by Connie Haham
Manmohan Desai described the budding of the idea for Coolie, the efforts needed to give the film authenticity, and the organizational skills necessary to turn an idea into an onscreen reality:
I decided to construct a story on a railway porter, but after constructing it, we realized it was going to be very difficult to shoot with Amitabh Bachchan at any railway station. It would be absolutely impossible. How to control the crowds! Then we decided to go to Bangalore. We had a friend called Manjunath Hegde in Bangalore who came to our rescue. He said, ‘I’ll make all the arrangements with the police and the necessary permissions; you can shoot in Bangalore.’ Believe me, we had our hearts in our mouths. We shot there for 20 days, and the government gave us a lot of facilities. We had about 350 armed policemen at the railway station… . People down south are more cultured, refined. They have seen a lot of shooting of their regional films, so it was nothing new to them. They were so well behaved that when we used to request them to move out when we were coming in for a shot, they would listen. We hardly had any problems for 20 days. The railways were also kind enough to let us shoot there… . We thought we would never be able to get the long shots, but with the good crowd arrangement, the good response of the people and the railways, we could shoot everything, and I don’t think anybody before this film had ever shot like this on a railway station, and I don’t think anybody can do it again… . Let’s just say, we were very, very lucky, and we thanked Manjunath Hegde and the government of Karnataka at that time to allow us to shoot this film.
We had to take a lot of extras, junior artistes, from Bombay. We gave them the clothes of the coolies and we asked them to study the habits of the coolies. We used to linger around the railway stations for days together, much before the shooting, and see how they would smoke the bidi… . They would sit in a line when the train would be approaching the railway station, and then they would run towards it... . We have made the junior artists study them, and it looks so very natural that nobody has been able to make out that they were not the real coolies.
Cities mean crowds, and we make generous use of extras because if you do not use extras, if you try to crib and cringe and try to save money on them, you cannot create the atmosphere… . A station is always crammed, so we had to bring extras. The extras that we used at the station were from Bangalore itself. We didn’t get them from Bombay. The only junior artists we took from Bombay were to play the coolies. We took about 20 of them, and that was quite sufficient for the Bangalore city station. I used a lot of extras, and that was how we could create the impact… . That’s why I have five to six assistant directors, and they would look after the extras, and instruct them. These assistant directors have to instruct the junior artists about what they should do, and it was quite easy to organize the extras in the song ‘saari duniya’ because they were briefed much in advance as to what each one had to do.
a media event
Coolie was not simply a film. It was an important media event and as such was well-publicized entirely by chance long before its release. It was on 25 July 1982 on the sets of Coolie that Amitabh Bachchan had his near-fatal accident; an overly realistic punch in the stomach and a fall against a sharp-edged table led to life-endangering complications. Coolie might very well never have been finished. On the one hand, Desai deplored the morbid publicity—‘publicity not paid for by me,’ as he said. On the other hand, following a well-established pattern, he brought reality into the fiction of his film to let the public participate through the film in the miracle of Amitabh Bachchan’s recovery. ‘Cashing in on the accident,’ his detractors called it. ‘Satisfying the public,’ Desai considered it. Amitabh Bachchan not only recovered, but he returned to the sets of Coolie to take up the fight at the place where shooting had left off. As this fight appears on the screen, two freeze shots have been included to let viewers know exactly the jab in the belly and the landing on a table corner that were responsible for Amitabh’s ruptured intestine. Printed on the screen in English, in Hindi, and in Urdu is, ‘This is the shot in which Amitabh Bachchan was seriously injured.’ If we place ourselves well into the future or far in space from India and Indian audiences, the intervention of reality in the midst of a screen story might seem an unnecessary distraction, but for the masses of India who had prayed for Amitabh Bachchan’s recovery, Manmohan Desai knew that speculation about the moment of the accident would be inevitable. By freezing the action and informing the public of the exact moment the blows took place, he was clarifying what could have continued to be clouded in rumours and guesses.
