Like other great artistic teams of cinema – Ismail Merchant & James Ivory, Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune, George Romero & Tom Savini – the camp team of director Kanti Shah and writer Basheerbhai Babbar has brought forth some astounding and extraordinary films of our time, films which in their limited way challenge the audience to rise above their normal passive expectations of the cinematic experience. Here is my humble take on a few of them.

(I regret that several of the tempting offerings from Kanti Shah's vast repertoire, I have not personally sampled. Apart from the films mentioned here, Kanti Shah – Basheerbhai Babbar have also made films like Pyaasa Haiwan and Pyaasi Chudail which I am sorry to say are unmitigatedly wretched experiences and must be avoided as crushing insults to this canon.)

LOHA (1997)

Featuring several of its character actors and some strikingly similar setups, Loha can in most respect be regarded as a dry run for Kanti Shah's next film and crowning glory, Gunda. Not be confused with an earlier (and in my view equally fascinating) Dharmendra starrer, Loha contains among other things for camp fans, the immortal lines cheekily referred to in Gunda, “Chhatri hoti hai kholne ke liye, chaadar hoti hai odhne ke liye aur chokri hoti hai chedne ke liye” ([the purpose of] an umbrella is to be opened, a bedsheet is to cover and a woman is to be teased).

You have Basheerbhai Babbar's trademark rhyming dialog, although not quite in the soaring vein of surreal poetry as Gunda. The fact of Govinda being dubbed for by a guy who sounds nothing like him adds good amusement. A special moment is a scene where a guy that looks like this...

...is lucky enough to find an exact lookalike while on the run from the law, manages to exchange clothes and have him killed in his place.

GUNDA (1998)

What, if anything, remains to be said about this masterpiece, this apogee of Bolly-camp? Like Sholay for Ramesh Sippy and The Clockwork Orange for Anthony Burgess, this will be the cross Kanti Shah must bear for the rest of his life, the standard by which every other thing he does will be measured and will almost certainly fall short of. Phoenix-like, Gunda rose out of the ashes of its short-lived theatrical release to propel one of the biggest underground movements in recent Indian cinema history: a booming internet fanbase, notable intellectual exploration of its innumerable nuances and even noble, if feeble, attempts to give it mainstream coverage.

Let me just recall one of the lines spoken in this film that to me represents the special flavor of Gunda:

“Bulla bhai abhi phone par nahin aa sakte. Woh hijron ke saath disco-dance kar rahe hain.” (Brother Bulla cannot answer the phone now. He is doing a disco-dance with eunuchs.)

It's the sort of dialog that leaves you with the biggest, goofiest grin across your face wondering “WHAT.....THE.....FUCKKK?!!” That is what most of Gunda does to you, 'nuff said.

DAKU RAMKALI (2000)

Viewed after Gunda, DR may come across as something of a disappointment but if you're patient enough, it has its pleasures. First off, it's likely the best of the numerous collaborations between Kanti Shah and Sapna, the lady who starred in most of his latter-day productions and produced several of them (it is rumored that Sapna is the mistress of Kanti Shah and not merely his creative muse).

Sapna graces DR with a double role excelled in pointlessness only by the double-turn she did in Kanti Shah's 2005 “devar poora gharwala” film Angoor (not to be confused with Gulzar's classy 1982 twin trouble movie). The most interesting aspect of the film is that its villains (played by veteran Bolly-baddies Shakti Kapoor, Mohan Joshi and Sadashiv Amrapurkar) give almost their entire performance seated on a couch. One can imagine a situation where director Kanti Shah puts them on a couch and gives them a 30 min deadline in which they can fill in the film's storyline in any way they want...and then spends the rest of the shooting schedule trying to capture and jigsaw-fit the various random, often contradictory plot points the trio come up with on their 'casting couch' Other highights include Razak Khan as a transsexual choli-clad dacoit whose shrieky menace rips a whole new one in Sadavshiv Amrapurkar's overrated Maharani.

Darwaza (2002)

At the outset, Darwaza is not a film for the casual film-goer, the one who demands instant pleasure. Give Darwaza your patient viewing, gently squeezing out its subtle nuance, and you will find that rarity of cinema, the existential horror film. Taking the premise that the Ramsays have so far only managed to make shallow if entertaining films of, Kanti Shah dials down the budget and turns the superficial credibility factor upside down. Characters appear to have very amorphous emotional states, even murders in their midst regarded with nonchalant interest; they are seen in different outfits and locations for what is supposed to be one continuous scene, but observed to maintain remarkable continuity for scenes supposedly set far apart. Surely this cannot all be be accident, and Kanti Shah expects his audience to explore pertinent questions about the nature of reality and its juxtaposition in the horror film. Notice also, the preponderance of bald men with beards in this film.

(Click to enlarge)  

The above pics show only two but I counted at least 5 and that in a total cast of about a dozen. Surely some greater significance must be ascribed to this contrivance, which doubtless has come after massive upheavals of the artistic process.

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