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Yaar KABIRA, a vERY INTERESTING ARTICLE, for TERE NAAG KAARAN ONLY:
Hisssstory
Roshmila Bhattacharya
here’s a myth associated with our movies. A hisssstory creates box-office history. For decades, our dream merchants have fervently believed that if you put a naag and/or a nagin in your film, whip up a sapera and a few shraaps, spoon in generous dollops of romance and revenge, garnish the concoction with superhit songs, half-a-dozen goons and a dash of melodrama, you have the makings of a blockbuster. Over the years, working on this conviction, a series of snake films have slithered into the theatres, to entice and entrance.
Perhaps the first snake film was Dadasaheb Phalke’s Kalia Mardan (1919) starring his daughter Mandakini. She played a young Krishna who triumphs over the venomous serpent king. The film was remade in 1935. But before that, in ’24, came Kala Naag, followed by Kali Nagin (’25), Soul Of The Snake (’27), Naag Padmini (’28), Kala Naag (’34) and Nagan (’34). Vish Kanya arrived in ’43, Har Har Mahadev in ’50 (it was remade in ’74), Nagina in ’51, Naag Panchami in ’53 (it was remade in ’72), Naag Mani, Naag Padmini and Naag Lok in ’57 (another version of the latter turned up in ’63), Naag Ke Do Dushman in ’59 and Naache Naagin Baaje Been in ’60.
The trend continued through the ’60s and ’70s with films like Naag Devta (’62), Ek Sapera Ek Lootera (’65), Naag Mandir and Naag Aur Sapera (’66), Naag Pooja (’71) and Nagin (’76).
In the ’80s and ’90s too we had snakes ruling the marquee in films like Cobra and Black Cobra (’80), Nagin Aur Nagina and Tarzan And Cobra (’88), Nagina (’86) and its sequel Nigahen (’89), Sheshnag and Naache Nagin Gali Gali (’90).
Nagina
The “Big Three†films in this genre are undoubtedly Filmistan’s Nagin (’54), Rajkumar Kohli’s Nagin (’76) and Harmesh Malhotra’s Nagina (’86). They made the cash counters jingle and rang up a formula that generations of film-makers have sworn by.
A snake spells success. True? “Untrue,†quips trade analyst Amod Mehra. “With the exception of the three above mentioned films and the dubbed Annaconda, none of the other snake films have made much of an impression. Even Harmesh Malhotra’s Nigahein that carried forward the story of Nagina, and Raj Kumar Kohli’s recently released sequel to Nagin, Jaani Dushman couldn’t recreate the magic of the originals.â€
Rajkumar Kohli’s 21st century Nagin was the only big-budget bonanza to open on Independence Day last year. Jaani Dushman got off to a bumper start in Bihar and UP where it had been sold pretty steep at Rs 2.50 crore. However, collections started sliding from the very next day and by the end of the second week it was evident to all that the SFX extravaganza that had reportedly cost its producer-director almost Rs 20 crore, was a damp sequel.
Rajkumar Kohli’s wife Nishi says that they had not expected the film to bomb. “Everybody, from the distributors to the actors associated with the film, had been so sure that we had a hit on our hands because the kind of computer graphics we’d generated for Jaani Dushman had never been seen on the Indian screen before,†she rues.
Nagin
Amod Mehra agrees that the film’s special effects were interesting but not innovative. “Since Nagin we have been exposed to a number of Hollywood films whose technical wizardry is far superior. Annaconda for one was far more terrifying because you saw snakes swallowing up human beings whole. Even the specter of a man walking on water is no longer awe-inspiring because we see such marvels on our small screen every other day,†he reasons.
Twenty-seven years ago, when Kohli made Nagin, it was perceived as a “hat ke†film because of lack of competition and exposure to Hollywood’s whizcraft. After at least one hisssstory every year in the ’50s and the ’60s, snake films had petered down to a trickle by the mid-’70s. So when Reena Roy snaked her way on to the big screen with blazing, blue eyes and revenge on her mind, she was an “instant†hit.
