This collection of articles, originally published in The Illustrated Weekly in 1984-85, contains Ashokamitran’s reminiscences of his years at Gemini Studios, that momentous post-Independence decade when the studio system was at its height in India. The stories he tells are the stuff of legends. Where else will you learn that R.K. Narayan wrote Tamil film scripts? Or about the influence of the Moral Rearmament Movement on the commercial theatre in Madras? Ashokamitran is familiar not only with the story of Tamil cinema but also of world cinema. In some of his novels, film workers are protagonists. So unlike other books on cinema, this is very readable.
Yet, the book is not free of errors. There are film stills unconnected with the book and discrepancies in the legends. The condescending introduction fails to contextualise the collection. Even the author’s blurb has an error. The index, however, is a thoughtful addition.
