BOOK REVIEW

For nearly thirty years from 1940, the Gemini Studios of Madras
(Chennai) was the most influential film-producing organisation of
India and its founder, the brilliant multi-faceted entrepreneur
S.S.Vasan lent substance and quality to the rather fragile and
unpredictable movie business.

The Gemini emblem of two small boys with bugles was true to
Vasan’s slogan for the Studios, ‘when the bugles blow, there is a great
show,’ Gemini films entertained millions all over India and abroad.
Sahitya Akademi award-winning Tamil writer Ashokamitran worked
for the Gemini Studios from 1952 to 1966. A full twenty years after
he ‘renounced’ films, poet-editor Pritish Nandy persuaded
Ashokamitran to record his reminiscences and the result was a series
of articles making up My Years with Boss.

The book covers only five of his fourteen years with the Studios but
captures that phase of Indian movie business when the key factors of
the box office were imperceptibly shifting from the studios to the
stars. My Years with Boss is one of the most unusual books to be
written about the entertainment world and clearly indicates the
enormous impact of the movies on virtually every aspect of life in
India. The author's ability to capture the life and breath of people and
events, and his puckish narrative make this a brief but special book of
film history.
Gemini studios of Madras was one of India’s pioneering and
influential film-producing organization of India. It had a staff of over
600 people and made movies for Tamil Nadu and southern Indian
states. Pancake was the make-up material used by the Gemini studios.
Asokamitran talks about his days at gemini studios. He is known for
his humour and gender satire. He explains about the make-up
material. The brand name of this material was Pancake.

The writer tells about the poet who used to wear Khadi and believe
that communists were monster. He even tells about legal advisors who
had been the member of the story department. He was at odds in the
department and lost his job with the closure of the story department.
The legal advisor had even brought and abrupt and to promising
career of a talented actress. The story also tells about an english poet’s
visit to the studios. They had never heard the poet’s name before.
Further, they did not understand what he spoke. The mystery of
spender’s visit in Gemini studios was cleared. Perhaps it was
something to do with his anti-communist perspective.