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[Note from Editor: We are thankful
to Dr. Helen Abadzi for her permission to reproduce this article.]
 Ulfat
Ka Saaz Chedo - Hindi Version
Ulfat
Ka Saaz Chedo - Adaptation in Greek
Duniya
Walon Se Door - Hindi Version
Duniya
Walon Se Door - Adaptation in Greek
Jhoomta
Mausam - Hindi Version
Jhoomta
Mausam - Adaptation in Greek
Hindi Films of the 50s in Greece: The Latest Chapter of a Long
Dialogue
Most people know that Alexander the Great conquered northwest
India in 327 CE. But very few people know that India conquered the
heart of Greece around 1960. Not even Indians know of this remarkable
event. [1]
The invasion started in 1954 and took place on the screens of
working-class movie houses. It was an invasion of spectacular colors,
music, dances, songs, and gorgeously dressed actresses. The generals
were Greek importers. The missiles were about 111 films. The vanguard
was Aan, that movie importers renamed Mangala, the Rose of
India. Thereafter came Saqi, called Rosana, the
Rose of Baghdad. Then followed a movie on a topic that always moved
Greeks, Sikandar, Alexander the Great. With time, the invasion
took hold.
How was this possible?
The economic condition of Greece was bleak in the early 1950s.
Since its liberation from Turkey in 1827, the country had been a poor
agricultural nation with high levels of illiteracy, limited life
expectancy, and a low status for women. World War II and a subsequent
civil war with communist insurgents had destroyed the countryside and
killed many inhabitants. An atmosphere of depression and mourning
prevailed as people tried to rebuild their lives. One survival tactic
was migration to larger cities (such as Athens) and emigration to
countries like Germany, which needed cheap labor. Uneducated orphans
and people caring for widowed relatives were forced to leave their
homes and become bricklayers or housemaids, living in unhealthy and
oppressive circumstances. It was in that climate of desperation that
Hindi movies made an indelible impression.
Fascination with Hindi Films
The years 1945-65 were a golden period in Indian cinema. Though
made with limited means, many of the films produced then became
timeless masterpieces. Most were dramatic love stories set in a
background of tangled family relations, poverty, exploitation, and
misery. In a format that became characteristic of Hindi cinema, many
songs and dances were included. Frequently during the movies, actors
sang, pondering on problems and situations like a protagonist and a
responding chorus in a Greek drama. Many of the songs, composed by the
greatest Indian musicians for the films, have become timeless tunes
that every Indian knows.
The plots of the movies resonated with the wounded Greek
psyche. Suffering women, street children who had to drop out of school,
jealous sisters-in-law, vengeful mothers-in-law, interdependencies,
betrayals, and frequent unhappy ends resonated with the difficult
choices of poorly educated Greek people subsisting in large cities. In
particular, the characters appealed to poor women. The maidservants and
factory workers saw themselves depicted on the movie screen, hoping for
deliverance. Maybe the rich young man would marry the poor beautiful
girl who worked at his house. Maybe lost relatives would appear to take
care of the abandoned street child who sang so beautifully.
Suffering in the movies was combined with spectacle. There
were scenes of palaces, beautiful houses, jungles, elephants,
spectacular countrysides, and medieval-period costumes. Though often
depicted as poor and unhappy, the Indian actresses were gracefully
modest, with bright clothes and much jewelry. They enabled the
audiences to see people like themselves improving their conditions, and
also enabled them to be transported to a reverie far from reality.
Thus, India managed to package and export its main problem, poverty,
with its main attraction, exoticism. And Greece at that time was a
willing buyer.
At least 111 movies are known to have been imported in
1954-1968. They were most popular in 1958-1962, when at least one out
of the 35 movietheaters of Thessaloniki played one or two Hindi movies
per week.[2] (For example, Awaara
in 1957 played for six weeks in Alkazar, a working-class movie theater
in Thessaloniki.) The films were always subtitled in Greek, challenging
people with limited education to read. Their one-word symbolic titles
were changed to indicate tragedy: mothers losing children, social
upheaval, and other emotional topics. Thus, Ghar sansaar
(“House and world”) became Tears of a Mother. Mother India
became Land Drenched in Sweat, and Mela (Fair) became Love
Drenched in Tears.
