Mid-Day Opinion: Remember the AIs?

A scene from ‘Julie’, featuring Sridevi, Lakshmi, Om Prakash, and Nadira. PIC COURTESY/Vintage Black and White songs & Posters On Facebook

I can still vividly recall my maternal grandmother, my nana's reaction, 15 minutes into watching Julie, the 1975 film based on an Anglo-Indian family. We were watching the film around Christmastime, on a black-and-white television set in the days of Doordarshan. Even the cakey make-up on Lakshmi's and Sridevi's faces [who played Julie and her younger sister, Irene, respectively] on screen wasn't as white as my nana's face. As if she'd seen a ghost. And no, we aren't referring to the Holy Ghost. "Goodness me! What is this rubbish that they are doling out in the name of our community? What did we do to deserve such an embarrassing portrayal? If your papa [my maternal grandfather] were alive, the proud Anglo-Indian that he was, he would have shot off a strong letter to the ill-informed director and producer. I've had enough of this!" she fumed, and left her rocking rattan chair in the living room.

In the interest of inviting further angst, I didn't dare inform her that the movie was a runaway hit. It wouldn't have been a ‘merry' Christmas at the Fernandez household. Humour aside, this trend of weak research while portraying a minority is common in Indian cinema. For even tinier communities like the Anglo-Indians, the misrepresentation gets worse.

Jennifer Kendal as Violet Stoneham in ‘36, Chowringhee Lane'. PIC COURTESY/National Film Archive of India on Facebook

For the uninitiated, Julie's Anglo-Indian father was the affable drunkard, Morris, while Margaret, played by Nadira, was the firebrand nag, who yearned for England. The flippant characterisation of the lead character and her familial ecosystem had deeply upset the community, back then, as I recall from accounts by my older cousins. But with such small numbers, who would've heard us! Other films like Bow Barracks Forever (2004) had similar stereotyping. It managed to draw attention since it was directed by a well-known director and had a star cast. Yet the predictability was obvious - a mostly idle community, and an alcoholic trumpet player. In fact, there were calls to ban it, and add a disclaimer that it was a work of fiction. Neither happened. Another film also set in Kolkata, Bada Din (1998), by the same director, held promise, but somewhere, lost its way.

Aparna Sen's 36, Chowringhee Lane (1981) remains one of the few that gave the community its much-needed layered canvas. It was centred on the life of an Anglo-Indian school teacher, and her coming to terms with a changing (then) Calcutta. Jennifer Kendal's rich, understated screen presence as Violet Stoneham touched a raw nerve among most members of the community, as I learnt from within my family, and the community at large. Later, I watched another film, The Outhouse (1998) by Leslie Carvalho, that documented the Anglo-Indians of (then) Bangalore with a measured, less dramatic lens. This was a bare-all script with no frills that did well on the film festival circuit. More often than not, the community tends to get clubbed under the ‘Catholic/Christian' group in cinema. The issue, however, is that research remains largely undercooked, or plain hackneyed, as we saw most recently, in a glamorous take on the community set in a model town.

My lone appeal here is that in today's times, where directors and writers are taking great pains to create meaningful cinema, where off-centre scripts have a fighting chance on OTT platforms and at film festivals, why not give marginalised minorities better characterisation, instead of repeated caricaturisation? Has any discerning scriptwriter looked for stories from within the community? We've had great leaders like Frank Anthony, sporting icons like Leslie Claudius, servicemen like Air Chief Marshal Denis Anthony La Fontaine, and educators like Nancy Moreino, to name a few.

Another World Anglo-Indian Day (August 2) went by without much buzz, apart from a few AI groups that posted about it. I had serious FOMO as I imagined the revelry in a few surviving railway colonies and community pockets in Kolkata, Chennai, and Bengaluru, where at grand dinner and dance shindigs, Shakin' Stevens' numbers would have been played on loop, and where Railway Mutton Curry and Turkey Roast were the showstoppers. ‘Never mind if cinema got us wrong, we'll keep our heads held high,' remains the mantra.

Here's hoping that the new AI gets its research right about the original AIs!

mid-day's Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city's sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana
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