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- Top 60 Books on Film & Music for Cinema Lovers
Top 60 Books on Film & Music for Cinema Lovers
Calling all film buffs and music aficionados! Check out our specially curated list of the best books on film and music in India.
Bollywood Does Battle: The War Movie and the Indian Popular Imagination by Samir Chopra
From Haqeeqat, Border and Hindustan Ki Kasam to Vijeta, LOC Kargil, Lakshya and The Ghazi, the Indian film industry’s war movies play an acute role in representing this aspect of Indian history; Samir Chopra’s fascinating book takes a closer look at these movies’ emotionally charged depictions of Indian military history.
A Gandhian Affair by Sanjay Suri
Hindi cinema, ever since Independence, has revolved almost entirely around issues of sex and money. This may seem odd given the conservative taste of the times. But that we do not ‘see’ sex does not hide just how much sex there is in the cinema. As for money, a nagging theme is the impact of money – or the lack of it – on sex. Sanjay Suri argues that Hindi cinema was an unlikely offspring of the Father of the Nation – the product of Gandhi’s celibacy and austerity. His heroic retreat from wealth and sexuality was written into the cinema and then elaborately filmed shot by shot. Suri draws on numerous examples – from Mother India to Do Bigha Zameen; Shree 420 to Pyaasa; Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam to Guide; and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge to Lage Raho Munnabhai – to show how cinema was made within well-defined moral fences that were built with dos and don’ts about sex and money. A Gandhian Affair is a history of India through the preoccupations of its cinema.
Of Gifted Voice: The Life and Art of M.S. Subbulakshmi by Keshav Desiraju
Though M.S. Subbulakshmi’s story has often been told, we know little of the woman behind the image and the musician behind the public persona. Of Gifted Voice by Keshav Desiraju attempts, with warmth and keen-eyed perception, to understand the music, the history, the artiste and her incomparable presence.
A Patchwork Quilt: A Collage of My Creative Life by Sai Paranjpye
Frank, forthright, full of anecdotes and written with a flair for recounting her multifarious journey in lively detail, A Patchwork Quilt is Sai Paranjpye’s memoir that looks back on a life well lived.
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge by Anupama Chopra
The longest-running film ever. The coming-of-age of Indian cinema’s all-time superstar, Shah Rukh Khan. The template for what we now know as Bollywood cinema. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, playing continuously for twenty years (and counting) in a Mumbai theatre, heralded a new era in Hindi films. Heck, even Barack Obama referenced it in one of his speeches. One of the earliest contemporary Hindi films to focus on Indian residents abroad, DDLJ addressed a newly liberalized nation with its heady cocktail of European locations, flashy cars, and gorgeous mansions. It was also – perhaps not quite surprisingly – a conformist film, upholding traditions of premarital chastity and family authority, affirming an essential ‘Indian’ identity in the face of the forces of westernization and liberalization. Critic, author and analyst Anupama Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge: A Modern Classic is a deep dive into the movie, examining the making of it as well as the impact it had on popular culture and Hindi cinema.
Gangs Of Wasseypur by Jigna Kothari & Supriya Madangarli
Running close to five hours and thirty minutes and boasting of no big stars, Gangs of Wasseypur is unlike any Hindi film you might have watched. It is also one of the most feted Hindi films of recent times in international circles. It has been spoken of as India’s answer to landmark gangster films of the west, like The Godfather. In Gangs of Wasseypur: The Making of a Modern Classic, the authors go behind the scenes through its chaotic gestation to bring to life the trials and tribulations, the triumphs and ecstasies involved in following one’s dream. Including the complete screenplay, the book is as much a testimony to the spirit of everyone associated with the film as it is a tribute to the intellectual honesty and indefatigable spirit of its director, Anurag Kashyap.
Raj Kapoor, the creator of some of Hindi cinema’s most enduring classics, is one of the greatest film-makers India has ever produced. As producer, director, actor, editor, storyteller, he blazed a trail for subsequent generations of film-makers to follow and aspire to. He was also known to the world as an extraordinary and controversial showman, an entertainer par excellence, someone who created the template for Hindi cinema. Raj Kapoor: The One and Only Showman is a unique experiment, both an autobiography and a biography. While the autobiography uses his own words, culled from interviews, journals and anecdotes, to provide an intimate glimpse into the mind of a genius, the biography is an attempt to record for posterity the lesser-known facets of his magnificent personality through the recollections of his family, colleagues and friends. As revealing as it is engaging, this is a fascinating portrait of the man regarded as the last of the true movie moguls of Indian cinema.
Seldom has a contemporary film’s dialogues fired the general imagination the way Pink‘s did. Seldom has a film challenged ‘Bollywood’s popular misogynistic tropes’ like Pink did. Released in September 2016, the film began to trend immediately. Over the next few months, as it became a phenomenal box-office success, it also became the subject of social and cultural debates – on the rights of women, and the justice and penal system in India. Not only did it manage to capture the zeitgeist but also established itself as a yardstick by which future films making a socio-political statement would be judged. The film became a tool for organizations to sensitize people about crimes against women. For a Hindi film to be able to do that is unheard of. Pink: The Inside Story looks at the making of the movie and tries to understand why it resonated with large sections of society. With inputs from its principal cast and crew, Gautam Chintamani tracks the journey of the film – from its inception to the writing of its numerous drafts that kept being shaped by real-life events and personal experiences of the people connected with it, to its toils to wangle a producer within ‘Bollywood’ as the big studios refused to come on board, and from its spot-on casting to the immediacy with which it endeared itself to its audience. Including the much-feted screenplay of the film, this is a riveting account of how one of the most important films of our times came to be made.
