Bollywood Movies Archives - Lokmarg

A common point between Raj Kapoor’s Boot Polish (1954), Guru Dutt’s CID (1956) starring Dev Anand, Shah Rukh Khan’s Baazigar (1993), Irfan-starrer Lunch Box (2013) and Bambai Meri Jaan (2023, Amazon Prime Series), besides being made across seven decades, is that they were shot outdoors on a group of picturesque islands on the Arabian Sea.

Madh Island, beyond the sea-facing view, offers not just scenic beauty but also the authentic culture of the Koli fisherfolk who are the original residents of Bombay, now Mumbai, which was itself built linking seven larger islands.

The Konkani-Marathi culture of colourful fisherfolk, with their sturdy, bejewelled women sporting full-sleeve blouses and nine-yard (nav-vari) saris, has so far resisted change, but their homes, essentially bamboo shacks, are yielding to swank bungalows, many of them becoming film studios.

Some 49 of them are thriving, within Mumbai’s civic limits, but far away from the madding crowds and traffic jams of the congested megapolis.

Last century’s records say that Madh and its surroundings began as outdoor shooting sites as far back as the 1940s. Away from the confines of the studios, outdoor shoots began there, along with Ghodbunder Road, Aarey and a few locations that offered open space uncluttered by crowds of film-crazy onlookers. For Bollywood, the important thing was that they were within the city or its outskirts, and nearby, saving travel time and cost.

Madh became hugely popular after Raj Kapoor’s Bobby (1973), which launched Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia. In a song sequence, Rishi visits a fishermen’s village at Dana Pani beach to woo Dimple, and the two dance to the supposedly Konkani tune (the taal and chorus refrain mimic traditional Koli folk music), singing the famous ‘Ghe ghe re ghe re, ghe re sahiba’ song. With that fame, Madh lost its serene solitude, so far attuned only to the sea waves.

Yet, for an island virtually off Mumbai, Madh was, and remains, difficult to access. The shortest route is through a polluted creek from Versova jetty, which requires a three-minute ferry ride. The other route is a 20 km detour via land that houses Navy and Air Force establishments, through a single road that, now heavily traversed, needs constant repair.

Bollywood has thronged the island because it provides an alternative to the studios in the city, many of which have closed down in recent years. The Film City complex is considered expensive and is strictly regulated by government-imposed rules and procedures. Many filmmakers say that only the big production houses can afford it.

Without a formal name, the cluster of studios at Madh offers space and facilities for rent ranging from ₹15,000 to ₹200,000 per day. Many of them are bungalows or complexes. Imaginatively designed, they have been a lucrative investment for ‘stars’, retired and current.

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Pass through these surroundings in the evenings, and you notice rows of limousines, buses that ferry a huge supporting workforce from the city and diesel-fuelled power generators with unending cables – all on a narrow street. Arc-lights inside and the bustle outside indicate that ‘action’ is on for a film, TV serial, ad clip or what eventually hits the OTTs – over-the-top entertainment.

Although apprehensive about the change this influx has brought, the locals of Madh are non-interfering. They are a mix of Hindu, Muslim and Christian, co-existing for a long time. The “ghe ghe re sahiba” culture dominates.

Compared to Mumbai, the real estate, so far, is relatively cheap. While Bollywood’s biggies reside at Juhu, Khar or Bandra, the up-and-coming ones have made their homes on both sides of the creek. With work virtually next door, they cut on travelling time.

You may run into Pankaj Tripathi or Sharat Saxena or once-wildly popular Rahul Roy. Or actor-director Tinnu Anand rushing down the jetty to join other passengers – students, workers, office-goers, fisherfolk – on the motor-driven launch. Within minutes, they reach the ‘mainland’ to negotiate the crowded city.

Actor Shakti Kapoor has a home named after his now-famous daughter, ‘Shraddha Nivas’, at a location called Patilwadi. Actor and TV personality Archana Puran Singh and her actor husband, Parmeet Sethi, have a property that features a large, beautiful garden and is made up of two bungalows. Indeed, the opening of their new home became an ‘event’ in typical Bollywood fashion, with choreographer-director Farah Khan visiting it, cameras in tow, to admire the home’s ambience, especially the interiors.

Pankaj Tripathi has a sea-facing home designed with a rustic, traditional Indian village ambience. It is named ‘Roop Katha’. The island also has the late Irrfan Khan’s former residence.

There can be bad news, but then, it is news. A portion of Mithun Chakravarty’s home was demolished recently. Some years back, an aspiring starlet had a public spat with director Madhur Bhandarkar. Or, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when everything was supposedly shut down, the police discovered alleged porn film shooting.

Several of these studios have faced scrutiny regarding their legality. In September 2022, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) initiated an inquiry into these studios, focusing on their compliance with zoning regulations concerning the No-Development Zone (NDZ) and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ). Following this investigation, in March 2023, the BMC commenced the demolition of five studios that were found to be operating without proper permissions.

Madh is, nevertheless, the Mini Bollywood. Its less-cluttered beaches at Aksa, Dana Pani and Erangal have wide space along the seashore, where structures allow for make-shift innovation. It has diverse locations, from beach resorts to rural landscapes, perfect for a variety of film genres. A Portuguese-era fort provides a backdrop for much action. The quaint houses in narrow lanes allow for ‘filmy’ action.

The aspiring youngsters from the island and around find work, hoping to get ‘creative’ someday. Many entertainment-related offices, like casting agencies, have come up. The weather is typically “Bombay-like”. The coastal climate, especially during monsoons, can sometimes disrupt schedules.