Iqbal Coolie, the character played by Amitabh Bachchan, was originally scripted to die at the end of the story. However, after Amitabh’s brush with death, Desai did not feel he could maintain the fatal ending of the story and still face his ever-faithful child audience. He could imagine them cornering him with, ‘Uncle, we prayed and Amitabh Bachchan lived and now you have killed him.’ Iqbal’s experience, then, was infused with details from Amitabh’s real-life experience. In the film we see Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs praying for Iqbal’s recovery, just as in real life members of the four major religions prayed for Amitabh Bachchan. Iqbal’s recovery, like Amitabh’s, borders on the miraculous. At one point, Iqbal waves at the crowd from the balcony under which we see the sign ‘St. Philomena’s Hospital,’ a reference to the hospital in Bangalore in which Amitabh Bachchan was first operated on before his transfer to Breach Candy in Bombay for another two-months’ stay. Around Iqbal’s neck are symbols of the four religions. In real life Amitabh Bachchan returned, once he was well, to St. Philomena’s on a pilgrimage and prayed at each of the centres of worship, giving thanks to all of those whose prayers had, it seemed, reached their destinations.
Part of the original idea for Coolie was inspired by the true story of a family separated by religion. A woman had been married twice. One husband was Jewish, the other Muslim, and with each she had a son. One husband forbade his son to enter the house of the other husband, and yet the two stepbrothers, despite their different religions, were secretly the best of friends. Simple and altogether real, that seed—two youths whose friendship was blind to religion—flowered into a story as complex as the cast of Coolie is large.
the story
Arch-demon Zafar (Kadar Khan), a villain who knows no bounds, bursts a dam and floods a village in order to kill Aslam (Satyen Kappu) and steal his wife Salma (Waheeda Rehman). Her son Iqbal (Master Ravi) is left motherless. A family friend Maruti (Nilu Phule), a Hindu coolie separated from his own wife and baby during the flood, raises Iqbal to follow in his footsteps, carrying heavy loads at Victoria Terminus in Bombay. Allahrakha, the almost magic falcon who has always served Iqbal’s family, remains Iqbal’s special pet, ready to swoop down whenever Iqbal is in need of rescue or counsel. Salma, mute and amnesiac, spends her life with the tyrannical Zafar.
Salma and Zafar’s adopted son Sunny (played as an adult by Rishi Kapoor) is, in accordance with Desai’s logic, none other than the lost son of the coolie Maruti. The boy grows up to be an alcohol-imbibing newspaper reporter, forever blue after being separated from his childhood sweetheart Deepa (Shoma Anand), who likewise turns alcoholic during her years of pining for Sunny.
The rich heiress Julie (Rati Agnihotri) has a conspiring legal guardian (Om Shivpuri), a building promoter involved in housing frauds. He would like his son Vicki (Suresh Oberoi) to marry Julie in order to gain lasting control over her fortune. Fate, of course, has her fall in love with Iqbal (Amitabh Bachchan), the penniless but fearless and dashing coolie. Julie refuses to marry anyone, however, until she has avenged her father’s (Amrish Puri) murder, committed—she believes—by Aslam, Iqbal’s real father, who was taken on in the service of Julie’s father after surviving Zafar’s attempt on his life. Aslam is, of course, innocent, having been framed by the wicked Zafar. The first half of the film introduces the characters, defines their relationships and sees them separated. In the second half, little by little, they are reunited, and, finally, justic
e is made to reign through the death of Zafar and his colleagues in crime.
Desai describes his films as old wine in new bottles. Indeed, we are on familiar ground in Coolie with one more convoluted lost-found story and a careful blend of the nine rasas (sentiments or aesthetic pleasures), the criteria that have been the basis for well-rounded drama since the beginnings of Sanskrit theatre. While Coolie contains ingredients to please many and varied tastes, three elements are salient: religion, revolution and comedy.
religion, revolution and comedy
Numerous details lend a Muslim religiosity to Coolie. The opening scene has Iqbal’s father presenting his mother a green scarf for Id (a Muslim religious festival). Later, when Iqbal, still a child, returns alone to his flooded, abandoned house, the Koran falls from a shelf into his arms, a sign for him not to give up hope or belief. Having grown to adulthood and become a coolie, Iqbal’s porter badge bears the holy number 786. And the magic falcon Allahrakha wears a gold necklace with sacred lettering.