Vinod Mehta’s riveting account of Meena Kumari’s life begins with her death, weeks after the release of her swan-song Pakeezah. He goes back in time to Meetawala Chawl in Dadar East, where she was born, and to the flats and mansions she lived in, the studios where she worked, the hospital where she died and the cemetery she was cremated in. Having never met the star, Mehta talks to all those who were close to her – her much-maligned husband Kamal Amrohi, her sisters, her in-laws, her colleagues, and co-stars – to create a complex portrait of a woman who carefully cultivated the image of someone ‘unfairly exploited and betrayed by her lovers and lady luck’. It was a picture that blended with her on-screen persona. The media had, after all, already anointed her Hindi cinema’s ‘great tragedienne’. First published in 1972, this revised edition comes with a fresh introduction by the author and introduces a legend of Indian cinema to a new readership.
A stunning interpretation of Hamlet, Haider is the third film in the Shakespearean trilogy written and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. Read the original screenplay of this award-winning film.
Amar Akbar Anthony by Sidharth Bhatia
Even forty years after it was made, Amar Akbar Anthony remains the final word in film entertainment, which many film-makers aspire to, but seldom manage to replicate. Well-known journalist and author Sidharth Bhatia goes behind the scenes of one of the most loved Hindi films of all time to unravel the story of its making and what it means to Indian cinema. Talking to various people associated with the film – cameraman Peter Pereira, scriptwriter Kader Khan, composer Pyarelal and stars Rishi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan – who fondly remember how Manmohan Desai created this magical movie, he has written a book as entertaining as the film itself, a tribute both to the iconic film and to the incredible vision of its maker.
The novelized version of the cult film, Mera Naam Joker. It was by all accounts one of the biggest gambles in Hindi cinema of the time: five years in the making, with a running time of over four hours and two intervals, including two of the best-known circus troupes of India and the Soviet Union. Add to that an outstanding musical score. Mera Naam Joker was to be Raj Kapoor’s magnum opus. Whetting audience appetite were indications that it would also be the Showman’s most autobiographical film. Nothing, it seemed, could come between the film and box-office glory. Shockingly, the film bombed at the box-office – and so badly that RK Films, one of India’s foremost studios, was almost wiped out in the wake of that disaster. Interestingly enough, over the last forty years, the film has attained a cult status and is one of the highest selling home videos in India. At the time of the film’s release, its writer K.A. Abbas, in an act years ahead of its time, also published the novelized version of the film to great commercial success.
Yash Chopra’s 1975 film, Deewaar, one of the most iconic and influential works of superstar Amitabh Bachchan, has been (to borrow a line from the film itself) the ‘lambi race ka ghoda’, enjoying a nearly unrivalled popularity in the long history of Hindi cinema. Its remarkable plot, crisp dialogues and epic narrative structure, revolving around the familiar story of two brothers whose paths diverge and lead to a fatal collision, have endeared it to millions. And its most famous line, ‘Mere paas ma hai’, has been endlessly imitated, parodied and referenced in cinematic and cultural works. However, as Vinay Lal demonstrates in his study of Deewaar, the film lends itself to much more complex readings than is commonly imagined. Examining it in the context of the history of Hindi cinema, the migrations from the hinterland to the city, and the political and socio-economic climate of the early 1970s, he draws attention to Deewaar’s dialectic of the footpath and skyscraper, the mesmerizing presence of the tattoo, the frequent appearance of the signature and the film’s deep structuring in mythic material. In doing so, he assesses Deewaar’s unique space in popular Indian culture as much as world cinema.
In the history of world cinema, there will be few films where you can hear the words ‘come sing and conquer’ or ‘he has guitar phobia’ or ‘he has murdered over thirty disco dancers in London’. And even if you did, chances of them being in the same film are slim. That’s till Disco Dancer came along. In the glory days of socialist India, where the Hindi film industry churned out hero versus system stories, Disco Dancer turned that concept on its head. It gave you a proper ‘Bollywood’ film – much before the term came into existence – with all the struggle of a hero’s journey from poverty to success, but not through fighting the villain, but through … yes … disco dancing. Part screenplay, part interviews, some analysis, this book tries to understand what it was about this film that drove Osaka, Japan, to build a Jimmy statue, stadiums of devout Russian fans for three generations to go into raptures when it came on, and for millions from Dubai to San Francisco to know only this movie, when anyone mentioned Bollywood. Most of all though, it is an effort at preservation: To translate and archive some of the greatest lines of dialogue, ingenious inventions of plot and narrative, and perhaps the greatest dancing character ever written in any cinema. So that even if new India is not the nation we once were, Disco Dancer, hopefully, will not be forgotten.
Bobby by K. A. Abbas
In 1973, a film shattered box office records all over India. It introduced two young stars who became instant heart-throbs, and ushered in a new genre of Hindi films, the teeny-bopper romance. It also bailed out the legendary RK Films after the disaster that was Raj Kapoor’s magnum opus, Mera Naam Joker. The film was Bobby. Even forty years later, Bobby remains the benchmark for teenage romances, widely imitated, but seldom matched in its freshness, spirit and enduring appeal. At the time of the film’s release, its writer K. A. Abbas, in an act years ahead of its time, also published the novelized version of the film to great commercial success. Bobby: The Complete Story is that book. Including K.A. Abbas’s original preface and a perceptive new foreword by Suresh Kohli, its re-release marks forty glorious years of the film’s release, its star Rishi Kapoor’s sixtieth birthday and Abbas’s centenary. As engaging a read as the film was entertaining, it is also an insight into the creative process through which a story transforms into a film.
