India Culture, Business, Sports and Food. Get all the buzz in India now

The real culture of a people lies embedded in their customs, folk dances, folk lore, traditional beliefs, and the folk songs. No country of the world is an exception to it. We can easily compile a cultural history of a people of specified class after we study their customs, traditions, folklore, dances and songs. Invariably all the communities have this great wealth of their intangible culture, which does find expression at the time of their festivals or festivities. India being a vast country has a rich treasure of folk songs which obviously exhibit the culture of various communities inhabiting this vast land.

Indian folk songs are interwoven around some legends or traditional tales which are presumed and passed on to the next generation through the same. These folk songs may be laden with joy or sorrow or some historic event or legendary myths.
Folk songs of the Himachal Pradesh are distinct from those of the Punjab or Haryana. The love stories or traditions of Heer-Ranjha, Shirin-Farhad, Laila- Majnu can still be found on the lips of the people even in the remote countryside of the Punjab. These songs are accompanied with dance or music.

The folk songs from Rajasthan are still inspiring and they speak of the valour shown by the Rajputs or their women folk in the face of heavy odds. Even a most cowardly person would be transformed into a courageous or brave person after listening to the folk songs of Rajasthan.

If one wishes to have the glimpses of Lord Krishna and his Radha and the Gopikas, one should visit the Uttar Pradesh where in the Brijbhumi these folk songs are still heard more frequently and especially at the time of certain festivals like Holi, Diwali, Dussehra and Raksha Bandhan.

If you go to deep South, there you shall come across the South Indian folk songs which, even if you do not follow, you would definitely enjoy, for their sweet and melodiously modulated voice. So is the case with songs from the interior of Assam and Nagaland besides Orissa and Bihar.

But one thing which speaks through all these folk songs from different parts of the country in Indian culture is so subtly embodied in them that only a man with keen insight can decode and decipher them. But one thing which every lay man can understand is that they are quite sweet and are almost identical in many ways.

Those who have witnessed the 26th January Republic Day Parades in New Delhi and in various State capitals can very well feel the richness of these folk songs. India is so rich in this field that she can definitely export this art to other countries. There have been many cultural exchanges among the countries of the world and India is one of them. Her cultural ambassadors can tell the world about the cultural treasure which India holds and which she can gladly share with the countries of the world for the purpose of spiritual uplift and recreational gain, because these folk songs, besides being recreational, are also instructional at the bottom. They delight while they instruct and instruct while they delight. It is keeping this in view that folk songs have been included in the cultural activities of the Indian youth to make their life enjoyable and livable.

WE SHALL never know if K.Asif visualized his Salim in a green vest swooning over a reclining Anarkali swathed in turquoise and sea green or if Guru Dutt would approve of his classic brooding Pyaasa being infused with colour. But we do know that Dev Anand is pleased with both his roles in the colourised Hum Dono and that B R Chopra has watched Naya Daur twice after it’s been coloured, and is also rather pleased with the outcome.

A NEW LEASE OF LIFE

Fifty years after its theatrical release in 1957, B R Chopra’s Naya Daur; with actors Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala, will release all over India in its colour version with Dolby digital surround sound. Chopra’s son Ravi has called it a “tribute” to his father. Ravi teamed up with West-wing Studios, USA, and the restoration of the film was completed in four months by Prasad EFX, Chennai, with technicians working round the clock to restore the only surviving composite dupe negative. Daddy Chopra was not very happy with the idea initially, and was persuaded of the possibilities after seeing Naya Daur in colour, with Vyjayanthimala in a purple blouse and pink sari and Dilip Kumar in a green kurta with a pink scarf. But he intends to colourise all seven of his father’s black and white films with Gumrah being next on the list.

 

GURU DUTT’S LAST WISHThat might sound like blasphemy to historians and purists, but besides a strong commercial opportunity, there is also a pragmatic strategy behind the trend of colourisation. Arun Dutt, son of legendary filmmaker Guru Dutt, is currently working towards colourising Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam followed by Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool.

COMMERCIAL SENSE

So far the only case study available to these producers and print owners is Mughal-E-Azam, released in 2004 in colour, 44 years after its original opening. K Asif made the film on a budget of Rs 1.5 crore and made a profit of Rs 3 crore in 1960. In 2004, coloured, in Dolby and Cinemascope, it made Rs 10 crore nationally.

