Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (55 page)

1
. Although the international press kept referring to Kapoor as a “Bollywood star,” he would not be regarded as a “star” by audiences or industry members. Kapoor was mainly known for his roles as villains and comic sidekicks and never as a leading man.

2
. See Chaudhury (2005), Sanghvi (2005), Venkatesan (2005).

3
. According to some news reports, the actresses Kapoor named were Rani Mukherji, Aishwarya Rai, and Preity Zinta; the producer/directors were Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai, and Yash Johar. Not all of the media outlets chose to divulge these names.

4
. Susan Seizer (2005) also discusses the issue of managing stigma in her ethnography of special drama artists in Tamil Nadu.

5
. On the emergence of
middle-class identity
see Chatterjee (1993), Joshi (2001), Mosse (1985), and Strathern (1992); on contemporary formations of middle-class identity see Liechty (2003), Mankekar (1999), and Skeggs (1997).

6
. I thank Bambi Schieffelin for suggesting this particular analytical framework and reintroducing me to Goffman.

7
. During my first stint of fieldwork in Bombay, films were never shot from start to finish in one continuous shooting schedule, but rather in increments—sometimes a schedule would be as short as two days or as long as three weeks. Due to the constraints of my own funding schedule, I was unable to participate as an assistant for the entire length of the production process.

8
. For a discussion of the stigma attached to the performance of Hindustani (North Indian classical) music see Bakhle (2005); for Carnatic (South Indian classical) music see Weidman (2006); and for theater see Banerjee (1998), Hansen (1992), and Seizer (2005).

9
. This was not such an unusual occurrence, since in many folk performance traditions in India men played the parts of women.

10
. Viewing them as cultured and refined women, nobility would frequently send their sons to the best-known courtesans for training in etiquette, manners, the art of conversation, and the appreciation of literature, poetry, and other arts. Compared to prostitutes, a courtesan had more control over her body and sexual activity, often entering into a monogamous relationship with her patron. The patron would provide for any children he had with his courtesan, and the children would carry on the profession into the next generation—boys being trained as accompanying musicians and the girls in all of the arts of their mother (Oldenburg 1991).

11
. As women holding property and wealth, courtesans were seen as an integral part of the ruling elite the British were trying to displace. Many of the native rulers in India were portrayed by the British as decadent and unable to govern properly. The British waged campaigns against courtesans to reduce their influence by taking over their property, discrediting their patrons as immoral and debauched, and using many of the women as prostitutes for British soldiers, which stripped the women of their cultural function and exposed them to sexually transmitted diseases (Oldenburg 1991).

12
. For a rich and engaging exposition of the anxiety around actresses’ social and class background in the 1930s see Majumdar (2009).

13
. The adjective of the western state of Maharashtra; actually in her autobiography, Khote, whose maiden name was Laud, mentions that her family “originally” belonged to Goa and the elders spoke Konkani at home. Khote grew up in Bombay, however, and mentioned that Marathi and English were spoken at home.

14
. The film was
Farebi Jaal
(Web of Deceit), and Khote appeared in it for about ten minutes (Khote 2006).

15
. Khote had agreed to act in the film out of economic necessity, because her husband’s family had lost all of their wealth by speculating in the stock market and she was trying to supplement their meager income; however, acting in a film caused her to lose her main source of income as a private English tutor. She subsequently joined Prabhat Studios and acted as the lead in a number of Marathi and Hindi films. Due to her elite social background, Khote’s presence in the film profession has always been remarked upon in film histories as anomalous for her time.

16
. An obvious exception was the actress Shobana Samarth, popular in the 1940s, and her two daughters, Nutan and Tanuja, who both became actresses in the 1950s and 1960s.

17
. For example, Rishi Kapoor’s son became an actor in 2007, while his daughter was married in 2005; Dharmendra’s two sons, Sunny and Bobby, became actors, while his daughters from his first wife have nothing to do with filmmaking. Sunil Dutt’s son, Sanjay, is an actor while his two daughters are not. Amitabh Bachchan’s son, Abhishek, is an actor, while his daughter, Shweta, is married into a prominent business family, the Nandas who are related by marriage to Raj Kapoor as well. Raj Kapoor’s daughter, Ritu, married Rajan Nanda and their son, Nikhil, is married to Shweta Bachchan.

