By R N Dash
[Specially written for, and published in the Foreign Magazine New Global Indian, in its special issue on Bihar and Jharkhand, in July 2009]
Bhojpuri,the language of about 150 million people in India and abroad, has its cradle in the western half of Bihar, and the adjoining eastern part of UP. Yet Bhojpuri Cinema had its origin elsewhere, although the first Bhojpuri feature was made in Bihar. The first feature film made in Bihar and Jharkhand (Punarmilan,1931,Directed by then top Director Dhiren Ganguli,produced by Maharaja Bhupendra Narayan Singh of Deo) was not a Bhojpuri Film. It was the Filmistan studio at Goregaon, Mumbai that introduced a Bhojpuri song in one of its films in 1946.Bhojpuri dialogues and songs were inserted off and on in Hindi films, such as Nadiya ke Paar (1948,Kishore Sahu),Ganga Jamuna (1961,Nitin Bose), Teesri Kasam (1966, Basu Bhattacharya), Nadiya ke Paar (1982, Govind Moonis, Rajasree Productions) etc. Shakti Samanta also produced and directed a Bhojpuri film (Ayeel Basant Bahar,1966).
The first ever Bhojpuri film, Ganga Maiya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo (produced by Vishwanath Prasad Shahabadi of Bihar, directed by Kundan Kumar of Varanasi, with lyrics by Shailendra, music by Chitragupta, starring Asim Kumar, Kumkum, Nasir Hussain, Padma Khanna, Ramayan Tiwari etc, premiered in Prakash Talkies in Varanasi in 1962) was a great family drama with its spectacular panorama of the Chhat festival (the most important family festival of the region) on the banks of river Ganges, caused an euphoria amongst the film lovers of Bihar and Eastern UP, and prompted announcements for production of about 70 Bhojpuri films immediately, most of which did not materialise. Only two to seven films were released annually, totalling only 17 during the next 8 years ie, till 1970.The next decade was the worst : only 9 produced during 1971-80.From 1981 onwards the productions increased gradually, and a total of 135 films had been produced from 1962 till 1993,which included many good, popular and hit films adhering to the Bhojpuri culture (Bidesia, 1963,by S N Tripathi, re-creating the art of Bhikhari Thakur); Lage Nahin Chute Ram (1964), Loha Singh (1966, the legendary folk comedian created by Prof. Rameswar Singh Kashyap) and Bhouji (1965,all by Kundan Kumar); Hamar Sansar (1965,by Naseem); Dangal (1977,by Rati Kumar, produced by Ashok Jain); Balam Paradesiya (1979 )and Rus Gailo Saiyan Hamar (both by Nasir Hussain); Dharti Maiya (1981,by Kumar Naqvi), Ganga Kinare Mere Gaon (1983,by Dilip Bose); Hamar Bhouji (1984, by Kalpataru); Bihari Babu (1985, by Dilip Bose, produced by Satrughan Sinha); Dagabaaz Balma (1988,by Arati Bhattacharya, so far the only female Bhojpuri Director, herself a Bengali actress, married to a top Bhojpuri Actor Kunal). Till then Bhojpuri cinema had been continuing with the Bhojpuri traditions, and with its melodramatic family dramas depicting day to day happenings in the countryside, was a favourite of rural and semi-urban housewives, and of the daily wage earners. Since 1990s,Bhojpuri cinema entered its golden age, producing more and more films, investing crores as against lakhs with primary aim to mint money, departing from the Bhojpuri traditions and culture, aping Bollywood and its ever-increasing permissiveness, with daring body exposures, provocative lyrics and dances, double meaning dialogues, but neglecting the basic qualities of good cinema, eg, storyline, script, screenplay, structure, presentation, and above all, technical excellence, using ribaldry as the trump card for box office success. Even Udit Narayan produced a film(Kab Hoega Gawna Hamar, 2005) with dances in Punjabi style during a marriage function, contrary to the Bhojpuri tradition. Sasura Bada Paisawala (2004,by Ajay Sinha) became a super hit only for its four ribald items, which, if removed, would make the film a super-flop, leaving only a hackneyed storyline, of boy meeting girl, falling in love, deciding to marry against oppositions, fightings and reconciliation. But the formula did not last long. Ego Chhumma De De Rajaji, with both the current top stars, Manoj Tiwari and Ravi Kishan, flopped in the box office in spite of its saucy title and contents. Jade Mein Balma Pyara Lage (2008, produced,written and directed by Mukesh Kumar) had a lukewarm release in spite of its all seven ribald song items, and an expensive and impressive 12 page brochure indicating a better than Bollywood style. According to a reputed trade Magazine, during the last 5 years,2004 to 2008,as many as 20,65,115,72 and 42 were released respectively, out of which only 10,10,12,7 and 5 succeeded; the success rate nose-dived from 50%(average) to 20%(border-line between disasters and flops).
Characterised by low budget, devoid of top star-casts, poor in technical quality, lacking diversification of themes, with hackneyed storylines concentrating mostly on rural family dramas, unable to compete with their Hindi mainstream counterparts, running in sub-standard cinema theatres in rural and semi-urban localities, catering to not-so-affluent patrons discouraged by poor law and order, and women viewers shying out from the embarrassing contents of the films, with low priced tickets delivering meagre returns for the distributors and the producers as against disproportionately exorbitant rates being charged by its lead actors, it has not been able to attract either laurels in the National level, nor the big-budget producers nor the innovative and sensitive film makers who have sky-rocketed the standards of Indian cinema.