The exaltation of religious feeling is also central to the ongoing plot. Salma overhears Zafar scheming to take Iqbal’s life; she runs to warn Iqbal of the impending danger and in the process is hit by the bullet meant for him. As she wavers near death in the hospital, the reflection of Allahrakha’s necklace shines on Iqbal’s face and the sound track changes to a chant ‘Allah Huma,’ (the community of Islam), a formula that incites Iqbal to attempt a pilgrimage to Mecca to pray for his mother’s life. The emotion-filled scene that follows, though strictly Muslim, appeals across the barriers of formal religions. Iqbal is prepared for his journey, but before he can enter the ship with thousands of other faithful, the official travel doctor declares him too feverish to make the voyage. A maulvi (religious leader) recommends that he use his ticket wisely, that he give it to someone too poor to make the Haj (pilgrimage); his good deed will insure that his prayers are heard. As fate would have it, the man the maulvi indicates is none other than Iqbal’s own long-lost father. When the ship departs carrying his father and the other blessed pilgrims, Iqbal sings, ‘Mubarak ho tum subko haj ka mahina, na thi meri kismat ki dekhoon Madina; Madinewale se mera salaam kehna.’ (May the month of Haj be auspicious for you all. It was not my destiny to see Medina; give my greetings to the Prophet.)
Near the end of Coolie it is a religious miracle that restores Salma’s speech. As she visits Iqbal’s empty home, a heavy draft and rattling walls caused by a passing train chance to send down the holy plaque above the door hard onto her head. After 20 years of silence Salma cries her first words: ‘Ya Allah!’
The final fight scene in Coolie takes place in the Haji Ali Shrine in Bombay. The villain Zafar Khan mounts the steps to escape from Iqbal. A wind carries the green holy shawl off the durgah (shrine) and drapes it around Iqbal like a shield. Zafar’s bullets penetrate the shawl and wound Iqbal, but like one obsessed, Iqbal fights on, invincible. With each shot Iqbal cries out sacred verses in Arabic from the Koran. An echo and a crescendo produced by a heavenly choir chanting in minor key increase the impression that we are witnessing a divine intervention. With superhuman force Iqbal topples Zafar from the highest floor of the minaret and then falls into his mother’s lap and haltingly uses his bloodied finger to write the name of Allah on a nearby wall.
Religious feeling in the film is not limited to Islamic fervour. Maruti fights off a villain (Puneet Issar) with a mace (the symbol of Hanuman or Maruti). Also, when the wicked Zafar carries off the virtuous Salma, Hindus are reminded of Ravana capturing Seeta. As in the Ramayana, a bird (here Allahrakha) reacts to this infamy by attacking Ravana’s chariot in the sky (here Zafar’s helicopter). The evil that Zafar represents is total and irredeemable. And like Ravana, he must be eliminated entirely.
The most powerful message, however, is not for one religion or another, but rather to all religions. Once more, Desai makes a plea for communal harmony. A Hindu boy is raised by a Muslim mother and a Muslim boy by a Hindu father. Iqbal and Sunny share Salma as their mother, just as Hindus and Muslims share one motherland and should for this reason—the message is clear—look upon one another as brothers. The presence of Julie, the Christian girl, provides a nod in the direction of the second largest minority in India.
If religion is close to the hearts of most viewers, the triumph of the poor and downtrodden is equally cheered. The bustling train station is shown as the place where coolies wait for trains, carry heavy loads, wash up, eat, celebrate religious festivals, find themselves mistreated, go on strike, and even lie down in front of a moving train to obtain recognition for their just cause. Talking freely about revolt and the fight for justice, Manmohan Desai expressed his interest in the Polish situation as it obtained in 1983:
What’s happening in Poland is very nice. They’re being oppressed, and they want to come out for solidarity; it’s good drama material: revolution and religion mixed together. I’m saying revolution and God exist together. If you can do that, like in Coolie, you can have box office success.
Desai makes another historical comparison:
The coolies storm that house; they bash things up. It’s nothing but October Revolution, storming the Winter Palace. It’s been done in history by the masses. In their small way these people are doing the same thing.
