“Photograph is truth. The Cinema is truth 24 times a second.”-Jean Luc Godard

What is worse than sitting through an Indian movie? The answer comes loud and clear: sitting through two Indian movies! As our films go from bad to worse, we certainly can not expect our film criticism to go from good to best. As they get more bizarre in local newspapers and periodicals, one hankers for good old English film reviews in serious cine journals like the Sight and Sound and the Screen.

      No country produces more films than India. Scores of dailies, weeklies, fortnightlies monthlies, and television channels-in every conceivable language-seductively invite the onlooker to bite and get hooked. And yet, it is astonishing that the Indian film critic is paid little or no attention. Their reviews are dutifully read but, in all truth, they do not exercise an iota of influence on either the movie-maker, the fate of his film, or the people who determine his fate-the audience .So what are these film critics writing? What are they writing about? Who are they writing for? What does it take to be a film critic? Should there be film critics at all?

    It would be useful to try to understand the real role of the film critic. Few have defined it better than the acknowledged “Big Mama” of American film critics, the redoubtable John Simon. “The role of the critic is to help people see what is in the work, what is in it that shouldn’t be, what is not in it that could be. He is a good critic if he helps people understand more about the work than they could see for themselves; he is a great critic, if by his understanding and feeling for the work, by his passion, he can excite people so that they want to experience more of the art that is there, waiting to be seized”.

    He is not necessarily a bad critic if he makes errors in judgement.He is a bad critic if he does not awaken the curiocity, enlarges the interests and understanding of his audience. The art of the critic, then, is to transmit his knowledge of and enthusiasm for this art to others.Basically, he is a judge to test the quality of films-whether they are good or bad. He has to say it with instances- why he thinks a particular film is good, bad or indifferent and relate it to other films and the history of the art. Obviously this is, of course, a raw summing up and leaves out the thousands of other ways films can be looked at. Yet as a beginning, it will do.

    But who is an ideal critic? Pauline Kael, the famous American critic, once spelt out the equipment of that almost mythical figure: he “Should be knowledgeable about cinematography, literature, acting, techniques, paintings and sculpture, music, dance and as many foreign languages as possible. Also a poetic style to evoke loveliness, subtleties and excitement of a film with coruscating wit and conviction.” Yes, it is obviously very difficult for anyone standing up to these Olympian standards. But it is a good list.Pauline further adds few more requirements at a different place-intelligence, taste, courage, integrity and space to write.

   How does our breed measure up to his precept?

 Let’s face it. If Pauline and Kael’s criterions are agreed upon as a yardstick, then most of our magazines and newspapers do not have film critics. What they have are reviewers, who churn out stuff week after week without one single original, relevant, valid and meaningful insight or observation that will excite the reader into seeing a film that he would ordinarily have bleeped out with pleasure. This is because most of them appear to have little proven knowledge, love or background of cinema,channelising their efforts not so much towards infusing enthusiasm, excitement or information to their readers as zapping them with their sassy jargon and ritzy turn-of-phrases.

    There is bound to be something different in each film, only one should have the sensibilities to recognize it, eyes to see it and talent to emit it. The irony of the popular film writing is that because of its form -trendy, stylish,-it has definite market but due to its abysmal lack of substance, it plays very little part in moving this very audience into seeing the film reviewed. In Assam, very few educated urban audiences watch foreign films other than English because we hardly get to read good reviews of such films in our local newspapers and magazines. Although there is a definite difference between a film critic and a reviewer, in a state like Assam, where few read serious film magazines, an obligation is cast on reviewers to double as critics and write reasonable, analytical pieces.

   Considering all this in general, the critical condition in Assam is not that bright, specifically the condition of Assamese language film criticism of World Cinema. For film columnist in a magazine the problem is that he can not restrict his reviews to good films-as a book reviewer to good books. Week after week he must watch the trash and gold (rarely) and set out his assessment before the public. The only living Assamese film critic who is comparable to the best of the foreign lot is Mr. Apurba Kumar Sharma, the winner of national award  for best book on Cinema in the year 2001.His book Asomia Chalachitrar Chan Poharat is certainly a gem in the field. Luckily he is a freelancer and does not consider prolificacy as an essential quality for a critic of his stature. Among the past critics, Padum Baruah’s Chalachitra Prasanga is an interesting collection of articles on Cinema. Although Chandan Sharma is a very able film critic who basically writes in English, his reviews lack the analytical perspective of Apurba Kumar Sharma. Unlike a Hindi block-baster, a Fellini, Kurosawa or Bergman does demand analytical dissection in terms of cinematic form, content, craft and technique. The only responsibility that a film critic has is to write well. An intelligent critic is he who satisfies his own cinematic thrist.At the final analysis he writes for himself and therefore should be able to satisfy himself. Although this is not entirely true always, this should certainly be one of the reasons why a critic writes. He must have been in love with the world of Cinema as a living organism. With a film like Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, he will have to try to match the intellectual struggle behind the film with an equivalent effort. Wild Strawberries will entertain him if he is able to perceive and feel more deeply. If the use of light in Mani Kaul’s Satah Se Utha Aadmi reminds him of something similar in Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror or

Stalker, it would be dishonest if he does not mention it in his write-up. He should not assume, as most of our popular film columnist would have him does, that his readers are ignorant yokels.

   As opposed to the flashy, ego-tripping entertainers, are the handfuls of real critics: the responsible, commited, dedicated and knowledgeable body of heavyweights like Apurba Kumar Sharma, Chidananda Dasgupta, Iqbal Masud, Khalid Mohamed, Samik Bannerjee, Bikram Singh, and Swapan Mullick who approach their task with the kind of deadly seriousness that instantly attracts massive chunks of their readership and encourages them to stay attracted-for life!

    Ultimately, it demands a clear mind that understands the given task at hand-and the talent to fulfill this objective, simply, effectively and meaningfully. It boils down to the gift of communication making complex concepts, insights or interpretations read and sound both interesting and simple. To a readership cluster open to listening to voices that are free of high fluting and superior jabberwocky, concentrating instead on essentials on a one-to-one basis with warmth and humility.

     The late James Agee, considered by many to be the finest American critic of his time, superbly epitomized this approach. When he took over his post at The Nation, he began by describing to his readers his position as a “would- be- critic.”

     “I suspect that I am, far more than not, in your situation: deeply interested in moving pictures, considerably experienced from childhood in watching them and thinking and talking about them, and totally-or almost totally-without experience or even much second-hand knowledge of how they are made. If I am broadly right in this assumption, we start on the same ground and under the same handicaps, and I qualify to be here, if at all, only by two means. It is my business to conduct one end of a conversation, as an amateur critic among amateur critics. And I will be of use and interest only in so far as my amateur judgment is sound, stimulating or illuminating.”

Historical novel is an oxymoron, a curious mix of fact and fiction. Aristotle resolves this conundrum once for all in his Poetics. He states that the poet’s (read the author’s) function is to describe not the thing that has happened (that is the work of the historian), but to describe the kind of thing which might happen, that is, being probable or necessary. History deals with the actual. But poetry (read novel or historical novel) deals with the universal. The difference between history and historical novel is the difference between Plutarch and Shakespeare or between a documentary film and a feature film based on the same subject. As F.A.Backer rightly points out in his now classic History of the English Novel that “to present and interpret facts is the historian’s business, to summon up a past epoch to show men and women alive in it and behaving as they must have behaved in the circumstances, is the labour and joy of the life of the genuine historical novelist”.

  Historical fiction, then, is the artistic form that springs from the impulse to give a shape to the past. But it’s not just to give a shape to the past. It is to bring part of the past alive into the present.  Stephen Crane, the author of the American Civil War classic The Red Badge of Courage, was once asked why he had chosen to write his book as fiction rather than history. The reason, he said, was because he wanted to feel the situations of the War as a protagonist, not from the outside. And it was only by writing a novel that he could do this. 

And this is what all historical fiction does. It makes us feel, as a protagonist, what otherwise would be dead and lost to us. It transports us into the past. And the very best historical fiction presents to us a truth of the past that is not the truth of the history books, but a bigger truth, a more important truth – a truth of the heart.

The most distinguished Assamese historical novelist of our times, Troilokya Bhattacharjya’s career as a writer spans over half a century.Bhattacharjya’s output is weighty: more than ten novels, over  250 short stories, innumerable non-fictional prose works mostly uncollected and scattered in magazines and newspapers, few plays for stage, and some plays for radio. His range is rare: historical novel, biographical novel, autobiographical novel, mythological novel, social novel, novellas, short stories, columns, causeries, skits, and features for radio, editorials, and an autobiography; even edited a weekly newspaper called Sadinia Sambad for long seven years.

 Bhattacharjya’s novels can be classified into three basic traditions/groups: social, historical and the mythological. The second category of novels which stemmed from the author's deep sense of respect for heritage and fierce patriotism provides a real insight into his dedication, creativity and possibly into deep crevices of his pride and prejudices. He was, after all, a human.

