Kamal Swaroop's Tracing Phalke

KAMAL SWAROOP

1870-1944 THE MAN AND HIS TIMES

TRACING PHALKE A JOURNEY

TRACING PHALKE INTRODUCTION (1870-1944)

Nearly nine decades ago, in a small town, Nasik, a devout young man brought up in a traditional orthodox household got interested in the arts and photography. He threw away his family profession of priesthood, sold his wife’s ornaments, pledged his life insurance policies and made history by producing what has been commonly acknowledged as the first Indian film. The man – Dundiraj Govind Phalke. The year – 1913. The place – Nasik, and the film Raja Harishchandra – a silent 4-reeler with inter-titles in English and Hindi – the story of a benevolent king who sacrificed his kingdom, family and material wealth for upholding the ideals he cherished most – truth and integrity. The dream of a true visionary - to see Indian images move on the screen, in what he called the ‘swadeshi films’ - thus became a reality. And so began the long and arduous journey of Indian cinema. Phalke begins his career as a small-town photographer in Godhra, has to leave the business after the death of his first wife and child in an outbreak of bubonic plague. Persecuted, driven from the city where he practiced the new art of photography (camera as the life-snatching lens), he goes through a paranoid state for some time, the loss of his wife has broken him down. In this period of wandering he meets the German magician, Carl Hertz, one of the 40 magicians employed and sent across the world by the Lumiere Brothers. With Carl Hertz he enters the dark world of early show business of amusement and spirits. He has still not recovered from the loss of his wife. Carl Hertz is jailed for his black art but Phalke gets saved by a famous theatre company. He marries again and begins his new life. If still photograph is death then how does his bring his first wife back to life? Soon after he joins the Archeological Survey of India as a draftsman and travels all over the country, excavating the hidden past. Restless with his government job, he turns to the business of printing, specializes in lithography and oleography and works for Raja Ravi Varma, mass producing the copies of paintings of Gods and Goddesses – themes for his films later. He soon becomes the Chief Executive in the biggest printing press of its time, Lakshmi Printing Press. But following a dispute with his partners about the running of the press, he resigns. But there is a clause in his contract that he cannot resign unless he gives up the business of printing altogether. He knows no other craft. It is in this state of mind that he goes to see a picture, ‘The Life of Christ.’ While witnessing ‘Christ’ on the screen, he was visualizing Shri Krishna, Shri Ramachandra, their Gokul and Ayodhya. He sees the picture again. Here was an enterprise, an industry, that suited Phalke’s training in arts and crafts which go to make a motion picture such as drawing, painting, photograph, drama and magic. Phalke’s conviction was deep but his future was dark. The constant viewing of pictures for study, the disastrous prospects if the cinema enterprise fails, all this tells on Phalke’s health and impairs his eyesight almost to blindness. After a miraculous recovery, still firm in his determination to make swadeshi pictures, Phalke imports equipment from England and, acting like a one-man unit, produces his first Indian picture. After showing ‘Raja Harischandra’ to full houses in India, Phalke produces the

next two films, ‘Mohini Bhasmasur’ and ‘Savithri’. Soon he makes ‘Lanka Dahan’ which becomes the first box-office success. Towards the end of 1917, Phalke Films is incorporated into the Hindustan Film Company, with Phalke as working partner. ‘Shri Krishna Janma’ followed in quick succession by another box-office hit, ‘Kaliya Mardan’… Hindustan Film Studio in Nasik becomes a pilgrim place. But differences soon crop up between Phalke and his partners which leads to a decision to retire from the film business altogether. Phalke leaves for Kashi, taking his family with him. During his self-imposed exile, Phalke writes his famous autobiographical play, ‘Rangabhoomi’, a searing satire on dramas and stage conditions. The venture does not prove successful. Meanwhile the ‘Hindustan Films’ no longer has the monopoly on film production. Faced with cut-throat competition, the Hindustan is compelled to recall Phalke to its fold once more. In 1932, the Hindustan Film Company goes into voluntary liquidation. ‘Setu Bandhan’, the last silent film directed by Phalke fails due to the advent of sound.So, at the age of sixty-two, Phalke finds himself looking once more for gainful employment. Towards the end of 1934, Phalke accepts an offer to direct ‘Gangavatarnam’ for maharaja of Kolhapur. But the strain of film-making is too much for a man nearing seventy. Phalke falls sick. ‘Gangavatarnam’ proves to be his last film. Unable to cope with the talkie world, the father of the Indian Film industry is engulfed by an image explosion that renders him inert, paralyzed. His own creation haunts him. Mute, he flees into the fragmented memories of his pre-cinema magic lantern days, even as his children, unaware of the tragedy of his life, and excited and enthralled by a promise for the future, fantasize and flirt with the adventures of the silver screen Gods. While researching Phalke, we hear of a missing autobiography which he had dictated to his daughter, Mandakini. This book is an interplay of dreams, memories, fantasies, his encounter with famous personalities that shaped his character and destiny and an account of that moving spirit that manifested itself in various inventions and innovations of his time. The missing book is reconstructed through available historical and photographic evidence and brought to life with alchemic power of our collective imagination.

expenses of the studio. Such was the tough and challenging situation that Phalke had to face on his return to India. It required all the skill, all the ingenuity of Phalke to persuade Nadkarni(or rather his father in law and solicitor Chitnis,who was the actual financier) to his point of view.