In 1950s and 60s, Hindi films enjoyed a dream run in Greece

September 27, 2013, 5:39 pm IST in Addictions | Entertainment | TOI

I first came across Helen Abadzi’s name in Global Bollyood, a book edited by Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti. The introductory article written by them spoke of Abadzi’s “groundbreaking research on Hindi cinema in Greece.” I was fascinated. Immediately I trawled the internet and found an extremely well-crafted article on the subject by Abadzi. I came to know that between 1954-1968, 111 Hindi films were exhibited in Greece. And Mother India was such a superhit that it ran for 10 years all over the country famous for its ancient civilization.

I also discovered that Abadzi was a polyglot – she speaks 19 languages – and worked at the World Bank in Washington (those days). I emailed her and she decided to meet me for an interview. I was in Philadelphia those days and visited her suburban residence in Washington in March 2013 where we enjoyed a long conversation on the subject.

These are extracts from an email interview that I later conducted with her. As she points out in the email, parts of her reply has been taken from one of her earlier articles that she had written on the subject.
So here goes a little-known story from the forgotten pages of Indian cinema:

Q: How did you get interested in the history of Hindi films in Greece?

A: I saw a couple of them when I was about 10 years old. They played in movie theatres near my home. Notably I remember the plot of Ghar Sansaar.

Q: Your research shows that in the 1950s and 1960s, Hindi films were extremely popular in Greece. How and why did this happen?

A: The economic condition of Greece was bleak in the early 1950s. Since its liberation from Turkey in 1827, the country had been a poor agricultural nation with high levels of illiteracy, limited life expectancy, and a low status for women. World War II and a subsequent civil war with communist insurgents had destroyed the countryside and killed many inhabitants. An atmosphere of depression and mourning prevailed as people tried to rebuild their lives. One survival tactic was migration to larger cities (such as Athens) and emigration to countries like Germany, which needed cheap labour. Uneducated orphans and people caring for widowed relatives were forced to leave their homes and become bricklayers or housemaids, living in unhealthy and oppressive circumstances. It was in that climate of desperation that Hindi movies made an indelible impression.

Q: Who were the primary audience of these films? Where were these films shown?

A: The years 1945-65 were a golden period in Indian cinema. Most were dramatic love stories set in a background of tangled family relations, poverty, exploitation, and misery. In a format that became characteristic of Hindi cinema, many songs and dances were included. Frequently during the movies, actors sang, pondering on problems and situations like a protagonist and a responding chorus in a Greek drama.
The plots of the movies resonated with the wounded Greek psyche. Suffering women, street children who had to drop out of school, jealous sisters-in-law, vengeful mothers-in-law, interdependencies, betrayals, and frequent unhappy ends resonated with the difficult choices of poorly educated Greek people subsisting in large cities. In particular, the characters appealed to poor women. The maidservants and factory workers saw themselves depicted on the movie screen, hoping for deliverance. Maybe the rich young man would marry the poor beautiful girl who worked at his house. Maybe lost relatives would appear to take care of the abandoned street child who sang so beautifully.

Suffering in the movies was combined with spectacle. There were scenes of palaces, beautiful houses, jungles, elephants, spectacular countryside and medieval-period costumes. Though often depicted as poor and unhappy, the Indian actresses were gracefully modest, with bright clothes and much jewellery. They enabled the audiences to see people like themselves improving their conditions, but also to be transported to a reverie far from reality. Thus, India managed to package and export its main problem, poverty, with its main attraction, exoticism. And Greece at that time was a willing buyer.

These movies were considered working-class fare. They had much less appeal for the middle class, which looked westward for entertainment, wanted more humour, and was not plagued by the social dilemmas of the poor and the limited solutions available to the heroines. Nevertheless, the Hindi masterpieces were seen by many.

Mother India premiered without much advertisement in Kotopouli, a downtown theatre on a snowy day in February 1960. The first few curious spectators were so moved by it, that they stopped strangers on the way out and told them not to miss that “social gospel”. Four hours later, a waiting line two city blocks long had formed, and the movie played in some Greek town or other at least for the next 10 years.

Q: Many songs from these Hindi films were plagiarised as Greek melodies. In fact, your research shows that the number was higher than 100. In fact, it created a category of music called, Indo-prepi. Tell us about these songs; where were they played and who composed them.

A: The number of songs that were adapted from Hindi movies is considerable. From the 111 movies known to have come as well as from others whose importation is uncertain, 105 Greek renditions were identified. Many came from the best known movies: Awaara, Sri 420, Mother India, Ghar Sansaar, Laajwanti, and Aan.

