Conscience of the Race : India\'s Offbeat Cinema

Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Shadows before substance. 3. Inspiration behind offbeat cinema. 4. Pather panchali: the Benchmark film. 5. Satyajit Ray nourishes the Genre. 6. Archetypal cinema : Ritwik Ghatak. 7. Marxist ethos and beyond: Mrinal Sen. 8. Ripples before the \'Wave\'. 9. Bhuban Shome raises a \'Wave\'. 10. Ankur crests \'Wave\' in Hindi. 11. Offbeat in Bengali cinema. 12. Samskara ushers offbeat in south. 13. Adoor and Aravindan lead in Kerala. 14. Offbeat in Tamil and Telugu cinemas. 15. Offbeat in other cinemas. 16. Feminist and other themes. 17. The third generation. 18. Indian filmmakers in the west. 19. Documentary and short films. 20. Before the camera. 21. Behind the camera. 22. Treatment of music and dance. 23. Government intervention. 24. Offbeat cinema in cold print. 25. Window on the world. 26. Initiatives for better cinema. 27. Future of offbeat cinema.

"Cinema came to India from France on 7 July 1896, when six silent film strips, made by Lumiere brothers, were shown in Mumbai\'s Watson Hotel. Three years later, a Marathi still photographer, H.S. Bhatwadekar shot India\'s first movie strip in Kamla Nehru Park in Mumbai. Fourteen years after that, in 1913, D.G. Phalke made the first Indian feature film, Raja Harishchandra. The Indian cinema became the world\'s largest in volume, overtaking Japan in 1971. Some 900 feature films are added every year, bringing the total to nearly 33,000 at the end of 2003.

Since Satyajit Ray compelled the world\'s attention to the Indian cinema through his debut, Pather Panchali in 1955, a new genre has been added, called variously as auteur, art parallel, minority, offbeat etc: Ray himself preferred the term offbeat. In this chronicle, the author presents an up to date bird\'s eye view of the genre and holds that in its totality, it reflects the \'conscience of the race\'."