In Vishal Bhardawaj’s scintillating adaption of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Mumbai mafia provides the backdrop for the action. The protagonist, Maqbool (Irrfan Khan), is the right-hand man of the mafia don Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur). Nimmi (Tabu), who is Abbaji’s mistress, hates her situation and is in love with Maqbool, who she thinks is the only one who can put her out of her misery. Driven by his love for Nimmi and his ambition for power. Maqbool murders Abbaji and declares himself the leader of the gang. Circumstances then spiral out of control and Maqbool finds himself surrounded on all sides. Does he have the resolve to fight it any more? This unforgettable film not only portrays human emotions but also serves as a morality tale discriminating wisely between the right and the good and the wrong and the evil.
In this timeless tale of love, betrayal and jealousy, a jealous Langda betrays Omkara and sets off a chain of events that end in savage tragedy. The film has unforgettable performances from the cast and memorable music, penned by the one and only Gulzar and set to music by Vishal Bhardwaj. An adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello.
Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak by Gautam Chintamani
It’s the 1980s and Hindi cinema is going through the bleakest phase in its fifty-year history. The old guard is coming unstuck at the box office with alarming regularity and the new generation has failed to take off. Rampant video piracy has resulted in middle-class audiences abandoning the theatres for the comfort of their drawing rooms. Film-makers are making films replete with violence and crudity addressed to front-benchers. And the less said about the quality of music the better. Then, out of the blue, an unheralded film, boasting no stars and helmed by a first-time film-maker burst on to the screens, bringing audiences back, resurrecting Hindi cinema and its music, while giving it two of its most enduring stars.
Raghu Rai, Indias best known photographer, first shot a series of memorable photo essays on the masters of Indian classical music for India Today magazine in the mid- 980s. Since then, he has ever stopped shooting them-in concerts, in their homes, with their gurus, and in special locations. Rai profiles only thirteen masters-the greatest of the great-nayak musicians who went much beyond their gharanas and broke new ground with their approach to music. They include Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, M.S. Subbulakshmi, Mallikarjun Mansur, Kumar Gandharva, S. Balchander, Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain, Vilayat Khan, Bismillah Khan, Kishori Amonkar, Hari Prasad Chaurasia and Bhimsen Joshi. Eight of these masters have passed away, so these portraits-in turn affectionate, intense, playful, and reverent-will remain their definitive ones, a precious and unsurpassable record of Indian musical heritage. Only a true rasik like Rai could have taken these pictures, for they required someone who possessed not only an understanding of classical music but also complete humility. Both aspects are evident in the extraordinary images that follow.
Gaata Rahe Mera Dil by Anirudha Bhattacharjee
Look behind the scenes of fifty celebrated songs, from an estimated repository of over one lakh!’ De de khuda ke naam pe’: when Wazir Mohammed Khan sang these words in India’s first talkie, Alam Ara, he gave birth to a whole new industry of composers, lyricists and singers, as well as an entirely new genre of film-making that is quintessentially Indian: the song-and-dance film. In the eight decades and more since then, Hindi film songs have enraptured listeners all over the world. From ‘Babul mora, naihar chhooto jaye’ (Street Singer, 1938) to ‘Dil hai chhota sa’ (Roja, 1992); from the classical strains of ‘Ketaki gulab’ (Basant Bahar, 1956) featuring Bhimsen Joshi to the disco beats of Nazia Hassan’s ‘Aap jaisa koi’ (Qurbani, 1981); from the pathos of ‘Waqt ne kiya’ (Kaagaz Ke Phool, 1959) to the exuberance of the back-to-back numbers in Hum Kisise Kum Naheen (1977), here is an extraordinary compilation, peppered with trivia, anecdotes and, of course, the sheer joy of music. Find out answers to questions like:With which unreleased film did Kishore Kumar turn composer? In which song picturization was dry ice first used? Which all-time classic musical was initially titled Full Boots? Where was the title song of An Evening in Paris shot? The idea for which song originated when the film-maker visited Tiffany’s in London? Which major musical partnership resulted from the celebrations around an award function for a commercial jingle for Leo Coffee? How many of your favourites find mention here? Make your own list!
Main Shayar Toh Nahin by Rajiv Vijayakar
With the advent of sound, Hindi songs acquired a grammar of their own, thanks to the introduction of songs as a part of the narrative – a tradition that is unique to Hindi cinema. This gave rise to a class of professionals who acquired a star status that was in the league of the actors themselves – the lyricists. Rajiv Vijayakar’s book chronicles the journeys of leading film lyricists – from D.N. Madhok and Pandit Pradeep to Amitabh Bhattacharya and Irshad Kamil, including stalwarts like Shakeel Badayuni and Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Anand Bakshi, Gulzar and Javed Akhtar – who have woven magic with the written word. Filled with trivia and never-before-heard-of anecdotes, Main Shaayar Toh Nahin is an introduction to the contribution made by some of the finest wordsmiths to the Hindi film industry.
Director’s Cut by M K Raghavendra
A critical introduction to the best of international film-makers in the last 50 years.. This is an acutely perceptive collection of essays defining the work of fifty film-makers of the modern era. The shape of cinema is today unrecognizable from that in the 1950s but film criticism has perhaps not kept pace with changes after 1960, when cinema became modern. The collection addresses this deficit by examining the most important directors since 1960. It includes the film-makers of the French New Wave and New German Cinema, extends its attention to earlier ‘modernists’ like Luis Bunuel and Robert Bresson and speculates on the significance of masters like Andrei Tarkovsky and popular film-makers like Steven Spielberg. It also encompasses a whole range of more recent cinema from Abbas Kiarostami to Bela Tarr. As befits the enormous variety in the range of cinema covered, each of the essays is strikingly different in its emphasis although they are all lucidly and engagingly written.
