Movie Murmur

My association with Films Division first began when my school friends graphically described to me on how Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanth hit boundaries upon boundaries in the 1971 test match against the mighty West Indies team in the Caribbean islands on a newsreel that they saw before the main movie in a local theater, in the early seventies. A couple of days later I did sneak into the movie hall only to savor one of the most significant overseas test cricket victories that the Indian team had  since it started playing cricket Newsreels such as these were produced by Films Division, an organization under the aegis of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. The exhibition of these newsreels were mandated by law - a practice first initiated in pre-independence India by the British, mainly to promote their war efforts. 'The Information Films of India', was what the unit was called then. After independence, this unit was transformed ...

  The schedule at the 'Manipal Film Festival', 2013 The subject matters of many of my films are often based in the state of Karnataka in South India. I should admit that there is an ulterior motive here. The idea was that it would enable me to squeeze in a quick trip to Udupi, the town in which I grew up, to visit my parents who were staying alone. In the 1990s I was extensively involved in the non fiction tele-serial ‘Surabhi’, and for quite a while although based in Mumbai, I was the ‘Karnataka man’ in the organization. Anything that was to be done in that state, and I was the chosen one. It was my right, so to say. I have been in Mumbai for over twenty two years and all these years I always did feel the need to maintain this connection. With both my parents having expired in quick secession a couple of years back, it did occur to me on several occasions as to how long this connection would last. I have been looking at subjects from other parts of the country f...