Class 12 English: Poets and Pancakes — Literature Question Set

Correct option: (b). Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material the studios bought in truck-loads.

Correct option: (c). It was in the upstairs of a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive's stables.

Correct option: (a). A dozen other buildings in the city are said to have been his residence.

Correct option: (d). The list spans famous actresses of successive periods, implying the same make-up served them all.

Correct option: (a). The contrast with the older stars shows the passage of time between generations.

Correct option: (c). The author quietly mocks the loosely held local beliefs about Clive's residences and stables.

Correct option: (b). The room resembled a hair-cutting salon with incandescent lights at all angles around the mirrors.

Correct option: (a). All the lights were incandescent, and their heat made make-up sessions an ordeal.

Correct option: (d). The department was first headed by a Bengali who became too big for a studio and left.

Correct option: (c). The author says national integration existed there long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan broadcast such programmes.

Correct option: (b). The comparison of a motley make-up crew to national integration is made with playful irony.

Correct option: (d). Incandescent lights glow with intense heat, which caused the "fiery misery".

Correct option: (a). The gang of nationally integrated make-up men achieved this transformation with truck-loads of pancake and local potions and lotions.

Correct option: (c). Those were the days of mainly indoor shooting, and only five per cent of the film was shot outdoors.

Correct option: (b). The author supposes the sets and studio lights required the heavy make-up, a paradox he states with amusement.

Correct option: (a). A hideous crimson-hued monster is a repulsively ugly sight.

Correct option: (a). With ninety-five per cent indoor shooting, studios depended on artificial sets and lights.

Correct option: (c). The author's speculation is offered in a light, wry vein.

Correct option: (d). The junior assistant did the main comedian, while the chief made up the chief actors and actresses.

Correct option: (b). The crowd players were the responsibility of the make-up department's 'office boy'.

Correct option: (d). He mixed his paint in a giant vessel and slapped it on the crowd players.

Correct option: (a). He was in his early forties, though called the 'office boy'.

Correct option: (b). He had entered the studios years ago hoping for stardom as an actor, writer, director or lyrics writer, and he was a bit of a poet.

Correct option: (a). The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face while applying the make-up.

Correct option: (c). The author worked in a cubicle, two whole sides of which were French windows.

Correct option: (b). Seeing him tearing up newspapers constantly, most people thought he was doing next to nothing.

Correct option: (d). He lectured the author on how literary talent was being wasted in a department fit only for barbers and perverts.

Correct option: (c). Nothing short of crowd-shooting could save the author from the office boy's epics.

Correct option: (a). The word mocks the office boy's long, wearisome lectures.

Correct option: (d). The author recounts the nuisance with wry, amused irritation rather than malice.

Correct option: (d). He was convinced that all his woes, ignominy and neglect were due to Kothamangalam Subbu.

Correct option: (a). Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios.

Correct option: (a). The author observes that in frustration, anger is always directed towards a single person, openly or covertly.

Correct option: (b). When Subbu began his career, there were no firmly established film producing companies or studios.

Correct option: (c). The exclamation "a virtue, indeed!" drips with the author's irony.

Correct option: (a). The office boy's "woes, ignominy and neglect" were his troubles and humiliations.

Correct option: (d). He had the ability to look cheerful at all times even after having had a hand in a flop film.

Correct option: (a). His loyalty made him identify with his principal and use all his creativity for the principal's benefit.

Correct option: (b). "Here was a man who could be inspired when commanded" — hence tailor-made for films.

Correct option: (c). Subbu instantly offered four ways of the rat pouring affection on the cubs.

Correct option: (b). In a minute Subbu came out with fourteen more alternatives.

Correct option: (d). His instant outpouring of alternatives shows his imaginative readiness to serve his principal.

Correct option: (c). If ever a man gave direction and definition to Gemini Studios during its golden years, it was Subbu.

Correct option: (a). Though capable of higher forms, he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses.

Correct option: (d). He wrote the sprawling novel Thillana Mohanambal with dozens of deftly etched characters.

Correct option: (b). He composed several truly original 'story poems' in folk refrain and diction.

Correct option: (a). The clause "or so his critics felt" hints that the undervaluing of his poetry was the critics' opinion, not the author's.

Correct option: (a). He quite successfully recreated the mood and manner of the Devadasis of the early 20th century.

Correct option: (c). He was an amazing actor but never aspired to the lead roles.

Correct option: (b). Whatever subsidiary role he played, he performed better than the supposed main players.

