Jai Ho! And the Oscar goes to… brave new India

Last Sunday, on the 12th of March 2023, 18.7 million Americans and several million viewers worldwide were glued to their television screens to watch the 95th Academy Awards. This was the biggest night in the global entertainment business. As the music faded in and the lights dimmed at the Dolby Theatre in rainstorm-soaked Los Angeles, an Indian star Deepika Padukone, walked gracefully onto the stage. A global celebrity, Deepika served on the jury at the 75th Cannes Film Festival last May, walked out with the World Cup trophy at the soccer final in Qatar, and starred in the latest Hindi hit Pathaan, which earned enough at the Box Office to make Hollywood envious. Earlier in 1980 Persis Khambatta went up onstage at the Oscars ceremony to hand out the award for Best Feature-Length Documentary Film and more recently in 2016, Priyanka Chopra, had presented the nominees for Achievement in Film Editing. This year at the incident-free Oscars, Deepika in an Indian accent with perfect delivery in English, introduced ‘Naatu Naatu’, the best original song nominee at the Oscars, amid cheers and claps from the super A-listers of Hollywood. Playback singers Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj flanking a squadron of high-energy dancers after just 18 hours of rehearsals, delivered a breathtaking choreographed performance that validated the track’s half a billion views on social media. SS Rajamouli’s RRR the anti-colonial story about Indian revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaran Bheem, has already captured unprecedented audiences worldwide. Not surprisingly, Indian composer, MM Keeravani, and lyrics writer Chandrabose made history, winning the Oscar for the original song for ‘Naatu Naatu’, against tough competition from big musical stars, including Rihanna and Lady Gaga. In his acceptance speech, the composer who bridged the gap between the east and west recalled, “I grew up listening to the Carpenters, and now here I am with the Oscars”. Then holding the golden statue, Keeravani broke into a song, “There was only one wish on my mind … ‘RRR’ has to win, pride of every Indian, and must put me on the top of the world.” Two more Indians Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga held their Oscars statuettes high, when the Netflix documentary, The Elephant Whisperers depicting an unbreakable bond between two abandoned elephants and their caretakers emerged as the winner at the 95th Academy Awards. This was the maiden victory for India in the Documentary Short Subject category. An ecstatic Guneet Monga, a well-known independent Producer in Mumbai, defined the win, “Tonight is historic. This is the first-ever Oscar for an Indian production, and two women here won this. 1.4 billion Indians, this is for you… yeh aapke liye hai. We have all manifested this together… I just wanna say to all the women watching…the future is audacious, and the future is us, and the future is here," she added. While Monga chanted ‘Jai Hind’, earlier film director Kartiki, concluded her speech with the dedication, “to my motherland India”. After that incredible night in Hollywood, four Oscars for made-in-India productions were on their way to the other side of the world — India. Almost 90 years ago, in the 1930s, a diminutive person of South Asian origin took Hollywood by storm. Merle Oberon carefully concealed her true identity and even hid her mother from the public to evade the rampant racial persecution in the cinema industry. The first Asian best actress nominee, she was nominated for an Oscar for The Dark Angel in 1936 and even played herself in 1966’s The Oscar, which was about the awards. The hauntingly beautiful star about whom Charlton Heston said, “a lady whose beauty is not only a legend, but a reality”, died in Malibu from a stroke on 24 November 1979. She took the secret of her ethnicity to her grave. The racial divide restricted global talent from getting prestigious roles, directing major stars or being nominated for awards. On 26 March 1958 RKO Pantages Theatre, the venue of the Oscars, was lit with a thousand bulbs and multiple sky trackers shot into the sky. The academy created a “Best Foreign Language Film’ category in 1956 and two years later an Indian film, Mother India, was in competition. Film Director Mehboob Khan sat in the aisle seat in the seventh row next to his wife Sardar Akhtar and actor Sabu and just ahead of David Lean, the director of The Bridge on the River Kwai which won most Oscars that night. Mehboob Khan watched in anticipation as the five nominations were read. Then Fred Astaire opened the envelope and the Italian film Nights of Cabiria won the Oscar. Though his dream was shattered, in the recorded footage of the event Mehboob Khan is seen gracefully smiling and clapping. The news of Mother India’s debacle at the Oscars brought disappointment bordering on national grief in India. Over the years only three films from India, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India, Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay and Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan have reached the final nomination stage and surprisingly no Indian film has won the Oscar as yet for the “Best Foreign Language / International Film’. However, it was Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi that brought Indian talent to the foreground in Hollywood in 1983. The Academy Award for best costume went to John Mollo and his Indian colleague, Bhanu Athaiya, making her the first Indian to win the Oscar. Dressed in a powder blue sari, she held the golden statue and thanked Attenborough and the Academy “for focusing the world attention on India”. The star of that evening was Ben Kingsley who played Gandhi and was of partly Indian descent. He won the best actor award and self-effacingly accepted the Oscar from John Travolta admitting that he was “overwhelmed to be mentioned in the same breath as the other four gentlemen who were nominated with me”. Now greatly admired for his art, Kingsley has been nominated for the Academy Awards three more times. On the night of 30 March 1992, at the 64th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Audrey Hepburn introduced Satyajit Ray and his cinematic gift. The Board of Governors of the Academy awarded an Honorary Oscar to the Indian filmmaker for his rare mastery of the arts of motion pictures and his profound humanism which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world. An ailing Ray appeared in a videotaped speech, holding the Oscar statuette on his hospital bed. With his characteristic restrained humor, he graciously accepted the honour. On 22 February 2009, Slumdog Millionaire, a modern-day fairy tale about an underdog striving to strike gold in the slums of Mumbai, pushed aside major contenders to sweep the Oscars at the 81st Academy Awards. Indian composer AR Rehman by winning the best song for ‘Jai Ho’ broke through the glass ceiling at the Oscars as English-language songs from Hollywood films had dominated that award for decades. An Oscar was awarded in absentia to famed Indian lyricist Gulzar who apparently was playing a game of tennis in Mumbai that day. Resul Pookutty, trained at the Film and Television Institute (FTII), Pune, shared the award for sound mixing and made history that evening as the first Asian technician to win an Oscar. Resul then stepped forward to deliver an awe-inspiring acceptance speech. “This is unbelievable… I come from a country and a civilisation that gave the universal word. That word is preceded by silence, followed by more silence. That word is ‘Om.’ So, I dedicate this award to my country…”. This year was a landmark year at the Oscars for Asian representation. Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan won the best actor and the best supporting actor award. Today nearly 25 per cent of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s total membership of 10,000 is from outside the United States. The internationalisation of the academy is increasingly visible in this year’s annual awards. Not everyone was pleased with changing times, and Oscar-winning writer Paul Schrader trashed the Academy Awards in a social media post: “I rather like the provincial origins of the Oscars: Hollywood coming together to celebrate its own. Most film-making nations — Britain, France, Germany — have their national awards; the festivals have their awards… The Oscars mean less each year.” However, The New York Times recorded, “When film historians look back at the 95th Academy Awards they may mark it as the start of New Hollywood”. This is also the new Indian cinema winning accolades, recognition, and breaking box office records not only in Hollywood but across the world. In the years to come Indian talent will be amply visible at the Oscars with our actors, writers, directors, cinematographers, editors, sound engineers, animators, art directors, VFX wizards and producers walking onto the stage to pick up the golden statuette. Coming soon to a theatre and screen near you — a multiple Oscar award-winning film, made in India! The writer is an author, filmmaker, and entrepreneur who divides his year between India, Hollywood, and Cannes. Views expressed are personal. 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