I am re-releasing one of my earlier entry which came as ‘Sheela ki Jawani’, with ‘Dirty picture’ hitting the silver screen today and memories of ‘Silk Smitha’ ( I knew you all thurkis read as mammaries) revisited,I have made minor changes from earlier one trying to add few more details of the era :-
Rejogging the memory after seeing buxom Vidya Balan on posters of ‘Dirty Picture’ it went back to timeframe of 1988-1995 and this was the time when out of teens, unshackled by parents we were absorbing all things new like a curious child, together we friends tried the goodies which were on offer in our small town of Dehradun.
Alok,me and other pals although were inhibited by our middle class taboos but still had unrestricted hormones which were overflowing like a dam bursting at seams with overflowing ooze ready to submerge anything under its way,lack of outlets and strong morality usually meant for us ‘God helps those who help themselves’ or a putting in chaste hindi ‘Apna haath Jagan Nath’ but then born creatives as we were, without props it all seemed quite dull, having exhausted IIIrd grade hindi pulps, we moved to ‘anonymous’ authors in English(Mendi had full mine of it) simultaneously rare dekko @ ‘Hustler’ or rather spuriously printed rehashed versions generally found on pavements outside bus stands and railway stations prolonged the ecstatic creativity for weeks. Lack of much needed solitude and fiscal support meant VCPs and much used video cassettes was option exercised only at max annually but then it had its own issues which I plan to recap later on…………And than we stumbled upon art house Cinema morning shows of French, english movies which were devoured to derive the much needed roughage, our creativity peaked with ‘Sirroco’ an all time favorite of all the ‘frustates’ I have been tracking career of ‘ Mr Roman Polanski ’ since then.Again something was missing as desi appetite can only be whetted with Roti, dal, sambhar, rice, pickle similarly creativity needed much sought after Indianness to it and than we discovered ‘ Digvijay’ and ‘New Empire’ two cinema halls in our beloved Doon, Different permutation and combinations of words like ladki, Jawani,Kam,Pyaas,Junglee,Aag,Badan,jism,padosan,darinda did all the magic, December winters made for pitch dark entry on a 1800 hrs show for us in the cinema hall and here we also noticed aged males coming helmeted in the cinema hall and we understood meaning of repressions and frustrations of provincial India.2-3 minutes of add on reels were the highlight for which IVth grade 2.5 hrs Malyalam/Tamil movie had to be endured, stock characters of impotant householder, young mistress, buxom servant lady and lecherous politician speaking in offnote sound track made miserable with Vth grade dubbing,it was almost addictive as a gambling forcing us to waste on a meaningless venture repeatedly without anyone of us getting any better creative inputs.
Now years hence suddenly song ‘Chutki jo tune maari’ of ‘Dirty picture’ made me situp and recap the misadventures, I have noticed atleast one of the above mentioned cinema hall in Dehradun on my recent visit still exhibiting similar fare I am not sure in today’s age who could be the audience ….but for sure Silk Smitha will remain immortal in reams of reels in these kind of movies.