Correct option: (b). His house sheltered dozens of dependants, and the author calls him such a charitable and improvident man.

Correct option: (a). His giving was so spontaneous that he was hardly aware of it.

Correct option: (c). The author wonders whether it was Subbu's intimacy with The Boss or his general demeanour resembling a sycophant's that earned him enemies.

Correct option: (a). There was this man in the make-up department who would wish the direst things for Subbu.

Correct option: (d). Though always with The Boss, in the attendance rolls he was grouped under the Story Department.

Correct option: (a). The department comprised a lawyer and an assembly of writers and poets.

Correct option: (b). His playing back of the actress's recorded outburst did her harm, so people saw him as the opposite of an adviser.

Correct option: (c). The lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment and captured her outburst.

Correct option: (a). He said, "One minute, please," and played back the recording.

Correct option: (d). The actress's outburst against the producer was an angry, extended speech.

Correct option: (c). She was a girl from the countryside who found herself suddenly in a position of importance and sophistication.

Correct option: (b). Catapulted suddenly into sophistication without worldly experience, the shock was more than she could bear.

Correct option: (a). The legal adviser, also a member of the Story Department, had unwittingly brought about that sad end.

Correct option: (d). The rest of the Department wore khadi dhoti with a clumsily tailored white khadi shirt.

Correct option: (a). He wore pants and a tie and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail.

Correct option: (c). Amid the Gandhiites and khadiites, the neutral, logical lawyer looked alone and helpless.

Correct option: (b). When the Story Department was closed down, the lawyer too had to go, since the poets were asked to go home.

Correct option: (d). Though a lot of raw stock and pancake were used on it, not much came of the film.

Correct option: (b). Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like S.D.S. Yogiar, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya.

Correct option: (c). The mess supplied good coffee at all times of the day and for most part of the night.

Correct option: (a). In the days when Congress rule meant Prohibition, coffee meetings were the best available entertainment.

Correct option: (b). The sweeping phrase is the author's comic exaggeration of an odd turn of events.

Correct option: (b). Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure.

Correct option: (c). Beyond khadi and the worship of Gandhiji, they had no appreciation for political thought of any kind.

Correct option: (b). A Communist was thought to be a godless man with no filial or conjugal love, ready to kill even his parents or children.

Correct option: (d). The vague notions that prevailed everywhere in South India simply floated about among the khadi-clad poets.

Correct option: (a). Frank Buchman's Moral Re-Armament army was some two hundred strong.

Correct option: (b). The group visited Madras sometime in 1952 and found a warm host in Gemini Studios.

Correct option: (a). Their 'Jotham Valley' and 'The Forgotten Factor' ran several shows in Madras.

Correct option: (b). The label is a jest at a touring troupe two hundred strong that could neither do acrobatics nor handle animals.

Correct option: (c). The messages were plain and simple homilies, though the sets and costumes were first-rate.

Correct option: (d). Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed by the first-rate sets and costumes.

Correct option: (b). The Gemini family of six hundred saw the plays over and over again.

Correct option: (a). Almost all Tamil plays had such a scene with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute.

Correct option: (c). The author learnt that the MRA was a kind of counter-movement to international Communism.

Correct option: (a). Their warm hospitality gave the counter-movement a platform in Madras, serving its aims.

Correct option: (d). They hosted two hundred people of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities.

Correct option: (b). The author is not sure, for the unchangeable aspects of the bosses remained the same either way.

Correct option: (a). It was a change from the usual collection of crowd players waiting to be slapped with thick make-up by the office boy.

Correct option: (b). To play into someone's hands is to act, often unknowingly, to their advantage.

Correct option: (c). All they said was that he was a poet from England.

Correct option: (a). The simple staff knew or had heard of only Wordsworth and Tennyson.

Correct option: (b). The more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelley and Byron.

Correct option: (a). Someone explained that he was not a poet but an editor, which is why The Boss was giving him a big reception.

Correct option: (d). Vasan was the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan.

Correct option: (b). Their knowledge stopped with the Romantics and Tennyson, barely reaching Eliot.

Correct option: (b). The surmise was that he was the editor of a daily, but not from the Guardian or the Times.

Correct option: (c). That was all that even the most well-informed among them knew.

Correct option: (a). At last, around four in the afternoon, the poet (or the editor) arrived.

Correct option: (d). Battling with half a dozen pedestal fans on the shooting stage, The Boss read out a long speech.

