THE TALE OF TWO CITIES

Chandu Mhatre  was the ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY’s chief photographer. He was a loner. He usually looked on even a casual “Hi” as gross infringement of his privacy. He also had a parochial streak in him. To him, I was but a lowly trainee. And a Madrassi at that. Having come to know him, I kept my distance.  So I was naturally surprised when he came up to me one evening, his motorised camera slung over his left shoulder, smiled pretty decently through his thick beard and said : “Hi Junior... Wanna join me on an assignment?”

I readily expressed willingness. I was keen to see how all those wonderful pictures that made the WEEKLY  what it was, were shot. We hailed a cab. He gave instructions to the driver in rapid Marathi. I did not understand a word but I had a distinct feeling that it related to much more than just the destination.  

As the cab started forth, I asked him where we were going. “Not very far”, he smiled mysteriously.

Right through the 20 minutes drive he appeared restless. He kept muttering to himself. For some time he was lost in thought. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, I remained quiet.  Suddenly he stirred. I felt that we were reaching journey’s end. He weighed his camera in his hands, looked through the eyepiece and then shot some more instructions to the driver. He turned to me.  “Whatever happens, don’t get out of the cab”, he told me. By now he had a virtually terrified look on his face. “But where are we going?” I asked. “You’ll know in a few moments”, he said.

I looked out of the window. We were just entering a long, narrow road, lined on either side by concrete tenements. We were in a rather impoverished part of the metropolis, I realised. Then I noticed something else. On the pavement at intervals were steel cots – one stacked above the other, with a mosquito curtain covering both. At each doorway stood girls of all ages, colours and sizes, garishly made up and in various stages of undress. A motley crowd of young men were following our vehicle. As our taxi slowed down, the women started beckoning, gesturing provocatively. Then someone noticed that my companion was busy shooting pictures with his motorised camera. A cry went up and a group of toughies came charging towards us. “Don’t stop”, Chandu shouted at the driver. “Drive fast... Get the hell out of here...”

The car picked up speed and in a few moments we were a safe distance away. Chandu’s hands were shivering. And he was sweating. I suddenly realised that I was too.

My first tryst with the sleazy underbelly of India came in 1983 during my early days as trainee sub-editor of THE ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY OF INDIA in Mumbai (then Bombay). We were working on an article titled “Walking the Wild Side” about the vice dens of Grant Road and Kamathipura. The story had been written by Malavika Sanghvi and Pritish Nandy had deputed Chandu Mhatre to shoot the photographs to illustrate the story...

A year later, I was posted as Special Correspondent in Chennai. I was writing for both WEEKLY and FILMFARE as Pritish Nandy was the editor of both. Those were the days when the term Malayalam Film had a nasty connotation in Chennai. A special genre of films, which rarely hit the screens in Kerala, were exclusively being shot for a voyeuristic Tamilnadu market – the so called soft-porn movies, often masquerading as films on sex education. I decided to do a story on this trend for FILMFARE.

The day after I sent in my story, I received a call from Nandy. “You *#@*##^*”, he said (he uses expletives when he is happy). “It’s a damn good story you’ve sent. Let’s not waste it in FILMFARE. Do some more researching, interview some of the stars and with some good pictures to go with it, we could use it in the WEEKLY ”.

The article was completed. But the problem of organising the photographs remained. I contacted various film photographers. All of them claimed that they could not help me. I tried to source clips from some of the films that had been released. But again met with failure. I wandered through the by-lanes of Kodambakkam in search of those elusive photographs. And then, someone referred me to Raju (name altered to conceal his identity). I even got his telephone number. I called up Raju and told him I’d like to meet him regarding some photographs. He told me where he lived and I went over.

It was a typical T Nagar “Bunglow”. And Raju was an elderly person, close to 70 years of age. Very respectable looking, very jovial for his age and pretty well informed. “How can I ask this man for stills from porn films?” I wondered.

He offered me tea and snacks. We talked about various things. Finally, with great difficulty, I broached the topic. “I am doing a story on the soft-porn films being released in Tamilnadu and I wanted some stills to illustrate it”, I told him. “Photographer Asokan referred me to you. He said you may be able to guide me...”  

Raju did not bat an eye-lid. “What sort of photographs do you want?” he asked “Nude? Partially nude?”

I was flabbergasted. “They have to be photographs fit to print in a magazine like the WEEKLY”, I said weakly.

“Take your pick”, he said and brought out a voluminous album bursting with photographs of women in black and white and colour. I started leafing through the pages. “This”, he said conversationally, “is a Brahmin girl. She does these types of photographs for money. 500 rupees per session. And this”, he said pointing at a topless woman, “is an IAS officer’s wife. She does it for the heck of it...”

I chose a few photographs which I felt would go with my story and left. My head still spinning.

A fortnight later was my marriage. The day after, I had a call from Pritish Nandy.” I have packed a wedding gift for you in this week’s WEEKLY”, he said mischievously, before hanging up.

The next day the WEEKLY hit the stands and my story was the cover story. My first cover story.

The following week, we went to Kerala to meet sundry relatives. My parents-in-law accompanied us. All along the way, wherever we stopped to refresh ourselves, we saw copies of the WEEKLY dangling in the news stands. Even in relatively small towns we could see chaps in dhotis walking up, look to the right and left, before purchasing a copy and walking off after surreptitiously folding it and tucking it under the armpit. This particular issue of the WEEKLY was obviously a sell-out!

In Kerala, my father-in-law would introduce me to his relatives. “This is Sunil”, he would say proudly.  “He is a journalist with The Illlustrated Weekly”. And prompt would come the smiling reply from the other side : “Oh, you are the one who writes about blue films, aren’t you”. It was an embarrassing ordeal for all of us.

But the lighter side apart, I have often wondered about the value systems that govern two large metropolises – Mumbai and Chennai. In Mumbai in those days, vice was open. It was organised. Red-light areas were defined. Hookers and call girls openly solicited from under lamp posts on busy thoroughfares. In the tradition-bound Chennai vice was always under the wraps. People never talked about it. But it was very much there!

Openness versus hypocrisy – you can take your pick.