FilmIndia (1946)

FI LMINDIA May, 1946 story begins. The very fact that he is walking towards a woman is a gesture of eternal love. Otherwise he would walk away in another direction. So with this superb technique, quite his own, Shantaram walks in the garb of Dr. Kotnis towards Ching Lan and stares purposefully at the Chinese girl. With the help of her narrow eyes, the Chinese girl somehow sustains the great doctor's romantic gaze and turns away with a new story in her heart. That sets fire to two hearts and we soon find them in flames all over that little part of China where Dr. Kotnis was attending to the sick and the wounded. These romantic interludes, as dry as the driest dates in the Sahara, are occasionally punctuated by wounded Chinese men being carried across the screen to prove to us that this story was about China and not about Nepal. That these Johnnies looked like the Goorkha watchmen we see in Bombay is merely a matter of coincidence. It was strange that in the whole of China, no women were injured by the bombs. And yet they called the Japanese, dogs. Perhaps the women of China seemed to know the trick of becoming invisible, because they not only disappeared from the Chinese batdefields but let down Shantaram very badly by not making an appearance in his i iooo feet of Chinese drama. Very soon Dr. Kotnis. of course Shantaram, gets married to Ching Lan under military orders. General Fong, of course Cousin Baburao Pendharkai who thinks it highly moral for a man and a woman to marry before serious complications set in, gives the order? to prepare for the wedding. Somehow, the Japanese seem to know of this marriage and knowing that Shantaram is playing the lead, stop all bombings on the wedding day and permit the bridegroom to indulge in some slapstick in the arrangement of the Sari of his Chinese bride. If Shantaram had invited them, the Japs would have willingly attended the wedding but Shantaram was, perhaps, not so sure of the Chinese liking the gesture. Anyway. Shantaram's wedding in the picture had to be gone through without the Japs taking part in it. That was too bad and the Chinese can never be excused seeing that an Indian doesn't marry a Chinese girl every day and considering that Dr. Kotnis had travelled all the way to China to save the Chinese nation. After the wedding the Chinese bride sings a song with a patented Kolhapuri tune with others supporting and for a while we are all taken to the kingdom of Shivaji. Then we are brought back to the first night of their married life, the honeymoon night, about which Urdu poets have written millions of words of nonsense. But Shantaram not knowing Urdu, despite Dewan Sharar's company for three years, the poets are found still born for him and he proceeds to glare at his little Chinese bride as she flits across the room coyly. You cannot expect more romance than this in Shantaram's pictures. And now Shantaram suddenly rememoers the Chinese wounded men, women being invisible, and rushes to bandage their broken limbs. THE MAGIC TOUCH By now a stage is reached for something heroic and spectacular. So the Chinese, with their traditional mandarin magic, oblige Shantaram by rtlW0/RI(?AlS HIT Hajputant Starring: VEEN A ft JAIRAJ BIPIN GUPTA * GULAM MOHAMED Vittctot: AS PI ft NOW SWEEPING THE PICTUREGOERS WITH WAVES OF PATRIOTISM ALL OVER INDIA ft -(Qj'lt KeU&te. 48