Correct option: (b). The added "of course very unknown" stresses that he was a complete stranger to everyone there.

Correct option: (c). 'Too' compares the Boss with the staff, who also knew nothing about the man being honoured.

Correct option: (b). Nobody understood the subject of the talk, and his accent made comprehension impossible.

Correct option: (d). The whole thing lasted about an hour before the poet left.

Correct option: (a). The very presence of an English poet in a Tamil film studio made no sense to them.

Correct option: (a). The speech, though general, was peppered with words like 'freedom' and 'democracy'.

Correct option: (b). The studio made Tamil films for the simplest sort of people, who had no room for a taste for English poetry.

Correct option: (d). The poet too felt the sheer incongruity, or unsuitability, of his talk.

Correct option: (c). The author's conviction is that prose-writing is for the patient, persistent, persevering drudge.

Correct option: (a). Rejection slips don't mean a thing to him; he simply starts afresh with another editor.

Correct option: (d). He sets about making a fresh copy and posts it on with return postage enclosed.

Correct option: (a). The Hindu carried an announcement of a short story contest organised by The Encounter.

Correct option: (a). Its insignificant placement shows how little the contest was noticed.

Correct option: (b). The mock-serious conviction about drudges and geniuses is delivered with dry humour.

Correct option: (c). He wanted an idea of the periodical before spending considerable postage on a manuscript.

Correct option: (a). There were copies of The Encounter lying about in various degrees of freshness, almost untouched.

Correct option: (b). When he read the editor's name, he heard a bell ringing in his shrunken heart.

Correct option: (d). The editor was Stephen Spender — the very poet who had visited Gemini Studios.

Correct option: (b). Discovering the identity of the editor gave him a sudden sense of kinship, like finding a long lost brother.

Correct option: (c). The library entrance had no signboards to make you feel you were sneaking guiltily into a forbidden area.

Correct option: (d). He paid fifty paise and picked up a copy of the book.

Correct option: (b). The pile of brand new books lay on the footpath in front of the Madras Mount Road Post Office.

Correct option: (a). It was a special low-priced student edition issued in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution.

Correct option: (a). Having much time but not much money, anything at a reduced price attracted his attention.

Correct option: (c). He picked up a copy of The God That Failed, an elegant paperback of American origin.

Correct option: (a). Like film brothers who discover each other by singing the same song, the author felt the poet was singing the same song as he.

Correct option: (c). Six eminent men of letters wrote six separate essays for the book.

Correct option: (a). The six essays described the writers' journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return.

Correct option: (d). The contributors included Andre Gide, Richard Wright, Ignazio Silone, Arthur Koestler, Louis Fischer and Stephen Spender.

Correct option: (b). Seeing Spender's name — the poet who had visited Gemini Studios — made the book suddenly significant.

Correct option: (a). The image describes a sudden, if partial, understanding of the long-standing mystery.

Correct option: (b). Spender's essay on his disillusioned return from Communism explains why the anti-Communist studio bosses gave him a warm reception.

Pancake was the brand name of the make-up material that Gemini Studios bought in truck-loads. The author uses it in the title because the make-up department, with its truck-loads of pancake, symbolised the film studio's world, where poets and dreamers coexisted with this unlikely commodity.

The make-up department was upstairs in a building that was believed to have been Robert Clive's stables. A dozen other buildings in the city were said to have been his residence.

The department was first headed by a Bengali, succeeded by a Maharashtrian, and assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and local Tamils. The author jokes that this showed a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on it.

His duty was to cut out newspaper clippings on a wide variety of subjects and store them in files, many written out by hand. Although he performed an insignificant function, he became the most well-informed of all the members of the Gemini family.

He had entered the studios years ago in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer, and he was a bit of a poet. He was disappointed because he ended up applying make-up to the crowd players, feeling that his great literary talent was being wasted.

In all instances of frustration, anger is directed towards a single person, and the office boy blamed Kothamangalam Subbu for all his woes, ignominy and neglect. He envied Subbu's rise to the No. 2 position at Gemini Studios while he himself remained a mere office boy.

He was seen sitting at his desk tearing up newspapers day in and day out, which looked like next to nothing to most people — probably even to the Boss. That is why anyone who felt he should be given some occupation would barge into his cubicle and deliver an extended lecture.

Subbu could never do things on his own, but his sense of loyalty made him identify himself with his principal completely and turn his entire creativity to the principal's advantage. He was a man who could be inspired when commanded, which made him perfectly suited to the film industry.

