1978 CURIOUS KISSA

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1947-2008-India-Roundup

Despite all his alleged atrocities during the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi was booked in a relatively inconsequential case, the disappearance of the reels of Kissa Kursi Ka, a veiled satire on the establishment produced by Janata Party MP and filmmaker Amrit Nahata. The film, which had been disposed of by Gandhi and the then i&b minister V.C. Shukla when it came up before the Censor Board in April 1975, blew up into one of the biggest controversies of 1978 when, on May 5, Gandhi was remanded to custody and his bail cancelled.

WASHED OUT

Floods in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Bihar and West Bangal killed 1,200 and displaced 320 crore people. The Yamuna rose 1.83 m above safety level.

FIRST CUT

India’s first and the world’s second test tube baby, Durga, was born in Calcutta on October 3. Dr Subhash Mukhopadhyay performed the in-vitro fertilization.

“Flying saucers” were sighted from Mumbai to Udaipur. It prompted the Physical Research Laboratory to lead India’s first investigation into the ufo phenomenon.

“LET PEOPLE COME TO SEE ZEENAT’S TITS.” Raj Kapoor on his film Satyam…

Zeenat Aman bared all in Raj Kapoor’s X-rated Satyam Shivam Sundaram. While the film may not have made a dent in the box office, Kapoor had an acute sense of the tastes of his film-viewing public when he said, “Let people come to see Zeenat’s tits, they will go out remembering the film.” Aman had decided to win the role for herself. She arrived at Kapoor’s doorstep to claim the part. The girl he had in mind had to be plain-looking and willing to be made up to look scarred and burnt. Aman was attractive, no great shakes as an actress and spoke Hindi with an accent. However, she had herself made up to look scarred, dressed in a costume from the film and burst into Kapoor’s cottage. Flabbergasted, Kapoor called his wife, “Come and see what this girl has done.” Mrs Kapoor arrived with a gold coin to bless Aman, and Kapoor knew he had found his heroine.

Captain M.M. Chopra father of Sanjay and Geeta Chopra, who were slain in September

“These days no mother and father feel secure about their children. It is mine today; tomorrow it can be another’s.”

Winning India

US President Jimmy Carter arrived on a 48-hour state visit to Indira. Carter’s mother, Lillian, was an Indophile, having spent time in Vikhroli in Maharashtra as a Peace Corps volunteer. After his visit, a village, Carterpuri, was named after him in Haryana.

ELSEWHERE…

• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan, was sentenced to death by hanging.
• The Camp David Accords were signed between Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Later in the year, the two were also jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their breakthrough.
• The Spanish Constitution was approved in a referendum. In 1977, Spain held its first democratic elections since the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

800 was Delhi’s crime rate, or number of crimes per lakh of population. In comparison, Mumbai’s crime rate was only 550 while Chennai’s stood at 600. This, despite Delhi having the highest concentration of police in the country with 25 policemen per 100 sq km of area.

Courtesy By India Today