Many Hindi songs engendered duplicates, triplicates, and quadruplicates. For example, Pyar hua ikraar hua (Sri 420) and Gao tarane man ke (Aan) have four renditions. Unchhi, unchhi duniya ki deewaron (Naagin) and “Aa jao tadapte hain armaan (Awaara) have three. At least 10 others have duplicates. Of all songs, 57 (55%) have a great similarity with pre-existing songs; 25 (24%) deviate significantly from the originals, 16 (16%) are partial renditions, where other melodies are mixed with Hindi, and 5 (5%) use only some musical bars.

Most Hindi song copies were temporary hits or remained obscure. However, 11 were still known among the general public in 1998, about 35 years later.

The Hindi songs were rendered in an oriental style that was popular with Asia Minor refugees (who fled to Greece after the 1922 massacre) and with residents of remote villages, where older musical traditions were remembered. This style of songs was called rembetika before 1959 and “laika” or popular songs (sometimes also “varia” – heavy laika) after that date. The imitation and inspiration from Hindi created a specific class of songs called to this day “Indo-prepi” (Hindi-style). To Hellenize the songs, composers often speeded them up, simplified sections where they could not reproduced the trained voices of the Indians, and changed instruments, using the string instrument bouzouki. Although some songs were hasty improvisations, others were good, some possibly better than the originals.

Q: The success of Hindi film songs became a matter of debate in Greece. Can you explain the nature of the debate and why?

A: In the 1960s, many educated Greeks did not look kindly on the Hindi movies and songs. They saw them as a threat to the country’s drive for modernization. The middle class admired the West. Its members associated the Indo-prepi with refugees from Turkey, poorer people, uncouth villagers, and backwardness in general. Emigration was not a middle-class concern. Even when the songs echoed more general themes, the words alienated the educated listeners. The same Urdu vocabulary that is considered poetic by Indians (e.g. dunia, zamana, ashik, khabar) was considered Turkish by Greeks, and therefore backward. The words were too emotional, too depressed, too angry. They often expressed negative attitudes against women (e.g. “I will throw this nagging woman out…” ) as well as male demands for female obedience and virtue. Students often ridiculed or parodied the laika songs and the tearful movie titles. In particular, young women, who had brighter prospects than their mothers through education and salaried work, wanted to have nothing to do with them.

Q: Why did Greece lose interest in Hindi films in the 1970s?

A: Greece at that time wanted to be seen as westernized and modern, and the songs incorrectly evoked memories of Turkish occupation.

Q: Your book on the subject, the one you co-authored with Emmanuel Tasoulas says that the old Hindi film songs again became popular in the 1990s. Is that correct?

A: Yes, and the songs have remained popular. We hear bhangras these days blaring from cars. There are groups of Greeks who study them, know the modern authors.

Q: During your research work, you also became friendly with composer Naushad? Can you relate an anecdote from the meetings?

A: After we had a clear picture of how many copied songs had been written by various Indian composers, I wondered what they would think about the copies (copyright issues aside). Shankar and Jaikishan were both dead, but in 1996 Naushad Ali was very much alive.

(Note: The Indian composers at that time typically gave up their rights to the music and movie companies and they only kept performing rights; they would not have gotten any money from Greece, anyway.)

Through my various Indian connections I found that he used to visit one of his daughters in California. So I managed to get a phone number and called him. (I spoke to him in Hindi.) He heard for the first time from me all the success that his work had had in faraway Greece. I told him about the singer named Voula Palla who, before passing away wanted to make sure that he got credit for the 15 Mother India songs that she rendered. He was very gracious. He said that people made money from the work, and that was ok, but the musicians in India who had played were growing old without pensions or medical care. Could I get some copyrights money for him? I said I would try.

My husband is a lawyer, and we got in touch with AEPI, the company that handles performing rights in Greece. The songs were in various authors’ names, so it would not be possible in that way. However, I turned to the old company called ‘Music Box” that had issued a number of them. (We managed to get some royalty from the company).

Naushad was very happy that we got him that symbolic amount. Whenever I called and asked for him on the phone, he would always come. And during my work twice I went to Mumbai, where Naushad received me every time with great happiness.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.


Avijit Ghosh Avijit Ghosh
Avijit Ghosh is a senior editor with The Times of India. He is addicted to films, music, cricket and football—and not necessarily in that order. He is the. . .


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