His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements, at least in the opinion of his critics. Yet he composed original story poems in folk refrain, wrote the novel Thillana Mohanambal, and recreated the mood of the early 20th century Devadasis.

He could be seen mixing his paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. The idea was to close every pore on the surface of the face in the process of applying make-up.

When the temperamental actress blew over on the sets, he quietly recorded her tirade against the producer and played it back to her. The girl from the countryside was struck dumb on hearing her own voice, never recovered from the terror, and her brief and brilliant career ended.

The Story Department comprised a lawyer, officially the legal adviser, and an assembly of writers and poets, including Subbu. One day The Boss closed it down, and the author jokes that this was perhaps the only instance in history where a lawyer lost his job because the poets were asked to go home.

Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji but had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind, so they were averse to the very term 'Communism'. They imagined a Communist as a godless man who spread unrest and violence among innocent people.

The two hundred strong MRA visited Madras in 1952 and could not have found a warmer host in India than the Gemini Studios. Its khadi-clad, anti-Communist people enjoyed the plays and the spectacle, and later evidence suggests the bosses unknowingly served the MRA's purpose as a counter-movement to Communism.

Madras and the Tamil drama community were terribly impressed. For some years almost all Tamil plays had a scene of sunrise and sunset in the manner of 'Jotham Valley', with a bare stage, a white background curtain and a tune played on the flute.

It was obvious that The Boss knew precious little about the poet or the editor he was receiving. His long speech was all in the most general terms, peppered here and there with words like 'freedom' and 'democracy' to cover his ignorance.

He was said to be a poet from England, but someone clarified that he was actually an editor, which explained the big reception. Since the top men of The Hindu took the initiative, the surmise was that he was the editor of a daily, but not from The Manchester Guardian or the London Times.

Nobody understood his hour-long talk, for his accent defeated every attempt at comprehension, and the audience dispersed in utter bafflement. No one ever explained what an English poet was doing in a studio making Tamil films for the simplest sort of people, and the author only discovered his identity years later.

He saw The Hindu's announcement of a short story contest by The Encounter, and went to the British Council Library to inspect the periodical. Reading the editor's name there, he realised that the poet who had visited Gemini Studios was Stephen Spender.

The God That Failed is a book in which six eminent men of letters — Andre Gide, Richard Wright, Ignazio Silone, Arthur Koestler, Louis Fischer and Stephen Spender — described in separate essays their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return. The author bought it for fifty paise from a footpath pile years after leaving Gemini Studios.

The make-up department was upstairs in a building believed to have been Robert Clive's stables. The make-up room looked like a hair-cutting salon with incandescent lights at all angles around half a dozen large mirrors, causing the "fiery misery" of those being made up. The department was headed by a Bengali and then a Maharashtrian, assisted by men of several communities, which the author cites as an example of national integration. Its men could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson-hued monster with truck-loads of pancake and locally made potions and lotions.

Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks, everybody else at the studios radiated leisure, which the author calls a pre-requisite for poetry. The make-up department even had an 'office boy' who was actually in his early forties and spent his time lecturing others. Poets gathered there for coffee and conversation, and anyone who felt the author should be given some occupation would barge into his cubicle to deliver extended lectures. The picture is of a studio full of people with more leisure than work.

The office boy was not a boy at all, but a man in his early forties who had entered the studios years ago hoping to become a star actor, a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer. Instead, he ended up mixing paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players. Convinced that his great literary talent was going waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts, he directed all his anger at Kothamangalam Subbu, whom he blamed for all his woes, ignominy and neglect.

Subbu was the No. 2 at Gemini Studios who gave direction and definition to the studios during its golden years. He had a rare fertility of imagination, offering four ways — and then fourteen more — of doing a scene on command. He was a poet who deliberately addressed the masses, composed original story poems in folk refrain, and wrote the novel Thillana Mohanambal. He was also an amazing actor who outshone the main players in subsidiary roles, besides being a charitable man who supported dozens of dependants.

Subbu was certainly capable of more complex and higher forms of poetry, as his critics knew. Yet he deliberately chose to address his poetry to the masses, composing truly original 'story poems' in folk refrain and diction. In this way he kept his art close to ordinary people rather than cultivating elite literary sophistication. His success in films overshadowed and dwarfed his literary achievements, or so his critics felt.