18
. Mussoorie is a town in the foothills of the Himalayas in the state of Uttarakhand. Her first film was
Kurbaan
(Sacrifice) (1991), in which she played opposite Salman Khan.

19
. Beauty pageants have been an important source of actresses for the contemporary film industry since the 1970s: Zeenat Aman, Juhi Chawla, Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra, Neha Dhupia, and Tanushree Dutta are all Hindi film actresses who were former beauty queens.

20
. Chatterjee 1989, 1993; Joshi 2001; Mayo 1927; Sangari and Vaid 1989; Sarkar and Sarkar 2008; Singer 1972; Sinha 2006.

21
. Imran is a pseudonym.

22
. I discuss the dominance of face-to-face interaction and personal relationships, along with kin and social networks in shaping the structure and work culture of the film industry in chapters five and six.

23
. For an interesting parallel, but in a very different context see Seizer (2005) and her discussion of the attempts at respectability by Tamil special drama artists in southern India.

24
. Mukherji is not Muslim; while I can’t comment on how widespread the practice is of industry women donning
burqas
to avoid being noticed in public spaces, it is a common feature of actors’ anecdotes about being able to see films with the general public.

25
. Rai has been seen in British and American productions such as Gurinder Chadha’s
Bride and Prejudice
(2004), Paul Berges’s
The Mistress of Spices
(2005), Doug Lefler’s
The Last Legion
(2007), and Harald Zwart’s
The Pink Panther 2
(2009).

26
. I had been spending time at photographer Rakesh Shreshta’s studio observing photo shoots of film stars for a variety of English-language film magazines; Rai’s shoot was a pretty elaborate affair with multiple outfits and, unlike others, it was not commissioned by a magazine. Shreshta decided on his own to take photos of Rai and then sell them to film magazines.

27
. Dixit comes from a Maharashtrian Brahmin family whose immediate and extended members consist of highly educated professionals settled in the United States. Dixit married a U.S.-based Indian doctor—also of the same caste and regional background—through an arranged marriage and she resettled in California and then Colorado.

28
. Aditya’s father, Yash Chopra, has been one of the most consistently successful producer/directors of the Hindi film industry for over four decades. Aditya’s late uncle, B. R. Chopra, was also a well-respected producer and director in the industry.

29
. The “training” that Dutt is referring to involved taking lessons in horse-riding, Hindi and Urdu diction, dancing, and fighting.

30
. Whistling Woods divided its curriculum into eight disciplines: acting; animation; business of film and television; cinematography; direction; editing; screenwriting; as well as sound recording, design, and music production.

31
. The catalog I obtained during my visit in 2006 listed the tuition fees both in rupees (for Indian residents) and dollars (for nris and expatriates). The annual tuition for nris and foreigners ranged from $7,500 to $13,750, depending on the course of study and year of study; for example, the first year of the screenwriting program cost $7,500 while the second year cost $10,000. In terms of the fee structure for Indian residents, the most current information on wwi’s website lists total costs for their two-year programs in cinematography, direction, editing, producing, screenwriting, and acting, ranging from 750,000 rupees (screenwriting) to 1.3 million rupees (direction), plus a 1 million rupee security deposit. Additionally, a 10.3 percent service tax is levied upon the tuition amount (
http://www.whistlingwoods.net
).

32
. Sridhar Kumar is a pseudonym.

1
. Back in 1996 even some scholars, both foreign and Indian, could not fathom what I could learn about Indian cinema from observing the production of films rather than analyzing the finished product. I remember being asked, “Do you learn anything interesting from visiting the sets?” Of course such attitudes have changed in the scholarly community, both with the increase in media
ethnography
and with shifts away from a text-centric approach in film studies.