“At the time TV coverage was restricted to one Doordarshan channel. Video, VCDs, DVDs and satellite had yet to make inroads into our living room. That was the age of innocence when an ichadhari nagin on a killing spree sent shivers up many spines,†reasons Mehra. “Today, in the age of experience, we are far more exposed, educated and enlightened to accept the implausible tale of a woman enlisting the help of her former serpentine lover to avenge her rape and untimely death.â€
The success of the early naag films, Mehra points out, can be attributed to our fear of and fascination with snakes that have always been an integral part of our lives and folklore. The darr can be traced back to prehistoric times when man lived in caves in the jungle and hunted to survive. When venomous reptiles slithered out of dark shadows and leafy shades to sting and slide away, leaving the gloom of death in their wake. Unable or may be unwilling to tame the wild thing and afraid to kill it because he’d been told strange tales of a revenge and retribution, man sought instead to appease his reptilian foe with prayers and offerings.
Slowly, the snake became a part of folklore and pictures of the sheshnag cradling Vishnu, the creator of the universe, and balancing earth on its hood which is studded with a 1,000 heads, came to adorn pooja rooms across the country. In Kerala there’s a mandir dedicated to the family’s kul devta in the compounds of many households even today. Mannarshala, a temple near Ambalapuram in Kerala, has around a 1,000 snake idols and is visited by lakhs of devotees ever year who have been told that offering prayers to the God of fertility will bless them with the child they have been yearning for for years. Nagpanchami is celebrated all over India every year. Folklore and grandmother’s tales still revere the untamed reptile. And myths about it still abound in our movies.
It is Hindi cinema that has given snakes the tag of “killers†by showing people dying a couple of minutes after being bitten by a snake in film after film. This is nothing but a fallacy because in real life most snakes are harmless and only four in India—the Cobra, Krat, Viper and Russel’s Viper— are poisonous. Even these four will never attack human beings unless threatened and if they do the victim doesn’t die instantly. There’s enough time to rush him to hospital and start treatment.
Doctors caution that it is not a good idea to suck blood out of snake bites as one has seen heroes do on screen. The right thing would be to tie a tourniquet that will effectively stop blood circulation to the affected area and then hurry the victim to the nearest doctor.
Performing Animals (Registration) Rules, 2001
(Prescribed by the Ministry Of Social Justice And Empowerment)
Any person desirous of training or exhibiting a performing animal will have to apply for registration to the prescribed authority and cannot exhibit or train any animal as a performing animal without being registered under these rules.
The prescribed authority while granting registration may impose such terms and conditions as it deems appropriate and shall also impose the following conditions, namely:
» Every owner who has ten or more such performing animals shall have a veterinarian as a regular employee for their care, treatment and transport.
» The owner shall not transport such animals by road continuously for more than 8 hours and except in cages admeasuring as specified in the Fifth Schedule.
» The owner shall ensure proper watering and feeding halts during such transportation.
» The owner after transportation shall provide feeding and retiring enclosures in respect of the animals specified in the Sixth Schedule.
» The owner shall ensure that any animal is not inflicted unnecessary pain or suffering before or during or after its training or exhibition.
» The owner shall not deprive the animal of feed or water in order to compel the said animal to train or perform any trick.
» The owner shall train an animal as a performing animal to perform an act in accordance with its basic natural instinct.
» The owner shall not make a performing animal perform if it is sick or injured or pregnant.
» The owner shall ensure that no sudden loud noise is deliberately created within the vicinity of any performing animal or bring an animal close to fire which may frighten the animal.
» The owner in case the performing animal is to be exhibited under artificial light, the overall intensity of such light shall not be more than 500 LUX.
» The owner shall not subject the animals to any action which may either kill or injure or use the animal in scenes which may cause injury to the animals.
» The owner shall not use any tripping device or wires or pitfalls for such animals.
» The owner shall not keep any animal including horses in close proximity while shooting scenes involving explosives or other loud noises;
» The owner shall ensure that props such as spears, nails, splinters, barbed wires and other such props shall not cause injury to the animals during the performance.
» The owner shall ensure that the equines are not made to walk on hard surfaces without being shoed and shall further ensure that the animals are not used in downhill slides or rodeo slide stops without proper skid and hock boots.