While every other member of the Story Department wore khadi dhoti and a clumsily tailored white khadi shirt, the lawyer wore pants and a tie, and sometimes a coat that looked like a coat of mail. He was a neutral man in an assembly of Gandhiites and khadiites, a man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers. His temperament matched his dress, for his thoughtless act of playing back a recording ended an actress's career.

An extremely talented but temperamental actress once blew over on the sets. While everyone stood stunned, the lawyer quietly switched on the recording equipment and, when she paused for breath, said "One minute, please" and played back her own tirade. A girl from the countryside, she had not gone through the stages of worldly experience that precede sudden importance, so hearing her own voice struck her dumb. She never recovered from the terror and her brief and brilliant career ended.

Most of them wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji, but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. They therefore accepted the notions prevailing in South India at the time: a Communist was imagined as a godless man, without filial or conjugal love, ready to kill his own parents or children, and always out to spread unrest and violence among innocent people. Their aversion was born of hearsay and prejudice rather than any study of the ideology.

The Boss, S.S. Vasan, was the editor of the popular Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan and a big boss of Madras. He kept close aides like Subbu always by his side, and allowed those close to him — even the lawyer — to produce films, though much raw stock and pancake were wasted on them. He gave the MRA a big reception and once made a long, general speech peppered with 'freedom' and 'democracy' for an English visitor about whom he knew precious little. He was powerful and hospitable, but his knowledge of literature and politics was shallow.

The audience could not have been more dazed and silent, for no one knew what the poet was talking about and his accent defeated every attempt to understand him. After the hour-long talk everyone dispersed in utter bafflement, wondering what an English poet was doing in a studio that made Tamil films for the simplest sort of people. The poet himself looked pretty baffled, for he too must have felt the sheer incongruity of his talk about the thrills and travails of an English poet.

The author believed prose-writing was meant for the persistent drudge who is not discouraged by rejection slips, and he was one such aspirant. The Hindu had published a tiny announcement in an insignificant corner of an unimportant page about a short story contest organised by a British periodical, The Encounter. Wanting to know the periodical before spending on postage, the author found copies at the British Council Library, read the editor's name — Stephen Spender — and felt as if he had found a long lost brother.

Years after leaving the studios, the author, having much time but little money, bought a fifty-paise paperback, The God That Failed, from a footpath pile. In it six eminent men of letters described their journeys into Communism and their disillusioned return, and one of them was Stephen Spender, the poet who had visited the studios. A dark chamber of the author's mind lit up: the anti-Communist bosses had honoured Spender not for his poetry, but because of his god that had failed.

The make-up department alone was headed by a Bengali and then a Maharashtrian, assisted by a Dharwar Kannadiga, an Andhra, a Madras Indian Christian, an Anglo-Burmese and the usual local Tamils. The author remarks that this showed a great deal of national integration long before A.I.R. and Doordarshan began broadcasting programmes on national integration. Later, the staff hosted two hundred MRA visitors of all hues and sizes of at least twenty nationalities with great enjoyment.

Though he performed the insignificant function of cutting newspaper clippings, the author was perhaps the most well-informed member of the Gemini family and a closet man of letters. He believed prose-writing was for the patient drudge, followed The Hindu's tiny announcement of The Encounter's short story contest, and planned to send a manuscript to England. He read the periodical at the British Council Library, felt he had found a long lost brother in its editor Stephen Spender, and sang as he sealed the envelope and wrote out his address.

The author's humour never wounds, it only smiles. He laughs at the make-up men who could turn any decent person into a crimson monster "to look presentable in the movie", and at the forty-year-old 'office boy' with unfulfilled dreams. He describes the lawyer's coat as a coat of mail, calls the MRA an international circus that knew animals only at the dinner table, and wonders at an audience applauding a speech full of 'freedom' and 'democracy' delivered to a visitor nobody could identify. Through such gentle satire he exposes vanity, frustration and pretension in studio life.

Kothamangalam Subbu, the No. 2 at Gemini Studios, is portrayed as a many-sided genius with a rare capacity for loyalty. Though he could never do things on his own, his sense of loyalty made him identify himself completely with his principal and turn his entire creativity to the principal's advantage, which made him tailor-made for films. Asked how a rat could tend a tigress's cubs, he instantly offered four ways — and fourteen more when told the first were not effective enough. He had a separate identity as a poet, wrote story poems in folk refrain and the novel Thillana Mohanambal, and acted better in subsidiary roles than the supposed main players. Cheerful even after a flop film, charitable and improvident, he supported dozens of relations without being conscious of it. Yet his closeness to The Boss and his sycophant-like demeanour earned him enemies, most notably the frustrated office boy of the make-up department.

