Prose Chapter 6 - Poets and Pancakes

“Poets and Pancakes” by Asokamitran is a part of his book “My Years with the boss”. This story revolves around the film production studio Gemini Studios, and how it was kept running and became successful, from pancake makeup and the office boy Subbu from the makeup department, to even the shrewd but helpful lawyer.

Summary

Gemini Studios gained popularity due to the famous makeup brand ‘Pancakes’, which was the leading supplier of makeup products. The author explains how the actors and actresses had to bear with large amounts of makeup being applied to them to make them look uglier as per the requirements of the film being produced.

The author also explicitly mentioned the office boy of the makeup department. He had only one job to do in the studio, that is to spray paint on the faces of the actors during crowd shootings. The boy had lots of ambitions, that include becoming an actor, a director, screenwriter, or even a lyricist. This was the main reason why he joined the studio.

At the time of writing this story, the author used to work inside a cubicle, with the task of reading newspapers and collecting essential cutouts, which were considered insignificant by his colleagues.

The office boy, or the ‘poet’, would come to meet him in his office and register complaints, which were mostly due to the actions of Subbu, a resourceful and loyal man suffering from pride as a Brahmin. He was a good lawyer who managed all of Gemini Studios legal affairs.

The author goes on to describe how the studio hosted a group of international performers called the ‘Moral Rearmament Army’. Though their story plots were far from being perfect, their costume designs and stage props were a class apart. This allowed Tamil films to display sunrise and sunset using props from the play ‘Jotham Valley’.

The studio also hosted many famous personalities like Stephen Spender but got to know about his identity later on due to linguistic barriers that existed between them affecting the communication.

To know more about this story, refer to Poets and Pancakes Class 12 here at UrbanPro.

Characters

• Dharwar Kannadiga

• Asokamitran

• Kothamangalam Subbu

Themes

The theme of the story revolves around the casteism of early 20th century India. It displays how the caste system made the ‘upper class’ people think themselves to be superior to others, as in the case of Subbu. It also showed the adventures and misadventures of Gemini studio, when they failed to recognise famous personalities who visited their studio.

Here at UrbanPro, you can access Poets and Pancakes NCERT Solutions And Poets and Pancakes Questions And Answers that will help you comprehend the chapter better.