The Participants 2007:
Vital Connections Between the Story and the Audience
By Taran N. Khan (India)

Where I come from, everybody is a film critic. That's because cinema is a passion in India, especially small towns like the one I grew up in. In these nondescript centres of dust and dullness, films were often the only (and I mean only) available means of legitimate entertainment. Everybody loved films-even the rickshaw pullers ferrying a gaggle of women to the theatre could be heard berating them, "Well, you should have left earlier, now you'll miss the opening credits, wont you!" If there was one thing better than watching films, it was talking about them. Going to school after watching the night show of the new release was to be popular and sought after. In whispers, at the back of the class, the story unfolded, punctuated by giggles and debate over the (many) holes in the narrative.

Of course, like all enjoyable things, cinema also came with an air of disreputability. Especially for women. Good girls absolutely did not watch films, much less talk or think about them. My grandmother was a film buff. She would regale us with stories about how she used to sneak off with her cousins to the cinema in the blazing heat of the afternoon, hiding from chance — met in-laws and tell-tale relatives under the folds of her burqa (veil). Not much changed while I was growing up. Theatres were still for the vulgar, especially since they stopped building separate boxes for the gentry. Think about your studies, I was told. So I took a leaf out of my grandmother's book of subtle subversion and studied cinema. I was fortunate enough to be accepted at what is reputed to be one of the best institutes for the media in Asia, certainly in India. But I suspect that I learnt more from two subsequent developments. The first of these was working with a group of filmmakers in Kabul, Afghanistan. For almost four months, my colleagues and I trained them in various aspects of video production. Over these weeks, we watched many films together — some of them familiar to our Afghan colleagues, some completely new. Watching films through their eyes, learning from their insights and facilitating the production of their own short films taught me more about the unfolding of life and films than any course or book ever could. Second was moving to Bombay (now Mumbai) with my scriptwriter husband, who dreams of making films one day. Him, and about half the city. The suburb where we live is teeming with "strugglers" — people who are trying to make it in Bollywood as actors, directors, writers and technicians. Day and night, the place throbs with manic quantities of energy and ambition. From the guy who mends your shoes to the boy who drives you to Film City, everyone here has a "filmi" connection, a way into the celluloid wonderland. Everyone is waiting for that one chance, just one lucky break and they're in. Many don't make it, but some do, and that's reason enough for everyone else to keep trying.

All this is leading up to a confession I must make. I am not "really" a film critic. I don't write erudite prose deconstructing narratives, nor can I churn out the delightfully gossipy and "masala" marinated pieces that bubble forth with every new release. What I do enjoy writing about and exploring are the connections that cinema — Bollywood and others — makes with the lives and everyday spaces of its audience. I revel in the familiar textures and smells that films become soaked in as they permeate our conversations, our clothes, our lines to impress. Cinema becomes life in India - whether you choose to look in Bombay or in the small town milieu of my childhood. As a writer - on films and other things - it is these many colourful, vital connections between story and audience that I try to tease, probe and celebrate in my work.

Taran N. Khan

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