ··•....... .• .• . • .• • •. ':.:.:.:.:.:.:.:................ ...... '•....... I ••••••• • • • ••• • ••••••• ·· ............. .. ... •• ••••••• •••••• ··....... ••••••••••••••• ·•....... •••••• . ..~............. • ·......... .. .. of ~.•............. .•............· .. .. .. ~ .......................... ··....... .. .. ... ••••••••••••••••• ••••••• ··....... .. .. ••••••••••••••• ....:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:., .......... '....•...•...•• · .. .. .. t• •••••• t . ~ • • • • • • • ·•••••••••••••• ....... .• .......• . ............... ... ~ .:.:.:.:.:.:.: * ••••••••••••••· • inema has historically shared a unique relationship with ' ....... .. • •••••• ~• ....... ••••••• _ c. •• ••••••...... •••••• •.. the modern. It has not only responded to but also embodied .::::::::::::::. ·•...... •••••• ,. the myriad affects of the modern with its proliferation of •••••••• ................•· ••••••• .. C •••••••••••••••• •••••••• spectacle, commodities and sensation. Filmi Jagat reconfigures •· ••••••. .. .. .• ·t·············• •• • ••· ·4- • •••••• this visual modernity along surprising axes. It is a peculiarly ...•.....• •••••~ • ••••••••• ••••••• .. ................. cinematic form, composed of choreographed gazes and montage .:.:.:.:.:.:-:.: , ............... •••••••••••••• • I·.·.:.:.:.· ... .. aesthetics. As different sets of eyes look upon each other across ••• ••••••••••••••• •• • , ..... • .. • •• • c .:.: ...:.:. the pages of Filmi Jagat, the spectator's gaze itself is pulled in •. •••••••- •••••••• • • •e. •- ........... .. .................. multiple directions, prompting her to turn pages, revisit images, .··..... ..............···· - ........ .. ... • ••• and pry behind folded cut-outs. [Fig. 11 For a paper genre dealing ·.. ., ·• •••••.... :.-.::: : in still photographs, this scrapbook gathers a flurry of movement • • • • • :::. -:.::::: .. e.-• .•• _.* within it. Lohana created his scrapbook at a time when South •••• • • • • .:.: .!.~:~ ~:~~:; ~~; ••., •• eo Asian cityscapes were getting increasingly saturated by multiple I • ".:..,c·:-:.::.,; ~ ----.- •. -~ . media, from print advertising to film billboards. However, the .. very idiosyncrasies evident in Filmi Jagat demonstrate how this multiplication of visual stimuli did not numb consumers' senses but prodded some to actively make While we cannot retrace the exact process, we do witness traces sense of this new imagistic world. of time and labour as the author turns and re-turns to older pages The immersive urban visual field of or newer films. Scrapbooks have traditionally been interpreted the 1930s and 1940s is reconstituted as technologies of memory, partly mnemonic aid, partly with wit and canny playfulness in this memorialisation. This implies a kind of freezing of time, a nostalgic little book to create a singularly in exercise to contain a moment of flux. Instead, Filmi Jagat seems between form, suspended somewhere to me an attempt at re-activation. As films return to theatres betwixt the realms of the public and film magazines during re-runs; or are temporally dislocated and the private. Culled from mass as announcements of a forthcoming release or reviews of a film produced print objects, Filmi Jagat is past; Lohana also revisits the pages of the book, tearing out some nevertheless an intimate work that pictures, pasting over others, folding in new stars as older ones melds the immediacy of a private are superseded. This is an attempt to capture experience, a mode diary and the reflective distance of a of inscription that materialises the present. In that it is a visionary carefully curated photo album. act, as are all acts of archiving which are oriented towards the future and feel the burden of history. Comprising clippings from film magazines, song booklets and advertisements from the mid 1930s to the late 1940s, Filmi Jagat produces a unique and fragmented history of film . This SCRAPBOOKING AS LIMINAL HISTORIOGRAPHY historical conjuncture saw tumultuous political action and social transformation. The decolonisation movement was set for political The scrapbook, as a generic cultural artifact, deserves its own victory even as the subcontinent was gripped by communal social history. While there has not been any serious study of tensions roused by talks of Partition.! The Bombay film industry scrapbook practices in India, the form has been widely discussed ~ was caught in a matrix of contradictory changes as sound in the Euro-American context. The history of the scrapbook form FIG. 1 Lohana folds multiple references into technology gradually replaced silent film , sources and movements is inextricably linked with the history of paper, the book, and the and over each other of capital started getting corporatised, a new kind of 'respectable' printing press. Traced back to 16th century Europe, the earliest creating a curious puzzle for the reader/spectator film worker was actively sought along class and caste lines, and scrapbooks were an elite form composed of rare printed texts. As to decipher. the star started to get untethered from the studio. such, they found their way into the legendary wunderkammers, » G) » -i 37 • FIG. 2B Hair oil advertise ment in Filmi Sitare. FIG. 2A Two non-film advertisements in Filmi Jagat. The Indian Insurance Companies in Mehlon Association, Bombay and d. Muhafiz . ASI Aeroplanes. Haider; p. Madhubala Pictures Pvt. ltd.; Ip. Madhubala, Ki s ~or e . Kumar, Ch.anchal, Pran, KN Singh. or cabinets of curiosities, as idiosyncratic treasures to be socially displayed. By the late 19th century, the easy availability of paper, POSTER MUST. YI low-cost printing, and steam-powered chromolithography led to Ilk A.--IIr. E-J-who.-iOT!he ................ _ ........ 01 ..... a surfeit of printed text and images in the public domain (Tucker --.I the ...... IIIId it io 10 him tho! ,.... w ...... obouIdbe. w et a12006 ; Garvey 2012 ; Day Good 2012). South Asia itself, during WE_ .................. Ior __ a:w I this period, witnessed a boom in popular visual culture, which :>'" travelled via newspapers, calendars, picture postcards, magazines, ~ POSTBR ADVBRTISING CORPORATION w w illustrated novels, advertisements, textile labels, theatre playbills, ...... .. .... 0:: I Vl even matchbook covers. [Fig. 2] <{ '"w '"• 38 , The 1900s inaugurated what can truly be called the century of cinema and this new medium and technology captured the urban imagination. Cinema's conquest of the popular imagination was aided by the steadily burgeoning print industry that evolved around cinema, producing trade journals, fanzines, song booklets, lobby cards, posters, newspaper advertisements,