FilmIndia (1946)

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FILMINDIA May, 1946 this, seeing that the charkha has also become another symbol of our national struggle for freedom. Our people should have taken Shantaram's permission before adopting the charkha as one more symbol of our national struggle. 10) The other four doctors who went to China with Dr. Kotnis may well have been completely dropped from the picture rather than to have exposed them to some undeserved ridicule as is apparent in the picture. From the picture it seems that they had gone to China only to hear some gramophone records of Indian songs and having done so returned hurriedly leaving the whole of China to Shantaram. At least that dramatic incident of Dr. Basu's surgical skill in restoring the eyesight of the peasant should have been charitably put into the story to give the other four doctors some purpose in going to China, all the way from India. If Shantaram is a conscientious man, as he always claims to be, we would like to know why he distorted the basic factual material out of recognition. And why was the Indian National Congress so completely sabotaged? DR. KOTNIS OF THE SCREEN Now let us see what Shantaram has actually done with the story of Dr. Kotnis. Shantaram opens the story in the small town of Sholapur, in its outskirts, permitting water-carrying maidens to walk across the horizon in a beautifully executed shot. We are soon taken to the Sholapur station where Dr. Kotnis, (Shantaram, himself) gets down, greets old friends, steps into a tonga and bursts out into a song. Between Shantaram and the hack some philosophy, about life not being an empty dream, is mournfully doled out, Shantaram making queer faces and eyes at the audience all the while and the horse wondering at the undeserved torture visited upon him. The rejuvenated young man (Shantaram being at the wrong end of 40) soon jumps out of the tonga and is seen meeting his mother and other little ones in the house. We are soon taken to Kotnis Senior who is busy fitting up a grand dispensary for his son. (And they say he committed suicide pressed by debts). Father and son meet and the ice is 46 broken when the son tells of his resolve to go to China. The inspiration to go to China is described in a flash-back in which, on Shantaram's laboriously and painfully thinking face, we hear a bull's voice, though we are asked to believe that it is some national leader's beloved voice, urging the people to help the oppressed Chinese. The national leader, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, is scrupulously avoided. Whatever may be the other reasons, one thing is sure that Panditji has a better screen face than the great Shantaram and at least for this reason it was practical wisdom to avoid Panditj i's appearance on the screen to prevent unnecessary rivalry with the dehydrated appearance of the hero. The father is of course disappointed but he soon comes round and Shantaram celebrates this transformation of the Senior by jumping over a table and incidentally proving that his monkey glands still function properly. Very soon the five doctors, with Dr. Kotnis of course the most prominent among them, are seen boarding a ship to China. In long shots we are shown the other four, while the camera lens is kept in constant embrace of Dr. Kotnis. That way Shantaram has always been very affectionately attached to the camera being one of our best camera-craftsmen and we don't expect him to be torn away from it. Now we are taken to China and we see the doctors getting down several steps. The steps are supposed to re present China — men, women and children having been bombed out 0! the picture. FOUR DOCTORS PACKED OFF After this we see several stock shots of newsreels in which the poor Chinese are bombed into' taking shelter in caves. A studio 'house' catches fire and Dr. Kotnis, of course Shantaram, shows some heroism in rescuing the trapped ones, of course, at a great risk to his own life. So Dr. Kotnis was also a fire-fighter. Brave kid, that. Then the doctors start attending some stray wounded ones. But they seem rushing about more than working actually. It is time now for the other four doctors to leave the field for Dr. Kotnis. The great Shantaram was acting the main role and other nonentities can't be permitted to loaf about the picture. So Dr. Kotnis gives them some gramophone music which proves deadly enough to scatter the remaining four in different directions, leaving Shantaram in charge of China. Saigal and Surraiya make a romantic team in "Omar Khayyam" produced and directed by Mohan Sinha.