TELEVISTA
Filmy flashbacks to the fore
Amita Malik

Nowadays, when one goes to sleep at night, the last thought in the mind is to what disaster one will wake up. Sure enough, on what should have been a quiet and relaxing Sunday, a metro bridge construction collapsed at 7.15 am. Two dead and 10 injured, said the official statistics, but no one believed these. With one bus and 10 cars pinned underneath, presumably with people inside, not to speak of those buried under the debris, obviously, the casualties were much higher.

So our TV viewing, which normally begins on a holiday to an upcoming cricket match or, for the devout, to morning prayers, began, instead, with watching disaster on TV. As usual, one is greatly disturbed to see large crowds gathering near the site of a tragedy, some in search of relatives and friends, but others there out of sheer curiosity, and adding to the confusion.

In advanced countries, the police arrive quickly, cordon off the area and leave it to the good sense of people to avoid getting in the way of rescuers. But this is not the case in our disaster-happy country, where an incident like this becomes a tamasha for those not directly affected by it.

Shammi Kapoor was a great character in his own right

However, in the middle of all this comes an enthralling series on the channel, Times Now. Aptly titled Total Recall, it takes us back to momentous happenings from the past. We have had the heroines of the 1960s, with Vyjayantimala and Waheeda Rehman lighting up the screen with their beauty and acting brilliance. Last week there was an unexpected hero, Shammi Kapoor, now obese and shaggy, and more addicted to the computer than to acting.

But what a swashbuckling hero he made. Chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe, he shouted and sang, whirling down the sloping landscape, slim and faster than lightning. He seemed as amused as his viewers, recalling those tumultuous days.

Each of the Kapoor brothers had his own unique personality. Raj and Shashi were different from Shammi and from each other. Shammi, in his autobiographical documentary, recalled the sad and sudden death of his wife Geeta Bali. He also recalled the more happy days of his life and the other heroines with whom he worked.

He was a great character in his own right. We shall look forward to more such programmes because this is cinema history being recorded, and will soon pass into valuable archives. One still regrets that Indian TV is not taking the trouble to record interesting people in long interviews, specifically as archive material, as is done in other countries, usually by one person specialising in the series.

Meanwhile, for those interested in science, there is the fascinating description with everything explained by experts about Chandrayaan’s journey to the moon. We are also shown from time to time Armstrong taking his first shaky steps on the moon, "a giant step for mankind," as it was aptly called.

For sports lovers there was nothing as exciting as India getting on top of Australia in cricket, and the magnificent performance by young Mishra, with an endearing interview with his mother, who seemed to know a bit about cricket, and was able to give us a close view of the new bowler’s evolution into a star.

Meanwhile, our very own Bhajji, always in some controversy or the other, seems to have emerged from this one, having apologised to both Hindus and Sikhs for his terrible faux pas in having played Ravana, and that, too, with a pretty girl in tow.