The advertisements contained text that accentuated the dramatic aspects
of the movies and declared that the newest import was better than Mother
India, Awaara, Saqi, Aan or other earlier arrivals.
These movies were considered working-class fare. They had much
less appeal for the middle-class, which looked westward for
entertainment, wanted more humor, and was not plagued by the social
dilemmas of the poor and the limited solutions available to the
heroines. Nevertheless, the Hindi masterpieces were seen by many.
Mother India premiered without much advertisement in Kotopouli, a
downtown theater on a snowy day in February 1960. The first few curious
spectators were so moved by it, that they stopped strangers on the way
out and told them not to miss that “social gospel”. Four hours later, a
waiting line two city blocks long had formed, and the movie played in
some Greek town or other at least for the next 10 years.
Eventually, Greek producers imitated the Hindi success
recipes. The result was Greek films with 8-12 songs (mainly set in
bouzouki night-club scenes) and tragic plots and titles. To lure the
audiences of Hindi films, Greek titles were sometimes almost
indistinguishable.
Fascination with Hindi Songs
Mother India, Awaara, and other movies established Nargis
as the great priestess of the family dramas, with Madhubala a close
second (Tasoulas 1992). The ability of these heroines to express pain
made the beautiful and haunting songs that they sang instant hits. It
was only natural that the emotions of the poor Greeks would be
expressed through those very same melodies. Thus, starting in 1959,
Greek-language renditions of many songs appeared. For example:
Sad Nargis! Where do I come to find you?
with a bitter song you can sing my own pain.
My tortured Nargis, who sings songs and wails
please cry tonight about my own separation.
I am the only one who knows your poor tears
because I have been wounded heavily
and I can't forget her because I love her so deeply.
(“Kis se malum tha ek din” -- Saqi 1952)
The number of songs that were adapted from Hindi movies is
considerable. From the 111 movies known to have come, as well as from
others whose importation is uncertain, 105 Greek renditions were
identified. Many came from the best-known movies, that is from Awaara,
Sri 420, Mother India, Ghar Sansaar, Laajwanti, and Aan. Many Hindi
songs engendered duplicates, triplicates, and quadruplicates. For
example, “Pyar hua ikrar hua” (Sri 420) and “Gao tarane man
ke” (Aan) have four renditions, “Unchhi, unchhi dunia
ki divare…” (Naagin) and “Aajao taRapt hai arma…” (Awaara)
have three. At least 10 others have duplicates. Of all songs, 57 (55%)
have a great similarity with pre-existing songs; 25 (24%) deviate
significantly from the originals, 16 (16%) are partial renditions,
where other melodies are mixed with Hindi, and 5 (5%) use only some
musical bars.
Most Hindi song copies were temporary hits or remained
obscure. However, 11 were still known among the general public in 1998,
about 35 years later. The best remembered in the 1990s were:
“Madhubala” (“Aajao tarapt hai arma…” from Awaara) one of
three renditions of this song by Stellios Kazantzidis; “kardia mou
kaimeni” (my poor heart -- “dunia me ham aaye” from Mother
India), “auti i nyxta menei”(this night remains -- ulfaT
ka saaz chhedo from the 1953 Aurat), “oso axizeis esy”
(as much as you are worth -- “duniawalon se duur” from Ujaala”).
The Hindi songs were rendered in an oriental style that was popular
with Asia Minor refugees (who fled to Greece after the 1922 massacre)
and with residents of remote villages, where older musical traditions
were remembered. [3]This
style of songs was called “rembetika” before 1959 and “laika” or
popular songs (sometimes also “varia”-- heavy laika) after that date.
The imitation and inspiration from Hindi created a specific class of
songs called to this day “indoprepi” (Hindi-style). To hellenize the
songs, composers often speeded them up, simplified sections where they
could not reproduce the trained voices of the Indians, and changed
instruments, using the string instrument bouzouki. Although some songs
were hasty improvisations, others were good, some possibly better than
the originals. For example, there are many excellent renditions of “dunia
me… ham aaye hai…” at different periods, and this song is
considered a test of vocal skill.