Though Troilokya Bhattacharjya has contributed to so many genres, his forte, as critics like Dr.S.N.Sarma, Dr.Sailen Bharali, Jnanananda Sarma Pathak and Dr.Prafulla Kotoky etc.have pointed out, in their scholarly write-ups from time to time, is historical fiction. He has a reverence for the past and believes like George Santayana that those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Inspired by stalwarts in the field like Sir Walter Scott,Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay,Pramothnath Bisi and our very own Rajanikanta Bordoloi to take up the cudgel to capture the tempestuous past/phases of  his land, and the work that he produced endures for its fidelity to life, verisimilitude ,creative imagination, authentic character portrayal  and charm of style. Deep insights, subtle delineation of incidents are the marked features of his literary creations.

The Sanchipatar Puthi, Bhattacharjya’s first full-length novel published novel in 1973, is a candid narration of the days and people of Assam from 1836 to 1857-indeed a very crucial period for the people of Assam. The former is the year of the introduction of Bengali as a medium of instruction in administration and education in Assam, and the latter being the year of the first War of Independence of India. The novel is divided into three parts-He Bideshi Bandhu, Arunoday and Agniyugar Firingoti.

  Arrival of the Baptist Missionaries in Assam for the first time and beginning of their venture, Arunoday Age and the Sepoy Mutiny in Assam are three subjects that the writer deals with in three respective chapters of the novel named as He Bideshi Bandhu, Arunodoy and AgniYugar Firingati Moi respectively. The first two chapters are interconnected and have large slice of Renaissance in Assam and depict the activities of its main players like the American Baptist Missionaries like Father Nathan Browne, Miles Bronson, Mr. &Mrs.Cutter and Assamese intellectuals like Anandaram Dhekial Phukan and Gunabhiram Baruah, who were instrumental in rescuing Assamese language and literature from extinction in its very land of origin.

  The first chapter He Bideshi Bandhu begins with the arrival of Mr.  & Mrs. Nathan Browne and their daughter Miss Sophia together with Mr. &Mrs. Cutter in a river port of Assam.It is important from the point of view that it introduces the readers to the  central characters and set the tone of the novel. After reading the beginning of the chapter we, the reader, know for sure what to expect from the author. With minimal strokes of the brusher of words,Bhattacharjya captures candidly the realistic description of the Dikhowe river port with technical perfection of Thomas Hardy, the Victorian English novelist. This obviously reminds us of the powerful graphic description in  the opening of Mohim Bora’s enduring short story Kathonibarir Ghat .In this chapter we meet the old venerated father- figure Nathan Browne, a missionary with a mighty heart and a sensitive soul, Miss Sophia, a restless yet lovable girl in her twenties. We also get a sneak pick of the early works of the American Missionaries in this chapter.Further; we also meet the first Assamese convert to Christianity called Doyaram, for whom Miss Sophia develops a soft corner. How because of the Khamti uprising the Missionaries had to leave Shadia is being narrated towards the end of the chapter. The chapter closes with the tragic death of Sophia and her father’s tearful farewell. We also get a glimpse of Assamese village life in this subdivision of the novel just after the ravage of Burmese invasion.

    The second section of the novel Arunodoi centres round Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, the first Assamese to bring home to the people of the state the message of the European enlightment/Rennaisance-the sovereign importance of knowledge as a means to enhance the quality of life, emancipation of the mind from superstitious beliefs and customs and a vision of history as a march towards progress. While these new ideas virtually reshaped the destiny of the people of Assam in nineteenth century, they also invited the inevitable backlash-however feeble-from an embattled orthodoxy. The section not only narrates Anandaram’s public life but also the natty gritty of his domestic life. His wife Mahindri is a very young and innocent lovable character who is often teased by her brother- in- law. We get a panoramic picture of their domestic life here.

        The chapter also narrates Anandaram’s relationship with Commissioner Jenkins, the philanthropic who was a true friend of Assam and Assamese.The father figure of Browne in section one is being replaced by Jenkins in the second.We are also come across and empathize with characters like father John in their sadness. The villain of the first section Captain Hanoi continues to be the villain throughout the entire book. And his conflict with Commissioner Jenkins heightens the intensity of the second section.

    The third chapter reports the preparations of the first War of Independence in Assam. The novelist also probe deep into the failure of the rising .We again meet Captain Hanoi acting as the only linking thread of the entire novel.

Although Sanchipatar Puthi does not have a central character in the conventional sense of the term, it does have unity of action and atmosphere that attracts and mesmerizes the reader all through the story. It masterly tells the birth, growth and development of the new dawn of Assam. The writer is more than successful in making us relive that new dawn within the short span of hundred and forty nine pages-the socio-economic condition of the period: the child marriage, the conversion of lower caste Assamese into Christianity, the lifestyles of the Christians and orthodox Hindus and window marriage etc.The writer is also victorious in capturing the conflicts of the Baptist Missionaries with the British administrators. In short, the author shows a true historical vista of the period for which he has a true historical sense.

   The very name Charaideo evokes a nostalgic longing for the six hundred years of glorious Ahom rule. Charaideo, being the capital of Ahom dynasty was the hub of political activities-the rise and fall of the Kings. The novelist also figuratively successful in digging out the Maidams of Charaideo and parading before us the vivacious characters of the bygone era.

       It opens with Nagoya Bhotai Deka’s kidnapping of Apeswari,-------.The book roughly covers the life and times of Ahom King Jayaddhvaj Sinngha(1648-1663)-rise of separatist forces like Bhotai,Mir Jumla’s Invasion of Assam and its causes and reslts,treaty of Ghilajharighat etc.Although critics have criticized the novel for not having any sustaining central character to pull the story off ,we should still thank Mr.Bhatta for giving us some animated characters like Bhotai,Lahori,Ramani Gabhoru(Rahmat Banu),etc.The writer has dipped his pen in tears in portraying the character of Ramani Gabhoru who was sent to Mogal Harem as a gift to Arungazeb’s son Ajamtara.Her life was sacrificed for saving Assam from subjugation of Assam ,which paved the way to the fall of the Ahom empire.Bhattacharjya reaches the pinnacle of character delineation with Ramani Gabharu with embellishments from his poetic imagination. Even though Bhotai Deka’s character showed much more promise in the beginning of Charaideo, his eclipse from the political drama of the novel in the middle of the action deprived us, perhaps from the best creation of the creator.

        Uttarakanda, the novel based on the last kanda (part) of Ramayana, tells us the story of Rama from a completely different perspective. It tells the story of Sita and her relations and conflicts with Rama, Laksman, Urmila or Ratnakar (Valmiki).Told in three episodes, what distinguishes the novel is its approach to characters. Unlike the conventional Ramayanas, here the main characters are not divine but very earthly having human frailties or Hamartia.We get a, should we say, feministic approach to life as the story is told from Sita’s perspective and sensibilities. We are made to see the shortcomings of Norottam Rama Chandra Verma.Here the writer proves his wide reading by providing us with the title of Rama from Madhab Kondali’s(12^th century)Saptakanda Assamese Ramayan.Here Sita is presented before us as a woman of substance.

  The writer is also successful in analyzing the innermost feelings of the betrayed, deceived and ill-treated helpless woman. He juxtaposes Rama’s egoistic and hypocritical nature with pure and transparent/chaste character of Sita.Yet, we find an articulated voice in her towards the end of the book where she refuses to go back to Rama after his dumping of her in the forest during pregnancy by the same Rama.Unlike the other versions of Ramayan,here in this account, she refuses to be a mere puppet in the hands of her husband.Rama is definitely not a god here and has all the ingredients of a good M.C.P.The only male character that stands out with love and compassion for the oppressed is Ratnakar(Valmiki),ironically a notorious dacoit turned sage. Even if one has read the story of Sita thousand times before, it still deserve an additional read .And this fresh version by  the best historical novelists of our times, we can assure all, a definite deviation from the usual stock-something new, novel yet bringing back the old nostalgia back.

Sanchipatar Puthi: 3rd part-Agni jugar firingati moi:

Neither the English historians nor their Indian counterpart have touched the role of Assam in 1857’s first War of Independence of India. The war that was waged all over India for the attainment of Independence in 1857A.D.had been chronicled as the Sepoy Mutiny in the annals of the European historians. Even today, when we are celebrating the 150^{th year} of the great event, all the histories and other records of that struggle in Assam remain unpublished. As such Mr.Bhattacharjya had done trailblazing job by imaginatively reconstructing the past by using whatever material he could lay his hands on. 

          Assam’s goal of independence was not same as that of Northern India. Northern India wanted to re-instate the abdicated emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mugal King. But Assam, keeping the unbroken relation of the past intact, wanted to re-install Kandarpeswar Singh as king. Whoever would have become king, the endeavour to oust the British was the same all over India. Setting themselves firmly here the British increased the land revenue and brought destruction to the industry of the country.Jiuram Dulia Baruah, Gomadhar Konwar and Piyali Phukan tried to protect the current of independence of the Swargadeos.

