Current residents of Maximum City will find it hard to believe how minimum Mumbai once was, with broad roads unburdened by traffic or humanity. They will also be indignant about the dismissive tone of the narration in this white man's view of India, made and told by filmmaker James A FitzPatrick as part of a series called Traveltalks.
As the short film begins, the Gateway of India glides serenely into picturesque black and white focus, cheek-by-jowl with the imposing facade of the Taj Mahal Hotel. Majestic though it be, and revered by hotel regulars the world over, the Taj Mahal cuts no ice with Mr FitzPatrick who describes it as "unquestionably the most pretentious in all of India."
80 years ago, traffic on the mostly empty city streets - as filmed by Mr FitzPatrick - was made up of a succession of bullock carts carrying Indians punctuated by open-topped automobiles ferrying the colonials. "The fifteenth century is constantly rubbing shoulders with the twentieth," declares the disembodied voice.
Much of the eight-and-a-half minutes is devoted to local wonders, such as - a 'fakir' with his performing bird, a side show that the camera watches in rapt silence for a minute; a fishing village where the local women wear saris or "a one-piece garment that unwinds to about eight yards in length," a "red dot"on their foreheads and worship the tulsi plant; and a line-up of ponderous elephants bedecked in gold and jewels.
If you think any of this impressed Mr FitzPatrick, you're wrong. As he signs off with a last aerial look of what is now and has ever been one of the world's most vibrant cities, his last thoughts are of the railways that converge on and the steamship routes that diverge from the now-bustling metropolis. "Such has been the first constructive imprint of Western civilization upon this much-talked off and generally misunderstood country," he muses.
Amen.
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