It was a success nationally, in spite of a mediocre release since it came with other big films. The success of Mughal-E-Azam has encouraged other filmmakers to try the same route but not all stories that clicked then can appeal to the youth now. Business opportunities are huge for a re-mastered, restored, reinvented existing film. Besides theatrical nationally, there is the overseas audience, DVD and home video rights and satellite sales. Classics sell well, especially abroad. There is no possibility of loss.

About the return on investment and whether Mughal -E-Azam’s success encouraged, this is an experiment. The colourisation of Mughal-E-Azam was not that great. It looked painted.” Goldstone Technologies, which has acquired the rights to re-release the Dev Anand hit Hum Dono (scheduled for December 2007), estimates the value of the colourisation market at approximately Rs 150 crore in the next three years. Before colourisation comes restoration, and that sector alone is expected to grow to Rs 100 crore in the next three years.

Jagan Mohan, Business Head Media, at Goldstone Technologies explains the process. “Along with Legend ends Films, we have undertaken colourisation, restoration, sound upgrade to Dolby and conversion to Cinemascope. We first acquired the s worldwide negative rights to 12 Telugu films and realized the vast potential of this market. We chose Hum Dono because it is Dev Anand’s only double role, it was his last black and white film (then came Guide) and it has great music. Just showing the coloured songs on TV would be profitable,” says Mohan.

So imagine millions of colours seeping into the black, white and grey frame of Dev Anand and Sadhana singing Abhi Na jaao chhod kar. Colour existed during Hum Dono but it was very expensive then. And Dev Saab’s reaction? No problem, just ensure good quality.

Mohan concurs with Chopra that Mughal-E-Azam looks painted. They had a maximum of 32-64 colours per frame, but technology can give more than one million colours in a single frame.” Navketan Films and Goldstone are t jointly re-releasing Hum Dona, but Dev Anand had one precondition, besides colour quality, before agreeing to the venture: the film could not be cut or tampered with. Similarly Chopra has not edited or touched the songs in the original black and white films though the sound is being mastered by music director Aadesh Srivastav to make it more contemporary.

GREAT RESULTSI

“I am very happy with the result. It is as if I shot the film in colour,” says Anand. “It was a challenging film for me as an actor in a double role and as a producer. Yes, black and white films have their own charm and some genres lend themselves to black and white, like mysterious dark films. But all the great musicals and romantic films can be coloured, after all romance is colourful.” Among the films he would nominate for pigmentation would be Tere Ghar Ke Saamne, Taxi Driver, Kaala Paani, Kaala Bazaar and Nau Do Gyarah.

Very average films need not be coloured. This could start a new era with possibilities of greater revenue, wider viewer ship, encouragement for the filmmaker and prestige.

Critics panned the repainted Mughal-E-Azam. And the fate of the slew of films coming off the colour palette of digital technicians remains to be seen. But hopefully Dev Anand’s point of view will win over a young audience without access to the works of Vijay Anand, Guru Dutt, B R Chopra and others. As he says, “Black and white or colour, the emotions are the same.”

INDIAN CULTURE IN DAILY LIFE
“A nation without a cultural heritage is like an orphan who has nothing to fend upon”, said Emerson. Indian culture is deeply rooted in her past-the glorious and the not so glorious past. Indian culture is essentially religious and spiritualism is the breath of its nostrils.

Religion is our soul and philosophy. It is our blood, our very life. If you take out religion from India, nothing remains. India is the motherland of our race and Sanskrit is the mother of the Indian and European languages. It is the mother of our philosophy; mother of our mathematics; though our mathematics were taken abroad by the Arabs, she is the mother through the Buddha of much of the ideas embodied in Christianity; mother through the village-community of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all. The traits of culture, which India gave, can be seen in a number of foreign countries.