» The owner of any equine shall not use any whip other than an air cushioned shock absorbing whip which has been scientifically tested to prove that it will not cause weals, bruishing or other damage to the horse and subject to the conditions that (a) the whip shall not have raised binding, stitching, seam or flap. (b) the whip shall be used by licensed jockeys only. © the owner shall also ensure that the whip is not used other than either on the quarters in either the forehand or the backhand position or down the shoulder in the backhand position or use the whip with the arm above shoulder height. (d) the whip shall not be used more than 3 times in a race.
» The owner shall ensure that the animal is not used on floors that are very smooth without the use of non-skidding mats.
» The owner shall ensure that large gathering of animals is not allowed in such a way which may cause or result in stampede to the animals.
» The owner shall ensure that the animal is not made or incited to fight against other animals and shall further ensure that sedatives or tranquillisers or steroids or any other artificial enhancers are not administered to or inserted in any animal except the anaesthesia by a veterinary doctor for the purpose of treatment of an injured or sick animal.
» The owner shall ensure that the animal shall not be transported or be kept or confined in cages and receptacles which do not measure in height, length or breadth as specified under the Transport of Animal Rules, 1978, the Recognition of Zoo Rules, 1992 or under any other Act, rule or order for this purpose.
» The owner shall ensure that the animal is not continuously used for excessive number of takes in shooting a film without providing adequate rest to the animal and in the event of a snake being used it shall not be made to ingest any substances or made to crawl across tarred or any other heartened surface and shall not be contorted to wrestle.
» The owner shall ensure that while using an animal in shooting a film, the fight sequences shall not be shot in any livestock holding area including poultry area and shall further ensure that no birds are shown in cages.
» The owner shall inform that prescribed authority at least four weeks in advance informing the place, date and time of the actual making of the film wherein the animal is to be used.
» The prescribed authority may also impose such other conditions for the grant of registration as may be deemed appropriate to it for the welfare of animals.
Another myth associated with these mythical creatures is that they dance to the music of the been. The truth is that snakes can’t hear. However, they can see and when someone plays the been, his hands and body sway in time with the instrument. It is this rhythm that snakes respond to and simulate a kind of sinuous dance that earns snake charmers their livelihood.
Interestingly, the been music that most snake charmers play both in reel and real life, was created by music director Kalyanjibhai on a new instrument called the clayviolin under the direction of Hemant Kumar especially for a film. The film was a 1955 black-and-white classic, Nagin, directed by Hemant Kumar, for Filmistan’s movie moghul, S Mukherji.
Nagin told the tragic tale of two star-crossed lovers who’re torn apart by a feud that has been raging for years between two rival tribes, the Ragis and the Nagis, who make their living from selling snake venom. When Sanathan, the son of the Ragi chieften, kills a Nagi spy, the Nagi chief’s lovely daughter, Mala vows to kill him. However, all thoughts of revenge disappear in a trice when Mala hears Sanathan playing the been during hunting season. Along with the snakes, an entranced Mala too dances to the tune of ‘Man dole mera tan dole...’ and its love at first sight for the young couple. When they reluctantly part, Santathan tells Mala that his been will be his call to her. So the been in its way plays an important part in the lives of the desi Romeo and Juliet who are kept apart by their warring parents. Mala’s father going to the extent of sending a cobra out to kill the lovelorn Santhan little knowing that he’s signing his daughter’s death warrant too.
The Pradeep Kumar-Vyjayanthimala starrer was a super success. It had an award winning music score by Hemant Kumar and almost a dozen scintillating numbers like ‘Jadugar saiyan...’, ‘Tere dwar khada ek jogi...’, ‘Arre chod de patang...’ and ‘O zindagi ke denewale...’. However, it was ‘Man dole mera tan dole...’ and its been music that has remained unforgettable and become synonymous with this film. And all snake films as well.
If Hemant Kumar’s Nagin chiseled the image of a “dancing†snake in our mind, then Rajkumar Kohli’s Nagin crystallized the concept of an “ichadhari nagin†who, one by one, seeks out and kills all those she holds responsible for the untimely death of her mate. This tale of tales could have its roots in an ancient legend.
Centuries ago, an all-mighty emperor went hunting. In the jungle he came across a yogi deep in meditation The king called out a greeting to the sage. When he didn’t stir from his slumber, the raja was affronted by what he perceived to be an insult to him. He immediately killed a snake and draped it around the yogi’s neck before leaving in a huff.
