FilmIndia (1940)

The Menace of Devaki Bose "Call It Mysticism, Call It Inspired Poetry, I Call It Hocus-pocus!" By K. Ahmed Abbas Devaki Bose is not a film director. He is a tradition. He is a legend. He is a menace. He is a menace all the more because he is a genius. Indeed, he is worse than that. He is a poet. I have told the truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God. From Kumbakonam to Kashmir, from Karachi to Rangoon, I can visualize thousands of young men and. of course, young women, too! — gnashing their teeth as they read the above lines. If only they could lay their hands on me they would like to tear me to pieces. I know the type. He is mostly to be found in colleges and universities. He generally begins the day by reading Tagore or Radhakrishnan and ends it by seeing a Devaki Bose picture for the umpteenth time. He says he is a patriot but actually he is an idolater worshipping the "Glory That Was Ind." He would prefer to dream about the alleged golden past of India than to join those who are fighting to secure a better future for their country. He struts about in silk kurta and spotless dhotie and thinks he is a great Desh-bhakt but ask him to put on a greasy blue over-all and work in a factory and he will say something about the vulgarity of the industrial civilization. He is the sort of man who finds beauty in any dirty pile of stones if only it is a thousand years old but will condemn a fine hygienic building simply because it is something new. Everything that is vague and misty and smells of the past he adores; everything that is definite, real and modern he regards as cheap and vulgar! I know the type because many of my friends— indeed, an alarmingly large section of the educated Indians —belong to it. To analyse the origin and growth of this species of past-worshippers is a historical task. Briefly, it may be traced back to the inferiority complex produced by foreign domination and the consequent desire to take refuge in the rosy visions of ancient India. Escapism manifests itself either in romanticism or in glorification of the past. The latter is the especial province of Devaki Bose and his fans. FROM "SHADOWS OF DEATH" TO— The first film that Devaki Bose directed was called "Shadows Of Death". It has haunted him ever since. Veteran E. BILLIMORIA will be seen again in "Nirali Dunya" a Tarun picture "In the hoary days of India's glo rious past, centuries and centuries ago That is how the story of "Puran Bhakt" began. Devaki Bose is still telling the same old grandma's yarn. Make a list of all successful Devaki Bose pictures — — "Puran DEVAKI BOSE— Is he really a menace? Bhakt", "Seeta", "Raj Rani Meera", "Vidyapati" and you find the same glorious past being glorified all over again. That by itself is not such a social crime. I believe that even the story of Adam and Eve can be given social significance and a progressive slant if it is judiciously dramatized. The past is of value only when it can help us to understand and interpret contemporary life. Prabhat make their mythologicals and fantasies instinct with progressive social purpose inspite of miracles and magic. "Amrit Manthan" and "Beyond The Horizon" were eloquent denunciations of religious tyranny and the hypocrisy of priestcraft; "Tukaram" was so great not because he flew away on the back of a bird but because he gave away the last sugar-cane to the neighbour's child rather than to his own, because he defied highcaste orthodoxy to claim every man's right to study the scriptures, because he and his wife worked and lived like any other peasant family; "Gopal Krishna", the eternal boy, pitted himself against the might of a tyrant and "Dnyaneshwar" found the simple masses more spiritually elevated than the highborn priests. Each of these stories could have been filmed merely as spectacular sagas, glorifying the material and 54