The Hindu Business Line : Flickering filmi charm

The most reputed English newspaper of Pakistan, Dawn, whose circulation is twice that of all other English dailies put together, sprang a surprise on its readers when it published the wedding picture and story of Aishwarya-Abhishek Bachchan on the left-hand corner of its front page. Coming as it did from the most sober and reliable English newspaper, the coverage evoked a mini controversy. Many thought the newspaper was stooping to conquer, but there were younger readers who felt that the country's oldest English daily was finally keeping up with the times. Coincidentally, this happened on the chehlum (40 days after the death) of the highly respected former editor Ahmad Ali Khan.

The new editor, a former high-ranking staffer of the BBC, has brought quite a few refreshing changes in the paper, and it will take some time before the older generation of readers will accept, if not appreciate, all those changes.

Back to the Bachchan marriage, contrary to what my Indian friends thought, it did not create a sensation among film enthusiasts in Pakistan. The craze for Indian films is nowhere near what it used to be a decade or two ago. In the first three decades after partition, cine-goers used to go to Kabul, if they couldn't go to India, to watch the movies of stalwarts such as Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Nargis, Dev Anand and later Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore. They would try to develop contacts in the Indian High Commission in Karachi to be able to taste the forbidden fruit, even at the risk of being questioned by the intelligence personnel. The monthly Indian film screening was, until the mid-1960s, an event to wait for. With the closing down of the Indian Consulate (as it was called after the Indian High Commission moved to the new capital, Islamabad) in the wake of the 1965 war the film shows came to an end. But when the consulate reopened they were not revived.

When a TV station in East Punjab began operations, film buffs in towns near the border, including Lahore, watched the weekly Indian film avidly, but the signals were not always strong enough so soon the novelty died down. Pakistani TV plays and, to a certain extent, English serials remained greater attractions.

The introduction of video cassette players and the availability of Indian movies on cassettes revived interest in Bollywood films. Soon video parlours appeared on the scene in a big way. Initially there used to be shows in houses, but that meant that the host had to offer refreshments, if not dinner, during the interval, so they stopped.

Video recorders, which were followed by cheaper video players, became quite common in upper- and middle-class homes and video rental became a booming business. The films were pirated and the `prints', as they were still called, were not always viewable but the problem was solved by the introduction of VCDs and later DVDs, which offered better audio-visual quality. The DVD player became more common than the video players. As for the Indian films, familiarity (read wider availability) bred contempt.

Eight years ago came the cable networks, which offered anything between 60 and 80 channels resulting in the shortening of viewers' attention span.

Many cablewallahs started showing Indian films illegally and they greased the palms of the men who were supposed to enforce the copyright laws. The Pakistan Electronic Regulatory Body had in no uncertain terms forbidden the cable operators from screening their own programmes, but the enforcement of law has never been a strong point of Pakistani authorities. The cable operators continued doing what they wished, for they started getting mid-break ads from even multinationals, much to the dismay of the TV channels — both private and government-run.

But the two-and-a-half-hour movies, punctuated with ads, were no attraction for the remote control-happy TV viewer.

Womenfolk were for some time glued to the Indian channels that showed soaps like Kahani ghar ghar ki and Kyunkii sas bhi kabhi bahu thi. But as luck would have it, the Indian government banned the showing of PTV on cables and, in keeping with the subcontinent's practice of tit for tat, the Pakistan government banned all Indian channels, which came as a boon to the newly opened Pakistani private channels. They got time to establish themselves.

One of the channels produced a long-drawn soap on the lines of the Indian soaps but it didn't click. Used to classy, 13-episode Pakistani TV serials, the viewers ignored the soap.

The exhibitors' association continues to argue that the government should allow import of Indian films but the distributors don't agree because they know that people, who are used to watching movies at home at a fraction of a price and without bothering to go all the way to cinema halls, will let them down. A strong case in point is the failure of Mughal-e-Azam when it was released last year. Four or even three decades ago there would have been lathi charge at cinema halls. Now the times have changed, people have stopped going to the cinemas, which explains why they are being demolished and turned into shopping centres; the only saving grace is that they are named after the movie houses.