Formation of Units & Documentary Shooting

We were twelve students in the class and were divided into four unit groups of three persons. When one person does the job of lighting and operating the camera , one of us will do the follow focusing and the other push the trolley or help with lighting etc. Our Unit consisted of myself , Ram Agarwal and Kasturi R Murthy. Also Filming units were formed with one student each from Direction, Photography, Editing & sound departments for making the Documentary and Diploma films.

We were to start our work in our Documentary films and my Director was Baba Majgavkar. Akki Hame Chander as Sound Recordist and M.A.Singh as Editor completed the crew.

With Baba (Right) and Agarwal ( L)


Baba looking thro viewfinder, Murthy standing beside Camera

The title of the Documentary was BHAJIWALA and was supposed to be a parable on the misadventures of a vegetable seller in a multilingual community in a humorous manner about our linguistic problems. It was shot on the exteriors of a housing colony and was enacted mostly by the Direction students themselves, K.G.George as the vegetable seller.

K.G.George

The shooting location was in the foot path outside a housing colony of flats and a small crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the proceedings. It gave an opportunity to Assistant Director Raina to bring out the megaphone and wield it to make himself the centre of attraction.

Raina with the Megaphone

The shooting was a really a fun experience with all characters speaking in their own language and finally the commotion ends in a big fight amongst themselves. It was not a choreographed one, but a free for all fight! I had to do a lot of hand held shots to film that sequence.

Me with the camera and Baba guiding me from behind

I am standing on the wall with support from Agarwal, Baba
looking on & Singh noting down.
K.G.George is sitting in the centre

Food crisis

Being in the Final year, I was allotted a single room for myself at the hostel. But the food at the Hostel Mess was always a problem as the students came from all States of India and foreign countries too! It was an impossible task to cater to the tastes of the inmates who are used to their regional cuisines with limited resources. Last year a Malayali , Mr. Panikkar was the mess contractor and so the menu had Sambhar, rice etc which was quite acceptable to the South Indians. He had also provided North Indian dishes and Roti etc for other students. But this time a new contractor, a Punjabi Sardarji Mr. Chadda took over the mess. The food turned out to be mostly of the North Indian variety and rice was limited to only a cupful and we coming from the South found it difficult to digest this change in cuisine. Since I was in the Mess committee which decides upon the weekly Menu, I reintroduced Sambhar and rice. But unfortunately the experiments by the Punjabi cook to prepare Sambhar turned out to be a disaster in the form Dhal with some added chilly powder. Ultimately we conceded defeat and swallowed our pride and ate the North Indian food provided. Some ingenious students had electric hot plates in their rooms and did their own cooking and managed with pickles and other condiments.

Some students found out that nearby Law College Mess was providing reasonably good food with unlimited rice too, and they were allowing students from outside to eat there. Added attraction was the sweets served with Sunday lunch, which you can have as much as you want. So I along with Murthy and Venugopal Thakkar, I joined the Law college mess and our food crisis was happily solved.

Debu, dear friend, Bye......

Yet another personal loss - My dear friend and batch mate from the Institute, Debu Deodhar passed away in to eternity this evening ( 1, September 2010)

Debu Deodhar

A very close friend from the Institute days he was one of the two day scholars in our class, hailing from Poona, the other one was R.S. Agarwal. Now we have lost both of them, Agarwal having taken the lead. As I had written in an earlier post, we used to keep in touch with each other quite often and whenever possible during my short visits to Mumbai myself, Jaiswal and Venugopal Thakker used to have a get together and talk about good old days at the Institute. I found him always with a smile which was spreading cheer all around as a source of positive energy!

One of those Happier days at CC

This time about a month back while I was in Mumbai for the CAS program Jaiswal told me about the critical condition of Debu. Kanal and Kondra who were also attending the CAS , told me about Debu's illness. It seems Cancer had gained an upper hand as it was detected rather at a later stage. Since I had to leave as soon as the CAS was over, I could not pay a visit to him. I was not able to get him on the phone either and left an SMS message.

