The Merchant of Mumbai
By: Mahmood Farooqui / Mid Day
May 27, 2005
![]() The passage of Sunil Dutt and Ismail Merchant on the same day, sad as it is for Indian cinema, can also be read as a bad omen for the city of Mumbai itself. Both represented the spirit of Mumbai in different ways.
Sunil Dutt, the outsider migrant coming good in Mumbai�s most glamorous pursuit who then went on to become one of its most civilised and universally admired representatives.
Then there was the Mumbai boy Ismail Merchant, who bypassed Mumbai but typifying the city�s entrepreneurial and cosmopolitan spirit, established himself as a name to reckon with in world cinema.
Other than Satyajit Ray, Merchant was the only Indian film person to receive accolades not just from Europe but from Hollywood itself.
Traditional Chinese society believed that dynasties end when their mandate
is withdrawn from heaven and earthly symptoms like floods, famine or other supernatural events were seen as the proof of that withdrawal.
The passing of these two stalwarts of the city perhaps reflects the termination of that mandate that had once made Mumbai India�s most hospitable city for the poor and the newcomer.
That they have passed away at a time when the purported �Shanghaification� of Mumbai threatens the very elements that lend the city its vibrancy � the slums, pavement booksellers, bar dancers � is perhaps a symptom of a change in order.
My superstition derives further strength from the personalities of the deceased � gentle, generous, polite, they represented traits once most prized but now given short shrift in the crueler, more selfish world that we have come to inhabit.
Is it too much to believe then that one must lament not merely their passing but also the passing of a spirit, the end of an ethos of urbanity from our once greatest
conurbation?
Producer, director and writer of cookbooks, Ismail Merchant was born in Mumbai, as Ismail Noormohamed Abdul Rehman and was educated in Mumbai and New York, where he studied business administration.
His first film was a short one called The Creation of Women, which was nominated in 1961 for an Academy Award and was an official entry from the United States in the Cannes film festival the same year.
En route to the festival Ismail met American actor, director and screenwriter James Ivory and in the same year they formed Merchant-Ivory Productions with the idea of making English films in India for international release.
For the past 35 years that partnership had endured, emerging as one of the most unique and productive collaborations in world cinema as Merchant-Ivory�s Cinema created a distinctive niche for itself over the years.
The films were often adaptations of literary works from some of the greatest masters of the novel, Henry
James, E M Forster and Kazuo Ishiguro.
A Merchant Ivory film was always instantly recognizable because of the period settings, the visual splendour and the quality of performances while their content was usually high-brow but concentrated on relationships and romantic entanglements which had the potential of wider appeal.
An adaptation of Forster�s novel A Room with a View, released in 1986 to great critical and popular acclaim, garnered eight Academy award nominations of which it won three while the same writer�s Howard�s End was also nominated for eight Academy awards and won three of them.
Then in 1993 came Remains of the Day, based on an Ishiguro novel that earned nine Academy award nominations.
Despite the worldwide success and fame of their films, perhaps because of the difficulty of their subjects, finance remained a problem for the company. It was there that Merchant shone forth with all his Mumbai diligence and enterprise. His powers of
persuasion were inexhaustible and he could trick, fool, cajole and even deceive people to get the location, actors or shots he wanted in any film.
When he came to make The Mystic Masseur he attained Naipaul�s permission, said otherwise to be impossible, very simply by writing to him. Naipaul replied by saying, �Dear Ismail, I have heard of your legendary power of persuasion. Please go ahead.�
In addition to producing, Merchant turned to direction later in his career and after a few shorts adapted Anita Desai�s fine novel about a dying Urdu poet In Custody, released as Muhafiz in Hindi. He then went on to direct The Proprietor and Cotton Mary.
Along with numerous awards Merchant was honoured with two honorary doctorates from Ilinois Wesleyan University and Bard College. He also wrote several books, including Hullabaloo in Old Jaipur as well as two cookbooks which did exceedingly well. He himself was a fine chef and a gourmet and, as his long time friend Shashi
Kapoor recalls, could conjure up a meal even for a hundred people at short notice. | |
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