After a week’s break, Saat Samundar is back. This time, we attempt to connect two individuals who have made Bombay famous recently, and in doing so, got immense fame themselves.

Incidentally, before you dive in, Saat Samundar is recruiting. If you have an idea which you would like to explore (basically write for this column in Hafta), do drop me a mail. Details of how to do that in the contribution’s link on the main page.

From Maximum City to Shantaram

Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City, wrote the screenplay for Misson Kashmir for Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Mehta and Chopra were friends and the writer even helped on the script for the Fifth Move, a ‘mysterious’ film on chess that the director has announced. However, the less than charitable portrayal of Vinod Chopra in Maximum City soured their relationship and probably, Mehta would be better off looking for other directors for screenplay offers. Although that shouldn’t be difficult, after the success of his non-fiction book. In fact, Ismail Merchant, before his death, had asked him to write the screenplay for The Goddess.

The Goddess is a movie based on Shakti, with Tina Turner playing the leading role. While the fate of the movie is now unclear, the casting of Tina Turner did lead to huge controversy. One Hindu organization stated that Tina Turner should give up smoking, drinking and illicit sex during the making of the film, while another objected to her ‘half-naked’ pictures on her website. While these protests might have been over-the-top, illogical and politically motivated, Shakti and her avatar Kali are no stranger to controversy. Especially if the West is involved.

Some historians and writers have suggested that “the evidence for the existence of a Thuggee ‘cult’ in the 19th century was in part the product of "colonial imaginings"—British fear of the little-known interior of India and limited understanding of the religious and social practices of its inhabitants”. Thuggee, or the network of secret fraternities of robbers was closely related to Kali worship. Amongst various legends about the cult is that they believed that every murder would delay the Goddess’s arrival by 1000 years. Thus, they ended up killing, according to Wikipedia, about 2 million people between 13^th and 19^th century. The British, led by William Sleeman, suppressed this movement through various brutal means. Around the same time, the colonial fascination with strange tantric rituals and myths about sacrifices to the Goddess were born.

The fascination with these myth now lives on in Hollywood. The Deceivers, made in 1988, was an account of the discovery and infiltration of the Thuggee sect by an imperial British administrator, played by Pierce Brosnan. However, the most famous films based on Thuggee are probably Gunga Din, made in 1939, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The latter movie was banned in India for racist portrayals in 1985. It starred Amrish Puri as Mola Ram, leader of the Tantric thuggee cult, up against Harrison Ford.

Harrison Ford has made a name in Hollywood playing superheroes like Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan in a series of movies. Incidentally, these roles came to him by default and other unusual circumstances: Han Solo, due to his reading lines for other actors in George Lucas’s house while working as a carpenter; Indiana Jones, because actor Tom Selleck was not available; and Jack Ryan, apparently because Alec Baldwin demanded huge fees after playing Ryan in the Hunt for Red October.

People say that a man’s greatest strengths are his greatest weaknesses (!) and so it is for Ford. He has generally been typecast as the action hero and hasn’t got the critical acclaim or the opportunities that some of his contemporaries have got. Nor has he got an Oscar.

He came close in 1985 when he was nominated for Witness. The movie based in a Amish neighborhood in Pennsylvania, is about a police officer hiding from his own colleagues, while protecting the witness to a crime. The movie was also an attempt by Harrison Ford to break away from his Indiana Jones and Star Wars image. It almost worked!

Witness, by the way, was the first American movie made by Peter Weir. Weir, who had made Gallipoli and the Year of Living Dangerously and the pivotal Australian film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, made a successful transition to Hollywood along with Ford and then directed him again in The Mosquito Coast. Weir’s association with Hollywood has been quite profitable. Both of Weir’s next two films, Dead Poet’s Society and Green Card were major hits. Weir also has made Truman Show and Master and Commander.

Amongst other commendation, critics have praised Weir for brilliantly using action and comedy stars like Ford, Robin Williams and Jim Carrey in critically acclaimed ‘serious’ movies.

Peter Weir incidentally has quit Shantaram after creative differences with the production team (which can either mean Warner Brothers or Johnny Depp!). He is now scheduled to make Pattern Recognition, based on William Gibson’s novel or War Magician, based on a book on a British Magician. Gregory David Robert’s book will have to wait.