Monday, January 16, 2006

Of porn and Pasolini: the Palika Bazaar trail

(Did this light piece on DVD-buying in Palika Bazaar for Outlook’s City Limits magazine. Nothing substantial but fun to do, a nice change from those quote-collating stories where each para must begin with a sentence like “Plans are also underway to set up new retail outlets...” Yaarrghh!)

-------

I descend into the labyrinthine underworld that is Palika Bazaar wearing my shabbiest sweatshirt and jeans, face covered by a three-day stubble. “Look the part” was the counsel from experienced friends when they learnt I was going porn-hunting in the interests of journalism. I practice the upward curl on my lips; it makes me look both knowing and lecherous – I think.

I've barely entered the atrium on the upper floor of the famous underground bazaar when a young shop assistant approaches. “Seedies?” he enquires politely, this being how both VCDs and DVDs are referred to here. “Double aur triple hai?” I retort (the “X” is unnecessary in this setting) in what is intended to be a smooth, throwaway tone.

To all intents and purposes the shop was closed, but “double aur triple hai” would have knocked “Open Sesame” out cold in a fight: the shutters are yanked one-third of the way up, I’m escorted inside and back down they go again. The owner is unsuitably avuncular, he wears thick glasses, has a warm, open smile and this starts to feel awkward, like buying condoms from the friendly neighborhood chemist you’ve known since you were a child. But then he opens his mouth to speak. “You want combination, single, Asian, schoolgirl, kitty aunties, frontside, backside, oral, multiple? All varieties available. Full one-and-a-half hour. Rs 150 only.” (Kitty aunties?)

Dozens of discs are on display, the images on their covers leave nothing to the imagination. This isn’t cutesy Playmate of the Year stuff, it’s distressingly biological. They get new titles everyday, I’m told, “the best from around the world, over 500 to choose from”. Soon uncle senses I’m new at this, drops the connoisseur act. “Don’t worry, sabhi films mein sab kuch hai” – this said with a wink and a slight leer (he’s clearly been practicing at home as well). I excuse myself, say I’ll look at other options and return. The same routine is repeated at a dozen other shops, with minor variations in price. At one shop a young girl with a little boy in tow sticks her head under the shutter, asks if they have the Bunty aur Babli soundtrack; she is shooed away.

After half an hour of this I head downstairs to my favourite shop for regular DVD purchases, but my tongue is now on autopilot. “Double aur triple…I mean, world cinema ke titles dikhaana,” I say, as the guy behind the counter starts to shrink back. Like a seven-course meal set before a starving man, the films are spread out – Bresson’s austerity sharing space with Fellini’s flamboyance, silent classics like Griffith’s Floating Blossoms cheek by jowl with Japanese anime; it isn’t uncommon to hear impassioned discussions about Wong Kar-Wai or the French nouvelle wave in this tiny space.

This is one of many shops in Palika that sell the oxymoronic “original copies” – near-perfect prints for a mere Rs 200. The special features on some DVDs don’t work but that’s a small price to pay for immediate access to such a variety of titles – never has the movie buff in Delhi had such choice, not even at the peak of the videocassette era. And the more you frequent a shop, the more latitude you get, starting with a DVD-case for each disc you purchase. (By now I routinely get invited into the little loft above the shop to peruse the catalogue unhurried.)

Cries of “seedy?” rent the air as I clamber towards daylight, my hands full of polythene bags in which Fritz Lang and Ritwik Ghatak nestle alongside “combination triple ex-es”. Palika may not be on the level but it’s a great leveler. From serious film buffs to kitty-aunty admirers, we’ve all been here.

-------------

(Incidentally, when I went to the Outlook office with DVDs for their photographer to shoot one of the rookies thought I was a Palika shop-owner. “Aap yeh DVDs kitne ki bechte hain?” he asked. Clearly the stubble and the upward curl had worked well.)

27 comments:

  1. yes. that shop is an oasis, isint it... :-)
    I've always wondered how on earth he started down this road though. I mean, how on earth did he get the idea that stocking fellini, kurosawa etc would somehow be as much, if not more of a paying proposition than the XXXs and the XXs that the others sell...

    ReplyDelete
  2. do not know much about movies, but one can find real obscure music there.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I know you said 'light piece', but I notice the merciful absence of the words 'child' and 'non-con' from the setting all the same. Rather touching, how he shooed the kids away. If this was a novel about Cambodia wanna bet he wouldn't?

    ReplyDelete
  4. So you have got access to the sanctum sanctorum, have you? Being called into the loft to see the treasure trove. Great. Happy, classics hunting!

    ReplyDelete
  5. One film your palika chap will like to store, which will happily cross categories for him, is tsai ming-liang's wayward cloud. :D

    on another note, (though not, i hope a pious one) what's your take on film piracy?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice post. I've never been there but having heard a lot about it- and now whitelight's mentioned obscure music- I will try my best to go there the next time I am in Delhi.

