Poets and Pancakes Summary Class 12 English l English Flamingo

POETS AND PANCAKES

— by ASOKAMITRAN

www.learnave.in

THEME :-

An account of the events and personalities in a film company in the early days of Indian cinema.

SUB-THEME-

Poets and writers in a film company environment.

SUMMARY

• This is an excerpt from the book ‘My Years with the Boss’ by Asokamitran, a Tamil writer.
• He talks about the years he spent at the Gemini Studios owned by S.S. Vasan.
• Asokamitran had to cut newspaper cuttings and clippings on varied subjects and file them.
• Not a very important job, but he happened to be the most informed person around.
• Here he talks about how the studio functioned and its internal dynamics.
• The make-up department was housed on the top floor of the building.
• In the make-up department a strict hierarchy was followed. The main actor was handled by the chief make-up man and the others handled the junior actors.
• The author’s office had glass on both sides and everyone could see him.
• Everybody there felt that the author was underemployed.
• All the unpleasant things, it was believed, happened in the studio because of one Kothamangalam Subbu who was the right hand man of the Boss.
• Though the author did not agree with this belief, people thought so because Subbu was a Brahmin and a very talented man.
• He was a cheerful person and loyal to his Boss.
• He was a creative person, wrote poetry and was into acting as well. He was also a generous person and his house was open to all.
• Subbu was actually a part of the story department Gemini Studios was a favourite haunt for poets those days. They enjoyed meeting over a cup of coffee which was available at the mess there.
• In 1952 Gemini Studios welcomed Frank Buchman’s play “Moral Re-armament Army’.
• The other visitor to the studio was the famous English poet Stephen Spender. Much later Asokamitran realized that this man was the author of the British periodical titled “The Encounter.”