PRIDE, NOW PREJUDICED...

PRIDE, NOW PREJUDICED...
Rishi Majumder takes a trip in and around one of the Mumbai film
industry's oldest institutions

Off Grant road, steer into a narrow yet car-crammed gully to view aged
giant Vegas style letters standing horizontally tall to pronounce
N-A-A-Z, meaning pride. The letters branding the grand old theatre
building hang unaware along a dilapidated edifice, above a garish,
painted B grade sex-flick banner that reads Husn (meaning beauty!) –
considerate caveat against the devil's favourite sin! Scurry past
huge re-christened 'Hindi' Hollywood hoardings (Pirates Of The
Caribbean becomes Samundar Ke Lootere; Anaconda becomes Naga) on paint
ridden walls. Redemption is a cup of sickly sweet Chai across the
classic-western-saloon swinging wooden doors at the packed Naaz
cafeteria.
Packed with distributors and brokers, who're a part of, or connected
to the one of the near 80 distributor's offices in the six floors of
the building above it. The cafeteria, painted in subtly varying shades
of green, as if intended to cool down heated scraps, appears to lend
to discussions a surreal hue. No frenzied share bazaar here. Dealings
are conducted with analysis and amicability. "Are you a journalist?"
asks a suspicious reed thin moustached man who introduces himself as
producer, director and distributor Prakash Ahlawadi. More attentions
are diverted, but conversations presume. "Husn (remember the garish
poster?), released yesterday, was removed today only from a hall.
Collections were so bad," mentions distributor Kesri Nath Matre. So
who was the producer or distributor? "God knows," Matre guffaws.
"Someone on the first floor. He hasn't released a film for so long
I've forgotten his name. And with his current success rate, I'm not
very interested in finding out." "A Bhojpuri film came in it's place –
Mangal Sutra," pipes in another broker. "You have to know where to put
a sexy film. It won't work everywhere!" comes from Ahlawadi. Umm,
'sexy film' denotes B grade semi porn. And Bhojpuri cinema seems the
new trend. "Well, over 50 percent of the population in Mumbra,
Kalbadevi, Kurla, Biwandi, Chembur and near JJ flyover are from UP or
Bihar. So, it's inevitable," Matre mutters. At one time, this
cafeteria was the whole and sole of the film business. While it still
reverberates with activity, "Big production houses like Yash Raj Films
and Mukta Arts taking over all India rights for all the big releases,
leaves us with little to play with," sighs Ahlawadi in between sorry
tea slurps. Add to that VCDs, cable TV, endless channels and
multiplexes with high ticket and refreshment prices. "Also, now cinema
isn't for the lower middle or lower class," grumbles another broker,
about how a poorer citizen would rather watch a film at home, family
et all, than pay for them at the theatre. "Which is why films since
the 90s haven't spoken about lower middle class or lower class value
systems or issues as such," Ahlawadi thrusts in. Matre attaches a
label to this arbitrary opinion cocktail: "Dhande Mein Ab Utna Mazaa
Nahin Raha."
Stride away from the din into the den. March into Naaz theatre's
colossal entrance hall… which is colossally empty. The only remnants of
what the theatre used to be are the overhanging the Italian marble
staircase and three magnificently white statues – a boy blowing a
bugle into the sky, a girl holding a basket of wares and another girl
standing coyly with a fox like creature. These emblems of Gemini and
Raj Kamal studios today form similes for the theatre in terms of their
oblivion in public memory. The theatre which used to have only two
films running consecutively into their silver or golden jubilees for
the entire year, with a whooping average of 75 percent collections,
today beseeches a 25 percent audience even. "Producers used to plan
their films so that they'd get their dates in Naaz," smiles R P Anand
sadly. Anand, Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner, ex President of
Exhibitor's Association, ex Chairman of the Theatre Employees
Association and owner of Naaz theatre and building asked, "Is this
going to be a negative or positive article", then opened the
floodgates regardless. "Producers would have agreements within
themselves so that they could premiere their films here. Else a film
would go on running forever," the grand old man of Naaz smiles as he
shows off his collectionj of silver and golden jubilee awards for
premiering films – Yaadon Ki Baraat, Junglee, Waqt… the list of greats
goes on. He then leads on, Willy Wonka-ishly to the raison de etre of
his Naaz. The mammoth 1200 seater has distinct carvings on either side
of emblems from leading studios. What's revitalizing, however, is the
pala'tially high ceiling, something that no multiplex can provide.
"And these are the cry boxes!" Anand exclaims gleefully like a child
stepping into the candy store of memory. 'Cry Boxes' were rectangular
six seaters which isolated a family with a wailing baby from the rest
of the audience via a large glass window, while letting them hear the
movie through a private monitor. While leaving the theatre Anand
informs us that the blue and violet glass paneling behind the white
statues was used in Mughal-e-Azam. "If things turn back, I'll make it
even more beautiful as before," he speaks, looking at space, in a
voice that would many a hardened cynic cry.
Wind you're way out, and up through the building where the
distributor's offices have lain since 60 years. Not all who sit here
own an office, however. Many make do with a desk which is sub-let to
them. "Are you from the press? Please write about the state of the
building?" shout two angry distributors on the way down, pointing at a
spot where the wall has disintegrated to let the pipes and wiring
inside come bare. Every corner bloodbathed in Paan spit seems a
witness to happenings in the B grade horror flick posters which pop up
randomly (Shaitan Ki Premika, meaning The Monster's Mistress, is a
must check out). The distributors don't tell us something Anand has,
however: "I charge 40 paise of rent per square foot, even today!" Many
an illustrious name protrudes from among the melee of office sign
boards however. Mukta Arts on the first floor. N M Sippy's office on
the third floor. Also protruding, are not so illustrious B grade and
Bhojpuri posters – Bhavani, The Tiger, has a South Indian Actor
glaring at the camera; Two women tug at one haplessly confused model
in Tera Pati Mera Pyaar. Chaska, An Addiction, and Garam Bazaar on the
other hand, hail the semi porn genre. And then, to provide that mind
boggling twist a classic formula film is famed for, you're confronted
by the Columbia Tristar office which "Distributes its English films
itself, but sells the rights of the dubbed Hindi versions to us," a
distributor informs. And why, smart alecks like us may venture, do
these distributors continue like this, if the business is so bad?
Anand, knowing smile intact, answers: "Because that's all they've been
doing for half their lives. The business of film, is all they know…"