Living the Dream by Mark Bennington
Nobody here wants to just make money…we all want to be famous!’The joke around town amongst actors is that Lokhandwala, in Bombay’s suburbs, may be the only place where you will actually have to give an audition to rent an apartment! Aspiring actors from all over India who move here share one thing in common: a Dream — of fame, fortune and eternal glory. Living the Dream: The Life of the ‘Bollywood’ Actor is a visual story of those who try to make it in the world’s largest film industry. Present here are newcomers waiting for the big break — Gabbar Singh, Geetika Tyagi, Varun Thakur and Kanan Chakor — juxtaposed with megastars like Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor. In all, more than a hundred photographs and interviews of people from every branch of Bollywood speaking frankly, often heart-wrenchingly, of a struggle where one’s pride and ego are on the line every day. As Karan Johar puts it in the Foreword, ‘What this book captures is something we have never seen before — it is what life really looks like for an actor in Bombay.’So what is Fame? For most actors, fame is unconditional love. The greater the success, the greater the love. Dharmendra once met a fan at a New York airport who, with tears in his eyes, could only utter, ‘Dharmendra…’ The megastar embraced the man and thought to himself, ‘He knows me only through the screen…so, what is this relation? You can’t give any name to this relation other than LOVE.’
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron by Jai Arjun Singh
In the 1980s, an unheralded Hindi movie, made on a budget of less than Rs 7 lakh, went from a quiet showing at the box office to developing a reputation as India’s definitive black comedy. Some of the country’s finest theatre and film talents – all at key stages in their careers – participated in its creation, but the journey was anything but smooth. Among other things, it involved bumping off disco killers and talking gorillas, finding air-conditioned rooms for dead rats, persuading a respected actor to stop sulking and eat his meals, and resisting the temptation to introduce logic into a madcap script. In the end, it was worth it. Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is now a byword for the sort of absurdist, satirical humours that Hindi cinema just hasn’t seen enough of. This is the story of how it came to be despite incredible odds – and what it might have been. Jai Arjun Singh’s take on the making of the film and its cult following is as entertaining as the film itself.
Talking Cinema by Bhawana Somaaya
A take on the real lives of actors and directors What do stars make of a certain role? How do they prepare? What do they think and feel? Beyond the greasepaint and glycerine and into the heart of what gives the audience its goosebumps-Talking Cinema goes behind the scenes with several of the film fraternity’s best-known stars. The first section, ‘An Actor Prepares’, examines what goes into getting ready for a role, while the second, ‘Character Speak’, deals with the research, rehearsals and responses behind some of the most critically acclaimed roles in Indian cinema. ‘Director’s Cut’, the third section, journeys into the mind of the film-maker. The last section, ‘The Specialists’, is an analysis of the association of an actor or a film-maker with a specific type of role or theme. What is this identification based on and are these roles or films as similar as they appear to be? The book acknowledges the skill, effort and resources that go into the making of a film. It will call out to the movie buff in you.
Satyajit Ray is acknowledged as one of the world’s finest film-makers. His films, from Pather Panchali in the mid-1950s to Agantuk in the 1990s, changed the way the world looked at Indian cinema. But Ray was not only a film-maker. He was also a bestselling writer of novels and short stories, and possibly the only Indian film-maker who wrote prolifically on cinema. This book brings together, for the first time in one volume, some of his most cerebral writings on film. With the economy and precision that marked his films, Ray writes on the art and craft of cinema, pens an ode to silent cinema, discusses the problems in adapting literary works to film, pays tributes to contemporaries like Godard and Uttam Kumar, and even gives us a peek into his experiences at film festivals, both as a jury member and as a contestant. Published in association with the Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Films, and including fascinating photographs by and of the master, Deep Focus not only reveals Ray’s engagement with cinema but also provides an invaluable insight into the mind of a genius.
The story of Navketan is a parallel history of the Hindi film business and indeed a social history of India. By interviewing scores of people in front of and behind the camera, and after poring over archives and through old, faded cuttings, Sidharth Bhatia has put together a fascinating saga of the creative partnerships which spawned an organization that defined popular film-making for decades. Profusely illustrated with stunning photographs, stills from Navketan’s films, publicity brochures and posters-some of them never seen before-Cinema Modern is a collector’s edition for anyone interested in Indian cinema.
The Pather Panchali Sketchbook by Satyajit Ray
Pather Panchali placed Indian cinema on the world map in 1955: this is a simple statement of fact, no hyperbole. In the sixty years since, the movie has acquired cult status, and its sketchbook mythical proportions. Believed to have been forever lost after the film-maker donated it to the Cinematheque Francaise archives, the sketchbook is now available as a book, along with other fascinating and previously unseen material on the film: parts of the draft scenario, reviews, recollections, posters and illustrations. For film and Ray enthusiasts, this is a treasure trove, and for a whole new generation of filmgoers, including those who might not even have seen the film yet, it will reveal a process unfolding, a mind at work. As for connoisseurs of the graphic form, Ray’s sketches are legend, and the novelistic qualities of this particular sketchbook have been a matter of intense discussion. As much a chronicle of the work of a genius as it is a handbook for aspiring film-makers, this collector’s edition of The Pather Panchali Sketchbook is a must-have for every film lover’s library.
