FilmIndia (1946)

FILM INDIA May, 1946 nions urged him to return to India. Dr. Kotnis is reported to have said: "No, I cannot go back. The Congress has sent me here and we have all signed a contract that none of us would go back before at least one year is completed. Now that my father has made the supreme sacrifice, the only thing for me to do is to give my life too for the cause that he held so dear." (Page 74). n) In August 1939, they received a telegram from Pandit Nehru saying that he would be visiting China and meeting them. There was sensation and enthusiasm at the news and a special cave was soon made ready for him. But Nehru could not visit owing to war in Europe. (Page 93.) o) One day in Yenan, the doctors strayed into a village while out for a walk. Owing to their smart uniforms they were taken for Japanese spies and arrested. Later on when their identity was established, they were given tea and released. (Page 96). p) The members of the Mission met General Chu Teh, the Commander of the 8th Route Army. Chu Teh struck them as sincere, passionate but very patient, almost fatherly in his calm dignity. (Page 106). q) The members of the Mission saw Chinese women working in various departments of national activity — wo men doing all kinds of work from the home to the battlefield. (Page no). r) An interesting thing noticed by the members of the Mission was the presence of a charkha in every home, (page no). s) An instance of Dr. Basu's remarkable resourcefulness and surgical skill is mentioned by Abbas. A young fighting peasant had lost his eyesight due to shell-burst. He was discharged from the army and deserted by his young wife. He had a fighting chance with a skilful but dangerous eye operation but Dr. Basu hadn't the necessary instruments. Dr. Basu prepared some instruments from bamboo and borrowing a pair of moustache scissors from a Chinese doctor, performed the dangerous operation which proved successful and the young man's eyesight was restored. (Pages 116-117). t) Kuo Ching Lan, wife of Dr. Kotnis, is described as a smart, attractive, jolly girl about 5 feet tall and with a round moonlike face, wearing thick glasses. She was a teacher of nursing at the Bethune Medical School of which Dr. Kotnis was the principal. She had taken medical training and like thousands of others had escaped the invaders, walking hundreds of miles, to join the 8th Route Army (Page 123). Mazhar Haq 44 jnd Nishi Baran make a new team story of Asiatic Pictures 'Mansarovar", a social u) Dr. Kotnis married Ching Lan on 25 th November 194 1. A son was born to them in July 1942 (8 months later). Dr. Kotnis died on 9th December 1942 (Pages 126-128). From the extracts quoted above it is apparent that Dr. Basu had supplied plenty of basic material to produce a national picture with a humanitarian and patriotic drama if only some one had exercised enough imagination to develop the plot dramatically. CONGRESS SABOTAGED Shantaram certainly didn't do so. Abbas and Sathe were not expected to do it. They are not expected to have either the brains or the imagination. Let us now see what Shan taram managed to miss. 1) In the entire picture there is not a word about the Indian National Congress which sent the Medical Mission to China. What Shantaram presents looks like a small conspiracy of five medicos out on an adventure. One wonders whether the Congress was purposely avoided to pander tc the bureaucrats in New Delhi? Or was Shantaram ashamed of our supreme national organization fighting 60 years for the freedom of our enslaved people? This omission gets a sinister complexion, seeing that the Congress sent the Medical Mission, as a token gesture, from one great people to another, in the face of official opposition. 2 Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who inspired the project is completely left out of the picture. Is Shantaram ashamed of our great leader or is he too scared of New Delhi? Even the litde affectionate incident of Panditji sending a gramophone to the doctors has been completely deprived of Jawahar's patronage and presented in a rude and sketchy manner without even a mention of Jawahar's name. To say the least it is caddish to do so. 3) In China, as Dr. Basu says (Page 28), the doctors wore a military uniform except for the distinctive Gandhi cap. In the picture, Shantaram and his co-actors seem to have kicked out the Gandhi cap, the mute symbol of our great struggle for freedom. Would the Gandhi cap have given Shantaram long nightmares remembering that the Central Provinces once had even its Governor wearing a Gandhi cap?