2 stories that steal my eyes this morning are a bit opposite to each other.
Both laud human feeling as the foundation of lasting relationship, but while one laments that the Indian society has become more intolerant, the other narrates how people from the south on job to Kolkata are slowly finding the city an inclusive place to live in.
The Times of India article, ‘What happened to our society?‘, informs that Anna Kashfi, alias Joan O’Callaghan, never returned home to Calcutta after marrying Marlon Brando. Divorced in less than two years, she tried out many careers and finally ended up as a cleaning woman in a LA suburb.
This is a completely new knowledge for me. I dare say many people know this. But, how does this relate to our society’s lack of concern?
The answer comes in the next sentence. Yet people in Calcutta still remember her with pride. Oh, really! How is it that this sounds completely alien!
From the ToI article the author’s contention of our supposed lack of concern for others is not clear. However, the article is worth reading if only for a treasure of information it presents.
The other article, titled Southern Comfort, is rather forthright. It comes from Kolkata Newsline of Mumbai’s Indian Express group, and tells tales of techies from ‘faraway’ Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu, who are slowly finding Kolkata a not-so-bad place to live in.
They find comfort that they’re able to see southern films in cinemas like Roxy and Priya. It’s okay if that gives them succor as they toil hard for living.
The author, Premankur Biswas, however makes the story a tad elongated than what it would permit.
He laments that Bengali film enthusiasts like Madhurima Mukhopadhyay, a first year student of Mass Communications at Jadavpur University, finds no interest in Telugu or Tamil commercial blockbusters, though she likes a Mani Ratnam or an Adoor Gopalakrishnan.
Not surprising that, because an occasional look-in aside, commercial films in other languages you know nothing of can rarely draw serious film buffs.
hey it’s premankur from indian express here …i googled my name and found a link to your blog ….its interesting how you choose to pick that very comment to establish your point… i have to agree that from your vantage point the argument seems very legitimate but madhurima mukhopadyay was quoted also as a student of ciunema in my article… and commercial cinema is an important part of the popular culture of any society… if we choose to ignore it then arent we doing injustice to taht particular society ?
But i must say your observations are incredibly insightful …. sometimes we are so self absorbed and run against such impossible deadlines that we dont stop to think about the readers…
I most definitely be more careful now …
thank you
Premankur, thanks for your comments. There’s no denying commercial cinema is an inseparable part of any culture, but then unless it is sub-titled, a movie in another language is difficult to comprehend.
Madhurima’s reluctance may be because commercial blockbusters in any Indian language have more or less same things to say. May be she can explain better.