Grand old man of Hindi cinema

Oct 13th is a day of significance for Hindi cinema- it is the day Kishore Kumar – perhaps the most versatile person ever seen in Hindi cinema- died – 24 years ago. However, it is also of great significance because it is also the birthday of his elder brother Ashok Kumar – one of the finest actors the industry has seen – and one of its most influential ever. And this year would have been his 100th birthday.

For many people today, especially the younger lot, Ashok Kumar is probably better known as one of the various characters with very typical mannerisms whom Johny Lever always parodied. Some people would remember him from TV either in Bahadur Shah Zafar or as the presenter of Hum Log. Otherwise, he’s just one of those characters who played roles in some old films. Some might remember “Main ban ki chidiya” with Devika Rani…or him walking around while Madhubala sings “Aayega aanewala”…but not much more. A great and influential actor might not be what you would immediately think of when his name comes up. I think that is because most people today simply have not seen enough of him at his best nor do they have much of an idea of what he did.

Let’s start with the “great”. In an industry which has been around for almost a century there have obviously been a number of fine and talented actors- it is very difficult to name a few great ones. So, we can follow the usual strategy of categorization, which is not such a bad thing. Let us consider male lead Hindi film actors. This allows us to exclude a number of fine actors. It excludes various supporting actors (like Pran, Anupam Kher, Nana Palsikar, Boman Irani and so on). It excludes female lead actors (like Meena Kumari, Nutan, Jaya Bhaduri, Kajol and so on). And it excludes those who were not primarily in the Hindi film industry, though they might have made the odd Hindi film (like Kamal Hasan, Mohanlal, Soumitra Chatterji and so on)

With these caveats, I would place Ashok Kumar among the top 3 or 4 actors of all time – the others in that league, in my opinion, being Dilip Kumar, Sanjeev Kumar and Amir Khan.

Now, that is an opinion and it is difficult to substantiate that in a blog – you are going to have sit through the person’s films. The only thing I would say is that while you might disagree, I am not sure how much of Ashok Kumar’s oeuvre you might have seen. In any case, it is a personal opinion.

However, the issue of influence is not so dependent on personal opinion. If one looks back at the last 100 odd years of Hindi films and asks who has been the most influential actor of all time, I think a vast majority would say Amitabh Bachchan. And there is merit in that. Certainly Amitabh defined the industry in the 70’s and 80’s.

However, in my opinion a lot of what Amitabh Bachchan did and stood for was actually pioneered by Ashok Kumar. The “angry” young man was undoubtedly a creation of Salim Javed for Amitabh but a lot of the story plots and devices, things which became fairly standard in Hindi films were initially done by Ashok Kumar, way back in the 40’s and 50’s. In many ways Ashok Kumar laid the groundwork for what Amitabh, and other actors, then took to a different level. His films created, one could say, the blueprint for modern Hindi cinema.

Consider some of the following plot devices and films

Anti Hero
A staple of Amitabh, who supposedly created this image as the anti hero, it was actually Ashok Kumar who first played the anti hero way back in 1943, with Kismat. He played a convicted pick pocket and thief in this film which is still one of the dozen or so biggest hits of all time in Indian cinema (and the longest running film till Sholay was released- it ran for over 190 weeks)

Lost and Found
Would the Manmohan Desai /Amitabh combination been so successful without this? They made 8 films, of which all other than Gunga Jumna Saraswati were super hits; and they were all lost and found films. In any case, lost and found goes far beyond the MD/AB combination, it is perhaps the most staple theme of Hindi films. But it all started, once again in 1943 with Kismat – the original lost and found film, where Ashok Kumar is separated from his parents as a child (he runs away from home) and is reunited only in the last scene.
Frankly, if you see the film today, it does feel a little amateurish and certainly the denouement, far from being dramatic is honestly, a bit silly. But given the period it was made in and the effect it has had on the type of films made after that, Kismat would certainly be a nominee for the most impactful Hindi film of all time.

Brothers separated in a “mela”
One issue with “lost and found” is to find a plausible reason for the “lost” bit. The standard way for brothers to be separated has been in a fair- in fact “Kumbh ke mele me bichad jaana” is almost idiomatic in Hindi today. But it was Ashok Kumar who first got separated from his twin brother at childhood in a mela, in “Afsana” in 1951. This is actually a fabulous film…the really great bit is that this is not a lost and found film at all – the brothers meet for just a couple of hours and never realize they are brothers, which makes it quite unique (it is also BR Chopra’s directorial debut). But it certainly gave all lost and found makers an ideal plot device.

Retrieved Reformation
The “retrieved reformation” theme is not uncommon in Hindi films. A crook, on the run from the law, lands up in a village where he is mistaken for someone positive. Being forced to lead a life of rectitude, the crook slowly reforms and becomes a good citizen. Think Thanedaar or Pratigya or even Guide. But, I think this was perhaps first done by Ashok Kumar in Savera (sometime in the 50’s)

Cop Father Criminal Son
Another common theme – the most famous example perhaps being Shakti. A popular variation of this is 2 brothers – one a cop, the other a criminal – most famously seen in Deewar but also in films like Gunga Jumna and Lakshman Rekha. But Ashok Kumar played the criminal son in Sangram in 1950 who is finally shot in the climactic scene by his cop father.