Since there were practically no Hindi-speaking Greeks at the
time, and movies did not clearly render the words of the songs, the
lyrics of the Hindi and Greeks songs almost never coincided. Instead,
the themes of the indoprepi and other laika songs echoed the concerns
of the folkloric composers and their audiences. The principal concern
was migration abroad and subsequent separation from loved ones. Thus, a
large number of the Hindi songs were transformed into emigration
dirges, often depicting the lonely dependent mother waiting for a son
to return. One version of ”Gao tarane man ke” became the
“bitter letter” which tells the recipient that the beloved will not
return. “Pyar hua ikrar hua” (Sri 420),
a song well known for its optimism, yielded four Greek versions, each
one a sad emigration song. The best known version starts with the sound
of a train and has the following lyrics:
A train, a cursed train, a train will take you away.
It separates us and breaks and tears my poor heart apart.
Tears are rolling in the station, mothers are wailing disconsolately
but I shed no more tears, because my eyes have no tears left.
Such a pain, such a wound, may the enemies never feel,
please write me every day before I die of sorrow.
Other issues echoed in the songs were the dependence of women,
jealousy for happy couples, and condemnation of women who were immodest
or married for money. When the Hindi and Greek version were both love
songs, the lyrics often contrasted the cultural differences in social
interactions. Greece in the 50s still had the customs of dowry and
arranged marriages, but there were no castes; access to education made
it possible for some poor to marry into rich families, and young people
could actually get to know each other (particularly when they were both
migrants living away from home). Therefore, the Greek love songs imply
intimate acquaintance and describe joint activities, whereas the Hindi
songs often imply that the two lovers see each other from a distance
and really have no personal acquaintance.
The Controversy
In the 1960s, many educated Greeks did not look kindly on Hindi
movies and songs. They saw them as a threat to the country's drive for
modernization. The middle-class admired the West. Its members
associated the indoprepi with refugees from Turkey, poorer people,
uncouth villagers, and backwardness in general. Emigration was not a
middle-class concern. Even when the songs echoed more general themes,
the words alienated the educated listeners. The same Urdu vocabulary
that is considered poetic by Indians (e.g. dunia, zamana, ashik,
khabar)
was considered Turkish by Greeks, and therefore backward. The words
were too emotional, too depressed, too angry. They often expressed
negative attitudes against women (e.g. “I will throw this nagging woman
out...”), as well as male demands for female obedience and virtue.
Students often ridiculed or parodied the laika songs and the tearful
movie titles. In particular, young women, who had brighter prospects
than their mothers through education and salaried work, wanted to have
nothing to do with them.
The negative middle-class attitudes towards the Hindi imports were
expressed through articles such as the following:
Sinking low
The historical moment when Alexander the Great conquered
India was fateful. So fateful and defining that thousands of years
later we are paying for the consequences.
This conclusion is completely true. India conquered
Greece in every artistic expression, to the point that we imitate it
and follow it slavishly....
The trouble started with the first Hindi movie that was
shown. Its incidental commercial success -- that was due to anything
but its intrinsic value -- resulted in a ton of the saddest Indian
concoctions, which set cinematography back for years, to the time of
the tear-drenched melodramas with the shamed mothers and children of
sin. Today the situation is such that the Hindi cinema is the most
direct competitor of the Greek cinema. Hindi movies are everywhere, and
tearful Nargis is much more popular than Vouyouklaki. [4]
The drawn-out and bothersome Indian music which
accompanies these sad creations also tends to become our national
music. Many “smart” composers managed to expropriate motifs for Greece
and to create “folk” hits, bringing the musical level of our people
down to basement night clubs. So, various Singoalas, Mangalas,
Madhubalas, etc., disturb our peace and, most sadly, are broadcast by
radio stations, notably the Armed Forces station.... Most modestly
speaking, this is sinking low! It is not permissible, when we fight to
stand in the geographical space of Europe to have become a spiritual
colony of India... Except if, as we wrote in the beginning, we are now
paying for the consequences of Alexander's conquests... But even then,
the price is too high (Matsas 1961).
As the above article implies, the transformed songs had a big
problem: plagiarism. With few exceptions, the songs appeared as
creations of at least 26 Greek musicians. The copying was systematic.
Some musicians copied some songs on reel tape recorders directly from
movie theaters, and in other cases, music companies ordered records
from India and distributed them to willing people for copying. The
names of Naushad Ali, Shankar-Jaikishan, and Chitalkar Ramachandra were
never heard in Greece.
Clearly, people loved Hindi songs, and profits were large.
