Chapter 6 — Poets and Pancakes

It is a memoir by Asokamitran, drawn from his book My Years with Boss, recounting his time at Gemini Studios in Chennai. The essay uses gentle humour to portray the people, routines and odd events of a major early Indian film studio, from the make-up department to visiting poets.

"Pancake" was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. It was used so heavily that "this gang of nationally integrated make-up men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson hued monster" under the studio's incandescent lights.

It was located upstairs in a building believed to have been Robert Clive's stables. The room resembled "a hair-cutting salon with lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors." A strict hierarchy governed it: the chief make-up man worked on lead actors, senior assistants on supporting roles, and the office boy handled the crowd players, mixing paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on.

He was not really a boy — he was in his early forties. He had entered the studios years earlier hoping to become a star actor, director, screen writer or lyrics writer. He was "a bit of a poet" who had seen those dreams fade. He directed all his frustration and anger at Kothamangalam Subbu, convinced that Subbu was responsible for his neglect and ignominy.

Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios and a multi-faceted talent. He was unfailingly cheerful, supremely loyal to The Boss (S.S. Vasan), and could generate creative solutions on demand. He was also a poet who "deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses", wrote the novel Thillana Mohanambal, and was an accomplished subsidiary actor. The author says, "if ever there was a man who gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu."

Subbu had a separate identity as a poet and composed several "truly original 'story poems' in folk refrain and diction." He also wrote a "sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of very deftly etched characters" and successfully recreated "the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century."

He was officially the legal adviser in the Story Department, but everyone referred to him as the opposite. He stood out because, while all others wore khadi dhoti and white khadi shirt, he "wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail." He was described as "a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers — a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites."

When a temperamental actress "blew over on the sets," the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment. When she paused for breath, he played back the recording. She "was struck dumb" — she was a girl from the countryside who had been suddenly catapulted into a position of importance and "never quite recovered from the terror she felt that day. That was the end of a brief and brilliant acting career."

Around 1952, Frank Buchman's Moral Re-Armament army, about two hundred strong and of at least twenty nationalities, visited Madras and found a warm host in Gemini Studios. They presented two plays — 'Jotham Valley' and 'The Forgotten Factor' — in a most professional manner. Their sets and costumes were first-rate, and for years afterward Tamil plays featured scenes of sunrise and sunset in the manner of 'Jotham Valley'.

The staff did not know who he was. He arrived around four in the afternoon and spoke, but "his accent defeated any attempt to understand what he was saying." Everyone dispersed in utter bafflement. Years later, Asokamitran found the book The God That Failed and recognised the visitor as Stephen Spender, an English poet who had described his journey into and disillusionment with Communism. The visit's mystery was finally solved.

The make-up department itself was a microcosm of India — after a Bengali chief, a Maharashtrian headed it, assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and local Tamils. The author wryly notes this shows that "there was a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration."

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