Shin Shinaki Boobla Boo (1952)

Santoshi based this orientalist fantasy on the modern dance ballets Sadhona Bose had been associated with on stage, using the experiments with jazz and Latin American rhythms of Santoshi’s regular composer, Ramchandra. Shin Shinaki (Rehana) dreams of killing the man, Taishi, who killed her parents. When the villain dies, she transfers her vengeful energies on to the man’s son. The story involves a fortune- teller, Chiang, who only surfaces publicly one day per year. The other key figure is her lover, the bandit Boobla Boo (Ranjan), who eventually falls in with her plans. Classic songs include Sumayati’s Han dai taka lai han dai kali aie in a kind of question-answer mode using a fast-paced chorus, Shin’s number Aare baba and her duet with Boobla, Kuch chahelen ho, kuch charchein ho. This film was the unlikely first victim of the central government’s authority to overrule the censor board, an action enabled by the Indian Cinematograph Act passed that year. Given a Universal certificate by the censors, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting banned the film because of its ‘low moral tone’ and because it ‘throws the glamour of romance and heroism over criminal characters, treats sacred subjects irreverently and is, in consequence, opposed to the interests of public decency and morality’. The ban was later revoked but ruined the film’s commercial chances.