The Suspense film
Suspense films have not been very common in Hindi cinema. There have been some notable exceptions – Woh Kaun Thi, Kaun, Khamosh, Bees Saal Baad- but it is by no means a common occurence. But what could be considered as the first suspense film ever made remains one of the best ever – Mahal, in 1949. Most people today probably remember it for “Aayega aanewala” and the fact that it was Madhubala’s move to stardom. But the fact remains that it was a big gamble at the time – a gamble taken by Ashok Kumar and Sashadhar Mukherjee to revive Bombay talkies – which only partially worked. Mahal was a huge hit…but the studio still had to shut down five years later.
But it introduced a new genre to Indian cinema. And it has been the blueprint for many reincarnation films in Indian cinema – from Madhumati to Om Shanti Om. Wikipedia also says that Mahal was perhaps the ultimate inspiration for “The reincarnation of Peter Proud” which, of course was remade later as Karz.


In addition to these films, Ashok Kumar also influenced modern hindi cinema in other ways. His films were much more urban and racy than the typical films of his contemporaries. His acting was generally less theatrical than the stars of the time – and a move away from the stage influences of people like Sohrab Modi and Prithviraj Kapoor. Though he has sung on screen, he was not a singing star at a time when Saigal and Surendra were the rage. He was, essentially building the prototype for the modern film hero.

On the negative side, he was also the first lead actor to actually regularly smoke on screen – at a time when heroes were supposed to be holier than thou. I remember reading a reason for why he chose to take this revolutionary step and it is quite intriguing. Ashok Kumar came to acting by accident and had to “learn on the job”. One of the most difficult things to do while acting, which any of you who have ever acted in a school play will probably agree with, is to decide what to do with one’s hands. Since he had this problem as well, he decided he would solve this by smoking on screen wherever possible. That gave his hands something natural to do. And it ensured that smoking was no longer the preserve of the villain.

Very importantly, he was also, I believe, a very intelligent actor who knew his limitations and hence there is hardly a film where he looks out of place. Hindi film heroes are known for long careers where they keep doing the same things. And over time, it clearly looks out of place. Having a 40+ year old play a college kid is nothing strange in Indian cinema – from the times of Dilip Kumar in Leader right up to Amir Khan in 3 idiots. Seeing Amitabh Bachchan in the 1990’s in some of his films, still trying to strut out the angry “young” man at the age of nearly 50 was cringeworthy. Hindi film stars don’t often seem to realize that they age.

This was almost never true for Ashok Kumar. The transition from young lead star to mature hero to parallel lead to strong character roles to minor roles was almost flawless. Even in the odd case like Mamta where, at the age of 55 he does play a person out of college in the initial parts of the film, it is really a 5 minute interlude setting the stage for the major part of the film where he is a middle aged lawyer. I honestly cannot think of a film where he looked a fish out of water; where one wondered “what the hell is this man doing in this role?” And it meant a wide variety of roles with almost no typecasting. At least off hand, I cannot think of another male actor in Indian cinema who has managed this as well as he did.

With all this, I think there is sufficient reason to believe that he was perhaps as influential, if not more, as Amitabh Bachchan in shaping the Hindi film industry of today. Add that to his outstanding acting abilities and I doubt there has been a taller acting figure in the history of Hindi cinema. On his birth centenary, I pay tribute to this great man.

Shakespeare and Monkeys

While I was in India last week, I read an article about how some “virtual” monkeys had recreated the works of Shakespeare.

This, of course is one of the fundamental pieces which is used to explain the concepts of probability and infinity. The concept is that infinity is so large that even those events with an extremely small probability would eventually occur given an infinite number of attempts. And monkeys randomly typing out on a typewriter is the classic example.

However, it is just a conceptual example. It’s like the Brownian motion example – air particles in a closed room randomly move about…and in theory all of them could end up in one corner of the room- thereby suffocating someone at the other end, just by chance. Of course, something like that is going to happen only once in a billion years …but that once could be tomorrow, in the room you are in.

Not that that should worry you much. It’s not going to happen! Period!!

That’s why I was so intrigued by this story…it was extremely interesting and made the chance of suffocating in a normal room just that much more likely.

Alas, the story did not however live up to the reality. They haven’t really typed out the whole of Shakespeare. They have typed out nine letter strings and if they match any nine letter string in Shakespeare, they mark it as complete. In that way, they have gone through the entire text- or at least 99% of it.

Let’s look at that it in more detail. Say, the monkey typed “otinourst”. I am sure there is no such word in Shakespeare. But it would count towards having written out Shakespeare (“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”). Similarly “ityisthes” would also count ("Brevity is the soul of wit")

In this way, they have apparently written more than 90% of Shakespeare. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry!! And this has been reported widely! And I am sure there are many who have just seen the sound bite and now truly believe that Shakespeare has been recreated. That’s what the world has come to – useless research and sensational news. Sad.

Frankly, I can’t believe the natural absurdity of this did not strike the researcher. It probably did but perhaps he still chose to do this as a bit of fun. I certainly hope that this is the truth rather than the alternative which is that somebody seriously thought that one could randomly type out all of Shakespeare using nine letter strings.

If you are not getting why this is so then let me tell you that I have through random typing been able to write out every book which has ever been written in English. In order to do this, I have however had to put in certain restrictions. The restrictions are not absurd; as I am sure you will agree on reading them

• Punctuation marks have been omitted
• Books which were written in Old English will have to be transliterated to the modern 26 letter English alphabet (so letters like æ and ð will be represented by “a” or “th”)
• Upper case and lower case are ignored
  

I think we can all agree that these are not unreasonable restrictions.

So, now here for posterity are all the books ever written in English

1

Q

A

Z

2

W

S

X

3

E

D

C

4

R

F

V

5

T

G

B

6

Y

H

N

7

U

J

M

8

I

K

9

O

L

0

P

(hint- start at the top left hand corner of your keyboard and go diagonally down)

Working within the three restrictions above, every book ever written in English, broken down into 1 letter strings, is contained in these 36 lines.

Who needs monkeys!