2
. The material is drawn from my observations of film sets and shoots in Bombay in 1996, 2000, 2005, and 2006, as well as in the United States in 2001 and 2005. The conversations are a combination of actual speech and my rendering of the
discussions that took place on a daily basis during my fieldwork. The characters are based on actual individuals but do not correspond directly to any one person in particular. The events all took place but not necessarily in the same day or on the same set. With the exception of the names of the production spaces, all of the names in the sketch—of the film, the production company, and the people— are completely fictitious. My intention with this strategy is to protect the identities and privacy of my informants, most of whom are celebrities—or quite well known—within and outside India. Given the high profile of the Hindi film industry and the tremendous media attention it garners, a simple use of pseudonyms could still tip off the identity of people and films to those who are familiar with this world.

3
. I tried to represent some of this diversity in the vignette; for example, Malhotra, Chadda, and Khanna are Punjabi; Das and Sen are Bengali; Sulekha is from Andhra Pradesh; Menon is from Kerala; Lakhani is Sindhi; Sharma is from U.P.; Arif, Iqbal, and Khan are Muslim; and Jignesh is Gujarati.

4
. For example, terms such as gaffers, grips, best boy are not commonly used in Bombay.

5
. Diwali or Deepavali is often described as the “festival of lights.” It is a very important pan-Indian Hindu festival that takes place in the lunar month of
Karthik
, falling between late October and early November.

6
. Filmistan is not a pseudonym, but the name of a production facility which used to be a studio in the traditional sense in the 1940s and ’50s.

7
. Dance director is the term used for choreographers in Indian filmmaking.

8
. The system of Hindi film distribution will be explained in chapter five.

9
. Malhotra and Agrawal’s entire conversation would be in Hindi. Any English words—other than “film,” which has become so incorporated into Hindi that its endings [
filmein
,
filmon
] suit Hindi grammatical structure—which would occur naturally in their conversation are not italicized.

10
. mg stands for “minimum guarantee,” which will be explained in the following chapter.

11
.
Devdas
is an actual film, and here the filmmakers are referring to the 2002 version, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, and Aishwarya Rai, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Based on the 1917 Bengali novel by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, the story of
Devdas
has been a favorite of Indian filmmakers since 1928, and there have been numerous filmed versions of the story in a number of Indian languages over the years.

1
. During my dissertation defense I was told that my chapter about the importance of kinship as a structuring organizational principle in the industry was not revealing of the production practices in the industry and why had I not defined all of the various occupational roles in the industry? For example, what does an executive producer do? At that time of my initial research, there was no executive producer category in the Hindi film industry.

2
. I thank Faye Ginsburg for coining this phrase.

3
. Sippy’s first production was
Sazaa
(Punishment, 1951).

4
. BIG pictures produced eight films, but as co-productions. UTV produced five films solo and two others as co-productions. Yashraj produced three films solo.

5
. Both events were heavily covered by the Indian press. For more information about Gulshan Kumar’s murder see Koppikar and Baweja (1997). About Bharat Shah’s arrest, see Raval and Chopra (2001).

6
. Chopra established his banner, B. R. Films in 1955, and his younger brother, Yash, started assisting him and then directed films for the banner from 1959, until he broke off and formed his own banner, Yashraj Films, in 1971. Though B. R. Chopra passed away in 2008, the banner continues to produce films with his son Ravi, who had started directing films from the 1970s, at the helm.

7
. Even if a film’s rights have been sold for all of the territories, a producer would still need finance to bridge the gap between the advance and the final payment.

8
. These are: (1) Bombay; (2) Delhi/U.P.; (3) East Punjab; (4) West Bengal, or Eastern; (5) Bihar/Nepal; (6) Assam; (7) Orissa; (8) C.P. (Central Province)/Berar; (9) C.I. (Central India); (10) Rajasthan; (11) Nizam; (12) Mysore; (13) Andhra; (14) South, or Tamil Nadu/Kerala.

9
. Very little research has been done about how the distribution system came into being and who the earliest distributors were. Distributors were not very sure about the history of the system. I hazard a guess that the divisions arise from older regional commercial centers. There needs to be historical work done on how these distribution territories arose and who went into film distribution in India.

10
. Pakistan and Bangladesh are not included in this distribution network, since each country has banned the import of Indian films since 1952 (Pakistan) and 1962 (East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh in 1971), although a thriving piratedfilm culture exists, especially in Pakistan. In 2006, Pakistan relaxed the ban and allowed the import of three Hindi films; in 2008, a Pakistani Senate committee recommended lifting the ban on Indian films and importing them on a reciprocal basis, after which a select number of Hindi films began to be screened in Pakistan (“Race a Hit” 2008).

