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twenty feet wide and two hundred feet long. Sofa seating was as far
from the small screen as possible, consisting of battered old cinema
seats reupholstered in shaggy fake fur that smelled of nicotine and
mildew. Next down were fold-up metal picnic chairs, then benches
fashioned from a wooden plank and upturned paint tins, then two
rows of paint tins alone, and finally the bare concrete floor. The
screen end of the cinema filled up rapidly, packed with squatting
forms smoking beedies and shouting at each other. Only one young
couple in garish clothes occupied the Chairs. I sat alone in the Sofa
section, from where the screen, finally unveiled behind dusty
shrouds of velvet, was barely more than the size of a large TV set.
Lights were abruptly switched off. First up for the night's
entertainment was a public-service commercial. A handsome, very
modern and prosperous-looking Indian man comes home from
work to be greeted by his young and adorable family. He presses his
palms in namaste to his wife, pats his smug little son on the head,
and hoists the darling baby daughter up in his arms, holding her
giggling with delight above him - and then accidentally pushes
her head through the blades of a ceiling fan, which cuts it off,
splattering the walls with blood. This appalling scene was followed
by a somewhat insensitive slogan urging safety in the home. In my
experience, no ceiling fan turned with such force that it could
decapitate. Shaken, I pondered the point of such exaggeration. I
guessed the man was being punished for shunning traditional
values. He wore Western clothes, was too rich, too materialistic,
and also too intimate with his wife - not Indian virtues. He'd become
a slave to technology, the fan essential to keep him cool only because
he now wore impractical Western clothes. Modernity, the real
message stated, threatened the very existence of the family.
To quarrel with our subjects is to war with ourselves. They are
our shield and buckler; and it is they who furnish us with all things.
Reserve the hostile strength of our Empire exclusively for its
foreign enemies . . .
- From Tipu Sultan's Code of Law and Conduct , 1787
Next was a newsreel identical to those produced by Pathé during
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