Beyond Bollywood by M K Raghavendra
While ‘Indian popular cinema’, as if by default, has come to mean Bollywood, there are other cinemas in India which are at least as rewarding to study, the largest and perhaps most intriguing among them coming from South India. Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada cinemas have their own colourful histories, megastars and political trajectories. This anthology is an attempt to do justice to the bewildering variety there is in the body as a whole and addresses this diversity in the only way deemed possible, which is to open out the study to different approaches, at the same time to get a comprehensive look at South Indian cinema as never before undertaken.
A Southern Music by M. Krishna
One of the foremost Karnatik vocalists today, T.M. Krishna writes lucidly and passionately about the form, its history, its problems and where it stands today. T.M. Krishna begins his sweeping exploration of the tradition of Karnatik music with a fundamental question: what is music? Taking nothing for granted and addressing readers from across the spectrum – musicians, musicologists as well as laypeople – Krishna provides a path-breaking overview of south Indian classical music.
The Front Row by Anupama Chopra
This book is a selection of the very best of The Front Row. From Salman Khan to Madhuri Dixit, Priyanka Chopra to Nicole Kidman, Raju Hirani to Rohit Shetty, they are all here. The insightful discussions range from the Rs 100-crore club, supporting actors and villains in Hindi cinema, to the making of some of the most celebrated movies in recent times. While Ang Lee talks about surrendering to the movie god, Amitabh Bachchan discusses what it is like to be called God. If Aamir Khan owns up to how Satyamev Jayate changed him as a person, Shah Rukh Khan talks about what it is like to be ‘just an employee of the Shah Rukh Khan myth’. Johnny Depp reacts to Tim Burton’s verse about him – ‘There was a young man, people thought he was handsome, so he tied up his face and held it to ransom’ – Martin Scorsese wrestles with the question of how a film-maker can combine artistic integrity with commercial success, and Spielberg acknowledges how he ‘wouldn’t know how to make a Martin Scorsese movie’ and how that makes him sad. Engaging, penetrating and great fun, The Front Row: Conversations on Cinema is essential reading for all movie buffs.
Travails with the Alien by Satyajit Ray
Travails with the Alien includes Ray’s detailed essay on the project with the full script of The Alien, as well as the original short story on which the screenplay was based. These, presented alongside correspondence between Ray and Peter Sellers, Arthur C. Clarke, Marlon Brando, Hollywood producers who showed interest, and a fascinating essay by the young student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism who broke the Spielberg story, make this book a rare and compelling read on science fiction, cinema and the art of adaptation.
India Psychedelic by Sidharth Bhatia
The never-before-told story of the rock music scene in India of the 1960s and ’70s India in the 1960s and early 1970s: a nation of perennial shortages. Into the staid and conservative landscape come floating in the sounds of ‘Love, love me do’. Four young boys from Liverpool in 1962 set off a storm that swept teenagers in every remote corner of the world. In socialistic India, too, youngsters put on their dancing shoes to groove to this new sound, so different from anything they had heard till then. Some grew their hair, put on their bell-bottoms and picked up their guitars and the Indian pop and rock revolution was born. But it was not just the music that was important. As Sidharth Bhatia’s colourful and incisive book tells us, it was an attempt by a new, post-independence generation – midnight’s children – to assert their own voice. Theirs was a voyage of self-discovery, as they set out to seek freedom and liberation from older attitudes and values. At the end of this era, nothing – politics, society and fashion – would ever be the same again.
Kingdom of the Soap Queen by Kovid Gupta
This is the story of how a laid-back seventeen-year-old became one of the most powerful women in global media, how a project kicked off by a teenager in her father’s garage turned into the biggest entertainment provider across India. And like every fairy tale, this too has its share of magic, curses, spells, potions, and pixie dust. With insights from over a hundred television celebrities, Kovid Gupta – who has written for popular television shows Balika Vadhu, Bade Acche Lagte Hain and Chhan Chhan – chronicles the larger-than-life narrative right from the christening of the company in 1994 all the way to its transformation into the most influential production house of 2013. He not only depicts the initial struggles of the media house, but also explores every aspect of its growth – the creation of the iconic Tulsi and Parvati, its K-fixation, how it changed the very demographic of TV viewers in the country, the social impact of its daily soaps, the charges of being regressive that it has consistently battled, and the company’s very successful and high-profile foray into cinema. This is the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the 15,000 hours of television software that have made India laugh and cry for fifteen years.
50 Indian Film Classics by M K Raghavendra
An eclectic collection of essays by the winner of the National Award Swarna Kamal for Best Film Critic 1997 With more than a thousand films produced annually in over fifteen languages India is acknowledged as the largest producer of motion pictures in the world.50 Indian Film Classics provides detailed critical accounts of the most important Indian films beginning with Prem Sanyas (1925) to Rang De Basanti (2006) in languages ranging from Bengali and Hindi to Manipuri and Malayalam and representing a whole gamut of themes: from the 1930s mythological Sant Tukaram to the politically radical Calcutta ’71, from art-house favourites like Uski Roti and Mukhamukham to blockbusters like Sholay and Lagaan. These perceptive essays introduce the reader to the many moods that inform Indian cinema, the austerity of Pather Panchali, the lavishness of Hum Aapke Hain Koun…!, the solemnity of Samskara and the fun and frolic of Amar Akbar Anthony.Illustrated with rare posters and stills this is an invaluable guide to the most significant cinema India has ever produced.