11
. Before the advent of video and its concomitant,
piracy
, Hindi films were not released in all of the major cities simultaneously. Films would first be released in Bombay or Delhi and then open a few weeks later in other cities. The simultaneous release of films in A-class centers began in the 1990s to thwart the problems of video and cable piracy in the higher revenue centers.

12
. Traditionally, distributors bid for and bought the exclusive rights to distribute a film theatrically for five to ten years in their particular territory. Each subsequent innovation in audiovisual technology has chipped away at distributors’ monopoly over the circulation of films, however. The entry of video in the early 1980s made a significant impact on the theatrical business in B-and C-class centers due to the time lag between a film’s release in Bombay and its eventual appearance in the smaller towns, by which time the pirated videos of the films were easily available. The entry of satellite television in the early 1990s reduced the theatrical life of a film so that the terms of theatrical distribution have shrunk over the years from five years, to one year, to six months and, as of this writing, to three months. Currently, the film industry has even invested in digital delivery systems as a measure to fight piracy.

13
. During the course of my research, I have calculated those chances, based on figures from the trade press, to range from 10 to 15 percent.

14
. For example, Yash Chopra opened up distribution offices in London and New York in the late 1990s in order to distribute his and others’ films.

15
. I thank Vipul Agrawal for introducing me to this concept and pointing out this particular phenomenon.

16
. There are remarkably very few “people” along the lines of “have my people call your people.”

17
. In terms of other members of the industry, they—directors, producers, choreographers, art directors, music directors, editors, and others—have assistants who help them on the specific film project at hand, but do not have personal assistants necessarily, nor do they have secretaries like stars. Writers do not have agents. There just is not the same layer of mediators as exists in the United States.

18
. Bhagnani’s first film was
Coolie No. 1
, starring Govinda and directed by David Dhawan. He continued to work with Dhawan and Govinda for two more films—
Hero
No. 1
and
Bade Miyan Chote Miyan
, and Dhawan in
Biwi No. 1
. With his first four films being box-office successes, Bhagnani gained standing in the industry as an A-list producer.

19
. Shabana Azmi is an award-winning actress who has also garnered a great deal of international recognition for her films and her social activism.

20
. The fact that I had met Tanuja in Philadelphia is a result of social networks— specifically of graduate students from India among the Penn, Temple, and Drexel campuses. Even though I grew up in the United States, when I started graduate school at Penn, my apartment mates and their friends had all come from India to the United States for graduate studies. Chandra was attending film school at Temple the same time that I was at Penn, and we met through mutual friends.

21
. How did I meet Chopra’s mother? Also through social networks—a tenant of my friend’s parents knew Mrs. Chopra well and arranged the introduction.

22
. My second stint as an assistant on the film
Ghulam
was the result of having become good friends with the director Vikram Bhatt, who then asked me if I would like to assist him.

23
. The ability of unconnected women to get a break has been a longstanding feature of Hindi film production. For example, I came across a published interview with producer/director Subhash Ghai from April 1983 where the interviewer was remarking that Ghai, by introducing a completely unknown actor, Jackie Shroff, as the lead in his film
Hero
, was doing something extraordinary. The writer’s introduction to the interview states: “In the existing setup of our film world, it is only girls who get breaks in A-class projects. The reason is simple. A new girl in an A-class project does not make much of a difference in the film’s selling ratio. But a new boy in an A-class project can make all the difference. As such, over the years we’ve always had names in leading men’s roles in big films, or else we’ve had star sons, who are as good as established names. . . As such, Jackie Shroff getting a break in
Hero
is nothing short of a miracle” (Kathuria 2008 [1983]: 11).

24
. I am not trying to underestimate the significance of female stars, but just accounting for the greater number of outsider women as compared to men.

25
. Kumar is referring to actor Abhishek Bachchan and director Rohan Sippy, who are good friends, having grown up together in the industry; their fathers, Amitabh Bachchan and Ramesh Sippy, worked together.