In the rest of India, the Sepoys were the mainstay of the rebellion. But in Assam, there was no Sepoy of the soil. The composition of Assam Light Infantry was heterogeneous. Yet there was not a small commotion among them. The loyalists of King Kandarpeswar Singh joined hands to revolt against the British. The sipoys began to behave like rebels.Mr.B.C.Allen writes,” The sepoys at Dibrugargh seem to have been much affected by the Mutiny of Koer Sing, from whose territory many of them came, and for a time at any rate, succeeded in influencing the Assamese soldiers in the corps”. At that time “Dibrugargh was heading towards becoming a second Cawnpore”.The King was imprisoned on the threat that if he would not surrender, the palace would be burnt. The atmosphere remained far from normal. At Kardaiguri in Goalpara, the Sepoy of Second Assam Light Infantry burnt the police station. Strikes in the tea-garden were intensified. But sadly, the British amphibious force arrived in Assam. They combed the entire country, and all the rebels as well as many innocent people were brought to book. Others connected with the rebellion were Piyali Phukan, the right-hand man of Kandarpeswar Singha, and Madhu Mallik, a Muktear of Calcutta, sent by Moniram to help the Ahom King in his preparations, were also arrested and brought to trial. The king was sent to Alipore goal.Maniram was tried, convicted of treason, though on inadequate ground, and hanged at Jorhat publicly together with Piyali Phukan.

       This is the background on which Bhattacharjya worked and gave life and colour to his characters. He was a Pioneer-the master of his craft. A reformer.A true builder of the genre in his language.

   Bhattacharjya’s career as a writer of fiction was properly inaugurated by his short story, Daktar Babu, published way back in 1962 in the magazine of Anandaram Dekial Phukan College, Nagaon.And he went on to write a variety of short fiction, sketches, short stories, and novellas .The number of stories published by Bhattacharjya-about 300-is perhaps unique among our novelists in Assamese.He still writes stories.

  Although started originally as a social fictionist,Bhattacharjya’s creativity manifested fully for the first time in 1966 with the publication of his earliest historical short story published in Nabyug magazine named Bhairabi Devir Mandir .The story tells about the unsung heroes that lie hidden under the debris of Cole park and Bamuni Hill.Maidam,another short story published in the Manideep magazine is the most perfect example of the genre by the present author. It is a narrative based on the fact of sheer inhumanity and subsequent repentance in the character of King Rudrasingha ,a thoughtless decision of impulse which results in pulling out of the eyes of Luchai by his own brother Lai(Rudrasingha).One obviously remembers the Biblical account of Cain and Abel here. When asked about God about Abel after the death of him in the hands of Cain, Cain’s answer to God was:

 I knownot .Am I my brother’s keeper?

   Boorkha (a short story depicting a crucial phase of Mogal history),Dewal(the love affairs of Jebuhnissa,Aurangzeb’s daughter and poet Mirza Mubarak),Mosnad(a tale telling an episode during Emperor Aurangzeb’s rule),Rajpat(Ahom age),Rajarshri(depicting Kumar Bhaskarvarma’s epoch),Ekhan Silar Duwar(the retelling of a legend related to Da-Parbatia’s door frame),Anandaram(narrating the life and times of the first Assamese  civilian, the scholar extraordinary Anandaram Baruah),and Bhagirathi(retelling the mythology of Bhagirath) are some of the gems from Bhattacharjya’s pen.

     Although Bhattacharjya has written about 300 short stories so far which are scattered mostly in magazines and newspapers, critics have failed to appreciate him fully as a short story writer. He belongs to a rare group of Assamese writers who wrote successful historical short stories. Some of his stories are collected in Ejan Iswarar Mitru, Aboidha Shishur Matri, and Sahityar Soomrasat Pori Maril Eta Maumakhi.Unlike the prejudiced critics of Assam Sahitya Academy, the national institute gives him his due by calling him the “renowned short story writer and novelist of Assam” in their Encyclopedia of Indian Literature.

    In a word, in the long array of powerful Assamese novelists, Troilokya Bhattacharjya stands out as an outstanding historical fictionist.Yet; we have not appreciated his creative genius publicly ever since the publication of Sanchipatar Puthi for which he won the first prize   

      Although Sanchipatar Puthi does not have a central character in the conventional sense of the term, it does have unity of action and atmosphere that attracts and mesmerises the reader all through the story. It masterly tells the birth, growth and development of the new dawn of Assam. The writer is more than successful in making us relive that new dawn within the short span of hundred and forty nine pages-the socio-economic condition of the period: the child marriage, the conversion of lower caste Assamese into Christianity, the lifestyles of the Christians and orthodox Hindus and window marriage etc.The writer is also victorious in capturing the conflicts of the Baptist Missionaries with the British administrators. In short, the author shows a true historical vista of the period for which he has a true historical sense.

   The very name Charaideo evokes a nostalgic longing for the six hundred years of glorious Ahom rule. Charaideo, being the capital of Ahom dynasty was the hub of political activities-the rise and fall of the Kings. The novelist also figuratively successful in digging out the Maidams of Charaideo and parading before us the vivacious characters of the bygone era.

       It opens with Nagoya Bhotai Deka’s kidnapping of Apeswari,-------.The book roughly covers the life and times of Ahom King Jayaddhvaj Sinngha(1648-1663)-rise of separatist forces like Bhotai,Mir Jumla’s Invasion of Assam and its causes and reslts,treaty of Ghilajharighat etc.Although critics have criticized the novel for not having any sustaining central character to pull the story off ,we should still thank Mr.Bhatta for giving us some animated characters like Bhotai,Lahori,Ramani Gabhoru(Rahmat Banu),etc.The writer has dipped his pen in tears in portraying the character of Ramani Gabhoru who was sent to Mogal Harem as a gift to Arungazeb’s son Ajamtara.Her life was sacrificed for saving Assam from subjugation of Assam ,which paved the way to the fall of the Ahom empire.Bhattacharjya reaches the pinnacle of character delineation with Ramani Gabharu with embellishments from his poetic imagination. Even though Bhotai Deka’s character showed much more promise in the beginning of Charaideo,his  eclipse from the political drama of the novel in the middle of the action deprived us ,perhaps from the best creation of the creator.

        Uttarakanda, the novel based on the last kanda (part) of Ramayan, tells us the story of Rama from a completely different perspective. It tells the story of Sita and her relations and conflicts with Rama, Laksman, Urmila or Ratnakar (Valmiki).Told in three episodes, what distinguishes the novel is its approach to characters. Unlike the conventional Ramayanas, here the main characters are not divine but very earthly having human frailties or Hamartia.We get a, should we say, feministic approach to life as the story is told from Sita’s perspective and sensibilities. We are made to see the shortcomings of Norottam Rama Chandra Verma.Here the writer proves his wide reading by providing us with the title of Rama from Madhab Kondali’s(12^th century)Saptakanda Assamese Ramayan.Here Sita is presented before us as a woman of substance.

  The writer is also successful in analyzing the innermost feelings of the betrayed, deceived and ill-treated helpless woman. He juxtaposes Rama’s egoistic and hypocritical nature with pure and transparent/chaste character of Sita.Yet, we find an articulated voice in her towards the end of the book where she refuses to go back to Rama after his dumping of her in the forest during pregnancy by the same Rama.Unlike the other versions of Ramayan,here in this account, she refuses to be a mere puppet in the hands of her husband.Rama is definitely not a god here and has all the ingredients of a good M.C.P.The only male character that stands out with love and compassion for the oppressed is Ratnakar(Valmiki),ironically a notorious dacoit turned sage. Even if one has read the story of Sita thousand times before, it still deserve an additional read .And this fresh version by  the best historical novelists of our times, we can assure all, a definite deviation from the usual stock-something new, novel yet bringing back the old nostalgia back.

The Ahom ruled in Assam from 1224 to 1926.The British were strangers to the land and had no knowledge of the local language. So educated clerks, mostly from Bengal came and settled down in Assam as interpreters and clerks of the government to enable it to carry on the newly established administration. Under the influence of these clerks, the administrators made Bengali the language of administration and medium of instruction in schools of Assam in the year 1936.The same year also saw the arrival of the remarkable members of the American Baptist Mission, the Rev.Nathan Browne and O.P.Cotter, arrived in Assam with their families. The duo was responsible for the establishment of the first printing press at Sibsagar in 1936.

Realising the need to spread the message of Christ in the Native tongue, they soon found out that Bengali was not, in fact, the language of the locals. Therefore, they started publishing books in Assamese in their Mission press at Sibsagar.Some of the notable books published during that period are: A Grammar of the Assamese Language by Mr.W.Robinson, Grammatical Notice of the Assamese Language by Nathan Browne,Mrs.Cutter’s Vocabulary,Mr.G.F.Nicholl’s Assamese Grammar,Mr.Miles Bronson’s Dictionary in Assamese and English and Nathan Brown’s Assamese version of the New Testament etc. Their zeal culminated in the publication of the first Assamese newspaper in 1946 named Arunodoy.

It was, however, with Anandaram Dhekial Phukan that a new epoch dawned in Assam. He was the Assamese Deputy Commissioner who was very much concerned about the future of Assamese language and literature and wrote a booklet called A few Remarks on the Assamese Language protesting against the replacement of the Assamese as the state language. He also contributed regularly to the Arunodoy magazine and together with these Baptist missionaries, finally convinced the British administrators to replace the local language in courts and educational institutes.

The next intellectual who tried to advance Assamese language and literature was a blood relation of Anandaram named Gunabhiram Baruah who contributed gems like Biography of Anandaram Dhekial Phukan and the Asam Buranji, two powerful prose works by any standard.

