Of Drum Rolls And Resonance

A friend watching a film at home with me said something pertinent the other day. There was a time when actors just acted. They were expected to be just actors. They did not hawk their films by dancing at reality shows. The same holds true for writing. Marketing a book was not something authors did. Today more effort is spent in plugging the book at various media platforms than in writing it. There is a thin line today between art and objectification..the end is no longer an end in itself. Along with their films and books, actors and authors must be packaged and sold to consumers. It would be too cynical to say that only packaging sells but it helps in selling the good, the bad, the indifferent to the audience and the readers.

There are two cults holding the cinema and the publishing worlds to ransom. The cult of popularity and the cult of snobbery. Anything you film or write should fit in either of these. Your work should either be so successful that the snobs cannot harm it with their knives or it should come in a package that screams,”If you don’t like this, you are a lesser person.” IIT and call centre capers in Indian fiction and the recent hits like Bodyguard are insulated from criticism because they are too popular.They have been triumphantly marketed and have also successfully connected with a large number of people. It is a serendipitous blend that you cannot argue with.

The cult of snobbery on the other hand begins when a film or a book comes to the Indian audience, wearing the gold dust of foreign acclaim. Dhobi Ghat, so said Aamir Khan, was not for the masses and every poster of the film had the stamp of international festivals where it had collected rave reviews on its way to the less enlightened Indian audience.  Any book that has on its jacket, a glowing recommendation from a foreign critic or someone of Rushdie’s stature, automatically gets not just reviewed by serious newspapers and magazines but also is taken seriously.

I remember working in an office where picking books for reviews was as random as picking up groceries without a shopping list. You went past an aisle and picked something because it was packaged well or because you recognised the brand name. So unless you have been successfully marketed as a mass pleaser or as the cerebral flavour of the season, chances are a small independent film or a book that deserves to be read will slip through the cracks.

Before the release of Dhobi Ghat, the reclusive Mr Khan was seen on virtually every magazine cover and TV channel smiling dreamily at his wife, talking not just about the film but how and when the two fell in love, what keeps them together and just how smart and special and perfect she is for him.

For an audience who along with the press had no visual access to his wedding, this was like having a ring side view of the couple’s private jokes, romantic memories and more. Did you know for instance that Aamir Khan reads books in bed and falls asleep when his wife plays dense European cinema for him? Or that she calls him, “Chhote”? Well, now you do. We were also told that Dhobi Ghat has  recovered the money that was invested in it. It would have. And should have. It was a great film. But would it have drawn the audience to the theatres if Kiran Rao was just another struggling film maker? Hell, do you even remember who directed Bubble Gum? My point exactly.

Every one has a PR agency these days. Stars who plant stories in newspapers and magazines about their charity work that no one is supposed to know about. And authors who want to rise above the sea of anonymity that is Indian publishing. So what happens to those who neither belong to the cult of popularity or to the cult of snobbery? Well, here is what I think. I feel, it does not matter if your work does not come to a reader and an audience, sheathed in prefabricated success.

I believe that marketing cannot fill in the hollows within if you know that your work is mediocre. I believe that marketing can take you so far and no further if your work cannot walk and talk on its own. I believe, if you believe in your work, the world will believe in it too. Because, nothing is ever created in vain. And that the loudest drum rolls fall silent after some time but resonance lasts forever.