The office boy is one of the most memorable minor figures in the essay — a man in his early forties trapped in the job title of a 'boy'. Years earlier he had entered the studios in the hope of becoming a star actor or a top screen writer, director or lyrics writer, and he was even a bit of a poet. Instead, his work was to mix paint in a giant vessel and slap it on the crowd players on crowd-shooting days, closing every pore on their faces. Convinced that his great literary talent was going waste in a department fit only for barbers and perverts, he grew bitter and frustrated. Like all frustrated men, he directed his anger at one person, Kothamangalam Subbu, whom he blamed for all his woes, ignominy and neglect. When not shooting, he would barge into the author's cubicle and deliver extended lectures, which the author could escape only by praying for crowd-shooting all the time.

The legal adviser was a member of the Story Department, which also included the assembly of writers and poets; indeed, his was the only instance in human history of a lawyer losing his job because the poets were asked to go home. Though officially a legal adviser, everybody referred to him as the opposite, for his one recorded act of 'advice' ruined a career: he taped a temperamental actress's outburst against the producer and played it back to her, and the terrified girl never acted again. The author is careful to say he brought about that sad end unwittingly. A man of cold logic in a crowd of dreamers, he stood apart from the Gandhiites and khadiites in his pants, tie and coat that looked like a coat of mail, often looking alone and helpless. Like others close to The Boss he was allowed to produce a film, but not much came of it despite the raw stock and pancake used on it.

Asokamitran's humour is gentle but sharp, and it runs through the entire account. He laughs at the make-up department, which could turn any decent-looking person into a hideous crimson-hued monster, supposedly to make actors look presentable on screen. He is amused by the forty-year-old 'office boy' who considered himself a wasted genius and delivered epics on his own misfortunes. The irony of the lawyer being called the opposite of a legal adviser, the MRA described as an international circus that knew animals only at the dinner table, and the famous speech peppered with 'freedom' and 'democracy' in honour of a visitor nobody could identify — all expose human pretension without malice. Even the title, pairing poets with pancake make-up, captures the incongruous meeting of art and commerce in a film studio. The satire makes the piece entertaining while quietly revealing the foibles of everyone, from the Boss to the office boy.

The people of Gemini Studios wore khadi and worshipped Gandhiji, but beyond that they had not the faintest appreciation for political thought of any kind. Naturally they were averse to the term 'Communism', imagining a Communist as a godless man who had no filial or conjugal love and no compunction about killing his own parents or children. These notions, which prevailed everywhere else in South India at the time, floated vaguely among the khadi-clad poets of the studios. Their ignorance showed itself twice: first when they warmly hosted the Moral Re-Armament army, which the author later learnt was a counter-movement to international Communism, and again when they gave a grand reception to Stephen Spender without knowing anything about him. Only years later did the author discover, through The God That Failed, that the studios had unknowingly honoured a poet who had rejected Communism — the very ideology they hated without understanding.

For years the visit of the English poet (or editor) remained an unexplained mystery at Gemini Studios, for nobody had understood his speech or his accent. The author, though he cut newspaper clippings for a living, was the most well-informed member of the Gemini family, and his literary curiosity stayed alive. He noticed The Hindu's tiny announcement of a short story contest run by a British periodical, The Encounter, and went to the British Council Library to inspect it before posting a manuscript to England. There he read the editor's name and heard "a bell ringing" in his heart: it was the poet who had visited the studios — Stephen Spender. Years later, buying The God That Failed for fifty paise from a footpath pile, he completed the discovery and understood the studios' strange reaction to Spender. The pursuit reveals his patient, inquisitive nature and his quiet perseverance as a writer.

Gemini Studios contained, in miniature, almost every type found in the wider society. Its make-up department, with its Bengali, Maharashtrian, Kannadiga, Andhra, Christian, Anglo-Burmese and Tamil staff, reflected national integration long before the broadcasters discovered it. Its talent ranged from Subbu, the many-sided genius, to the poets of the Story Department. Its frustrations were embodied in the office boy, a forty-year-old 'boy' whose dreams of stardom had soured into envy of Subbu. Its pretensions appeared in the Boss's grand, empty speech for a visitor he knew nothing about, and in the khadi-clad poets who disliked Communism without understanding it. Finally, its unnoticed observer, the author, quietly noted everything and turned the studio's whole life into literature — just as a society is best known through the writer who watches it from a cubicle.