Always Through Director: O.P. Arora Year: 1966 (10:20) Sanjaya uvÄca âThere is total lack of unanimity on how Mhow got its name. One possible source of the name might be the Mahua (Madhuca longifolia) tree, which grows in profusion in the forests around Mhow. Some articles in popular literature state that MHOW stands for Military Headquarters Of War. However, this is a backronym, and there is no proof to support the theory that the name of the village comes from the acronym. The village near Mhow was called Mhow Gaon in the pre-British era, when English was not used in India. The Cantonment which came up in 1818 came to be known as Mhow Cantt after the name of this village. Sir John Malcolm spelt the name of this town as MOW in his writings. The 1918 edition of EncyclopĂŚdia Britannica also mentions 'MAU'. However, the Cantonment was referred to by British officers as Mhow at least as early as the end of 1823 (letter from Lt Edward Squibb to his father in London).â -- a note on the etymology of Mhow. Storied Mhow, twice-told Mhow of racist Kipling's most virulent barracks room jollies, Mhow of MP, of Madhya Pradesh of military police. Dinner night at headquarters mess, Mhow. A table ringed by antique bagpipers and highland drone. Then the dapper officers all bang on the table - what does it mean? Afterwards two of the chaps smoke and drink. âWhen are you off to the field unit,â one asks. âI donât know, signal hasnât come through yet.â Itâs a joke, and a bad one. At Mhow, headquarters for the army's School of Signals (it was renamed the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering in 1967), the signal always comes through. âVerma is the name, of the Corps of Signalsâ says the stout general's lips, just below his sarkari mustache and callused eyes. A swift salute. âThe corps of signals is the nerves of the army,â he explains. The army is the body, the corps is the nerves. A banal reproduction of sixteenth-century Florentine mannerist Giambolognaâs Mercury statuette darkly gleams just behind the epaulet on his right shoulder. It's everyday stuff, a regimental tchotchke heraldic and unwinged, conspiratorial. Behind it, an inscrutable map of the western Himalaya. âThrough us, by radio, telephone," -- just to his left a pair of telephones, one white, the other ominously black -- "and telegraphy, orders and intelligence pass up and down the chain of command, to keep things going and change the course of events if necessary. In battle, we are the eyes and ears of the commanders.â Quick cut to ferocious, vivid battle footage -- scenes now sickeningly familiar, too, contemporary: low-fi, grainy black and white of deadpan desert suddenly blowing up. White overexposed film where the flames are hottest. Smoke. Who are we fighting? Who knows? Machine gun sounds accompany a militaristic typist dashing off a report no one will ever read on a beautiful Indian-made typewriter. Read outs. Telegraph bleeps. Signals intercut with macho scenes of indiscriminate battlefield glory and pulse-quickening scenes of state violence against the nebulous enemy. Antennae are raised like the flag over Iwo Jima. Dispatchers dispatch the dispatched to the great Dispatch. They need mighty fans to keep such switchboards cool, tremendous amplifiers to make them loud enough, the sounds of the bruit parasite -- the parasite signal "commands, he has the power, his voice has become that of the master, he speaks so he is heard everywhere, no one else can talk." The general confirms: âWell thatâs how it is. Wherever the army, there the Corps of Signals.â Did you think the general needed to use the word "is"? (The parasite signal feeds on salt-petre, not methi: no copulation at MHOW, verbal or corporeal.) The Corps of Signals and the corps of the army are coterminous, co-corpses, produced by the Corps of Signals to be compulsorily screened, a delay to filmi pleasure for citizens from the snows to the sea. Wherever the army. Telegenic soldiers are given the movie star treatment, at times deeply homoerotic. They are presented as exempla gratia, case studies for how a signals man must appear; how a signals man listens, then transmits; how a signals man works comfortably with the machinery where he finds himself; how a signals man relaxes and sports. Renowned modernist painter and occasional voice-over ace Jehangir Sabavalaâs continental narration gives sound to their secret, ambitious thoughts, dancing between their interiorities like Hermes. Or channeling them like Sanjaya, omniscient seer and bard to blind king DháštarÄᚣášra in the Mahabharata, narrator of the Gita, and potent figure for Sanskritic panopticist fantasia. His gift of supernatural perception was a boon given him by the sage VyÄsa, âby whose grace I obtained my unexcelled divine knowledge, and sight beyond the senses,â he tells the blind, remote ruler, âas also hearing from afar, and discerning others' minds, and the past and future, and awareness of portentous happenings, and always the ability to move in space, and unaffectedness by weapons in battles...â A signals man -- dark Hermes. Passepartout. Already in 1947 SK Belvalkar noted that Sanjaya is âcorrectly conceived... as a 'special war correspondent' ⌠able to secure all the advantages that an expert army of camera-men, radios, specially chartered aeroplanes and television would give to his twentieth-century prototypes.â Epic king DháštarÄᚣášra learns to his grief that sometimes Sanjaya has to deliver bad news. The director of this short film, O.P. Arora, attempted to do much the same when he took his innovative interview-driven documentary approach in irritable new directions with âMera Anubhavâ (âActual Experienceâ) (1969) a warts-and-all Films Division documentary on Indiaâs population control program. The film is largely based around interviews with women, many of whom openly express their dislike for the controversial âloopâ IUDs then being pushed into womenâs bodies by the State at the behest of nervous, deep-pocketed, transnational organizations and foreign governments, including the United States. LBJ had threatened to withhold food aid if the Indian government refused. Arora's âActual Experienceâ was held from release and suppressed â some signals donât get through.