Copyright laws were lax or non-existent at that time, and the bardic
tradition (dating from Homeric times) of adapting existing melodies to
suit the conditions of the time was still strong. The folkloric
musicians were often poor and poorly educated, and saw a way to make
some extra money. Some people who lacked significant talent became
known composers by taking Naushad's works in their names. [5]The
tendency of musicians to reproduce Hindi songs resulted in humorous
episodes, as in the case when three composers went to a studio at the
same time to record different versions of the same Hindi song
(Tsitsanis 1979).
This scandal could not be hidden for long. Audiences often did
remember the movie originals, and the outcry started a controversy that
raged for years. The notable Greek composer and bouzouki virtuoso,
Vasilis Tsitsanis, railed against the plagiarists in articles published
in popular magazines. He considered the Indian composers giants, whose
creations were shamelessly expropriated by worthless musicians; he also
argued that the copiers adulterated the tastes of the Greek people,
habituating them to foreign tunes. (Habituation to western tunes was
clearly not seen as negative.) In response, composer Apostolos Kaldaras
and traditional music teacher Theodoros Derveniotis, clarified that
they were not copying Hindi; they were instead composing byzantine
music and taking the Greek music back to its roots! (Simirioti 1962,
1967a, 1967b).
During that same period, many Turkish and Arabic songs were
also copied and expropriated through acquisition of records and radio
programs. (The Turkish and Arabic movies never achieved the prominence
of their Hindi counterparts.) Although this tendency was generally
known, it was not considered very important; copies from neighboring
countries could be explained away as originally Greek or as legitimate
heritage of the refugees. Somehow, India was threatening in a way that
Turkey and the Arabic world were not. It used formulas and musical
patterns that vaguely sounded byzantine and harked into glorious eras
that to Greeks were painful. Imitating the culture of an extremely poor
county was very unsettling to development-minded intellectuals, and
westernizing Greek tastes became ever more urgent.
Thus, the fate of the Hindi imports was doomed. The
accusations of plagiarism stuck with some folk composers, and Hindi
songs became their shame; the sometimes excellent pieces were hidden
and forgotten. The reign of the movies also did not last long. Although
they were imported systematically for about 14 years (1954-1968), their
heyday lasted for only about four. The Greek movies that imitated the
Indian family dramas, eventually imitated them too well and won over
the audience. American and European movies showed faster action along
with sex and violence that fascinated young men. Possibly because
Indians had no experience with personal relationships, the love scenes
and characters appeared superficial and unrealistic to Greeks who did
date (albeit secretly). Indian producers responded with thrillers that
looked quite artificial (such as Chinatown of 1962) and did not win
converts.
By the end of the 60s, the economic conditions of Greece
greatly improved, and the demand for family dramas, and for songs with
themes of emigration, poverty, and depression decreased. As women's
social condition and earning capacity improved, songs about jealousy
and girls sacrificing poor lovers for wealth became less relevant. A
defining event was the military junta that ruled Greece in 1968-1973.
The colonels wanted to emphasize the glory of ancient Greece and to
repress the years of Turkish occupation. Therefore, anything that
reminded of Turkey was suppressed, and it was forbidden to transmit
"heavy" laika songs on the radio. Finally, contact with western Europe,
and later, membership in the European Union made the country look ever
westward and forget the eastern side of its heritage. As more skillful
Greek music developed under Hadzidakis and Theodorakis, the
oriental-sounding songs became unfashionable for many years. The Greek
movie industry was nearly extinguished as western productions
supplanted it. The Hindi movies and laika or indoprepi songs became a
distant memory.
But nostalgia in cultures often brings back old productions.
The generation born in the 1970s did not find the eastern-sounding
songs threatening and made them fashionable, releasing new renditions.
Thus, in 1998, one could hear again on the radio melodies from movies
that had been long forgotten in India and Greece, such as “Mera
naam raju” and “Gao tarane man ke" ("Mangala, the
daughter of the maharaja”).
At the time the research was undertaken, the Hindi, Arabic, and Turkish
songs that had once been copied or imitated were again in full swing.
The resulting book, Hindi-Style Song Revelations (Abadzi and
Tasoulas 1998),[6]
was widely reviewed by the press in the summer and fall of 1998. Many
articles wrote that in the 1950s Athens and Delhi had had remarkable
similarities and the people had very similar concerns (Keza,
Bakounakis, Kessopoulos, Zografou, Papadopoulos; 1998).
