Harishchandrachi Factory has been nominated as India's official entry to the Oscars.
Harishchandrachi Factory has been nominated as India's official entry to the Oscars. Ninety-six years after Dadasaheb Phalke made Raja Harishchandra, the story of how he made this iconic film has sort of made it to the 'real world' of the West. Last year, Danny Boyle had won an Oscar for his film on India. It is official now, our slums and our films are 'happening'. But where does all the action really happen? In the great Bollywood productions? No. The sprawling Film City, impressive Yash Raj Studios, prolific premises of RGV's Factory cannot account for the entire volume of our works.u00a0
The large network of 'hole in the wall' units is the one that keeps the camera rolling. Most of these units, which I prefer to call sweatshops, are located in the western suburbs between Goregaon and Bandra. Obviously,
the proximity to big studios determines their location.u00a0 These are, in a way, part of an organised sector with required trade licenses and other paraphernalia.
Yet, in reality, they function as the only refuge for hundreds of aspiring migrants who come to Mumbai to become popular icons actors, singers, dancers, writers, et al. The wide-eyed Himachali boy who came to the city at the age of 18 to become a dancing star has ended up as a daily wage worker in a stud farm. As part of his routine to exercise the horse every evening, he gets to ride the large white horse that acted with Shah Rukh Khan in Asoka. The stud farm occupies a narrow strip of land surrounded by skyscrapers. Maneuvering the horse within that narrow space is a difficult task. As the unkempt daily wager rides the precious horse in the middle of the concrete jungle, he lives his failed dream of becoming a film star.
The land of Bollywood is a gated zone. It is guarded zealously by a series of specialised unions and associations related to every aspect of film making. Memberships to any of these associations are a huge and scarce privilege.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0
Most of the migrants who come to the city to fulfill their dream of being a part of Bollywood, spend the major part of their lives making rounds of film studios, trade associations and grooming schools. By the time they find an anchor in one of the sweatshops, the individual's aspiration to be part of celluloid iconography becomes just another line in the story of generic migration.
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