The continuity and vitality of Indian culture is amazing, indeed.It is a very powerful, all absorbing and all embracing process. In the past, it has received, adopted and digested the elements of many different cultures-Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Greek, Roman, etc. With each new influence, it has somewhat changed, being influenced by the foreign culture and influencing it in return. But it has retained its peculiar traits. India has never lost the pride of her cultural sublimity. Indian culture has proved its strength and maintained its vitality throughout.The enduring quality of Indian culture represents the happy synthesis of worldliness and renunciation. Indians are developing materialistic attitude and wish to enjoy all the amenities of life, but at the same time, they are not neglecting the moral aspects of life; they are equally conscious of treading on the path of Dharma. India, a virtual continent, is the land of many people who profess to different religions and have, to an extent, a very large variety of sub-cultures. Yet unlike Europe, India continues to be a common home for all her people, practising “a rich unity in diversity”. Another remarkable aspect of Indian culture in our daily life is its firm belief in peace and non-violence. Gandhiji simply highlighted the value of Non-violence through his practising what already had been preached for ages in our country.

The old way of Indian life has, however, ceased to remain affected by the new forces unleashed by the machine age. Western civilistaion is so powerful and so uniform in its character that it is bound to influence every national culture by affecting its external way of life. Indian people are being increasingly influenced by the machines.They are acquiring new rhythm of the machine, its punctuality, its speed, its cold metallic nature, and its uniformity. The study of arts like music, poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture, even of dancing makes up the aesthetic culture of man in which most of the Indians are indulging. The aim of aesthetic culture is the appreciation and enjoyment of art. Art adds zest to life and enlarges human, sympathies.The strength and vitality of Indian culture is amazing, indeed. Pandit Nehru once stood on a mound of Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley and there seemed to him something unique about the continuity of a cultural tradition through five thousand years of history, of invasions and upheavals, a tradition which was widespread among the masses and had powerfully influenced them through the ages.

 

Due to a number of different societies in various parts of India, there is a large variety of cultural heritages. Still the basic Indian culture is the same throughout the length and breadth of the country. What is basic culture? May be that the Indian are God-fearing people. In every house people pray to God each day for their well-being and for the well-being of everybody else. Most of their acts are reflection of their fear of and respect for God. People of this country have inborn respect for elders and love for life.

This love for life is apparent in festivals that people participate in, like Baisakhi in Punjab; Pongal in Tamil Nadu and Onam in Kerala, etc. These festive occasions are more than just occasional gatherings. On these days people settle down for better relations with friends and relatives. This, they don’t do intentionally but it happens, instinctively.

It is the spontaneous outburst of Indian culture-the culture of peaceful co-existence.

In India, people have a lot of respect for their elders and the learned. There is a tradition of showing warm regards for teachers and elders by touching their feet. This may sound very crazy to an Englishman. But the touching feet of teacher, Guru, etc., just implies a student’s deepest regards for all that the Guru or teacher preaches.

Indians date their days according to the movements of planets, moon and position of constellations and the Sun. When a baby is born in a Hindu family, the astrologers or Pandits make a birth calendar according to the time of birth assessing positions of constellations and planets. This birth calendar has the capability to foretell the future life, events of the child. Thus Indians are very much ahead of others in the science of astrology. The Jantar Mantar at New Delhi is an example of this. The importance of Indian astrological technique has lately been realized by scientists all over the world and astrology has won a large acclaim all over the world. The proof of this is that scientists have studied this technique and its mathematical formulations have been used by computer now-a-days to create what is popularly known as the computerized life calendar (Janam Patri).

The beauty of Indian culture has inseparable relationship with women of India. It is not an exaggeration but a fact. Indian culture has not ‘only assigned special honour to the spiritual make-up of the Indian women but also to their elegance and self-consciousness. If only the mysteries of child birth had been a wonder to ponder upon them to reverence to her outlook would have been lost in the development and research of life studies. Her elegance enjoys great respect in broad Indian culture, in the visions of Mother India, in the personalities of Radha and Sita, in worship of the creator, Lord Brahma. So the women in India can never have a separate outlook in development stages of Indian culture.

Indian culture has a rich heritage, some of which has been discussed above. But in course of time many anomalies have also got introduced into Indian culture. Politically and economically also, there are many problems and no one cart forecast its future. After all, the past has contributed some of the greatness which civilisation and culture have built up in the history of mankind. But it is safe to predict that, whatever the future may be, the Indians of coming generations will not be unconvincing and self-conscious copiers of European culture, but will be men, rooted in the!: own traditions, and aware of the continuity of their own cultural heritage. Though the whole face of India is changing daily yet our rich cultural traditions continues and it will never be lost.