The Incurable Romantic by Lakshmi Devnath
The definitive biography of one of the world’s greatest exponents of the violin. Lalgdi Jayaraman was a colossus in the field of Carnatic music, much-acclaimed by musicians across the globe. His musical style, the Lalgudi Bani, distinctive enough to be named after him, revolutionized the art of violin playing and served as a vehicle for his creative expressions as a path-breaking accompanist, soloist and composer. This engaging biography deftly incorporates facts with trivia to create a narrative that is at once historical and anecdotal, informative and interesting. Intertwining the threads of his life with the strings of the violin, it is also an examination of the violin in the Indian music tradition and Lalgudi’s role in ensuring that his beloved instrument got its due on the national and international stage.
I Swallowed the Moon by Saba Mahmood Bashir
A comprehensive analysis of the work of one of India’s foremost poets Gulzar is arguably the most well-known contemporary poet writing in Hindustani. As a poet he occupies a unique place being a Progressive poet in a popular culture. His poetry appeals to all strata of society, without compromising either on literary merit or on its ability to convey the most exalted thought in an accessible idiom. In I Swallowed the Moon, Saba Bashir attempts to analyse what makes Gulzar the poet he is. What is his signature style? What are the issues that concern his poetry and what are the recurrent images in it? She also draws a parallel between the poet’s film and non-film poetry and points out how they are used interchangeably. Including the most comprehensive list of all Gulzar’s poems, film and non-film songs, this is a valuable addition to the corpus of work on a great poet.
On Stage with Lata by Mohan Deora| Rachana Shah | M. Kabir
Lata Mangeshkar’s life and career are widely known, and yet there is an aspect that remains largely unrecorded: her life on the international stage. Beyond the confines of a recording booth, or as the voice of generations of actresses, she was an accomplished and magnetic performer on stage. She attracted vast audiences of Indian origin who have made their home in many countries, including the US and Canada. Mangeshkar transformed how the Indian film music concert was perceived in the West by refusing to be part of the low-key song-and-dance performances that were held earlier in community halls, schools and colleges. She insisted that she and her colleagues would sing only in mainstream auditoriums – this was an unheard-of demand because Indian film artistes had never performed on those stages at that time. In On Stage With Lata, Mohan Deora – co-promoter and co-organizer of Lata Mangeshkar’s international tours from 1975 to 1998 – allows us to journey with her and the top male playback singers, including Mukesh (who tragically died during a Detroit tour), Manna Dey and Kishore Kumar. Deora and Shah write about the participation of big-name stars including Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar, Waheeda Rehman and Farida Jalal. Mangeshkar is described here in her interactions with musicians, colleagues and friends as she meticulously prepared to sing on stage. The tours led to planning and glitches, camaraderie and tension, and anecdotes galore. They also provided the authors with a unique opportunity to observe the clarity of thought with which Lata Mangeshkar approached her work, and to see a great artiste at the height of her powers.
My Adventures with Satyajit Ray by Suresh Jindal
For those who know their Indian cinema, Shatranj Ke Khilari is film-maker Satyajit Ray’s only feature film in Hindi/Urdu and also his most expensive film, employing lavish stage design and stars of both Mumbai and Western cinema. A period piece set in nineteenth-century Lucknow, capital of the state of Oudh, the film revolves around the court of the flamboyant artist-king Wajid Ali Shah against the backdrop of the East India Company’s avaricious annexation of Oudh in 1856. Jindal, Ray’s young and artistically committed producer of Shatranj Ke Khilari, looks back on the gripping story of how Ray came to direct the film despite his unequivocal declaration that he would never write and direct a film that was not in Bengali. Quoting extensively from Ray’s fascinating unpublished letters to Jindal, it evokes the driving passion, original historical research and trademark devotion to detail that Ray brought to every aspect of the production.
What does it mean to be a woman filmmaker in India? One famous director suffered from depression, unable to take on film projects because of her young child. Another was asked in an interview if she drinks and smokes to deal with the stress of filmmaking like men do. Some faced cinematographers who refused to listen to them. Almost all of them struggle to raise money for films with female protagonists. But they are also cool and sassy. One attended film-school with her two-week-old baby. Another stormed the once all-male bastion of the 200-crore club. They can make a hit film about a middle-aged housewife, as much as a bisexual teenager with a disability. F-Rated brings together diverse stories of eleven women filmmakers in India.
Based on the diaries and letters of Nargis, Sunil and their daughter Priya, as well as on conversations and interviews with family and friends, Darlingji – as they often addressed each other – is a probing yet affectionate biography of two extraordinary people and their love for each other. Travelling as it does from the nineteenth century to the present, the book tells the larger story of the evolution of Hindi cinema, and of a society and a nation in the throes of change.
Mrinal Sen-60 Years In Search Of Cinema by Dipankar Mukhopadhyay
Mrinal Sen is one of India’s finest film makers and one of its most renowned in international circles. After an inauspicious feature debut, Sen found his feet with critically acclaimed films like Baishey Shravana in 1960, and Akash Kusum in 1965. His Bhuvan Shome in 1969 inspired a whole new generation of film makers.
Mother Maiden Mistress by Bhawana Somaaya
It’s been a long hundred years since Dadasaheb Phalke had to settle for a man to play the heroine in India’s first feature film, Raja Harishchandra (1913) – and women in Hindi cinema have come a long way since then. Mother Maiden Mistress documents that journey: from a time in which cinema was considered a profession beneath the dignity of ‘respectable’ women to an era when women actors are icons and idols. Bhawana Somaaya, Jigna Kothari and Supriya Madangarli sift through six decades of history, bringing to life the women that peopled cinema and the popular imagination, and shaped fashion and culture. Contemporary readers will also find here a nuanced historical perspective – of the social milieu of the time, of the nation and of Hindi cinema itself. Also riveting are the first-person narratives of a leading actress from each decade – Waheeda Rehman, Asha Parekh, Hema Malini, Shabana Azmi, Madhuri Dixit and Rani Mukerji – all close-up examinations of how some of the iconic characters of Hindi cinema came to be.