Forgotten Connections
Did the indomania of the 50s have any historical significance?
Hindi films became popular in many countries outside the indic world,
such as Russia, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Uganda, even Colombia; the
plots generally resonated with the concerns of the poor, and the songs
were uniformly considered melodious. Some songs such as “Awaara hou”
were adapted in many countries. But it appears that Hindi songs were
not copied outside South Asia as widely as they were copied in Greece.
Few are known to exist in Turkey and in the Arab world, which have
specific musical traditions. By comparison, at least 26 Greek musicians
are known to have adapted Hindi songs. The systematic Greek
acquisitions may be due to commercial ingenuity that found
opportunities in a country that was too far to protest. However, profit
alone is not a sufficient explanation. Perhaps there is an affinity
that created this special allure.
Songs often sound vaguely familiar to Greeks, like the
traditional songs of many areas in Greece, including Asia Minor and the
islands. One gets the impression that one once heard a similar tune and
forgot it. Musicologists who have studied Indian music have been
impressed by certain patterns of similarities and have written about
them (Amaryanakis 1985a, 1985b, 1992, 1995, 1996; Daniélou 1967,
1979,
1980). It was this similarity perhaps that the musicians, Apostolos
Kaldaras and Theodoros Derveniotis evoked when they stated that they
were not copying Hindi songs, but instead recreating byzantine music.
Centuries of commerce with various Mediterranean and Asian
cities have created a musical tangle, where certain similar patterns
are shared by many neighboring countries (e.g. scales, rhythms, musical
instruments). In addition, Greece has strong eastern traditions, dating
from the centuries when its cultural center was in Asia Minor. An
additional point of contact has been the dissemination of Greek music
in India during the Hellenistic era. It is known that Greek or
Greek-style musicians (Yavana ganika) were sought after during the
Maurya dynasty and in subsequent centuries (Varadpande 1981, 1985).
Finally, the Turkish influence on both civilizations (see below)
resulted in the dissemination to both countries of musical patterns and
instruments. As a result of contacts and common origins, there are
several points of similarity between byzantine music (used only in
Greek churches) and more traditional Indian music: notes and divisions
of the natural scales, use of quarter-tones, characteristics like alaap
and tarana (Amaryanakis 1985a, 1985b, 1992, 1995, 1996; Daniélou
1979,
1980). Certain raagas correspond to the Turkish or Persian maqamat,
which Greeks also used. For example, many of the Hindi songs that
Greeks adapted were in the Bhairavi raag, which corresponds to
the maqam "ushak".
Also, certain instruments are common to both countries: tampura
(pandouris in ancient Greek, bouzouki in modern Greek), santur, saaz,
and double flute (Amaryanakis 1985).
The older musical traditions were best kept in isolated areas
of Greece as well as in the Asia Minor, where they received more
reinforcement. The villages and islands were places of poverty, and the
Asia Minor people became refugees, sharing their misery with the poor
of mainland Greeks in the crowded and unhealthy conditions of Athens
and Thessaloniki. The folkloric singers who in their home areas had
best kept the old musical traditions were most likely to watch the
movies and be influenced by their stories. They were most likely to
find the song modes familiar and to reproduce them, adapting them to
the instruments and modes that made them sound more Greek.
Historical Analogies
Musical relationships are related to cultural and linguistic
relationships in the distant past. There are specific linguistic
similarities between ancient Greek (particularly the aeolic dialect)
and Sanskrit. Many old deities have similar names, implying a much
closer relationship in the prehistoric indoeuropean past (e.g. Diaus
Pitar, Varuna, Surya, Sarameyas, Yavishta, Ushas - Arora 1985).
Attested contacts between Greeks and Indians date at least from the 6th
century BCE, when some Asia Minor Greeks and some western Indians were
citizens of the Persian empire. Alexander's invasion and contacts are
well known, but lasted very little. Much closer interactions followed
during the Hellenistic era, when Seleukid generals succeeded in
conquering Afghanistan and Punjab about 256 BCE and setting up the
Bactrian and Indogreek kingdoms, whose rulers are mainly known from the
thousands of coins they left behind (Bopearachchi 1991, Dani 1991). The
last Indogreek king probably ruled until 50 BCE, when he was overrun by
the Kushan. The Indogreek kings did not leave a lasting imprint in
India. Inclined towards Buddhism and having a tradition of more
democratic regimes, they might have helped eventually rid India of the
caste system. Instead, they dissipated their energies fighting among
themselves, and the Brahmins who had grudgingly accepted them as
debased ksatrias were glad to see them disappear (Velissaropoulos
citing the Gargi Samhita, 1995.)
