Special report (The Jung, Pakistan.)

Editorial

The debate was whether the celebrations in India were about hundred years of Bollywood or of Indian cinema. The clumsiness of the situation was nothing new for us in Pakistan; we who already have seen our history subjected to this clumsiness, understanding it with reference to geography alone.

Truth is that May 3, 2013, marks a century of Indian cinema. We in Pakistan as well as those in the country we know as Bangladesh (East Bengal of yore), too, have remained a major part of this history that has brought us to this historic occasion. May 3, 1913, it was when the first ever film Raja Harish Chandar was released in what was then united India. Soon, Lahore became one of the three biggest centres of film production in the subcontinent and persisted with a mutually beneficial relationship especially with Bombay and less so with Calcutta.

To say that Pakistani film industry began with the release of the first film after 1947 may be true for some narrow nationalistic or academic purpose but the ties that bind this part with that could not have been severed so easily. Why should Pakistan not celebrate one hundred years of cinema in the subcontinent is then a legitimate question.

We have partially tried to address this question in today’s Special Report by remembering the Indian cinema’s contribution in providing entertainment to billions of people, and looking once again at the connections we had with wonder and awe, one must admit.

Till the mid-1960s, the Indian films were shown in Pakistani cinemas, and the ultimate of all connections — between the viewer and the film — remained. However, the thirst for Indian films did not die, and antennas and television brought them back for us on Doordarshan. The VCRs and the video films filled the gap till the Indian films were allowed in Pakistani cinemas again a few years ago.

Music, the distinguishing feature of the subcontinental cinema, kept the people of this region united on a spiritual level because we have all hummed the same tunes.

Come Ziaul Haq’s time, and the ideological battle that we were fighting with the enemy state cost us our own film industry — known as Lollywood — and has not been able to recover ever since.

Yet we feel that May 3, 2013, is a celebration of a shared past of subcontinental cinema. So here’s to Cinema’s Century.The debate was whether the celebrations in India were about hundred years of Bollywood or of Indian cinema. The clumsiness of the situation was nothing new for us in Pakistan; we who already have seen our history subjected to this clumsiness, understanding it with reference to geography alone.

Truth is that May 3, 2013, marks a century of Indian cinema. We in Pakistan as well as those in the country we know as Bangladesh (East Bengal of yore), too, have remained a major part of this history that has brought us to this historic occasion. May 3, 1913, it was when the first ever film Raja Harish Chandar was released in what was then united India. Soon, Lahore became one of the three biggest centres of film production in the subcontinent and persisted with a mutually beneficial relationship especially with Bombay and less so with Calcutta.

To say that Pakistani film industry began with the release of the first film after 1947 may be true for some narrow nationalistic or academic purpose but the ties that bind this part with that could not have been severed so easily. Why should Pakistan not celebrate one hundred years of cinema in the subcontinent is then a legitimate question.

We have partially tried to address this question in today’s Special Report by remembering the Indian cinema’s contribution in providing entertainment to billions of people, and looking once again at the connections we had with wonder and awe, one must admit.

Till the mid-1960s, the Indian films were shown in Pakistani cinemas, and the ultimate of all connections — between the viewer and the film — remained. However, the thirst for Indian films did not die, and antennas and television brought them back for us on Doordarshan. The VCRs and the video films filled the gap till the Indian films were allowed in Pakistani cinemas again a few years ago.

Music, the distinguishing feature of the subcontinental cinema, kept the people of this region united on a spiritual level because we have all hummed the same tunes.

Come Ziaul Haq’s time, and the ideological battle that we were fighting with the enemy state cost us our own film industry — known as Lollywood — and has not been able to recover ever since.

Yet we feel that May 3, 2013, is a celebration of a shared past of subcontinental cinema. So here’s to Cinema’s Century.
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http://jang.com.pk/thenews/Apr2013-weekly/nos-28-04-2013/spr.htm#1