The secrets of the C-grade trade

The opening shot of Vasan Balarsquos docuseries Cinema Marte Dum Tak CMDT on Amazon Prime Video is a scene from Kanti Shah Ke Angoor starring superstar Sapna Itrsquos the same moment I think that also referentially features in Vikramaditya Motwanersquos Udaan 2010CMDT is a nod to Bollywoodrsquos BCgrade cinema which peaked in the late rsquo90s That makes the opening shot unrelated to scenes that immediately follow a tribute of a tribute of a tributemdashan inception of homage if you mayMotwane was also a ldquotalking headrdquo in CMDT but his appearance got edited out In Udaanrsquos script therersquos mention of how students sneak out of boarding school to watch a ldquonaughty filmrdquo The writerdirector therefore had to explore the said naughtypicture genre in order to arrive at what movie the kids will watch for a film within the film Hence Kanti Shah Ke AngoorThat Motwane in his early 30s then hadnrsquot sampled any of the said Cgrade pictures earlier Irsquom guessing is that old desi liemdashcommon among those much younger who had seen all these random pictures with posters on walls often smeared in black paint and titles with double meanings that could only have one meaning after allVasan BalaItrsquos only with social media that audiences mostly boys whorsquod naturally come of age with this seedy cinema began to connect like besotted fans And Kanti Shahrsquos Gunda for instance acquired a shared cult following of sortsmdashldquoa cue to find your triberdquoHow do you define these movies Bala rightly points out that BCgrade is an Indian termmdashin line with the desi obsession of hierarchically placing people into suitable boxes Bmovie on the other hand he says came from Hollywood as an industry standardMeaning studio films that starred topnotch popular stars were the Amovies of course The Bmovies featured actors who were on the studiorsquos payroll headlining a lowerbudget production This doublebill subsidised potential losses too Bmovie being the Plan BIndeed over time Bmovie actors graduated to Amovies as well Take John Wayne for instance While many didnrsquot say Ronald Reaganmdashalthough he eventually elevated himself to the highest form of acting of them all ie politics as the US President no lessHindi cinema has its parallels in the stunt plus lsquosword amp sandalrsquo space isnrsquot it This is where Dara Singh would be the loved Baadshah of Bmovies in the rsquo60s Mumtaz his heroine Dharmendra probably occupied the Amovie equivalent of the same genre laterAt some point in the sunset of his careermdashperhaps because he needed money was plain bored or just dying to be on setmdashyou could spot superstar Dharmendra in a bunch of what could be categorised as ldquopulpy terribly awesome quickiesrdquo including those directed by Kanti Shah undisputed Sardar of Bollywoodrsquos Cgrade tradeWhat marked these late rsquo90s early noughtiesrsquo ldquonaughty filmsrdquo as separate from the past Often this thing called the ldquobitsrdquomdashbasically pornographic scenes inserted for random segues This cinema was the distributorrsquos medium He financed the picture basis title and poster He progressively demanded more ldquobitsrdquo to a point that there was no picture left Greed is no good Many slipped on a banana peel For CMDT Balarsquos team got in touch with about 50 directors from the time Many didnrsquot wish to be identified or face the camera for fear of their past returning to haunt them Why did these guys disappear into irrelevance at all HellomdashInternetThat said Kanti allegedly morphed Dharmendra riding a horse in a scene into him riding a woman instead in one of his films That was the end of Kanti apparently But thatrsquos not why he became bigAlso Read I havenrsquot had a cold since 2019What Kanti introduced to Cgrade cinema was the audacity of hope That he could recruit Dharmendra at all besides the great Mithun Chakraborty lsquoPrabhujeersquo in socialmedia circles or the likes of Kiran Kumar Raza Murad and others is a big deal isnrsquot itHe offered stars cash per diem in advance for a shoot that would last about a couple of days or so Also he was the mastertailor at stitching sourced footage from bigbudget films into his lowkey enterprisemdashmatching wide shots with closeups for stunts carchases the worksI met Kanti at the prestigious Golden Kela Awards in Delhi circa 2010 Irsquod flown down especially to receive the lsquoworst movie criticrsquo prizemdashwhat an honour Kanti was being felicitated for lsquolifetime achievementrsquo Proud of bagging the Kela Kanti was all praise about himself along with his heroine Sapna on stagemdashlsquosarchasmrsquo is that needless space between intended sarcasm and the one who doesnrsquot wanna get itThat footage is there in CMDT The docuseries features the return of four retireesmdashdirectors Dilip Gulati J Neelam Vinod Talwar and Kantirsquos brother Kishen Shahmdashmaking their comeback short films Jungle Girl Shanti Basera Blood Suckers and Sautan Badi ChudailAs the showrsquos creator BalamdashAnurag Kashyaprsquos protege whorsquos made the critically acclaimed Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota 2018 and Monica O My Darling 2022mdashsays these directors essentially arenrsquot slaves to their filmmaking circumstancesLike them hersquos also been ldquotrained not to curtail ambition and to find truth within the framerdquo Whatrsquos the difference between him and them still I ask Bala ldquoAesthetics and gazerdquo thatrsquos itMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper