Of fantasy and film

NEW RELEASES

232 pages

B D Garga's From Raj to Swaraj: The Non-fiction Film in India traces the century-old history of newsreels and documentaries in the country. Beginning with an account of the early works of people like Hiralal Sen, J F Madan and Harishchandra Bhatwadekar who pioneered the newsreel, Garga goes on to describe what were among the first non-fiction films "" Jyotish Sarkar's coverage of the anti-partition demonstration in Calcutta, 1905, and Charles Urban's spectacular film on the 1911 Delhi Durbar.

Garga also chronicles the landmark events in the development of non-fiction films in India: the propaganda films during the first and second world wars, the passing of the Cinematograph Act in 1918 and the establishment of the censor board, Lowell Thomas's journey across the country to film Romantic India, Louis de Rochemont's controversial coverage of police repression in 1930, the series of "The March of Time" films on India, the founding of the Film Advisory Board and the pioneering efforts of the Information Films of India, and the extraordinary coverage of communal riots during the partition in 1947.

Post-independence, the author throws light on the role of the Films Division and on the work of Mohan Bhavnani, Jean Bhownagary and Paul Zils, who created a sound base for future film-makers. He also looks at the powerful body of works by women directors like Suhasini Mulay, Deepa Dhanraj and Sumitra Bhave, among others.

HE: SHEY
Rabindranath Tagore
Penguin
Rs 195
176 pages

Rabindranath Tagore wrote He (Shey) to satisfy his nine-year-old granddaughter's incessant demands for stories. Even as Tagore began to create his grand fantasy, he planned a story that had no end, and to keep the tales spinning he employed the help of "Shey" (He), a "man constituted entirely of words" and rather talented at concocting tall tales.

So we enter the delightful world of Shey's extraordinary adventures. In it we encounter a bizarre cast of characters (the ganja-addict Patu whose body He inhabits after losing his own in a pond, a misdirected jackal who aspires to be human, the snuff-sniffing scientists of Hoonhau Island and the New Age poets of the Hoi! Hoi! Polloi Club dedicated to the cause of tunelessness); grotesque creatures like the Gandishandung and Bell-Ears; comic caricatures of contemporary figures and events, as well as mythological heroes and deities "" all brought to life through a sparkling play of words and illustrations in Tagore's unique style.