A few reasons why Tollywood languishes
Bengali scriptwriters and directors were into making ‘pure’, intellectual, non-masala films which had talent but little success at the cash register
Mati-ul-Islam, a right-hand man of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and later the Finance Secretary of Bangladesh, first met Satyajit Ray to import some films for the benefit of Bangladeshis. The prices paid would astound today’s generation. The maximum was for Apur Sansar — a handsome price of Rs 25,000. In all, he purchased 12 films. This incident apart, the Bengal film industry, popularly called Tollywood, has not marketed its products as profitable as it might have. Or conversely perhaps, it has produced what is intellectually attractive but commercially not much viable.
Uncannily, Bengali men and women, in most segments of Bollywood, have played a role as big as any other community, including setting up studios. Bombay Talkies was founded by Devika Rani and her husband. Her role cannot be underestimated when one realises that Dilip Kumar aka Yusuf Khan was her exclusive find.
Bengalis sent nightingales, men and women of distinction, to the song and music world of Bombay, most notably Hemant Kumar, Manna Dey and the inimitable Kishore Kumar, not to forget Geeta Roy (later Geeta Dutt) and the veteran Juthica Roy, whose rendition of Ghoonghat ke pat khol re, tohe piyaa milenge resonates even today. We cannot also forget that the immortal KL Saigal was a product of New Theatres, founded by BN Sircar. So were Saigal’s renditions Babul mora and Jab dil hi toot gaya, which still ring in our ears. Incidentally, Saigal had been singing Rabindra sangeet in Kolkata. The golden voice of ghazals in the Bombay film world, Talat Mehmood, also began his career in All India Radio, Calcutta, under the pen name of Tapan Kumar.
One could conclude, and not without justification, that Tollywood has had talent but little success. The directors and filmmakers that come to mind are many, but let us mention the legendary Bimal Roy (who gave us Do Bigha Zameen, Kabuliwala and many other classics), Hrishikesh Mukherji, Basu Bhattacharya and Shakti Samanta, among the prominent ones.
It is true that Tollywood has produced some Hindi and Urdu films such as Devdas, but the net cast by Bengali directors has been narrow and confined mainly to Bengali movies. By the same token, not many non-Bengalis got much space on the Tollywood screen. The reason is that unless one is a son of the soil, it is difficult to pick up spoken Bangla, which is first a melody and then a language. For example, one is pronounced ‘Ayk’ while 21 is ‘ek’; 51 is ‘ek anno’ and 61 becomes ‘ek sutti’. Not many who are not born in Bengal can cope with this variation of melody first and language later. Many of even those born on its soil are not conscious of this variation.
As a result, once Bollywood got going, Tollywood could not compete. Also, Tollywood selects subjects without any marketing strategy, and lacks a proper distribution network. The West Bengal Government is silent about promoting good cinema while other States pursue it seriously. Another reason may be that Tollywood did not traverse from the zamindari psyche to that of businesspeople and eventually to the respectable middle class. The Bengali zamindar, once zamindari was over, continued to look down upon business as an OBC occupation; he descended straight into the middle class. The contempt for business persisted as before. Occupationally, the zamindar took refuge in either intellectualism or trade unionism.
When it came to films, Tollywood’s scriptwriters and directors produced ‘pure’ and intellectual films, without any masala being allowed to touch the kadhai, a la Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. Anyone who could deal in masala stuff and wanted to make money had to take a train from the erstwhile Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) to Bombay.
It is not too late for Tollywood to catch up. For this, the Kolkata film world needs to think anew, devise new strategies and join the race. The normal or run-of-the-mill explanation of financial paucity would not come in the way. As American businessmen say, “Money follows a bright new idea with the confidence to manage it. Ideas and management do not follow money.” To take an example of a film that was a simple idea, which was followed by plenty of finance, it was Gandhi by Sir Richard Attenborough. From the most elderly and learned intellectuals to the youngest of schoolchildren, everyone could identify with the classic movie and enjoy it. Why did we have to wait for an English knight to produce a classic on an Indian giant?
Between the 19th and 20th centuries, India produced any number of giants. The saga of Netaji Subhas remains an epic, for instance. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was poetry and music personified, besides being India’s first Nobel laureate for Literature, for Gitanjali. Bankim Chandra was an inspiration for heroes, for Tollywood or any other ‘Wood’ to produce movies on. Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Vivekananda are spirituality epitomised.
Coming to themes, is there any shortage in West Bengal or any other part of India? Sandakphu, the Sunderbans with its Royal Bengal Tigers, the collieries and tea gardens are landmarks of the State. Kapurush deals with tea gardens, but not with tea-growing; they use these gardens as a stage for dubious romance.
(The writer is a well-known columnist, an author and a former member of the Rajya Sabha. The views expressed are personal.)
Source: The Pioneer