Amitabh Bachchan began his career shooting some scenes for KA Abbas’ Saat Hindustani (1969). Years later, he shot Mard (1985). Akshay Kumar shot Phir Hera Pheri (2006) and Lakshmi Bomb (2017). Ajay Devgn’s Singham Returns (2014) was shot here, and so were Crime Patrol, Savdhan India, CID, among other TV shows.

The island offers relative safety, besides crime, from wild animals. Traditionally known for beaches such as Aksa, Dana Paani, Bhati, Silver Beach, it also has an old 16th-century Portuguese Church – St. Bonaventure.

The Madh environment offers a heady mix of film, finance and fishing, a major reason why Bollywood has not moved, and is unlikely to move, to any other place in the country.

Contradictions constantly rush at one another in India where the most progressive and the most regressive trends co-exist at any given time. The context here is society and cinema.

It was Deepika Padukone and her film Chhapaak two months back. Now it is the turn of another landmark film, Thappad. The former was trolled and boycotted by those angry at Deepika’s expressing solidarity with agitating students and teachers at the turbulent Jawaharlal Nehru University. The latter faces similar wrath since its director Anubhav Sinha and many of the actors led by Taapsee Pannu were part of similar protests at Mumbai’s Gateway of India.

While Chhapaak reportedly suffered at the Box Office and bowed out of most cinema halls, Thappad is seemingly surmounting the boycott from quarters preoccupied with violence in Delhi and its aftermath. Taapsee has dismissed prospects of any damage to her film coming from “a few thousand trolls.”

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The basic argument of both the actors is that it is stupid to condemn and punish a film because those behind it have publicly expressed their views on issues that is controversial. But we are living in highly polarized times.

Coincidentally, but significantly, both films challenge set social norms and prejudices that presumably cause discomfort to the trolls, their allies across the social media and more importantly, their political mentors. Chhapaak, already written in detail in this space earlier, is about brutal acid attack on women who reject unwanted male advances. Thappad is about domestic violence and the impact on an individual’s sense of self-respect, especially when it comes from loved ones and life-partners.

Domestic violence afflicts all societies, but more so those where patriarchy rules, where men dominate, irrespective of their ability to earn and carry out other responsibilities as family persons, family heads in most cases. Inbuilt male supremacy boosts male ego.

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One can argue endlessly whether it is prevalent more in traditional societies or those that follow Western norms, or whether it is in the joint family or a nuclear one. But the universality of it is not in doubt.

Conventional wisdom is that education (for all) and economic independence in the case of the woman help better relationship. But there is no rule of the thumb with changing societal values and perceptions and complexities of growing urbanization and the rate race to make it big in material terms. In India, dowry deaths and in-laws’ harassment may or may not have diminished, but a working woman’s autonomy to spend from her earnings does lead to domestic violence.

India’s Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 begins and ends with the issue of violence. But it does not, and cannot, touch upon long-set social norms where a woman once married is expected to leave her parental home and not expect any relief or help if she is in trouble. They could include dowry demand, ill-treatment by in-laws who often side with the son against the daughter-in-law. Not just the mother-in-law, but the sister-in-law could also play a negative role. A daughter-in-law, but not daughter, is advised to accept a flawed relationship, occasional violence, even the son’s cheating. These are the realities.

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Traditional social norms in India have ensured that women by and large live with injustice and violence for fear of losing ‘izzat’ or else, being socially ostracized. A million women complained of domestic violence between the year 2005, when the law was enacted and 2016. Yet, the rate of reporting such incidents to the police are still considered small compared to the Western societies. Though illegal since 1961, dowry demand, at times camouflaged, remains ingrained in Indian society. Data reveals that 72 women die every day.

The law works, but only to the extent the society evolves and the State helps. For instance, “honour killing” is the norm, if not so much in India then certainly to its West where in some societies, women complaining of rape are punished.

This is all in the public domain, while domestic violence mainly occurs within the four walls of the home. In Thappad, it is a mix of the two. One tight slap falls on the cheek of a loving, caring wife from an equally loving, caring husband. It is delivered at home but in the midst of a party, before several guests.

It triggers a mini revolution. After failing to reconcile, the wife is determined to preserve her self-respect, even if it means a divorce. Just everyone, particularly women, including her woman-lawyer, dissuade her. Your place is there, not with us, parents tell her. All this is when each of them has story of aspirations suppressed at the altar of family life.

Reconcile and move on, the in-laws advise. All relationships are flawed, the lawyer counsels. Much ado over “just one slap?” she is told. “Not even one slap,” she responds. It is a wake-up call, not one to revolt. It’s a thin line, though.

The most effective parts of the film are the ones in which we are shown just how women are always being told how to feel, how to keep their feelings in check, how not to give into them.

Indian Express film critic Shubhra Gupta sums up: “Thappad bears its message, more essential than ever, on its chin: Women are not property. Wives are not owned. Dreams have no gender, and everyone is allowed to realise them. And how all it takes, from a woman who just wants self-respect, is a decision to say no, Not Even One Slap.”

Sadly, films speaking out against dowry are passé these days. But like domestic violence, there is another ‘No’, as more and more women join India’s work force. Pannu was the lead actor in another remarkable film, Pink (2016), about consent in sexual relationship. Amitabh Bachchan played the lawyer whose baritone “No means no. Only no”, drew the Lakshman Rekha.

All three films cited here are well-written, diligently performed, are not preachy, yet convey their respective messages forcefully.

This is where, and how, cinema comes, as it should. Undoubtedly, it has its limitations. The society cannot duck its responsibility. Not even when political leaders attribute increase in cases of rape and divorce to women going to work. The society has itself to set acceptable norms armed with legal sanctions and follow it diligently.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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