 Anachronism is an occupational hazard for the historical fiction writers.  

Sanchipatar Puthi: 3rd part-Agni jugar firingati moi:

Neither the English historians nor their Indian counterpart have touched the role of Assam in 1857’s first War of Independence of India. The war that was waged all over India for the attainment of Independence in 1857A.D.had been chronicled as the Sepoy Mutiny in the annals of the European historians. Even today, when we are celebrating the 150^{th year} of the great event, all the histories and other records of that struggle in Assam remain unpublished. As such Mr.Bhattacharjya had done trailblazing job by imaginatively using whatever material he could lay his hands on.  

          Assam’s goal of independence was not same as that of Northern India. Northern India wanted to re-instate the abdicated emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mugal King. But Assam, keeping the unbroken relation of the past intact, wanted to re-install Kandarpeswar Singh as king. Whoever would have become king, the endeavour to oust the British was the same all over India. Setting themselves firmly here the British increased the land revenue and brought destruction to the industry of the country.Jiuram Dulia Baruah, Gomadhar Konwar and Piyali Phukan tried to protect the current of independence of the Swargadeos.

In the rest of India, the Sepoys were the mainstay of the rebellion. But in Assam, there was no Sepoy of the soil. The composition of Assam Light Infantry was heterogeneous. Yet there was not a small commotion among them. The loyalists of King Kandarpeswar Singh joined hands to revolt against the British. The sipoys began to behave like rebels.Mr.B.C.Allen writes,” The sepoys at Dibrugargh seem to have been much affected by the Mutiny of Koer Sing, from whose territory many of them came, and for a time at any rate, succeeded in influencing the Assamese soldiers in the corps”. At that time “Dibrugargh was heading towards becoming a second Cawnpore”.The King was imprisoned on the threat that if he would not surrender, the palace would be burnt. The atmosphere remained far from normal. At Kardaiguri in Goalpara, the Sepoy of Second Assam Light Infantry burnt the police station. Strikes in the tea-garden were intensified. But sadly, the British amphibious force arrived in Assam. They combed the entire country, and all the rebels as well as many innocent people were brought to book. Others connected with the rebellion were Piyali Phukan, the right-hand man of Kandarpeswar Singha, and Madhu Mallik, a Muktear of Calcutta, sent by Moniram to help the Ahom King in his preparations, were also arrested and brought to trial. The king was sent to Alipore goal.Maniram was tried, convicted of treason, though on inadequate ground, and hanged at Jorhat publicly together with Piyali Phukan.

       This is the background on which Bhattacharjya worked and gave life and colour to his characters. He was a Pioneer-the master of his craft. A reformer.A true builder of the genre in his language.

Historical novel is an oxymoron, a curious mix of fact and fiction. Aristotle resolves this conundrum once for all in his Poetics. He states that the poet’s (read the author’s) function is to describe not the thing that has happened (that is the work of the historian), but to describe the kind of thing which might happen, that is, being probable or necessary. History deals with the actual. But poetry (read novel or historical novel) deals with the universal. The difference between history and historical novel is the difference between Plutarch and Shakespeare or between a documentary film and a feature film based on the same subject. As F.A.Backer rightly points out in his now classic History of the English Novel that “to present and interpret facts is the historian’s business, to summon up a past epoch to show men and women alive in it and behaving as they must have behaved in the circumstances, is the labour and joy of the life of the genuine historical novelist”.

  Historical fiction, then, is the artistic form that springs from the impulse to give a shape to the past. But it’s not just to give a shape to the past. It is to bring part of the past alive into the present.  Stephen Crane, the author of the American Civil War classic The Red Badge of Courage, was once asked why he had chosen to write his book as fiction rather than history. The reason, he said, was because he wanted to feel the situations of the War as a protagonist, not from the outside. And it was only by writing a novel that he could do this. 

And this is what all historical fiction does. It makes us feel, as a protagonist, what otherwise would be dead and lost to us. It transports us into the past. And the very best historical fiction presents to us a truth of the past that is not the truth of the history books, but a bigger truth, a more important truth – a truth of the heart.

The most distinguished Assamese historical novelist of our times, Troilokya Bhattacharjya’s career as a writer spans over half a century.Bhattacharjya’s output is weighty: more than ten novels, over  250 short stories, innumerable non-fictional prose works mostly uncollected and scattered in magazines and newspapers, few plays for stage, and some plays for radio. His range is rare: historical novel, biographical novel, autobiographical novel, mythological novel, social novel, novellas, short stories, columns, causeries, skits, and features for radio, editorials, and an autobiography; even edited a weekly newspaper called Sadinia Sambad for long seven years.

 Bhattacharjya’s novels can be classified into three basic traditions/groups: social, historical and the mythological. The second category of novels which stemmed from the author's deep sense of respect for heritage and fierce patriotism provides a real insight into his dedication, creativity and possibly into deep crevices of his pride and prejudices. He was, after all, a human.

Though Troilokya Bhattacharjya has contributed to so many genres, his forte, as critics like Dr.S.N.Sarma, Dr.Sailen Bharali, Jnanananda Sarma Pathak and Dr.Prafulla Kotoky etc.have pointed out, in their scholarly write-ups from time to time, is historical fiction. He has a reverence for the past and believes like George Santayana that those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Inspired by stalwarts in the field like Sir Walter Scott,Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay,Pramothnath Bisi and our very own Rajanikanta Bordoloi to take up the cudgel to capture the tempestuous past/phases of  his land, and the work that he produced endures for its fidelity to life, verisimilitude ,creative imagination, authentic character portrayal  and charm of style. Deep insights, subtle delineation of incidents are the marked features of his literary creations.

The Sanchipatar Puthi, Bhattacharjya’s first full-length novel published novel in 1973, is a candid narration of the days and people of Assam from 1836 to 1857-indeed a very crucial period for the people of Assam. The former is the year of the introduction of Bengali as a medium of instruction in administration and education in Assam, and the latter being the year of the first War of Independence of India. The novel is divided into three parts-He Bideshi Bandhu, Arunoday and Agniyugar Firingoti.

The Ahoms ruled in Assam from 1224 to 1926.The British were strangers to the land and had no knowledge of the local language. So educated clerks, mostly from Bengal came and settled down in Assam as interpreters and clerks of the government to enable it to carry on the newly established administration. Under the influence of these clerks, the administrators made Bengali the language of administration and medium of instruction in schools of Assam in the year 1936.The same year also saw the arrival of the remarkable members of the American Baptist Mission, the Rev.Nathan Browne and O.P.Cotter, arrived in Assam with their families. The duo was responsible for the establishment of the first printing press at Sibsagar in 1936.

Realising the need to spread the message of Christ in the Native tongue, they soon found out that Bengali was not, in fact, the language of the locals. Therefore, they started publishing books in Assamese in their Mission press at Sibsagar.Some of the notable books published during that period are: A Grammar of the Assamese Language by Mr.W.Robinson, Grammatical Notice of the Assamese Language by Nathan Browne,Mrs.Cutter’s Vocabulary,Mr.G.F.Nicholl’s Assamese Grammar,Mr.Miles Bronson’s Dictionary in Assamese and English and Nathan Brown’s Assamese version of the New Testament etc. Their zeal culminated in the publication of the first Assamese newspaper in 1946 named Arunodoy.

It was, however, with Anandaram Dhekial Phukan that a new epoch dawned in Assam. He was the Assamese Deputy Commissioner who was very much concerned about the future of Assamese language and literature and wrote a booklet called A few Remarks on the Assamese Language protesting against the replacement of the Assamese as the state language. He also contributed regularly to the Arunodoy magazine and together with these Baptist missionaries, finally convinced the British administrators to replace the local language in courts and educational institutes.

The next intellectual who tried to advance Assamese language and literature was a blood relation of Anandaram named Gunabhiram Baruah who contributed gems like Biography of Anandaram Dhekial Phukan and the Asam Buranji, two powerful prose works by any standard.

 Anachronism is an occupational hazard for the historical fiction writers.  

Sanchipatar Puthi: 3rd part-Agni jugar firingati moi:

Neither the English historians nor their Indian counterpart have touched the role of Assam in 1857’s first War of Independence of India. The war that was waged all over India for the attainment of Independence in 1857A.D.had been chronicled as the Sepoy Mutiny in the annals of the European historians. Even today, when we are celebrating the 150^{th year} of the great event, all the histories and other records of that struggle in Assam remain unpublished. As such Mr.Bhattacharjya had done trailblazing job by imaginatively using whatever material he could lay his hands on.  

          Assam’s goal of independence was not same as that of Northern India. Northern India wanted to re-instate the abdicated emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mugal King. But Assam, keeping the unbroken relation of the past intact, wanted to re-install Kandarpeswar Singh as king. Whoever would have become king, the endeavour to oust the British was the same all over India. Setting themselves firmly here the British increased the land revenue and brought destruction to the industry of the country.Jiuram Dulia Baruah, Gomadhar Konwar and Piyali Phukan tried to protect the current of independence of the Swargadeos.