Although of minor importance when seen in the passage of
thirty centuries, distinct points of influence can still be traced. In
the approximately 200 years of rule and cultural contacts, Buddha
acquired the appearance of Apollo through the Gandhara art, and many
Greeks (like king Menander) became Buddhists. The Indians learned from
the Greeks astrology, possibly medicine (the Yunani system), and
possibly the arts of making coins and golden artifacts. In turn, the
Greeks rather unsuccessfully tried to understand Indian philosophy, but
nevertheless received stories and myths that eventually entered the
Christian tradition (such as meditation practices of the Sinai
monasteries and the story of St. Josaphat-Schulz 1981). During the
Roman empire, commerce and contact continued. Greeks and Hellenized
people continued to travel to Indian ports, receiving and transmitting
musical and cultural influences (Thapar 1966).
Relations and influences with India took a strange turn when
the eastern part of the Roman empire became a Christian state in the
4th century CE (now known as Byzantium). The Orthodox church was very
intent on combating heresy, and most of the Middle East had accepted
doctrines that the clergy in Constantinople considered heretic. The
Byzantine emperors spent much energy combating the heresies and
harassing their followers. When the Arabs arose as Moslems in 622 and
started to wage war, the Byzantines did not pay much attention to them
until it was too late. Not only were the populations of the Middle East
and North Africa unable to resist the Arab attacks, a number of them
converted voluntarily to Islam to escape Orthodox persecutions.
Strengthened by Byzantine conquests, the Arabs conquered Persia in 20
years, and attacked Afghanistan, Sindh, and Punjab in 30 years. The
multiple and often warring kingdoms of India were unable to organize
and defeat the enemy on time (Lal 1990). To some extent, the Islamic
conquest of India was a consequence of Byzantine sectarianism.
Eventually, the two countries met a similar fate. Around 1100
CE, they were invaded by Turks -- Moghals in India and Ottomas in
Byzantium. Eventually both countries came under Turkish rulers for
about 500 years. Large segments of the populations were converted to
Islam, while the languages, customs, and music were influenced in
similar ways. Having gained independence in 1827, Greece tried to annex
Asia Minor in 1922. The defeat resulted in a massacre, millions of
Greek refugees, and finally a population exchange in 1927, while left
almost no Greeks in Turkey and no Turks in Greece. On the eve of its
independence from Great Britain in 1947, India split into two
countries, with resulting massacres and a population exchange which
left almost no Hindus in Pakistan. Massacres, partition, and population
exchanges were repeated in Cyprus in 1974. The suffering that Hindi
movies depicted was often a direct or indirect result of these common
historical events and was well understood by both cultures. This is one
reason why the movies proved so popular.
When one looks at history globally, it becomes evident that
the movie craze of the 50s-60s was merely the latest chapter of a
dialogue that has lasted at least 3000 years. The 105 songs adapted by
Greeks in the 1960s might be considered an exchange for the astronomy,
medicine, sculpture, and minting that the Indians learned from the
Greeks in the Hellenistic years. And the offense that the movies and
songs caused to westernized intellectuals may be seen as a just revenge
for the sins of Alexander the Great.
Ethnomusicological Search for the Hindi Movies and Songs
Interest in the indoprepi songs started as a hobby for the
author (a Hindi-speaking Greek educational psychologist), who
remembered seeing some Hindi movies as a child. In partnership with
Emmanuel Tasoulas, a dentist in Athens who had a large collection of
Hindi-movie posters and pictures, an amateur ethnomusicological
research project was carried out in 1996-1997. The researchers tried to
find:
° which Hindi movies were played in Greece;
° the songs of those movies;
° which of the movie songs had engendered Greek songs (through a
search of Hindi songs);
° which “suspicious” Greek songs were Hindi (through search of
Greek songs);
° Greek musicians willing to discuss their adaptations.
