Prof. Bahadur's real domain was the classroom theatre in the Film and Television Institution of India, Pune. Its interiors painted with distemper, in a hideous “sarkari” green, were permanently in need of another coat of paint. It was nice to look out of the windows at the real green — the grass, shrubs, bushes and untidy woods of the old Prabhat Studio converted into a campus.
The academic year opened in monsoon. The monsoon in Pune was a refreshing season, with the hide and seek of the sun, with buildings and vegetation washed afresh and shining in gentle, shadowless light. Classes opened with Bahadursaab's lectures on film appreciation and film history.
In a few minutes after Prof. Bahadur's class started, he would show us some film excerpts. The theatre windows would be closed and Bahadursaab would open the windows of our minds. Fresh, fragrant winds of the world cinema would come from near and afar. The powerful beam of projector would penetrate the darkness. The projector's hum could be heard in hushed silence as we waited with bated breath, to be transported into the Kingdom of Electric Shadows. All colours of the rainbow would descend and dance on the screen… and voices would be heard: From soprano to bass, in varied textures and loudness, roars and whispers. It was like a Tower of Babel as you heard Arabic, Persian, Swahili, Russian, Bengali, Greek, Chinese, Hindi, Russian, Marathi, Tamil, Japanese… spoken by people of all colours and creeds, from all walks of life, of all age groups, male, female… children's unforgettable voices. Music from different cultures, sounds from everyday life and sounds extraordinary would fill up the classroom.
In our small theatre, we would experience tempests, floods, the World Wars, bombs exploding, planes nose-diving and the Battleship Potemkin coming right over your head; you almost ducked, like the first spectators of the Lumiere brothers in 1895. You were overpowered by the magic of the black and white films, with a mystery about them that neither realistic nor glamorous colour could have. The first drops of rain and the play of insects on water from Satyajit Ray's “Pather Panchali” could only be appreciated in cameraman Subrato Mitra's luminous greys.
And the people you met! Charles Chaplin, Toshiro Mifune, Cherkassov, Chishu Ryu, Greta Garbo, Waheeda Rehman, Kenji Mizoguchi, Robert Bresson, Sergei Eisenstein, Ozu, Ritwik Ghatak, Kurosawa, Bergman, Greg Toland and Subrato Mitra… an endless parade. Some on the screen and some off-screen — like hidden gods, invisible behind the worlds they created. Prof. Bahadur's voice would introduce them, not only through their names and dates, but also through the chemical compositions of their magic potions. Like ghosts disappearing at the crowing of the rooster, they would all vanish when the lights came on. Like Prospero, Bahadursaab would be left behind, with his chalk and the blackboard.
Nothing accidental
We were there, not just to go under the spell of magic, but also to learn its secrets. The numerous diagrams, with which Bahadursaab analysed films, were like yantras . He would cover the blackboard with stick figure, showing us how the frames were composed. He drew triangles, circles and regular geometric figures to show us how the film was put together, with his mantra, “Nothing in the film is accidental. Everything that you experience is ‘put there' by the makers of the film.”
Bahadursaab made us understand how a film is “made”. To concentrate on that, we needed to be denied the pleasure of sitting and staring hypnotised at the screen. Like a mother who applies bitter medicine to her breasts for weaning, Bahadursaab used cruel methods to shake us up from the somnambulist state of a film spectator. Sometimes he would tell you the story of a film before he showed it, ruthlessly killing the pleasures of anticipation and surprise. At other times, he would project the film in half-lights and comment with his pointer at its compositional highlights. Occasionally, the film would be projected without sound and sometimes only the sound track was kept on for you to analyse it.
A music teacher makes you concentrate first on the individual notes, then on musical phrases and then on the overall composition. Bahadursaab would skilfully take a film apart and put it together for us, to appreciate it with greater understanding and joy. He taught us to concentrate on “how” as opposed to “what” happens in a film. His most important lesson was a two-way process that he taught us: From film to paper when you saw and analysed someone else's film and from paper to film when you made your own film. He taught us the shorthand that helped you convey your ideas clearly, first to yourself and then to your colleagues.
From the first time you met Bahadursaab, he would put you at ease. His portly figure, always clad in a kurta , his large and bristling moustache, his gentle eyes, that shone through his thick glasses, as he chuckled from time to time, his baritone and almost furry voice, with its leisurely pace and his passion for cinema, music, poetry and painting, combined with his kindness, won you over. Further meetings, often over a drink or a meal in his house, deepened this feeling.
Bahadursaab was a crusader for good cinema. He taught at the FTII and then set up a film appreciation course in collaboration with P.K. Nair, the former director of at the National Film Archive. Now re-organised by Prof. Suresh Chabria, it is still a major attraction for film lovers. Bahadursaab travelled to distant corners of the country and even out of it, to conduct extra-mural courses. He also prepared audio-visual material and used television for the spread of film studies. He was a true and indefatigable pioneer of the film studies in India.
The Ray influence
It was a pity that he never felt like turning any of his notes into a book, practically till the end of his active teaching life. Fortunately, we have now his book on the Apu trilogy, both in English and Hindi. So great was his passion for Satyajit Ray's trilogy that he had named his son Apu. The book is co-authored by Dr. Shyamala Vanarase and published by Vani Prakashan. It was released recently in Pune on Bahadursaab's first death anniversary, at a function chaired by his comrade-in-arms, P.K. Nair. It also has another life, in the minds of his students, along with many books that he never wrote.
Arun Khopkar, an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India, is a filmmaker with many national and international awards to his credit. He is also a reputed film scholar and teacher. arunkhopkar@gmail.com
