BRAVURA PERFORMANCE
The other surprise is the Bengali serial, Stopper, with
a subject which is utterly Bengali, but treated in an
unusual way to make it a gripping study of character,
of generation gap, and the football mania. The director
is Indranil Goswami and the lead actor is Debesh Roy Choudhary.
Many fiction football films have been made by the Germans
and the Hungarians, to name only two countries. Stopper
can hold its own against all of them. It is taut, the
football sequences are excellently shot and edited, the
sound and camera work are outstanding.
There is a bravura performance by Debesh Roy Choudhary,
who makes us believe that he can really play first class
football. As in the Malayalam film, it is the characters
which revolve round football mania, who provide value.
Roy Choudhary is the stopper who is not informed by his
ambitious coach manager that his wife is seriously ill
so that his performance in the match is not affected.
When he arrives home after two days, his wife is dead.
And his anger with the coach is only matched by his anguish
at his little son's accusation and subsequent estrangement
over his not coming in time for his wife's death.
As the boy grows, his abhorrence for his football-crazy
father is only matched by his hate of football, jogging
and other signs of sports. This clash of personality leads
up to a tender denouement, done without any suggestion
of mawkishness. This again is a class serial.
And when I try to think of anything from Bombay to match
during the last year, amidst a lot of rubbish, I can only
think of the serials by Vikas Desai and Gulzar, which
also got away from sex-violence and filmi gimmicks to
let us have a slice of real, credible life, done with
compassion as well as professionalism.
TELECAST REGIONAL SERIALS IN DELHI
I can only suggest that now that NFDC has a super sub
titling machine, and the DG of Doordarshan is its chairperson,
that we - at least in Delhi and Bombay - get a chance
to see these outstanding regional serials and that Sunday
afternoon is not merely devoted to films, that too only
in Hindi. International and national audiences in the
Capital simply long for serials such as these, which
have high quality and genuine human values, with English
translations.
I return again this week to the question of cable operators
playing fair. After the return of ATN, I have ceased
to get BITV and for those without extra gadgets, required
for getting reception of DD's channel 3, there seems
no option but to watch other channels, and operators
are still not giving the CNN India service.
At the recent cable operators' meet, with International
delegates and all the big channels represented, Bhaskar
Ghose, the secretary of the ministry of Information
and Broadcasting said he would protect the smaller cable
operators against the big ones.
In that case, why does he not also lay down certain
conditions about their showing the minority channels
as well and not merely the ones laden with filmi muck
and the worst serials? Why should they not play ball
as well?
At the moment it seems the small neighborhood operators
are eating their cake and having it too, as DD seems
powerless to even get them to show Channel 3 and CNN
India. What about it, Ghose? We pause for a reply.
Tail-Piece: According to the old adage, it is a wise
father who knows his own son. Well, DD seems unable
to know even its own newscasters. In the morning bulletin
in English in November 1, the newscaster was visibly
and audibly. Aninda Chakravarty. But DD's caption named
him as Jitendar Ram Prakash. Even for Doordarshan, one
must confess this was a bit too much.
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