On my recent visit to Chennai, I happened to meet Kasturi Murthy and passed the information about Debu. I was hoping that Debu will get better and had only today sent a mail to Jaiswal inquiring about Debu's health. But, this evening I received the message from Kanal that Debu is no more!
God calls those dearest to him much too soon! May the Lord give strength to his near and dear to bear this untimely loss. I join in their prayers for the departed Soul to Rest in Peace.

Debu in 1968, at Film Institute

Short Bio and Filmography of Debu:

Debu Deodhar had worked for Directors like Raj Dutt, Amol Palekar, Aziz Mirza, Nana Patekar, Bhimsain and many others. He had also bagged awards like Maharashtra State Award, Zee Gaurav Puraskar, Goa State Award etc.

His work was last seen in a recently released Marathi film ‘Marmabandh’. His forthcoming films are 'Laadi Goadi' and 'Tamashaa'. Some of his other films were - Savalee 2007, Maati Maay 2006, Kshan 2006, Lal Salaam (2002), Pehchaan (2005) , Stumped 2003, Dhyasparva (2001), Kairee (2000) ,Lekroo (2000), Silsila Hai Pyar Ka (1999) ,Daayraa (1996), Bangarwadi (1996), Prahaar: The Final Attack (1991),Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaayen (1990), Lapandav (1993) Shejari Shejari, Gav Tas Changal, Tinhisanja & Akriet (1981).

He is survived by wife Shrabani, daughter Sai and son-in-law Shakti Anand.

Final Year at the Institute

After the vacation, returning back to the Institute for the Final year was a mixed experience - meeting friends, missing old senior friends and making friendship with the bunch of new arrivals. The seniors(1970 MPP Batch) who have passed out were V. K. Gandhi, S. Ramchandra, Lai Teck Kwong, K. K. Nayak, J. K. Patra, J. P. Bhagat, Biman Chandra Sinha, A. K. Nigam and Abdul Sattar Mokurwal. A batch of Malayalis consisting of G.S.Panikkar, Bhaskaran Unni, Kabeer Rawther ( Direction) Muralidharan ( Sound) and M. Azad ( Screenplay writing) also completed their studies and left the Institute.

There were no theory classes, only hands on practicals and practicals with NC and BNC Mitchell cameras! This time the Direction students joined us to do combined dialogue exercises etc. We took turns lighting the sets, Operating the camera, pulling focus and pushing the dolly etc. That way we got trained in all aspects of camera including mounting of the camera and lenses and loading the film in magazines etc.

V.N.Jatla ( Direction) and me on Camera

Myself on Camera and S.K.Jolly Follow focusing

Prof.Satish Bahadur - An Appreciation

With his unique personality and teaching methods he made a lasting impression in the minds of generations of film students at the Film Institute. He opened their eyes and made them see films in a different way for the rest of their lives. People from different walks of life coming from all parts of India started appreciating films in an artistic manner through the courses conducted by him. Prof. Satish Bahadur had single handedly carved a niche in Film Studies in India and had cultivated Film Appreciation in to a separate form of art.

Prof. Bahadur started his career as the head of the department of Social Science in Agra College where he had created two film societies. Noted Film Critic Ms. Marie Seton suggested to Mrs. Indira Gandhi that the newly inaugurated Film Institute of India should have an additional department of film appreciation and further told her that the first person to be considered for the job should be none other than Prof. Bahadur.

Prof. Bahadur invented his own teaching methodology, making full use of the National Film Archive at the Film Institute. In the time to come, the format of Film appreciation created by Prof. Bahadur would become standard format for all future courses in India in Film appreciation. Along with P.K. Nair, the founder director of the National Film Archives, Prof. Bahadur for nearly twenty years toured the big and small towns in the country teaching cinema to lay audiences. Some of the young people even considered film making as a career option owing to his influence.