Bhojpuri film makers, mostly small time producers, giving up after a single flop, unaware of the niceties of good cinema and having no knowledge of marketing strategies and realities, many of them tempted to be a part of the glamorous world of filmdom, feel elated on hearing rumours that Sasura earned 15 crores with a meagre investment of only 30 lakhs, and dare to spend 3 to 4 crores, when the maximum potential of the Bhojpuri film market is hardly of one to one-and-a-half crore, spread over the non-remunerative Bhojpuri belt described above. These producers lap up informations that giant production houses of Bollywood such as Rajasree have entered the fray, that Columbia-Tristar of Hollywood is considering to dub its films in Bhojpuri to catch the Bhojpuri belt, Namak Halal is being dubbed in Bhojpuri, Mumbai single screens and even multiplexes are being flooded with Bhojpuri films, and that Bhojpuri Film-songs are ruling the streets.They get excited that Bollywood stars such as Amitabh Bachhan, Hema Malini, Mithun Chakravorty, Ajay Devgan, Jackie Shroff, Raj Babbar, Arun Govil, Rati Agnihotri, Hrishita Bhatt etc have started acting in Bhojpuri films, celebrities such as Subhas Ghai, Nitin Manmohan, Tinu Varma, Saroj Khan have associated themselves, and even a foreign model has acted as a Bhojpuri star (Tanya, from Ukraine, in Firangee Dulhaniya, 2005, by Ranjan Kumar Singh), and another has agreed to do so (Jessica, a British actress).They are often persuaded by touts to ignore the facts that no big name from Bihar has chosen to promote Bhojpuri Cinema(except the lone instance of Bihari Babu),and involvement of Bollywood biggies with Bhojpuri films have been negligible, or only in the contemplation stage. The Bollywood giants are too shrewd to jump into the non-viable Bhojpuri arena with its poor track record. Most of the Bhojpuri producers might not be aware that by end of 2008,as many as 144 completed Bhojpuri films were languishing in their cans, waiting to be released, with no takers, and 80% of the released films are unable to recover their investments.
It is quite natural to blame Bihar, a state with no industry, hence with no big money and no big producer, without basic infrastructure, with no facility for film making, old cinema theatres closing down, no new cinema hall coming up,poor purchasing power of film goers pushing down cost of tickets to the minimal, and cinematic talents migrating to Bollywood. It is easy to blame the Government, without appreciating that why should the Government spend big money in an entertainment industry when it is unable to mobilise funds for basic facilities for its people, specially when there is no dearth of alternate cinema available everywhere ?
Bhojpuri cinema, no doubt, has produced many memorable films in the past,and is also producing such films at present, although much fewer. Both the topmost scholars in Bihar on cinema, Prof. Dr N N Pandey (himself a sensitive actor in Bhojpuri films, having impressive credentials with a Doctorate degree on cinema) and Shri Vinod Anupam (Ace critic and journalist on cinema, a National Award winner on writings on cinema) fondly recall the memorable films mentioned above for which Bhojpuri cinema have been proud of. Both agree that there has been no film so far that can be considered better than Ganga Maiya, But they also commend a few recent films such as Bidai (2008, by Aslam Shaikh, a poignant film on the dowry system).While Pandey also commends Mitwa (1969,Govind Moonis), Vinod also recommends recent films such as Kab Aibu Anganwa Hamar (2007, by Sanjay Tripathi, a film infusing hope amongst the desperate youth) and Hum Bahubali (2008, by Anil Ajitabh, produced by Mahindra and Mahindra, a rare film with technical excellence, although with not-so-good contents).
Fortunately Bhojpuri cinema has no dearth of talents, but such talents need to be explored and utilised by expert and sensitive Directors, only if the producers so wish. Nasir Hussain, Kanhaiya Lal, Sujit Kumar, Kunal Singh, Kumkum, Padma Khanna, Prema Narayan, Rajni Sharma, Gauri Khurana, Seema Vaz, Bandini Mishra etc have been legends. The present day actors, Manoj Tiwari Mridul, Ravi Kishen, Rakesh Pandey, Dinesh Yadav, Sweta Tiwari, Rani Chatterjee (Sabiha Sheikh re-named), Pakshi Hegde, Rinku Ghosh, Urmila Rao, Mona Lisa, Nagma etc have no less potential. Producers and Directors such as Ashok Jain, Mohanjee Prasad, Kundan Kumar ,S N Tripathi, Govind Moonees, Aslam Shaikh, Dilip Bose etc are no less competent. But they need a change of orientation, backed by elite financiers and distributers committed to better cinema rather than the box-office.
The success story of a few recent releases is certainly encouraging. A satellite channel dedicated to Bhojpuri language, long awaited, has since emerged (Mahua) and is gaining popularity, ushering good days for Bhojpuri cinema. We are eagerly waiting for the day when some enlightened producer will come forward to invest in a new kind of Bhojpuri cinema, with lust for excellence instead of box-office returns, select a new-breed Director, matching Art Director, Cameraman, Script writer etc, and produce films that will earn laurels for Bhojpuri cinema, and adorn the Film Archives and libraries in India and elsewhere in future as immortal classics worth viewing again and again. Long live Bhojpuri cinema !
The writer is a retired officer,presently a social and cultural activist,occasionally teaching and writing about cinema) {May,2009}
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