    ReplyDelete
  7. BTW, if u want a real story, instead of going to Palika Bazaar come to one of the IIT hostels. The amount and the variety of porn that we have on our LAN and also the number of Kurosawas and Bergmans will put experienced dealers in Paalika Baazar to shame. I can really bet on that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mumbai prefers to have it home delivered. There are guys who make the rounds of offices with their collection of foreign films. You can ask them for ur Vivids and stuff.

    But it's a tough life for them. They keep changing their mobile numbers often.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Informative piece. But, don't u think that this will diminish ur reporting for Outlook? Or, ur rival such as India Today may get a clue and start reporting in the same topic if u post before publication. Just a query!

    ReplyDelete
  10. an amazing piece! bravo sir! and i have to confess (or should i boast) that palika bazaar remains one of my fav. haunts for every thing from cd's of music and movies to an ipod cover... i doubt whether cp stores' annual sales would be anywhere near to those of palika's

    ReplyDelete
  11. So, what happened to those 'seedies'?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anyone from Chennai here? Any suggestions on where to get world cinema in Chennai - Kurosawa, Fellini, etc. I only know of Cinema Paradiso which rents DVDs...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Everyone living in delhi knows that 'palika' and 'nehru place' are the hubs for this sort of thing. Discovered this article through Indianpad a news site, however the only thing new to me was the wide variety that these guys carry now !

    ReplyDelete
  14. Whitelight: What 'obscure' music? Please elaborate. And which shop exactly?

    Jai: Any photograph of your unshaven mug, sporting that lecherous look? (did you practice it in front of a mirror?). Some of your fans (not me) might be interested.

    Anyone who wants Jai to post the photograph may type 'Aye'.

    O-)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Aye.;)

    Unshaven Jai looking lecherous should be quite...interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  16. My heart bleeds for you, Zhoy Orzoon. The tribulations your endure in your quest for truth (and combination-single-frontside-backside!)

    I'm waiting for the day when Peckinpah is available on Limewire Pro. (Passing question - which contemporary film's opening sequence is a tribute to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"?)

    J.A.P.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The Unrest Cure-'obscure' in Indian context.

    You must have definitely heard of 'Clydes'. Unlike me, if you are into DM then it is the place to be. but the guy there has lots of other stuff too. the late 80s and early 90s thing. you will have to be specific.

    Then you have two more places-'Sur Sangam'(i'm in bombay & last i heard was that it had shifted to GK-1. but give it a try, it might be there). and one shop very close to 'Sur Sangam' (can't recall the name, ask around). my sister picked up the whole Death Cab for Cutie & Wilco catalogue couple of months back. Shop #17 or something. he has some amazing 'indie' stuff. all in mp3 format, which makes it even better. his whole collection is databased on a comp. so it's very easy to locate the music you want.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Unrest Cure- You can find Soundgarden's 'Ultramega OK' at Clydes. And it is a very, very, very mild example of what I mean by 'obscure'.

    But if you are one of those heavy broadband users, then consider these places useless.

    ReplyDelete
  19. go pick up The Mars Volta. It is there too.

    sorry to take so much of your space, Jai.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Screw the "seedies" (pun intended), me wanna see unshaven, lecherous Jai... ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'm surprised that no one has commented on how odd it is that European art movies and 'seedies' are roughly in the same category, both for Palika bazaar and for the kids at the IIT hostel.

    (Then again, some of those Pasolini films are definitely on the line...)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Whitelight: Thanks for the reccos. Not a high bandwidth user (not possible with iffy-Sify), but I use my bandwidth efficiently and effectively.

    Clydes was good - was introduced to DT, KWS, Malmsteen, among others. Also unknown entities like Anathema. Ashok mostly keeps videos of concerts now.

    DM is passe. Back to industrial and quirky music - System of a Down, Monster Magnet, Nine Inch Nails. Some Bjork too. Mostly the kind of music that makes you laugh at the abrupt changes in tempo.

    Thanks for the suggestions. I'm always on the lookout for something new. Am still searching for Blur's psychedellic live performances and 'Kare and the Caveman' (also known as Euroboys).

    ReplyDelete
  23. The Unrest Cure-Ah! Been Looking for Blur live boots too. These things are way to hard to find, even on the world wide web.

    BTW, check those two places out. They have some really good music. Damon Albarn's 'Mali Music' for example.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Jai, sincere apologies for checking this late.

    Could I have detailed directions to reach the said World Cinema outlet. When I go to Palika, i always get lost in the seedy labyrinths and the kitty aunties!

    But these days I usually go to IIT Delhi :)
    I vouch their claim!

    ReplyDelete
  25. An useful review

    ReplyDelete
  26. This must be horribly late. But a search on Pasolini brought me here. I had a similar experience where a seedy porn search landed me with a copy of Tinto Brass' Caligula.

    ReplyDelete