Version imprimableBadnam Basti’s fate is as chequered as its history. The 1971 Hindi film considered as India’s first movie depicting a homosexual relationship and thought to be lost, has emerged after 49 years of hiding in an archive in Berlin. It is one year short of celebrating half a century of obscurity.
The Block Museum of Art in Illinois livestreamed the 83-minute film (with English subtitles) over 7-10 May, with the support of the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin.
Simran Bhalla, PhD, a candidate in screen cultures at Northwestern University and The Block 2019 - 2020 Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow, said she and Michael Metzger (Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts) were curating a programme of Indian films reflecting on modernity in India from the 1960s-1970s.
"We were looking to feature a film by Raj Kapoor when we discovered a listing of Badnam Basti in the archive of the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art," she said.
Kapoor is the common surname shared by Prem Kapoor, the director of the ill-fated Badnam Basti. A 35mm print was found in poor condition. It was digitised for the screening.
Badnam Basti was to be shown in the museum in March along with Mrinal Sen’s Interview, Ritwik Ghatak’s The Runaway, and Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa but the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
The curators then decided to live stream it on the Vimeo video platform, followed by a discussion of the film’s cultural significance in the pantheon.
Badnam Basti shares the title with the name of the Hindi novel written by writer Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena. The novel was serialised in the Hindi literary journal Hans before being published in 1957 and later being translated into English as A Street with 57 Lanes.
Set in the city of Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh, the film narrates the story of a bus driver Sarnam Singh, who moonlights as a bandit. He saves a woman Bansari from being raped by another dacoit. She falls in love with him but he cannot keep his promises to her as he is jailed for another petty crime involving the consumption of illicit liquor. Once out, he looks for her but cannot trace her. Singh meets a young lad "Shivraj