Hours later, the son of the yogi returned to find his father with a dead snake around his neck. Enraged, he cursed the king and called on Takshala, the Naga king, to kill the raja for him.
When the yogi stirred out of his stupor and was briefed about all that had happened to and around him, he was aghast by his son’s hot-headed recklessness. He immediately dispatched a messenger to the king warning him about Takshala and his impending death. However, the Naga king was far more sly. He sent his own messenger to the raja who offered His Majesty a luscious fruit. It was too tempting to refuse. But when the king bit into the fruit an insect emerged. It was Takshala in disguise. He bit the king who died immediately.
Now it was the king’s son turn to seek revenge for his father’s death. He called a priest to the palace. A fire was built into which snake after snake fell and perished. However, when it was Takshala’s time to die, the yogi intervened and begged for his life. The Naga king was spared on the condition that henceforth all snakes would retreat underground and emerge from naglok to bite only those who were truly evil or destined to die prematurely.
Over the years this story of revenge of retribution has taken on many shades and dimensions. It has been aided and abetted by stories like of how those who killed snakes were pursued by its mate to their death and subsequent generations lives under the shadow of the curse. “I have heard of people dogged by misfortune going to a pandit and being told that his trials are the result of sarpadosh,†Nishi Kokli informs.
However, animal activists point out that the snake’s brain is not developed so it has no memory. This at once negates the idea of a vengeful nagin because you seek revenge only when you can recall injustice done, and nature hasn’t endowed the snake with any powers of retention. If it appears at a site where another snake has died, experts insist, it is only because when you kill a snake it expels a kind of a musk. It’s the heady smell of sex that draws the female of the species to the mutilated male and not badle ki aag. Even the notion that a dead snake’s eyes mirror the image of its murderer is nothing but an old wives tale. A snake’s stare is hypnotic not for any other reason but that it stares fixedly at any object or being. And the reason for that is pretty simple. It doesn’t blink because it has no eyelids!
Quite an eye-opener that, huh? However, producer-director Harmesh Malhotra is not convinced. Malhotra had the story of Nagina with him for almost a decade and worked on the screenplay for a good 3-4 years before he was convinced that the film was a risk worth taking. During this time, he asserts, he researched the subject thoroughly, reading up on ichadhari nagins and soliciting materials from people who had had any out-of-the-ordinary experiences with them.
“One man working in a small town in Madhya Pradesh wrote of how one night while returning home to his village, he came across two snakes mating in the gutter. Impulsively, he threw a stone at them. One of the snakes was hit and died instantly. The other ran away,†Malhotra narrates.
Soon after, the man found himself being chased by a snake. He was bitten by it five times before he sought out a sadhu. When he narrated the incident to him, the sadhu immediately realised that it was the work of a revenge seeking snake and suggested that it be appeased by building a temple in memory of its dead mate at the very place where it had been killed. “The man who wrote me the letter had attached a photograph of himself which convinced me that his story was true. I don’t know if he did build the mandir and lived safely after that, but his story proved that my film had it’s grounding in fact rather than fantasy,†Malhotra insists. He however concedes that a snake metamorphosing into a human being and the confrontation between the saap and the sapera that formed the dramatic content of both Nagina and Nigahen are the stuff of fairy tales.
Cobras with blazing jewels—the famed nagmani—on their hoods which they protect with their life as they do the family wealth, is also fiction.
“Another fallacy that was exploded on the sets of Nagina is that snakes drink milk. Milk is not part of their natural diet. We had to spend on almost two dozen eggs daily to feed the six snakes that we’d hired for the film. Every snake would eat about 5-6 eggs daily,†Malhotra remembers with a laugh.
Three years after the surprise success of Nagina, Malhotra came out with a sequel that took the story of a curse and revenge forward to the next generation. Nigahen had lots of music and masala, plenty of snakes and Sridevi who was now the reigning box-office queen. Rishi Kapoor had made way for a macho Sunny Deol and Malhotra was confident he had another hit on his hands. But Nigahen couldn’t repeat the magic of Nagina. “I guess it came too soon after Nagina. The memory of the earlier film was still vivid in the audience’s mind and people were perhaps expecting a replica. At every turn Nigahen was compared to Nagina and found wanting,†reasons Malhotra who had heeded his distributors’ advice and refrained from calling the film Nagina—Part II. He had hoped that the title Nigahen would give the sequel an identity of its own. Unfortunately, Nigahen was not seen as a new film, a different film or even a complete film in itself. It lived and died in the shadow of Nagina.
