Reels on Wheels

LISBON IS A delightful city. I was fortunate to go there recently and enjoy some late-autumn warmth. It seems a long time ago that a great empire extended from here, although it ended in India in my own lifetime. Although there is not much obvious trace of Goa beyond some good restaurants, the collection of Indian furniture in the National Museum of Ancient Art is fascinating.

This was the first visit on which I found the city’s steep roads quite difficult to deal with, so I was more interested than ever in the delightful ways that the locals cope with them. Although I used app-based taxis, I was unable to resist the whacky-looking mechanised transport which dates back to the late-19th century. The trams, including the remodelled trams from the 1930s, the iconic funiculars (called elevadors or lifts), and, of course, the amazing actual lift, the Elevador de Santa Justa, still running after more than a century.

India has some rather unusual forms of transport too, beyond animal-drawn transport, including bullock carts and camel carts, and human-pulled rickshaws (hand and cycle). So, my thoughts turned to unusual or iconic forms of transport in Hindi films.

While Kolkata had the first metro in India, I remain fascinated by the trams which are unique to this city. Although Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy has many motifs of trains running through, one of the greatest sequences in Apur Sansar (1959) is on a tram. Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee) receives a letter from Aparna (Sharmila Tagore) who has gone home for the birth of their child. He longs to read it and starts it in the office, but a clerk interrupts him. He pulls it out again on the tram but another passenger tries to read it. This scene conveys so much with just a few gestures. Love, absence, being in a crowd, and yet, apart from it. Apu finally reads it (with a voiceover by Aparna) as he walks home from the tram stop by the trains. There he finds Aparna’s brother waiting for him with grim news.

Trains aren’t unusual but they feature in so many Indian movies that I’m going to skip them here apart from mentioning a paper I wrote with Helen Ashton, called ‘Get on the Train Baby.’ However, India’s mountain railways, often called toy trains, are exceptional and feature in several films. Sharmila is on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in ‘Mere sapnon ki rani’ (Aradhana, 1969). In a video of one of his live shows, Kishore Kumar dances as the song begins, making train movements with his arms. Famously, Ray called Sharmila to film Aranyer Din Ratri (1970), so Rajesh Khanna and she shot the song at different times. Sharmila also appears on the Kalka-Shimla Railway in ‘Hawa chale kaise’ in Daag (1973). ‘Chaiya chaiya’ on the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (Ooty toy train) is an amazing song, but it’s not a train song, as the lyrics draw on a Bulle Shah Sufi song, and everyone is on the roof or in open carriages, ducking as they go through tunnels.

I’m starting to wonder if this essay is turning into a Sharmila tribute, as I have to mention ‘Aasman se aaya farishta’ (An Evening In Paris, 1967), where Sharmila water-skis as Shammi Kapoor dangles from a helicopter. Two strange things: he’s wearing a dressing gown and it seems he is the farishta in the sky. Sharmila herself is not on water skis and, contrary to popular memory, she’s wearing a blue swimsuit, not a bikini. Nor was the song shot in India (I believe it’s around Beirut), but it is unmissable.

Cars aren’t unusual but I can’t avoid mentioning them. Taxis deserve their own essay, not least as we mourn the recent demise of the iconic, though uncomfortable, Padmini kaali-peeli in Mumbai. Films have had many stylish cars, such as the E-type Jaguar that Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) has in Trishul (1978), or Hrithik Roshan’s Lamborghini in K3G (2001). I recognise Studebakers (Kashmir Ki Kali, 1964), Chevrolets (Jewel Thief, 1967), and I read it was a 1949 Buick convertible in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), but I don’t know anything about the motorbikes in the Dhoom franchise (RIP Sanjay Gadhvi). And to add to the Sharmila Tagore references, Yash Chopra told me that when making Waqt (1965), he assumed that a woman like Sharmila could drive. She couldn’t, but they decided to film the sequence anyway.

A favourite film which happens to be about a car is Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958) with the great car which holds its own with the three Ganguly brothers in ‘Babu samjho ishare’, a 1928 Ford Model A that belonged to their father, which could drive in circles without a driver (though why, I don’t know).

I must include Tanuja’s rather beautiful Chevrolet Impala, the ‘khatara…motor car’ in ‘Chal chal chal mere saathi’ (Haathi Mere Saathi, 1971), a film which seems to have a negative view of cars given that Raju (Rajesh Khanna) was orphaned after a car crash, although this was the occasion on which he was found by the elephants who proved to be more trustworthy than people.

One of the most enviable vehicles is the sidecar on the motorbike in ‘Yeh dosti’ (Sholay, 1975), which again has a life of its own, managing to separate and rejoin the motorbike as our heroes sing.

I’m not sure if roller skates count but I love the song, ‘Hawa ke saath saath’ (Seeta Aur Geeta, 1972) as Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar and a couple of body doubles skate along. I can’t include Kashmiri houseboats (a favourite remains, ‘Yeh chand sa roshan chehra’, Kashmir Ki Kali) or canal boats (‘Chaar kadam’, PK, 2014) or gondolas (‘Khuda jaane’, Bachna Ae Haseeno, 2008) or a sailboat in ‘Chalo dildar chalo’ (Pakeezah, 1972) or cruise ships (Dil Dhadakne Do, 2015) or a pirate ship in Thugs Of Hindostan (2018) as a pirate movie, and many more, including a rowing boat on the Ooty lake in ‘Dil deewana’ (Maine Pyar Kiya, 1989).

I’m not sure about the Hamsa Naava (Swan Boat) in Baahubali 2 (2017). In a romantic song, Baahubali (Prabhas) and Devasena (Anushka Shetty) sing as they cross the sea on a swan-shaped sailing ship with oars. It also flies through the heavens surrounded by hamsas, so is a multifunctional vehicle.

While Kamal Haasan sings a song comprising film titles in a lift (‘Mere jeevan saathi’ in Ek Duuje Ke Liye, 1981), it is less dramatic than Hema Malini and Dev Anand fleeing the police in Nalanda, both sharing a single chair lift (‘O mere raja’, Johny Mera Naam, 1970). Better known as a ropeway, this one in Rajgir, Bihar, is said to be India’s oldest. Apparently, there was a power cut while shooting and the couple were stuck in the lift for a while. Awkward.

More unusual are the flying saucers seen in Wahan Ke Log (1967), a film where Martians attack the earth. It is famous today mostly for a couple of dance numbers, one with Laxmi Chaiyaa, and one with Bela Bose. The latter features several bewildered white women, presumably recruited from some Colaba tourist joint, miming guitar-playing and pulling strange faces.

Buses are too mundane to discuss but I’d be very happy to take one to Goa with Amitabh Bachchan as a singing passenger, Mehmood as the bus conductor, and Kishore Kumar hitching a lift when his car broke down (Bombay To Goa, 1972).

So now as I wait for the sound of sleighbells in the sky (having never heard them in real life), I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Anoop KumarAshok KumarBollywoodChalti Ka Naam GaadicinemaKishore Kumar