Since musicians often recorded the songs directly from
movietheaters, it was hypothesized that if the movies and soundtracks
were found, many Greeks songs would be identified. The 111 movies that
came to Greece were identified through searches in newspapers (Makedonia,
Ethnos, Nea, Bradyni, Akropolis, etc.) and movie trade magazines
of the period (Theamata, Astir Kinimatografikos).
Some movies were identified through combinations of actors and plots,
but 32 could not be positively identified. The soundtracks of 23 movies
were commercially available, but the rest had had become obscure or
totally forgotten. To find the songs, the researchers went to the
Internet discussion group of Hindi film songs called
re.music.indian.miscellaneous (RMIM), where several experts frequented.
They asked which persons had the soundtracks of these movies. Several
collectors of old songs offered their help, most notably Messrs. Vish
Krishnan, Satish Kalra, and Ashok Dhareswar. The experts sent
soundtracks to the researchers, who then sent them to Greece, where two
collectors of old Greek songs listened to them and tried to identify
copied songs. In turn, the Greek collectors sent about 15 cassettes of
songs to the researchers, who forwarded them to the Indian experts.
Thus, many songs were identified, bringing the known total to 105 in
1998. Several others are known to exist, but they are forgotten in
Greece and/or in India and could not be identified positively.
The research also brought out some issues of psychomusicology that
had not thus far been identified in field research. The listeners of
one culture to the songs of the other had to make very complex
comparisons, searching their memories for critical features that
implied similarity and ignoring others that were irrelevant. It was
easy to identify songs that were very similar to songs that the
listeners knew very well, but it was quite difficult to identify others
that the listeners had only heard a few times or that had been changed
significantly. Changes in rhythm, contour, and in the number of voices
(choral to monophonic) were quite confusing, while changes in the
singers' gender were easily overcome. Some listeners were much better
than others in identifying songs, and some truly expert persons could
not identify any. Also the process was tiring. After listening to a few
songs of the other culture, tunes tended to get mixed up, and the
listeners got the impression that all songs were somewhat alike. A
detailed discussion of these issues is the subject of a separate
article.
It was hoped that some of the old composers would agree to
discuss what moved them to copy certain songs and not others and why
they made certain changes. However, it proved impossible. Two of the
most prominent ones (Voula Palla and Apostolos Kaldaras) were dead.
Others were still ashamed and defensive. At the end, there was very
little collaboration.
It is unfortunate that the Hindi adaptations were not seen as
a positive cultural phenomenon. The musicians that used them deserve
congratulations and praise for the work that they did. They heard a
distant sound of a common cultural past, which they tried to transmit.
In turn, this article transmits it to the readers of the 21st century.
Notes
[1]
Unless otherwise stated, the material from this article is abstracted
from the book Hindi-Style Songs Revealed.
[2]
Newspapers in Thessaloniki and Athens were researched for the years
1951-1969. The frequency and titles of movies were registered.
[3]
Greece became independent of Turkey in 1827. But the ancestral mainland
of Greece included Asia Minor, the coast of Turkey, which had millions
of Greeks. The Greeks tried to regain Asia Minor in 1922, but they were
defeated by the Turks. There was a massacre of Greeks and Armenians,
and at least one million refugees came to the mainland in 1922. There
was an official population exchange in 1927, when any Turks living in
Greece were exchanged with Greeks living in Turkey (exempting two
areas).
[4]
Aliki Vouyouklaki, who died in 1997, was the most popular Greek film
star for several decades.
[5]
Indian composers did not lose revenue as a result of Greek
reproductions. In the 40s and 50s, they typically signed away their
mechanical rights to film songs and received a lump sum. International
companies like His Master's Voice and later Gramophone of India owned
and published the songs, keeping most or all the profits. Many of the
Greek companies were subsidiaries of the same multinationals. So, at
company level, there was no loss. Furthermore, even if the Greeks had
wanted to share with the Indian composers the modest amounts earned
from these songs, there was no way to do so. For example, there was an
excellent rendition of all the "Mother India" songs in 1979 by the late
Voula Palla. The work was correctly attributed to Naushad Ali and the
publicist paid royalties, but His Master's Voice received the proceeds.
Naushad Ali found out about this work from the author in 1996.
[6]
Reviews of the book and Hindi imports of the 50s appeared in Vima, Nea,
Eleftherotypia, Rizospastis, Makedonia, Difono, Ethikos Kyrix (of New
York).
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