Indians are known to follow three things religiously namely cricket, cinema and religion itself. Among these, cinema has influenced their life more than anything else. And this love for cinema is old as cinema itself and people used to flock the theatres to see the silent movies. The history of Indian cinema is more than 100 years old. The first silent movie to be released in India was on 7th July 1897 at Hotel Watson in Bombay by the Leiumour Brothers who produced the film. The film had only six scenes in all and was 10 minutes long. The first Indian to produce a film was H.S.Bhatwdekar. He got a camera from London and shot 2 scenes of 3 minutes each. He titled them as Do Pahalwanon Ki Kushti and Bandar Kho Nachata Hua Madaari, which was released in December 1889. On 1st January 1900, a Britisher by the name of Mr Taivello released a silent movie at Novelty Cinema at Lamington Road, Bombay. Fatima, an Indian dancer was the star of the movie. Ram Chandra Gopal Torne, N.G. Chitre and Stevenson, a cinematographer jointly produced a 22 minutes silent film named Pundalik. This film was based on a life of an actual saint from Maharashtra. But the year 1913 saw the real evolution of Indian cinema. A full length silent movie was produced by one Mr Dadasaheb Phalke, who later on earned the title of the father of Indian cinema. The name of the movie was ‘Raja Harishchandra’ and it was based on the Sanskrit epic of a famous mythological king of India. The total length of the movie was 40 minutes. A unique feature about this movie was that there were no female artists in it as working in a movie was a taboo and the male artists enacted the roles of female characters. It was a taboo to such an extent in the society that Dadasaheb Phalke had to tell his artists to tell everybody that they were working in a factory of a man named Harishchadra. The movie had English and Hindi subtitles and was released at the coronation Cinema in Bombay. Dadashaeb made many other movies after this. He made Mohini Bhasmasur in 1913, Satyavan Savitri in 1914 and Lanka Dahan in 1917. Lanka Dahan went on to become India’s first box office hit. Many silent movies were made in the 1920’s. Dhiren ganguly made Bilat Ferat, a love story in 1921. Madan made Nala Damayanti in 1921, Pati Bhakti in 1922 and Noor Jehan in 1923. The famous Baburao painter made Maya Bazaar in 1923, Kaala Naag in 1924 and Cinema Queen in 1926. Other notable silent movies were Bhaneli Bhamini, Anarkali, Gopal Krishna, Chandramukhi, Hatim Tai, Diler Jigar, Raajrani Meera. Though these movies were known as silent movies, they had music which was made by certain instruments like a tabla, flute or a sitar which would accompany the scenes. As there were no dialogues, they had subtitles mainly in English and one regional language. In the year 1931 Ardeshir Irani made India’s first talking movie that is movie with sound and dialogues, Alam Ara. With this a new chapter in cinema started. Silent movies were still produced at this time but within a short span of time it eventually died out as it could not meet with the competition of talking cinema as people preferred the later. Many artist who did very well during the silent era struggled as they were not good in dialogue delivery but at the same time artist with excellent voice and acting power came to the limelight. Songs were an addition feature added to the cinema. Nearly half a century later, in 1988 S.Sreenivas Rao experimented with a silent movie named Pushpak which had no dialogues or subtitles. Well known actor Kamal Hasan was the lead actor of the movie. The movie was made very well and went on to become a big box office hit.
Monday, May 4, 2009
F1 2009
A new season of F1 is all set to begin. It will be an exciting season if any indication of the last two seasons can be taken into account. Lewis Hamilton won the drivers’ championship from Filepe Massa by a single point in the last race of 2008. It could not get more exciting than this. This year’s F1 season will be very different to the last years as FIA, the governing body have made many changes to the season . Slick tyres will make a comeback after nearly 10 years. There are stringent aerodynamics regulations. The front wing will be lower and wider while the rear wings will be higher and narrower. This will enhance the mechanical grip of the car, A new system known as Kinetic Energy Recovery system (KERS) will be introduced where the energy generated during braking is stored and can be used to give the extra boost and acceleration when needed, though this optional. The pit lane speed limit has been increased from 50 mph to 62 mph. A massive cost cutting has been put to place and the budget of each team may be cut to half the amount they had spent last year. The engine has to last 3 races, the gearbox has to last 4 races. The team will be penalized 5 places if they put a new engine or gearbox before this period. The rule that the pit lane is closed during the safety car period is done away in 2009. There was supposed to be a major change in the Driver Championship allocation wherein the driver who wins the most number of races will be given the title instead of the driver who has the most points like previous years but this rule was taken back after strong opposition from the participating teams. The 2009 calendar will have 17 races in all. The season will begin with the Australian GP in March and will end with the newly constructed Abu Dhabi GP in November. The French and the Canadian GP have been dropped from this year’s calendar. There will be a night race in Singapore. Ten teams will be taking part this season. Team Honda has been bought by Ross Brawn, the former technical advisor of the Ferrari team and has been renamed as Brawn- Mercedes team. Interestingly a huge controversy is brewing among the F1 teams regarding the use of diffusers on the car. A diffuser is an extension of the floor at the back end of the car, between the rear wheels to gather and organize the high speed air rushing under the car. This reduces drag and increases down force, so the speed and agility of the car is increased. Some teams like Toyota, Williams and Brawn have diffusers which are working better than other teams so their cars are much faster . Teams like Ferrari and Renault have lodged a complaint against this and the hearing is to take place sometimes soon. Will it again be team Ferrari dominating as we have seen many times before or teams like Mclaren, Toyota, Renault going all out for the championship. This only time will tell but one thing is for sure that there will be no shortage of drama, suspense, thrill and controversies when the season will finally kicks start on the 29th of March on the famous Melbourne Grand Prix circuit. Get, set, go.