In the rest of India, the Sepoys were the mainstay of the rebellion. But in Assam, there was no Sepoy of the soil. The composition of Assam Light Infantry was heterogeneous. Yet there was not a small commotion among them. The loyalists of King Kandarpeswar Singh joined hands to revolt against the British. The sipoys began to behave like rebels.Mr.B.C.Allen writes,” The sepoys at Dibrugargh seem to have been much affected by the Mutiny of Koer Sing, from whose territory many of them came, and for a time at any rate, succeeded in influencing the Assamese soldiers in the corps”. At that time “Dibrugargh was heading towards becoming a second Cawnpore”.The King was imprisoned on the threat that if he would not surrender, the palace would be burnt. The atmosphere remained far from normal. At Kardaiguri in Goalpara, the Sepoy of Second Assam Light Infantry burnt the police station. Strikes in the tea-garden were intensified. But sadly, the British amphibious force arrived in Assam. They combed the entire country, and all the rebels as well as many innocent people were brought to book. Others connected with the rebellion were Piyali Phukan,the right-hand man of Kandarpeswar Singha,and Madhu Mallik,a Muktear of Calcutta, sent by Moniram to help the Ahom King in his preparations, were also arrested and brought to trial. The king was sent to Alipore goal.Maniram was tried, convicted of treason, though on inadequate ground, and hanged at Jorhat publicly together with Piyali Phukan.

       This is the background on which Bhattacharjya worked and gave life and colour to his characters. He was a Pioneer-the master of his craft. A reformer.A true builder.

                   Jyotiprasad as a filmmaker

Jyotiprasad Agarwala, One of the greatest cultural figurers of Assam since Sankardeva,scion of an enlightened Rajasthani family who married into Assamese society and became thoroughly assimilated ,made in 1934-1935 a film that still surprises us with its innovative use of the medium. That very first Assamese film Joymati was a highly satisfying work of work. It was both produced and directed by Jyotiprasad, the noted poet, dramatist, actor, composer and literary critic of Assam, who dominated the state’s cultural scene in the30s and 40s with his songs and plays in particular.

Jyotiprasad was born in 1903 into a culturally gifted family of tea planters. He went to England in 1926 for higher study in arts in the Edinburgh University but, instead, became interested in music and film. Leaving the university he went to Germany and had some training in movie production and cine direction in the then famous UFA studio with the help of Himanghsu Rai,who was at that time producing a film its banner .Back home in 1930 Jyotiprasad took part in the ongoing national freedom movement of 1931-32 and underwent imprisonment for15 months. While in prison he wrote the script of Joymati based on a historical play of renowned literateur late Lakshmi Nath Bezbaruah.

       Assam did not produce any silent films .Its first film,Joymati, was produced in 1935 by Jyotiprasad, who drew on historical and literary sources to depict the tragic patriotism of a Ahom princes, while also portraying parallels with the situation 0f disorder and disharmony unleashed by the British rule on the people Assam for aligning themselves with the National Movement .Although not  a commercial success ,it is notable that at a time when the Bollywood was producing mythological  films,Joym ati  was about a historical event.

  Jaimati tells the inspiring of the martyrdom of Ahom Queen Jaimati who sacrificed her life to save her husband Gadapani from the clutches of the tyrant king and his Minister of the times. This is how this legendary historical story is being reported byBirinchi Kumar Baruah, the famous social historian of Assam:” In 1681, Gadadhar Singha, a prince of the Tungkhungiya dynasty, ascended the throne. Before he became king,Gadadhar Singha had been at one a fugitive to save himself from the ruling Lora Roja:and his wife,Jaimati Kuwari,was apprehended and tortured inhumanly to exhort information about her husband’s whereabouts. Princess Jaymati refused to divulge any information about her husband even when her husband himself came in secret and asked her to do so.Jaimati exhorted her husband to muster an army and save the country and her people from the tyrannical rule of Lora Roja.Jaimati ultimately succumbed to these tortures and is adored as a martyr to wifely devotion.”

      This story of a legendary historical figure could have been yet another flight into nationalist infantilism. But Jyoti Prasad had a passionate understanding of both the art of film-making and a deep love for the people of Assam, which makes Jaimati a true celebration of Assamese national heritage.

For production of Joymoti Jyotiprasad wanted to establish film making in Assam on a permanent footing. To translate his idea into action he arranged for camera and sound recording equipment and built improvised studio floors and a laboratory at Bholagori tea estate, at about 60 miles of Tezpur town for shooting of Joymoti and processing its negatives. The film was shot mostly outside studio with natural background and the rest in an improvised studio complex temporarily built in Bholaguri naming it Chitraban.Incidently Assam governments only film studio was named as Jyoti-Chitraban to commemorate the pioneer in this field. The film was edited and printed at a laboratory in Lahore .Finally Joymati was released at Kolkatas Rounak cinema hall in a press-show on 10th Marsh 1935 and regular show in Assam started from 20th March 1935 at Guwahati’s   theatre –hall-Bhaskar Natyamandir.

    For production of Joymati Jyotiprasad had to build up everything out of nothing .There were practically no people in Assam who knew the work of art of cinema

Belonging to the different branches of film making .He had, therefore, to plan and perform himself all the works except those of photography and sound recording for which professional technicians from outside were engaged. Female characters in dramatic performances in those days were enacted by male male actors. Jyoti Prasad had to travel to various nooks and corners of Assam in search of suitable girls who would be willing and be allowed by their guardians to act in the female roles of Joymati.After overcoming untold obstacle he could somehow manage to merit the requisite number of girls all of whom except one belonged to the rural areas and without any education.

        Jyoti Prasad’s laborious quest ultimately resulted in the discovery of Aaideo Sandikoi,Mohini Rajkumari,Swargajyoti and Bhaniti Buragohain, all from very respectable families, to play the lead ,role of Joymati and other important roles of Rajmaao(Queen’s mother),Dalimi,the Naga damsel ,and Tarabari the ,maid of the palace .Leela Baruah, a post graduate lady student of the Calcutta University was commissioned to sing the last song of the film,Luitore Paani Jaabi Oi Boi.

                While Bhopal Shankar Mehta’s camera work was moderately good, Baizi’s sound recoding system failed miserably causing disaster for the film.Jyoti Prasad had to work very hard to retrieve the sound, all alone, without any one’s help and in that endeavour had to dub his voice to different actors and even to sing some of the songs.

             Jyoti Prasad had to make the film Joymati on a shoestring budget and therefore could not indulge in gorgeous dĂ©cor of a historical film .But he did not compromise with realities of depiction. He was well acquainted  with the architectural patterns of the Ahoms and used banana trees with their other covers removed to give the effect of ivory pillars in the sets made for the King’s palace. He collected indigenous palanquins from aristocratic families and made abundant use of bamboo Jhapi (Assamese headgear) and big ornamental brass receptacles, called Sarai in Assamese, to add local colour to the sets and decor. For music he used indigenous musical instruments and had the tunes set to local songs. Jyoti Prasad was also responsible for the introduction of playback singing in Indian film making.

In spite of praises earned from the greater sections of critics and writers for its artistic qualities, Joymati failed miserably at the box office- only about half of its total production cost of 60,000/- could be recovered. To make up for the losses Jyoti Prasad had to sell his camera and other equipments and abandon the idea of establishing a film studio in Assam.

        Four years later in, 1939, Jyoti Prasad made second and last film Indramalati by hiring equipments and floors of a studio in Calcutta. It was a social based on a short tale of love between a town boy and a village girl. It was made with a shoe string budget of Rs.20,000/-.But for its natural acting style and local colour, technically the film failed to bear any mark of distinction. It was however, commercially successful.

It is indeed unfortunate that the historians of Indian films have so far failed to notice the magnificent contribution of Jyoti Prasad Agarwala as one of pioneers of the Indian talkie .Would some of them make an endeavour now, to focus attention on the courageous attempt of this first Assamese film maker, whose spirit has, undoubtedly, inspired directors like Padum Baruah , Bhabendra Nath  Saikia,or Jahnu Baruah to earn both National and International acclaim?            

Neorealism –a Slice of Italian Cinema

Webster’s Dictionary defines Neorealism as a movement especially in Italian filmmaking characterized by the simple direct depiction of lower-class life. It was a movement in World Cinema in general and Italian Cinema in particular that emerged in 1940s.It was characterized by its naturalism, social themes ,frequent use of non professional ators,and the visual authenticity achieved through location filming. Exponents of this type of cinema included Vittorio de Sirca, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Cesare Zavattini.

Vittorio De Sica's began his career in the movies as an actor. By 1943 he was directing films which included techniques that have come to define neorealism: shooting on location, using children and non-professional actors, and creating empathy with lower-class conditions. De Sica has been praised by such distinguished critics as André Bazin and James Agee. Bazin links De Sica with Chaplin. Champion of a cinematic style pioneered by such directors as André Malraux in Man's Hope (1939), Agee, like Bazin, saw in screen neorealism "the illusion of the present tense" where a film is shot in available light, using a small crew and improvisation in the scenario.
 

