FilmIndia (1946)

July, 1946 FILMINDIA turn a normal child into an inhuman and precocious monster faster than a screen or a stage career wherein the child's natural emotions are regimented on mature lines to deliver commercial entertainment to the masses. At best acting is an abnormal life and the average adult actor, whom we find in society, is no prize packet himself. Most of them are prize scoundrels who deserve to be in our correction-houses for the rest of their normal life. To take a little innocent child into this world of vain and heartless scoundrels is a serious social crime apart from the spiritual murder of the child. Many of yesterday's baby stars of the Indian screen have either become vicious gamblers or shameless prostitutes of today. And some of them did once come from very good families while all of then, once had childish innocence written across their faces. Look at their precocious faces today. They look dark and ugly, their faces having taken the colour of their dirty thoughts and filthy experiences of maturity before time. Many a little girl of yesterday, whose innocence producers proudly sold to millions as a commercial product, is today a despicable woman of the streets selling her flesh in nightly instalments to all-comers. That is taading-in innocence for vice. Gita Bose has become an attractive woman now and N. Kabir makes sure of the fact in "Shikarpuri" of Charolia Productions. Over-wise parents may argue themselves out of this dilemma by believing that extra watchfulness and their constant attendance will save their children from the misfortunes that befall others. But this argument is based on self-hypnosis and does not at all save the little one from the deep mire of tragedy. The very routine of a stage or screen career is too demoralizing for the little souls who are very impressionable in their few years of innocence. The parents may keep a twenty-four-hour vigil on the person of their child, but the little one constantly observes and takes fresh impressions of the environments, usually putrid and de moralizing impressions, which unconsciously grow within with the passage of years and invariably take monstrous shapes of vice and crime in adult age. No parent in the world can guard the mind of the child and those parents who think they can are pursuing a mirage. Just at present we are watching a fell attempt of this vicious nature under daily prosecution in a crowded studio of Bombay. A sweet young girl of 12. beautiful and talented, often chaperoned by her impressive father, has attracted the perverted eyes of at least two film directors. The father has been warned, but he is not in a frame of mind to believe that any thing bad can happen to his daughter who has been brought up well and who is strictly supervised by him from day to day. The financial aspect of the affair is tempting enough and the father frowns with indignation whenever some one warns him. All on the quiet and with patient vehemence the two monsters are extending their slimy talons towards their innocent prey. Though the body is still premature the little girl's mind is fast maturing. She already enjoys vulgar jokes and when these scoundrels, taking the cloth-rationing angle, tell her to buy more cloth to cover her growing bosom, the girl blushes with an understanding that leaves innocence years behind. These two scoundrels are seen chasing this innocent girl with only one rapacious intention — satisfaction of their lust. No one can stop the onrush of this tragedy. The girl is cast in many pictures and with this the die of her tragic fate is irrevocably cast. The innocent girl is destined to tread the primrose path. The studio has other director^ persons with purpose and character, but it was this girl's misfortune to fall into the hands of unblushing scoundrel*. Even the producer can't prevent this tragedy now because the girl has now learned to enjoy her new environments and forgetting her previous search for an art expression, has now begun to find a subtle fragrance in the stink of her associations. Some day we shall tell you the name* of all, because telling them today won't help anv one — not even the little girl. Even a little <nrl is a woman and in India you can't whisper stories abo1^ women, even little women, without mininor the^bves. Yon have to wait to talk till Mic women themselves ruin their own lives and after that they are not worth talking about. So where women are concerned in India, peonle remain silent all their life All thi« .doesn't mean that every film doctor in thp industry is a scoundrel. Far from it. Ther^ 13