Prof. Bahadur receiving a Memento from Dev Anand

during the FTII 50 Celebrations, 2010

The person who made the most indelible impression on me at the Institute was Prof.Bahadur. In those days, I had a great liking for Actor Omar Sharief after viewing David Lean's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. With his handsome looks, hair falling in his forehead and square jawline, Prof. Bahadur reminded me of the great actor Omar Sharief. His charming personality and child like enthusiasm made him the most popular person at the Institute and he was always found surrounded by groups of students.

His lectures at the class room theatre were a delight to attend and students never missed his classes. He was a chain smoker at that time and used to smoke even while lecturing at the classes. Often he will take out tobacco and paper from the pouch and roll out a cigarette while speaking and try to light it after several failed attempts. After one or two puffs it will go off and he will continue to drag at the unlit cigarette stub! His call "Ramayyan" to the projectionist to start the screening in the class room still rings in my ears even after a passage of many years.

After leaving the Institute I never had an opportunity to meet him, but I was looking forward to seeing him some time during the year long 50 th Anniversary celebrations of the Institute. The inaugural ceremony I could not attend and my good friend Sound Engineer Muralidharan had sent me some photograph, in one of which Prof.Bahadur is seen receiving a Memento from veteran Actor Dev Anand. Unfortunately Prof. Satish Bahadur passed away on Saturday,24 July, 2010 after a brief illness. He was 85.

Even after retirement, Prof. Bahadur continued to participate in seminars and wrote film analyses in academic periodicals. At the time of his death, Prof. Bahadur had just completed the editing of a book analyzing the film Pather Panchali which is likely to be released later this year.
For his lifelong work dedicated to opening new vistas in film studies, Prof. Satish Bahadur remained unrecognized by the Government, the Indian film industry and even by his former students who became eminent film personalities.

I sincerely pray for his soul to Rest in Peace and express my heartfelt sympathies to the members of the revered teacher's family.

Juniors from Motion Picture Photography

We had some very nice relationship with our junior students and especially from the Motion Picture Photography course. They often got in touch with us if they had any doubts to clear and we sought their help when we needed some still photographic prints to be made.

A.S. Kanal, K K Maitra, Sudhir Choudhary, Siba Naryana Mishra, Narayana J. Kondra, Ashok Krishna Malik and Anil Jain Satish Aima were our juniors in the First Year M.P.P. course. A.S. Kanal is now running Vikshi Institute of Media Studies at Pune and I often keep in touch with him and we met several times in Mumbai in Cinematographers Combine Programmes and in Pune at the FTII. Also I have contributed articles for "The Cinematographers Handbook" edited by him. Anil Jain Satish Aima was a very handsome guy who was mostly found in the company of acting students. Some time after the group photo of that period was put up in my blog I received a mail from Delhi, sent by Anil Jain who was happy to be taken back to those times. Though I had known Sudhir Choudhary we became thick friends only in my final year and I will write about it later.

Some of the few dayscholars from Pune attending the Institute were my classmates R.S.Agarwal, Debu Deodhar and Narayana J. Kondra from the first year. Later on while I was shooting my first Hindi film PATITA directed by I.V. Sasi in Mumbai, I needed a Focussing assistant and it was my classmate K.K. Jaiswal who suggested Kondra's name. He worked with me in that film and we didn't, have further contacts as I was mostly concentrating on Malayalam films. I happened to meet him again in Mumbai during the Cinematographers Combine Program in October, 2003. Recently I met him in June 2010 at the CAS Presentations Program organized by Cinematographers Combine at Mumbai.

N.J.Kondra

Myself and Kondra at CAS

The Program was also an occassion to meet many friends from the Film Institute such as Kanal, Jaiswal etc. I also met after thirty years my senior at the Institute S.R.Krishna Murthy who had done part of the reshoot of my film PATITA in my absence at that time, while he was working with Producer Pramod Chakraborty in Mumbai.

With S.R.K.Murthy