  Often cited as the first great Italian neo- realist film, Ossessione (Obsession, 1942),   was Luchino Visconti’s remarkable debut film based on James M.Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. It was a bleak contemporary melodrama shot on location in the countryside around Ferrara. It was suppressed by the fascist censors, however, so that international audiences were first introduced to the movement through Roberto Rossellini's Roma, cittĂ  aperta (Open City, 1945), which was shot on location in the streets of Rome only two months after Italy's surrender in World War II. The film featured both professional and nonprofessional actors and focused on ordinary people caught up in contemporary events. Its documentary texture, post recorded sound track, and improvisational quality became the hallmark of the Neorealist movement. Rossellini followed it with PaisĂ  (Paisan, 1946) and Germania, anno zero (Germany, Year Zero, 1947) to complete his “war trilogy.” His films inspired many directors, including Federico Fellini, and Vittorio Taviani etc. One effect of Second World War was that many producers had left Rome, the center of film production, thus leaving the door open to fresh ideas and new interpretations. Rossellini, known for his flexible methods, was well suited to work under these conditions.

 Visconti's second contribution to Neorealism was La terra trema (The Earth Trembles, 1948), an epic of peasant life that was shot on location in a Sicilian fishing village. In many respects it is more exemplary of the movement than Ossessione and is widely regarded as a masterpiece. In 1960 Visconti made his final foray into working-class life, "Rocco and His Brothers," a potent domestic tragedy portraying the difficulties encountered by a Sicilian peasant family transplanted because of economic need to the industrial North. Visconti's next film, a haunting, elegiac adaptation of Giuseppe di Lampedusa's novel "The Leopard" (1963), was an account of an aristocratic Sicilian family faced with enormous social changes during the late 19th century. Although awarded the Golden Palm at Cannes, it was severely edited for US audiences and not restored for almost twenty years Neorealism's third major director was Vittorio De Sica, who worked in close collaboration with scriptwriter Cesare Zavattini, the movement's major theorist and spokesman. De Sica's films sometimes tend toward sentimentality but in SciusciĂ  (Shoeshine, 1946), Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief, 1948), and Umberto D. (1952), he produced works central to the movement.

Vittorio De Sica creates a lucid, sincere, and impassioned portrait of poverty, corruption, and desolation in Shoeshine. From the introductory images of ubiquitous American soldiers at an economically (and perhaps, militarily) ravaged town (note their presence at the sanctuary of the horse rental stable as well as the high-traffic streets where the shoeshine boys eke out a meager living from their almost exclusively foreign patrons), De Sica establishes a recurring metaphor for the pervasive external, environmental factors that invariably exert an influence (if not govern) Giuseppe and Pasquale's lives that exist beyond their control. In essence, it is this external force - the "outside gentleman" that the fortune teller foretells - that serves, not only as an oblique reference to the presence of Allied occupation forces in postwar Italy, but also as a representation of the country's sentiment over their ambivalence and inutility towards the direction and scope of the reconstruction in their own country. Moreover, Pasquale's orphaning during the war and the status of Giuseppe's family as refugees forced to share a single room at a multi-family boarding house further underscore the boys' (and, in turn, the country's) sense of transience, dislocation, and impotence over their own plight and the determination of their future. It is through this systematic disillusionment that the indelible bookend image of the two friends and their beloved white horse becomes, not a euphoric expression of unbridled freedom, but a desperate, resigned rejection of its severe, inscrutable, and dehumanizing course.

Within the unremarkable premise lies the pure eloquence and profoundly affecting story of Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. Filmed in the ravages of postwar Italy, Bicycle Thieves is a searing allegory of the human condition, a caustic narrative of despair and hope, loss and redemption, poignantly told in subtle actions and spare words. A singular camera shot follows an employee climbing several stories of pawned linen in order to store another acquisition. A panning film sequence in a restaurant juxtaposes the father and son "feasting" on bread and mozzarella with an affluent family dining nearby. A long, traveling shot of a street bazaar shows Antonio and Bruno searching through an endless sea of nondescript bicycles, all presumably stolen. Bicycle Thieves is an honest examination of a soul torn by responsibility and moral consequence, a simple man incapable of articulating his pain, a film devoid of the proselytizing tirades endemic to the rose-colored lenses of contemporary Hollywood. Bicycle Thieves is the story of humanity, in all its imperfect beauty and heartbreaking cruelty, the quintessential definition of an artistic masterpiece... truly a cinematic landmark.

Vittorio De Sica presents an honest, unsentimental, and profoundly moving portrait on aging, dignity, and resilience in Umberto D. Through the recurring imagery of motion and activity, De Sica contrasts Umberto's age and wavering sense of purpose with the vitality of hope and the process of living: the pensioner demonstration; the hurried pace of commuters; the passing of cable cars; the children playing. Note that Umberto's sense of despair is often juxtaposed against the passing of a moving vehicle. The final scene shows Umberto playing with Flag at a public park. It is a subtle affirmation of the daily ritual of life - a quiet celebration of the often insignificant moments of joy and distraction that redeem human existence.

Using visual contrast, Vittorio De Sica creates an understated, elegant, and hauntingly poignant film in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. The opening scene of the visitors wearing light colored clothing and the suffused warmth of the summer sun sharply contrast with Alberto's illness and the dark, winter clothing worn by the family as they are escorted to a detaining facility. Furthermore, the visual dichotomy is presented through Micol and Giorgio's ill-fated relationship, as the ethereal lightness of their childhood memories is replaced by the darkness surrounding Giorgio as he discovers Micol's betrayal. Inevitably, the walls of the Finzi-Contini estate cannot insulate the family from the ravaging whims of political tide, and is forced to accept a social equality, a hopeful affirmation of humanity and community. 

Italian screenwriter and film theorist Cesare Zavattini started as a writer of traditionalist, commonplace short stories and novels. His first screenplay, Daro un Milione (1935), fell so comfortably into formula that it was easily adapted into the Hollywood film I'll Give a Million (1938). His sensibilities toughened by the war, Zavattini began formulating the theories which helped launch the Italian neorealist movement of the postwar era. Zavattini's script for The Children Are Watching Us (1943) was the first of 23 collaborations with director Vittorio De Sica, the most internationally famous of which included Shoeshine (1943), The Bicycle Thief (1948), and Umberto D (1952). When De Sica decided that neorealism was becoming a cliché, and thus went on to such sentimental, box-office-safe comedies as The Gold of Naples (1954) and Marriage Italian Style (1964), Zavattini obligingly altered his writing style. Any accusations that Zavattini had abandoned neorealism were quelled by his searing screenplay for De Sica's Two Women (1962). As European movie tastes veered more toward the French New Wave, Zavattini attempted to touch base with this school; but his work on such films as A Young World (1966) and Woman Times Seven (1967) was disappointingly derivative, obliging critics to label the once-progressive writer as an "Old Timer." Zavattini regained pride of place with his final collaboration with De Sica, Sunflower (1969), which succeeded despite the noncreative interference of producer Carlo Ponti (whose wife, Sophia Loren, was the star). Cesare Zavattini's final contribution to cinema was an acting assignment in 1989's Strand -- Under the Dark Cloth.

First Impression: The Wise Women of Havana

           Set in Havana in 1938, Jose Baul Bernardo’s novel captures the fell, smells, and sounds of the quickly changing tropical metropolis after the Great Depression .Lorenzo and Marguita are a happy pair of newlyweds expecting their first child. They have rented a small, bright apartment where they are perfectly content. However, the Depression has ruined Lorenzo’s father’s business and now, to make ends meet, his parents have insisted the young couple move in with them and help with expenses.

    A vivacious ,working- class girl from a noisy Cuban family ,Marguita has qualms about joining Lorenz’s austere Spanish household .Lorenzo’s eldest sister, Lucinda, died of consumption and their mother,Carmela,always wears black .A younger sister ,Asuncion,is deaf, and the middle sister Lolo, is a bitter, angry spinster.However,Lolo’s hostile demeanor masks feelings of inadequacy. Still a virgin, Lolo is really curious about sex. More out of inquisitiveness than maliciousness, she spies on the young couple making love, witnessing an intimate act considered indecent by upright, upper-class ladies.Marguita is so traumatized that she runs home to tell her mother, Dolores, a wise woman in her fifties who knows just what to do.

      First, she contrives to have her daughter and son-in-law rent own little house and cleverly engineers improvements to make the place livable.Then, she schemes to buy a refrigerator ‘‘on the cheap” and even manages to get a crib. Dolores, who has her husband, Maximiliano, wrapped around her little finger, talks him into making sacrifices for the daughter they both adore. But even snug in her comfy home in her old neighborhood, Marguita can’t forget Lolo’s terrible affront. She wants vengeance.

     When their baby boy is boy, the happy couple calls him Lorenzo Manuel, Manuel being the name of the physician who delivered him.Immidiately the doctor and his wife, Celina, assume they are to be the godparents and, in order to avoid squabbles, Lorenzo and Marguita acquiesce. Celina plans an elaborate christening party, and even though Marguita has sworn never to forgive Lolo, she is no gracious way to exclude her from the festivities. At the gathering, two unexpected things happen: the ardently anticlerical Maximiliano becomes friends with the priest, Father Francisco, and Lolo catches the eye of – of all people-the priest’s acolyte, Father Alonso.