Of course, the ‘revolution’ in Coolie does not change the status quo. Iqbal shouts, ‘Kal tumhara, aaj hamaara!’ (Yesterday was yours; today is ours.) Tomorrow is not mentioned, and really it need not be since Hindi carries the unusual ambiguity of having the same word (kal) to express both yesterday and tomorrow. Iqbal’s slogan in Hindi has no verb, hence no tense. ‘Today is ours’ is clear, but ‘kal tumhaara’ could mean either ‘yesterday was yours’ or ‘tomorrow will be yours’ or both. In fact, the coolies have only a temporary victory; in keeping with the carnival spirit, they reign only one day. Manmohan Desai admitted:
I’m not encouraging revolution. I say let them let their steam off. Don’t oppress them all the time so that they can never rebel, so they can’t speak their mind or express themselves. Let them speak out. Let them also feel for a change, ‘All right, we are somebody.’ Why do you want to make them suffer, to grind them to dust all the time. They (art directors) are trying to grind their characters deeper and deeper into the ground. Let the steam be vented. It’s not the October Revolution; it’s not storming the Winter Palace, but in their own small way, the coolies have a great time there. They’re asking for their deeds; they were cheated out of their houses. They say, ‘We will not leave till we get our money back or we get our homes; if not, we’ll have a spot of fun.’ It’s done everywhere in the world, and I’ve shown it in a lighter way. If I showed the same thing in a serious way, nobody would like it. In a lighter way, people laugh; they enjoy it. The chap on the ground, down on the street, says, ‘Ha! We’ve shown that imperialist chap; we’ve shown that rich man a thing or two.’
Interestingly, Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film Nayakan (made four years later) has a scene which, though similar, is played, like the entire film, in total seriousness. The slum dwellers who invade the rich man’s house also begin by breaking a chandelier and a mirror before they go on to destroy all his furniture in a chilling act of intimidation that ensures the slum dwellers will not be displaced to make way for a factory. Mani Ratnam gives us a slice of reality. Desai gives us a lighter version in keeping with the mood of his film, the result both of his desire to entertain and of his iconoclastic streak. Yet one can never tell how the poor in the audiences might react even to such sugarcoated messages, whether they will simply laugh and forget or whether they will feel emboldened to fight in turn. Certainly, some governments found even this circus-like revolution to be threatening: scenes with the hammer and sickle were preventively cut before Coolie was sent to certain sensitive Middle Eastern countries.
The second half of the film deals more seriously with issues faced by the poor and the oppressed. Desai had decided to update his formula; everyone, he felt, was tired of cops and smugglers. In Coolie
the bad guys are the corrupt politicians, chit fund embezzlers, and dishonest housing promoters. These villains seem to have learned a cynical lesson, that robbing the poor is more profitable than robbing the rich; the wealthy may possess more money per capita, but the poor, simply because of their numbers offer a boon that can be milked to greater advantage. In response, Iqbal gives up his railway platform to stand on the election platform. As Iqbal urges the voters to elect him, his speech includes the line ‘The world belongs to the poor!’ To this, the cinema audiences at the time in India responded with enthusiastic applause. Having Amitabh Bachchan play the electioneering Iqbal showed prescience. ‘All the workers will vote for you,’ Iqbal is told. In real life, after having denied for years that he would ever leave acting for politics, Amitabh Bachchan stood for a seat in parliament in the late 1984 election that followed Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination and Rajiv Gandhi’s step into power. In his hometown of Allahabad all the workers must have voted for him because his victory was indeed sweeping.
Some might accuse Desai of compliantly following a trend in Coolie in bringing politics to the fore. 1983-84 were fertile years for politically oriented films. Yet as early as 1974 in Roti political shenanigans were denounced. ‘Public jo public hai sub jaante hain; andar kyaa hai; baahar kyaa hai; ye sub kuch pehchaante hain.’ (The public knows all; they recognize the difference between what is on the inside and on the outside, i.e., what appears to be and what is.) So sings the character played by Rajesh Khanna as he shines light on those who talk of public service but who act in their own self-interest.
Coolie is not actually a revolutionary film, but a certain attitude is nevertheless recommended: a simple person can refuse to submit humbly to injustice. Our principal focus throughout the film is on super-coolie Amitabh Bachchan, who, faithful to his persona, can right all wrongs single-handedly. However, the film’s strike sequence, though it lasts only a few minutes during the credits, shows coolies achieving their goal of justice without the help of a superhero. Amitabh Bachchan is missing, and yet by using their numbers and their cohesive strength, the coolies carry through a serious revolt, not simply a carnivalesque one-day seizure of power. Those in the comfortable confines of society are forced to realize to what extent they are dependent on those ‘who carry the loads of the world’. Well-dressed arriving passengers puff, pant and wipe sweat from their brows as they manage their own bags. The coolie strike effectively reminds those at the top of society’s hierarchy that they must not take for granted the services of those at the bottom. Such a scene was most uncharacteristic of popular cinema of the period. The very notion of ‘hero’ is largely incompatible with democratic group action. The next major cinematic reminder of the effectiveness of a pooling of efforts would come in 2001 with Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan.