Meghnad Desai tracks the film’s tortuous journey and reveals fascinating, little-known aspects of it. He foregrounds the craftsmanship, perseverance and perfectionism of its maker, Kamal Amrohi, who would wait weeks for the perfect sunset. Desai sees the film as a ‘Muslim social’ set in a ‘Lucknow of the Muslim imagination’, as a woman-centric film with a dancing heroine at a time when they were a rarity and above all, as a film that harkes back to an era of ‘nawabi culture with its exquisite tehzeeb’, a world that is lost forever. Pakeezah: An Ode to a Bygone World is a fitting tribute to a film that Meghnad Desai calls ‘a monument to the golden age of Hindustani films’.
Sahir Ludhianvi – The People’s Poet by Akshay Manwani
Sahir Ludhianvi is probably the only songwriter in Hindi films whose poetry was accepted in its purest form and incorporated as a film song. So great was his stature as an Urdu poet that he never had to mould his poetry to suit the demands of film songwriting; instead, producers and composers adapted their requirements to his poetry. His songs in films like Pyaasa, Naya Daur and Phir Subah Hogi have attained the status of classics. This exhaustive biography traces the poet’s rich life, from his troubled childhood and his equally troubled love relationships, to his rise as one of the pre-eminent personalities of the Progressive Writers Movement and his journey as lyricist through the golden era of Hindi film music, the 1950s and 1960s.
A brilliant study of one of the greatest epics of Indian cinema Mughal-e-Azam (1960) embodies grandeur in Indian cinema like no other film. The imagination and hard work of the makers is evident in every scene. The gigantic setting, the great performances, the poetic language, the brilliant technical quality and the sublime music contribute to its enduring appeal. However, Mughal-e-Azam is much more than just lavish entertainment. The movie takes a historical legend and converts it into a film epic that is enriched by several artistic and cultural traditions. The film also corresponds to the progressive ideas that defined the first decade of independent India. In Mughal-e-Azam: Legend as Epic, film-maker and scholar Anil Zankar unravels its cinematic strength through an understanding of the script, music and the nature of the conflict in the film.
42 Lessons I Learnt from Bollywood – The Vigil Idiot’s Guide to the 1990s by Sahil Rizwan
Movies affect our growing-up years more than we’d like to admit, they say. Which means the average Bollywood fan is totally screwed. 42 Lessons I Learnt From Bollywood is a jolly look back at the glorious decade for Hindi cinema that was the nineties. Those were eventful years. The economy opened up. India changed. The Internet arrived. And Bollywood was like, ‘Wait for me, I can change too!’ 42 Lessons is the story of that transformation, even if it wasn’t always for the best. This is a treasury of the wisdom a young man garnered growing up on that unsteady fare. From Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Khalnayak, forty-two blockbusters – even some you may not have heard of – seen through the ever-attentive eyes of the Vigil Idiot.
Directors’ Diaries by Rakesh Bakshi
Director: the invisible, omnipotent presence in cinema; a word that holds spaces inaccessible to most people. In Directors’ Diaries, Rakesh Bakshi demystifies that figure through the voices of twelve of the most iconic film-makers of our time. In doing so, he happens upon the greater questions of destiny and chance and how sometimes random encounters end up determining the course of a persons life. Bakshis interviews turn into deep and intimate conversations: Imtiaz Alis transformative experience as a reader during summer vacations, locked in a room; Govind Nihalanis visits with his father to temples in Udaipur, which influenced him as a cinematographer and filmmaker; Ashutosh Gowarikers disappointment at faring poorly in his board exams and being forced give up his dream to study architecture, which led him to seek avenues in theatre, folk dance, group singing, elocution contests in college, eventually leading him to cinema.
Music, Masti, Modernity by Akshay Manwani
Debuting as a film-maker in 1957 with Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Nasir Husain became one of the most successful film-makers in Hindi cinema over the next twenty-five years with musical blockbusters like Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon, Teesri Manzil, Caravan, Yaadon Ki Baaraat and Hum Kisise Kum Naheen. This book analyses the work of Husain and how his films played an important role in shaping commercial Hindi cinema as it exists today. Through interviews with a number of prominent film personalities such as Aamir Khan, Mansoor Khan, Asha Parekh, Javed Akhtar, Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra, the book contextualizes Husain’s legacy and places him as one of the important auteurs of Hindi cinema.
Woman at the Window by Shoma Chatterji
Representations of women in Indian cinema are often warped and twisted. They are subjected to a series of gazes – voyeuristic, investigative and titillating. The controlling look is always with the male. One film-maker who consistently steered clear of this right through his career was Satyajit Ray. None of Ray’s women on celluloid can be reduced to a cliche. They defy every imaginable stereotyping. This is particularly true of the women in his adaptations of Tagore’s stories. Woman at the Window attempts a completely new way of looking at Ray’s films in general, and his films adapted from Tagore in particular, through contextualizing the women by objects they are surrounded by or are fond of, or are habituated to using or learning to use over time. What emerges is a one-of-its-kind book, indeed the first comprehensive study of this kind on the cinema of Ray which offers a greater understanding of the differences, or the absence thereof, between Tagore’s original stories and Ray’s celluloid readings of these stories, as also fascinating material for gender studies students, researchers, academics and scholars writing on cinema.