      In the meantime, Marguita is becoming a wise woman in her own right. When Lorenzo wins some money at Jai alai, she uses charm to get him to invest in his own education. She persuades him to take night courses at the university while continuing to work at a bookstore .At the same time; she begins to put money aside so they can eventually buy their own house.

     When Collazo, the bookshop owner, decides to start a cultural club at the beach, the whole community attends the building’s “christening”. Father Alonnso, whose homosexual leanings had led him to the priesthood in the first place, sees Lolo at the event and is again taken with her beautiful gypsy eyes, his remind him of a boy he once liked. After the ceremony, he and Father Fransisco go for a swim in their underwear, and then Alonso takes off his boxers to let them dry. When Lolo finds him napping buck naked on the beach, she practically jumps on him, and nature takes its course.

    For Alonso the event is liberating- a confirmation that he is a real man.His new self-confidence leads him not to give up the priesthood, but to embrace his mission with greater zeal.However, his new community is shattered by the news that Lolo is pregnant .Although he offers to leave the priesthood and marry her, Lolo knows that this is the wrong solution. Marguita, too, is pregnant, and her pregnancy is no less troubling than Lolo’s. The economic situation is so bad that she and Lorenzo cannot afford to have another baby. A wise older woman helps Lolo out of her predicament, unexpectedly solving Marguita’s problem as well. At Lorenzo Manuel’s birthday party Marguita and Lolo, thanks to the prodding of the wise Dolores, finally open up to each other and Marguita drops her grudge.

     The Wise Women of Havana is a page-turner full of engaging characters whose fates we really care about.Bernardo brings to life a pre-Castro Cuba where things were though, but life was beautiful just the same. He does not gloss over the real social ills of the period-poverty, machismo, class snobbery- but focuses on positive human qualities. Best of all, he produces an array of wise, warm women who win our hearts.

      The Wise Women of Havana, by Jose Raul Bernardo.New York: Rayo, 2002.

Cine Quiz-3

Who was the first Assamese director to direct a film? What was the name of the film?

Assamese Timeless Songs in Roman Script: Music is secular that transcends all hurdles. Because of the rapid development of English as the medium of instruction in school and colleges of Assam, the new generation of Assamese, although equipped to speak the language, fails to rear the tongue. Yet there is hope for the interested English educated Assamese who are interested in Assamese timeless songs. As they understand the language when spoken, it is possible to transcribe the Assamese songs to Roman script to make them connect to their roots.(To be continued)

  The pavements of big cities not only give shelter to the homeless but also to things of intellectual curiosity-books and films. In a recent trip to Chennai I bought around 40 DVDs containing roughly about 150 films. They are masterpieces of world cinema not available in the VCD/DVD parlours and shops-not even in those so called supermarkets (?).(Personally I often wonder why they are called supermarkets at all where salesmen go blank when asked for VCDs/DVDs of foreign films other than English).My collection has  mostly Spanish, Italian, Japanese, French, Polish, Hungarian, German, South Korean, Iranian and English films. I shall be reviewing all those masterpieces of world cinema in my column ‘First Impression’. What follows is the first supplement of this series.

First Impression: The Namesake

Hollywood has never been noted for its literacy. Yet from its very beginning, it has turned to literature for inspiration and persisted in the practice of translating books to films. They are two different mediums .One uses, as Shakespeare justly says, words and the other, images and sound to recreate reality. As such, it is very difficult to even for an expert film maker to make a cinematic masterpiece out of a literary one. But it is not impossible. As Joy Gould Boyum, the eminent film critic points out, film is an art eminently capable of translating novel, not only in plot and theme, but in style, technique and effect. The Namesake, the latest offering of Mrs. Mira Nair is a classic example at hand.

        From Salaam Bombay to the Namesake, it has been a long journey for Mira Nair, spanning nineteen years. It is a serious film, marked by intensity of emotions, and done on a reflective note. The subject is about the loss of one’s roots. The story of the present film takes the Ganguly family. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake covers three decades of their lives. After surviving a horrific train crash, Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan) agrees to an arranged marriage with lively singer Ashima (Tabu) in 1977 Calcutta, before relocating to New York to start a family.

Years pass and the Gangulis' son Gogol (Kal Penn), named after Ashoke's favourite author Nickolai Gogol, grows into a promising architect, married to a rich American girl (Jacinda Barrett). However, Gogol struggles to come to terms with his Bengali heritage, neglecting his parents and even going so far as to hide his given name from his wife and her family. The film tries to capture a bizarre identity crisis on the part of those who have remained immigrants, traumatized by homelessness in the figurative terms. The duel existence of Indian immigrants, especially of the second generation, is metaphorically expressed by Bengalis’ practice of keeping two names-one public, one private.Jhumpa metaphorically uses these two names to represent the duel identities of her characters. The Namesake is a film where Gogol, the protagonist tries to loose one identity, thereby becoming a single whole rather than a fractured one oscillating between two cultures .Therein lies the significance of the title of the film. As such the name of the film is just and suggestive.

   As always Sooni Taraporevala is brilliant as a scriptwriter that ultimately helps the director to visually translate the novel into film. All the characters except Jacinda Barrett have done more than justice to their characters. As a result, there's no chemistry between her and Penn, so we don't care all that much about their relationship problems.
    In a word, the Namesake is an impressively directed, gorgeously photographed (thanks to  cinematographer Frederick Elme) drama, a loving, deeply felt screen translation that should appease fans of the book while making many new converts. Some of the shots are simply beautiful, such as an image of snow-covered steps or a tree with red leaves.

   The novel and the film mingled so artistically, truly supplement each other. Mira has made few minor changes in the story (like she has changed the setting from Cambridge, Massachusetts to New York) because this is a deeply personal movie and she had to add some elements of her personal life into the film.  