Nishi Kohli has a different take on the subject. She believes that they should have titled their recent home production Naagin—Part II instead of Jaani Dushman. “Naagin boasted of a heavyweight cast—Sunil Dutt, Jeetendra, Feroz Khan, Rekha, Mumtaz, Vinod Mehra, Yogita Bali, Sanjay Khan, Anil Dhawan, Premnath, Kabir Bedi, Ranjeet and a fast-rising Reena Roy in the title role. It was an ichadhari naagin’s tale of revenge against a group of people who had killed her mate. Jaani Dushman too was a star-studded film with Akshay Kumar, Sunny Deol, Suneil Shetty, Raj Babbar, Manisha Koirala, Amrish Puri, Aditya Pancholi, Sharad Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Munish Kohli and Sonu Nigam. A tale of rape, revenge and untimely deaths. Had we called it Naagin—Part II people would have been prepared for a snake film, a film very similar to one they’d seen and enjoyed before,†she avers.
Amod Mehra doesn’t think that the ‘Part II’ appendage would have helped the film. He attributes Jaani Dushman’s failure to a weak story and exposure to Hollywood films and small screen mythologicals that diminished the effect of even its SFX attraction. “The snake scenes were minimal. The killing of innocents including so many big stars, inconceivable. They would have been better off sticking to the original Naagin plot,†he grouses.
Nishi Kohli refutes the argument by pointing out that even in the earlier film a lot of people not guilty of the crime were mistakenly killed. And yet the film ran. “In Jaani Dushman Manisha Koirala personally calls up all the victims and quizzes them. None of them can convince her that they are innocent of the rape that precipitated her suicide which is why she decides they have to die,†Kohli points out. She agrees that today’s youngsters may not believe in curses but she says that they were convinced that once the story got going, such scepticism would go for a six. “After all it is an accepted fact that snakes do take revenge for the death of a mate. If we made a mistake it was that we should have made Munish Kohli’s entry into Akshay’s body more dramatic. We should have used some kind of lazer rays,†she muses.
Harmesh Malhotra however insists that technology is not the key to a snake film’s success. He confides that he still has reims of unused material and even today can churn out a Nigahen Part III. And May be this time, he reasons, its appeal will not be diminished by constant comparisons because 14 years have passed since Nigahen was released. “But a snake can send shivers up your spine only when you work with the real thing. However going by the Performing Animals (Registration) Rules, 2001, it is illegal to have snakes slithering on the tarmac or engaged in wrestling duels. In the event a film-maker today finds it difficult to work with “live†snakes and instead has to resort to computer graphics that may be high on thrills but don’t whip up the same chills,†he points out, obviously referring to the Jaani Dushman debacle.
Disclaiming claims of animal activists that cruelty to animals is rampant on the sets, Malhotra argues that on the contrary snakes enjoy a cushy life when working in a film. “Instead of sweltering in jungles or coiled in small baskets, they live in air-conditioned comfort. They are fed 4-5 eggs. And because one snake looks much like the other we rotated the shots between five snakes. No snake died on my sets,†he asserts.
Producer-director Tahir Hussain whose Aamir Khan-Juhi Chawla starrer Tum Mere Ho was about snake charmers and thakurs also worked with “live†snakes. “We had 10-12 snakes slithering around the sets including some big black cobras. They were completely harmless because the poison had been removed from their fangs. There was one playful, five inch baby cobra whom Aamir took a a fancy to. He wanted it as a pet and even took it home. But the ladies of the house were terrified of it and ordered it out. So Aamir had to reluctantly return it to the sets and its snake charmer,†Tahir Hussain smiles at the memory. He goes on to say that working with the reptiles was a “unique†experience. “Snakes are intelligent creatures. We treated them very well and by the end of the film they were our friends. If I come across another good subject I’d like to make another snake film,†he avers.
And so the hisssstories will continue...
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