50 Films That Changed Bollywood: 1995-2015 by Shubhra Gupta
Hindi cinema was trapped in formulaic cliches for decades: lost-and-found themes, sacrificing mothers, brothers on opposite sides of the law, villains lording over their dens, colourful molls, six songs, the use of rape as a plot pivot, and cops who always arrived too late. It hit an all-time low in the 1980s. Then, in 1991, came liberalization, and a wave of openness and aspiration swept across urban India. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge was released in 1995 – and Hindi cinema became Bollywood. A new crop of film-makers began to challenge and break away from established rules. Over the next twenty years, a number of Hindi films consistently pushed the envelope in terms of content and technique to create a new kind of cinema. Among other innovations, film-makers came up with ways of crowd funding a film (Ankhon Dekhi), did away with songs if the narrative did not need them (Gangaajal), addressed different sexual preferences (My Brother … Nikhil) and people with special needs (Black) like no one had ever done before. As film critic with the Indian Express, Shubhra Gupta has stayed the course these twenty years and more and experienced the transition first-hand. In 50 Films That Changed Bollywood: 1995-2015, she looks at the modern classics that have redefined Hindi cinema – from DDLJ and Rangeela to Satya and Dev D to Queen and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Gupta offers a fascinating glimpse into how these films spoke to their viewers and how the viewers reacted to them – and, ultimately, how they changed us and how we changed them.
Chasing the Raag Dream by Aneesh
One of the two branches of Indian classical music, the Hindustani (North Indian) music tradition has evolved over thousands of years into the complex ecosystem it is today. From its movement across geographical and class boundaries, its purpose in national identity, its facilitation by governing bodies and representation in broadcast and visual media to its corporate involvement and presence in educational institutions, Chasing the Raag Dream analyses Hindustani music from multiple perspectives to trace its modern-day evolution and find possible pathways to ensure a healthier future for it.
Nambiarswami by N. Dipak Nambiar
Few actors in Tamil cinema have been as loved as M.N. Nambiar. Admired for his intense acting prowess, particularly his portrayals of villains, he was also revered as a guruswami (spiritual leader). Nambiarswami provides an in-depth look into his public persona and personal life, which he fastidiously kept separate from one another. From growing up in Ooty and joining the gritty world of travelling drama troupes to achieving stellar success in the Tamil film industry, this book takes the reader on an engaging journey narrated by the man himself, as told to his grandson Dipak Nambiar.The foreword by J. Jayalalithaa and stirring anecdotes from his family and industry friends make this book a fascinating portrait of the great actor who was equally adept in his roles as a hero and a villain, and widely respected as a spiritual man.
Gulzar’s Angoor by Sathya Saran
Angoor (1982) is among the best-loved comedies in Hindi cinema. It is also a perfect example of Gulzar’s genius as a writer complete with his impish wordplay. Through extensive interviews with some of the main actors in Angoor (Deepti Naval and Moushumi Chatterjee) and its earlier version – both adaptations of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors – this book traces the evolution of a comic tale that continues to amuse audiences of all ages. It deftly peels the layers exploring how the song, dialogue, silences, and wordplay add to the actors’ arsenal in creating humor that can range from rib-tickling mirth to guffaws. Sathya Saran’s book reveals what lies behind the evergreen appeal of Angoor, with memories and anecdotes shared by Gulzar himself.
Gulzar’s Ijaazat by Mira Hashmi
By the time Gulzar made Ijaazat (1987), action-packed potboilers had replaced the genteel romanticism of yore, leaving few takers for a film about lost love and a broken marriage. And yet, three decades later, Ijaazat is a film that has endured. Gulzar’s interpretation of a love triangle in Ijaazat – an evocative exploration of the strength and fragility of human relationships – was years ahead of its time. This book examines that interpretation to show how, thematically, the film was possibly Gulzar’s most daring. It highlights how his skill as a storyteller – at once romantic and realistic – is exemplified by his complex characters. Contributing to that understanding is how the film’s power also derived hugely from its sublime musical score by R.D. Burman. Drawing on Gulzar’s recollections of the making of the film, Mira Hashmi”s book embraces the memory of the ‘love’ that for the poet wasn’t always the answer, but a part of the question.
Gulzar’s Aandhi by Saba Mahmood Bashir
At one level, Gulzar’s Aandhi (1975) is a story of estranged love between two headstrong and individualistic personalities; at another, it is a tongue-in-cheek comment on the political scenario of the country. Through a close textual analysis of the film, this book examines in detail its stellar cast, the language and dialogues, and the evergreen songs which had a major role in making the film a commercial success. Gulzar’s own insights into the making of Aandhi (from an interview) further enhance the readers’ understanding of the film. Saba Bashir’s book will delight those wanting to savor the duality and drama that befit life, or shall we say cinema.
Three Classic Films by Gulzar by Saran
This box set contains three individual books each of which provides insights into the making of three of Gulzar’s films: Aandhi, Angoor, and Ijaazat. While for Aandhi, author Saba M. Bashir does a close textual analysis of the film, examining in detail its stellar cast, the language and dialogues, and the evergreen songs, for Angoor, Sathya Saran traces the evolution of a comic tale which was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. In the third, Mira Hashmi highlights how Gulzar’s skill as a storyteller is exemplified by his complex characters in Ijaazat. All three draw on Gulzar’s own memories of making these films.
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