Recent Mexican Cinema

Mexico is a Spanish speaking Latin American country which produces about 25-30 films annually. It became an independent state in 1821 and a republic in1823.Interestingly Mexico or United Mexican States is the only South American country not to have a military coup in the post-war period. As such it has a congenial atmosphere for the growth and development of arts including Cinema.
                    Mexico has a long history of filmmaking which dates back to the early part of the last cencury.One of the most vital influences of the early Mexican Cinema was the Mexican Revolution. We shall discuss here Mexican Cinema from 1990 to the present, which is commonly termed as the Age of the New Mexican Cinema or Nuevo Cine Mexicano.Arturo Ripstein,Alfonso Arau,Alfonso Cuaron and Maria Novara are few of the stalwarts of this recent movement in Mexican Cinema.
Just when everything seemed lost for Mexican cinema, the dismantling of what had once been a solid industry, middle class audience decided on its salvation. This is the same middle class that had turned its back on domestically made Mexican films for decades.Suprisingly,a 1999 bitter –sweet comedy,Sex Shame and Tears(Sexo,Pudor Y Lagrimas)by Antonin Serrano turned out to be the most successful Mexican production in history ,beating out Hollywood blockbusters like Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace. While it may be natural to identify with a pair of star-crossed teen-age lovers abroad the Titanic, with all its limitations, Sex, Shame and Tears prompted different, more immediate reflexes and ways of thinking.
    Although it would be premature to call it a resurrection, it is true that production has recovered. In 2007 we can expect about 30-35 full-length feature films from Mexican cine industry. AltaVista Films, Argos, Producciones Anhelo and Titan are some of the companies that have put their money on commercial cinema capable of attracting middle-class intelligent audiences without insulting their intelligence.
    Love is a Bitch (Amores Perros),Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritus’s first film, is precisely one example of this rare phenomenon: it is praised and much-awarded film in prestigious circles that at the same time was the year 2000’s top box-office hit, showing that good returns can be achieved by a two-and-a-half hour drama with a complex narrative structure. This AltaVista Films Production showed that although the public prefers light comedies, it can also be interested in other proposals.
    In 2001, the same premise was proven by two urban dramas about marginalized young people: Streeters (De la calle), the debut of director Gerardo Tort, and Violet Perfume-No One Hears You (Perfume de violetas.Nadie te oye)Maryse Sistach’sfifth full-length feature film. This is a hyper-realistic adaptation by prominent dramatist Gonzalez Davila that draws a picture of the nocturnal, violently sordid world of some Mexican city teenagers with an urgency that is never morbid. The constantly moving camera and the sudden cuts of the editing reinforce that strategy to bring the audience a sense of the immediate.
  Although Violet Perfume focuses on the specific problem of the growing number of rapes in Mexico, the film avoids sermonizing by situating the conflict in a broader context, that of the interrupted friendship between two lower-class teenage girls; this gives the plot its emotional force. The director tells her story with the verisimilitude of a documentary, allowing it to develop with the naturalness of daily life, even at times when it could have succumbed to melodrama.
    The existence of a large number of women directors in a country known for its macho image is noteworthy.2002 saw the release of work by Marcela Arteaga with her documentary Memories(Recuerdos);Marcela Fernandez Violante,with her Snake Skin(Piel de vibora);Dana Rotberg,with Otilia Rauda;Eva Lopez-Sanchez, with Which Side are you on?(De que lado estas?,)and Guita Schyfter,with Faces of the Moon(Las caras de la luna)The time when Fernandez Violante was the only active woman film maker seems very far away indeed.
        Without a doubt, comedy is the king of Mexican cinema, whether it be a satirical look at Mexican life or as a friendly illusion to certain neuroses of Mexico City’s middle class. Released after audaciously eluding the threat of censorship, Herod’s Law (La ley de Herodes) (Luis Estrada, 2000) was of capital importance for showing that the Industrial Revolutionary Party and other sacred cows had stopped being untouchable. Although the satire on institutionalized corruption was a crude caricature, the excess was necessary to make effective its virulent critique of a system that was about to come to an end in the year it was being shown.
    Other satires have been more moderate in their attacks.Gimme Power (Todo el poder) (Fernando Sarinana, 2000) posits a superficial denunciation of urban crime associated with police corruption and even has a happy ending .In the Country Where Nothing Happens (En el pais de no pasa nada) (Maria del Carmen de Lara, 2000) makes pleasant fun of the figure of the dishonest Salinas-administration politician from a woman’s point of view, while A Strange World(Un mundo raro)(Armando Casas,2001)focuses on the murky world of commercial television to establish the moral differences between common criminals and the amoral television personalities they admire.
    In contrast, Mexico City comedies have centered in general on the crisis of the couple. The extraordinary success of Sex, Shame and Tears had a precedent in Coriander and Parsley (Cilantro y perejil)(Rafael Montero,1996)one of the few good films that came out during the industry’s dry period. Also well received by the viewers, although panned by the critics, was Second Chance (El Segundo aire)by Fernando Sarinana(2001),another attempt at presenting infidelity as a system of generational malaise.
      Certainly, the most unexpected incursion into this genre was Living Kills (Vivir mata)(2002),by Nicolas Echevarria,previously a director of documentaries and of the epic-mystical Cabeza de vaca,one of the most highly acclaimed prize-winning films of the 1980’s.Living Kills tries to bring together two story-lines of today’s Mexico City comedies: the search for a partner in love and the city has the testimony of just how uninhabitable the city has become. But sadly instead of transcending mere realism, Living Kills is content with being whimsically picturesque.
      The preoccupation with love relationships in Mexico City found its teenage version in The Second Time (La segunda vez)(Alejandro Gamboa,1999)whose best feature is its lack of pretension and the honest with which it treats its female characters. Teen love was also the pretext for existential exploration on trips to the provinces, the subject of the irregular Dust to Dust(Por la libre)(Juan Carlos de Llaca,2000),the incoherent Green Stones(Piedras verdes)(Angel Flores Torres,2001)and ,of course, And Your Mother, Too)(Alfonso Cuaron,2001),the film with the largest viewing audience in 2001 in Mexico.
    Winner of 2001’s Venice Film Festival, And Your Mother, Too(Y tu mama tambien),a film that marks Curon’s return to Mexican cinema, is a complacent
Combination of road movie and adolescent comedy centered on a ménage a trios among a Spanish woman and two teenage boys obsessed with sex. The movie slyly suggests a critical view: while the protagonists throw themselves into directionless hedonism, the audience catches glimpses of real problem in the national situation, ignored by these privileged teens. The film ends with guilt and punishment for partying, a moralizing discourse.
    The most interesting recent contribution from a novel film maker is Fairy Tale to Lull Crocodiles to Sleep (Cuento de hadas para dormer a los cocodrilos), the second feature film by Ignacio Ortiz Cruz.Despite its pretentious title, this film takes an untraveled road.It is not a comedy, although it has dashes of homour; and the action does not take in Mexico City, but in the beautiful arid countryside of Oaxaca. This history of a family curse over time (a heritage of insomnia and fratricide) escapes the literary conceits of magical realism to find its own language. This is the kind of production-audacious and rigorously personal-that has kept Mexican Cinema Alive.
      The success of Mexican Cinema in recent years lies in the fact that the films combine the artistic, the entertaining and commercial in an appealing manner. The contemporary Mexican film makers give equal importance to all these elements. Comedy is their forte and the past few years saw the rise of some highly successful satirical and adolescent comedies. Maybe Assamese filmmakers can take some lessons from these Mexican movies rather than those produced by Bollywood. 
                             


                              The End 

I LIKE WRITERS NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE AS SHABBY AS ME OR THEIR MOUSTACHES ARE UNTRIMMED JUST LIKE MINE,BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE WITTY.I ENVY THEIR CREATIVITY.I WISH I HAD THEIR MAGIC OF WORDS.

I  wrote 365 love letters to my beloved and got result ultimately .She ran away with the postman.

Self-Portrait

I resemble everyone but myself, and sometimes see in shop-windows   despite the well-knownlaws   of optics, the portrait of a stranger, date unknown, often signed in a corner by my father.

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Author: Poetry of John Donne Type: Poetry Views: 1867

At the round earth's imagined corners blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall, overthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if Thou'dst sealed my pardon, with Thy blood.

The Sunne Rising

      Busie olde foole, unruly Sunne;
      Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?
Must to they motions lovers seasons run?
    Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
    Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,
  Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
  Call countrey ands to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, months, which are the rags of time.

    Thy beames, so reverend, and strong
    Why shouldst thou thinke?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
    If her eyes have not blinded thine
    Looke, and tomorrow late, tell mee,
  Whether both the India's of spice and Myne
  Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.
Aske for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay.

    She'is all States, and all Princes, I,
    Nothing else is; 
Princes doe but play us; compar'd to this,
All honor's mimique; All wealth alchimie,
    Thou sunne art halfe as happy'as wee,
    In that the world's contracted thus;
  Thine ages askes ease, and since thy duties bee
  To warme the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.
		

Through the Poem

Stanza 1

• unruly Sunne - the poet has been woken by the Sun. Donne shocks from the start - the first line conveys arrogance and rudeness, but it is directed at the Sun.
  
• sowre - bad-tempered. In these few lines Donne puts the sun in its place - its job is with the boring, bad-tempered, ordinary people, not with the lovers. Note that the lovers are already at a celestial level at this stage - they are above the "countrey ants" the poet refers to.

Stanza 2

• There is a change of attitude in this stanza. Wheres in stanza 1 Donne was annoyed and arrogant, now he gets insulting and grandiose. He attacks the popular notion of the strong, powerful sunshine by pointing out that he can cut the Sun out of his life merely by closing his eyes.
• However, even with this arrogance, he is forced to admit that without the Sun, he would not be able to see his lover. And here his attitude begins to change again - through the rest of the stanza it becomes less antagonistic towards the Sun and more complimentary to his lover and their situation together.
• ...and tomorrow late... - a very unsubtle hint that the Sun gets up too early.
• the India's of Spice and Myne - ie, the East and West Indias. This is the beginning of a conceit that lasts the rest of the poem - Donne and his lover, and the room they are in, expand to become the whole world - at least, they have by the last stanza. In these two lines Donne says his lover is the East and West Indias - in Donne's day, the source of the world's most precious materials: spices, metals, and jewels.

Stanza 3

• The conceit continues. The first two lines imply that the lovers are every country, every where. There is also "conqueror / conquered" imagery here - where the Prince has completely control of his country, and the country submits to him.
• Princes doe but play us...All wealth alchimie - Everything is false, apart from Donne and his lover.
• Thine age askes ease... - the tone is arrogant but playful. Donne decides that the Sun must be tired continually journeying around the world - and since the rest of the world is false, there's really no need to. To illuminate the only true, real world, the Sun need only shine in the room containing Donne and his lover.

Poetically

• Direct address is used, as is common in Donne poetry, in the first stanza.
• Conceits used:
  1. Lover's bedroom becomes the world: This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare

Imagery and Learning

• India's of Spice and Myne
• Use of Sun-related imagery

General Notes

• Reuses the notion of "Hundreds of Petrachan and Elizabethan poems" that the "Sun is the touchstone of ecstatic tribute"
• "The exaggeration of language mimics the assurance of love"
• "Every insult to the Sun is a compliment to his mistress."
• Note the movement of the poem. In Stanza 1, Love and the Sun are separate. By Stanza 3, Donne has joined the two - love and the Sun are one and the same. The poem also becomes more intellectual as it advances - possibly as the speaker and his lover wake up! However, this "intellectuality" also, ironically, takes the poem from the plausible to the ridiculous. A simple way to examine the movement of this poem is to examine the first lines of each stanza.
  1. Busie olde foole, unruly Sunne
  2. Thy beames, so reverend and strong,
     Why should'st thou thinke?
  3. She'is all States, and all Princes, I
• Note the constant use of Sun-related imagery: "Eclipse and cloud" in stanza 2, "these walls, thy spheare" in Stanza 3. The "spheare" is significant - circles and spheares were considered the perfect shapes. By the last word of the last stanza, Donne, his love, and the Sun are united.
• There is a very sensual aspect to this poem: the glow of the sun, the extremes of conceit, perhaps an element of a sexual boast with "All here in one bed lay" in stanza 2.

The Good Morrow

John Donne (1573–1631)

I WONDER, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snored we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;         5 If ever any beauty I did see. Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.   And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love all love of other sights controls,         10 And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone; Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.   My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,         15 And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or thou and I         20 Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

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The Tiger

By William Blake

1757-1827

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

London