26
. The other means of trying to enter the industry include the advertising world, modeling, beauty pageants, and professional training institutions such as the National School of Drama or the Film and Television Institute of India (ftii), the latter which provides a pool of technical skill for the industry.

27
. For example, Dadasaheb Phalke, who made the first feature film in India and earned the appellation the “Father of Indian Cinema,” did not create any sort of directing or producing lineage; he died a forgotten and penniless man; his birthdate started being commemorated in 1970.

28
. For example in the pre-Independence/colonial era—some of the directors and technicians working in Bombay—at Bombay Talkies—were from Germany; one of the top stars in the silent and early sound era was Mary Evans, known as Fearless Nadia.

29
. Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar are the two actors who were complete outsiders to Bombay and the Hindi film industry.

30
. Aamir Khan turned producer with film
Lagaan
(2001) and then he turned director for the film
Taare Zameen Par
(2007).

31
. See Marcus and Hall (1992), Pedroso de Lima (2000), Rudner (1994), Yanagisako (2002), and Creed (2000).

32
. I am grateful to David Ludden for making me aware of this point.

33
. Hindi has three second-person pronouns—
tu
,
tum
, and
aap
—which have a corresponding verb conjugation and possessive pronouns that represent a continuum of most familiar (
tu
) to most respectful (
aap
). Unfortunately these differences in register are masked by writing the chapter four sketch in English.

34
. Sanjay Dutt has had a very tumultuous personal and professional life, which has been covered by the Indian press in great detail as well. In his twenties he was troubled by drug addiction and was sent to the United States for rehab. In 1993 he was arrested for weapons possession under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (tada) in conjunction with the bomb blasts that occurred in Bombay earlier that year. He spent sixteen months in jail until he was finally granted bail in late 1995. During my fieldwork in 1996, he returned to acting, and his first day of shooting, in March 1996, was marked by a great deal of ceremony and celebration. The studio was decked out with flowers; there was a band of
dhol
(a large drum) players welcoming him into the studio complex; there were young women showering him with flowers as he walked into the shooting floor; and the press photographers went berserk taking photos of him. In July 2007, Dutt was sentenced to six years of rigorous imprisonment for illegally possessing weapons while being cleared of charges of terrorism. After spending a few weeks in jail, Dutt’s appeal for bail was granted by the Supreme Court of India. He has an appeal for acquittal pending before the Supreme Court.

35
. Later in the day the bodyguard, in an attempt to save face with Akhtar, approached him, but instead of apologizing said that he remembered seeing him at some awards ceremony the previous year. I was watching this interaction, still incredulous about the man’s lack of self-consciousness, when I caught the eye of the Indian crewmember who had intercepted the bodyguard—he looked at me, rolled his eyes, and shook his head in disbelief.

36
. Therefore, an actor starting out in his or her career in leading roles will be referred to as a “newcomer,” whereas actors past their prime are termed “veterans.” Actors who play roles other than that of the male or female leads are called “character actors.”

37
. This feature of Hindi filmmaking has been commented upon even by Hollywood executives. For example, Michael Lynton, the chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, was quoted in an article about the star-driven nature of the Bombay film industry in the
New York Times
: “There is a variety of ways in which a picture
gets made in Hollywood, but I can say without qualification that in Hindi pictures stars are the determining factor much more than they are in Los Angeles” (Chopra 2008).

38
. Since 2000, Roshan has only directed films starring his son Hrithik, who became an enormous box-office sensation after his debut film,
Kaho Na Pyaar Hai
(Say That it Is Love). In this respect, Roshan is still unique among his peers—he is the only producer/director who has a major bankable star in his immediate family.

39
. For example, in his film
Pardes
(Foreign Land, 1997), Ghai introduced the actress Mahima Chaudhary, but for
Taal
(Rhythm, 1999) and
Yaadein
(Memories, 2001), the leading roles were played by actors already known and established—or becoming established—in the industry, such as Aishwarya Rai, Akshaye Khanna, and Anil Kapoor in
Taal
, and Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor, and Jackie Shroff in
Yaadein
. For
Kisna
(2005), Ghai introduced two new actresses—Isha Shervani and Antonia Bernath—but
Yuvraaj
(2008) featured stars such as Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, and Katrina Kaif.