Avijit Ghosh: It was the best of times, the worst of times

Right at the outset Delhibased novelistauthor Avijit Ghosh tells us of his interest in ldquolost causesrdquo He illustrates this with the titles of his previous books Cinema Bhojpuri 2010 and 40 Retakes Bollywood Classics You May Have Missed 2013 Both reflect on movies and experiences that were cast away but deserved a prominent place in Hindi cinema history His latest book When Ardh Satya Met Himmatwala The Many Lives of 1980srsquo Bombay Cinema Speaking Tiger Books is no different ldquoDuring discussions on films with friends and colleagues Irsquod often hear that the 1980s was a useless period a black mark of sortsrdquoHema Malini played a dacoit in Sitapur ki Geeta Sridevi and Zeenat Aman also starred in such films where the male actors played second fiddle Pic CourtesyManmohan KapoorAs a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University Ghosh had had firsthand experience of the decade ldquoI had seen so many of these movies in cinema halls So I knew that this view was lopsided I felt that we needed a more serious examination of the decaderdquoDirector B Subhash and Mithun Chakraborty made a hit team after the success of Disco Dancer Pic CourtesyB SubhashThe 1980s according to him saw entertainment arrive in the drawing room like never before ldquoTill then cinema was the pastime preferred by the middle class it was an occasion when the entire family dressed up and went to the movies Now cinema came home rather illegally courtesy the video home system VHS and the video piracy network This and later serials on cable TV bruised and battered the film industry and it caused major ripple effectsrdquo Simultaneously as a consequence of Kapil Dev and teamrsquos World Cup victory in 1983 there was a sharp increase in ODI cricket matches being shown on television This too he says hurt the film industryrsquos ability to lure daytime audiences into theatres ldquoThe political turmoil in Assam Punjab and Kashmir further stumped the film marketrdquo While all of this was happening there was strangely a serious leap in production ldquoMore films were being declared as flops and yet more films were being made At the heart of this contradiction is the 1980s storymdashhow old money was gradually being replaced with new money part of which was bad toordquo says GhoshThe mujra song was an essential part of the dacoit film menu And Jayshree T was adept at the taskThe death of single screens which hastened during the recent pandemic began sometime during this period as the footfall to cinema halls dropped significantly ldquoIn Bombay theatres such as Rex Majestic Broadway and Neptune had already been razed and recast as shopping centres By 1986 two prominent cinema halls in Ahmedabad Ajanta and Ellora had also shut down A similar trend was seen in JabalpurrdquoKumar Gauravrsquos Love Story became a runaway success and made him a teenage heartthrobIt is against this sociopolitical and economic backdrop that Hindi cinema was trying to find a voice ldquoIt was a defining decade because it changed how cinema was being consumed VHS was to the rsquo80s what OTT is to the 2020s This led to the personalisation of entertainment And because the middle class had largely abandoned the theatres the filmmakers were making tweaks to the script to suit the taste of the core audience which was nongentry in nature youth and the underclassrdquo The content he says was marked by the ldquosublime and ridiculous coming togetherrdquoAvijit Ghosh PicNishad AlamThis was the time when the genius of Kundan Shah Govind Nihalani among others who rode the new parallel cinema wave sat alongside films that boasted pelvic thrusting actors spewing double entendre dialogues says Ghosh who did interviews dipped into records available with the National Film Archives of India and scoured through English newspapers trade magazines and Madhuri Dharamyug and Sarika to build his argument ldquoI also looked at Parliament replies byministers to understand the sentiment of the timerdquoAnother significant event that marked the decade was the 1986 film industry strike ldquoThe strike was against excessive taxation and lasted 31 days No film was shot or screened during this time It was a total shutdownrdquo he sharesOn the 12th day which was October 21 a cavalcade of about 150 cars and trucks gathered in the Shivaji Park area Many even walked Some of the participants in this march included V Shantaram Sunil Dutt Dev Anand Rajesh Khanna Rohini Hattangadi Raj Babbar Tina Munim Anil Kapoor Govinda Khushboo Farah Meenakshi Seshadri Javed Akhtar Shabana Azmi Sanjay Khan Akbar Khan Yash Chopra Mithun Chakraborty Shashi Kapoor and many more Khanna was the press convener of the action committee ldquoWho would have thought that the chaotic film industry which was divided into camps would collectively raise the banner of protest against the state government ldquoThe outcome was modestly successful it gave the industry a handle of hope when video piracy was eating into revenues The movement also lifted the industryrsquos spirit and made many aware of being part of a larger communityrdquoThe man who owned the decade Ghosh feels was Mithun Chakraborty ldquoHe is significant because the 1980s was also the decade of star sons Kumar Gaurav Sanjay Dutt and Sunny Deol Mithun represented the exact opposite of that he was a selfmade starrdquo That he could slip into any character or genre be it action or a family drama like Ghar Ek Mandir or the romantic superhit Pyar Jhukta Nahin made him most sought after ldquoThis decade was also typified by a certain kind of soundmdashdisco Mithun was the face of discordquo he adds ldquoHere was a star who the nongentry cinemagoers could root for He was an idea whose time had comerdquo Govinda he says took this forward ldquoBut he arrived only in 1986 and came into his own as a comedy actor in the 1990srdquo