The Pioneers of Indian Cinema

Published in Yojana, Vol. 39, No. 10, August 1995

Credits: Yojana, Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, GoI.

The author recalls here the achievements and contributions of such pioneering greats of Indian cinema as Sawe Dada, Dadasaheb Phalke, Ardeshir Irani, etc. How their unalloyed zeal, untiring efforts and personal sacrifices for the cause of cinema took the country to present great heights, he reminisces.

THIS is a celebratory occasion to mark the first century of the Indian cinema, which strictly speaking should commence on July 7, 1996. It was on that day that India's "Celluloid Connection" began in 1896, at the Watson's Hotel in Bombay, when the Lumiere Brothers launched their "Cinematographe". More about that further down.

On the occasion, one cannot resist the temptation of quoting a famous passage from Bharata Muni's “Natyashastra", the Sanskrit compendium on drama and related arts and on aesthetic theories. This was presumably written over 3000 years ago. What Bharata Muni has said about Natya cannot be improved upon by any PRO of the film world. Nor by any theoretician of film aesthetics. Let us pay homage to Bharata Muni by quoting what he said so long ago, because it has a bearing on the second opium of the masses", which cinema has become today in India and elsewhere.

At the very first performance of a ‘Natya' in the heavenly region, before the Devas and the Asuras, tumultuous consternation suddenly broke out. The Asuras resented that, in a particular scene, they had been depicted in an unfavourable light. They threatened to put a stop to the performance. A representation was made to Brahma by Virupaksha, with the Daityas and Vighnas by his side, thus: The "Natyaveda", which you have introduced for the first time through Natya, has put us in unfavourable light at the behest of the Devas! This ought not to have been done by you, the progenitor of the world, from whom came out the Devas and the Daityas alike.”

Natya: Then And Now

It was then that Brahma expounded the essence of Natya, the raison d’etre of drama and pacified the Asuras thus:

“in Natya, there is no exclusive representation of you or the Devas, for, Natya is the bhavanukirtana (creative representation) of the three worlds.

“In it, sometimes there is reference to duty, sometimes to games, sometimes to money, sometimes to peace, And, sometimes laughter is found in it, sometimes fight, sometimes love-making and sometimes the killing of people.

"Natya teaches duty to those bent on doing their duty, love to those eager for it. It gives courage to cowards and energy to the heroic. It enlightens men of poor intellect and gives wisdom to the learned.

"This gives diversion to the kings and firmness of mind to persons afflicted with sorrow and hints of acquiring money to those who are yearning for it and it brings composure to persons agitated in mind.

“The Natya, as I have devised it, is a mimicry of actions and conduct of people, which is rich in various emotions and which depicts different situations. This will relate to actions of men and women, good, bad and indifferent, and will give courage, amusement and happiness as well as counsel to them all.

“Natya will thus be instructive to all, through actions and states of mind (bhava) and through sentiments arising out of it.

"It will give relief to the unlucky persons who are afflicted with sorrow or grief or overwork and will be conducive to the observance of duty (dharma) as well as to fame, long life, intellectual pursuits and general good. It will educate the people.

"There is no maxim, no learning, no art nor craft, no device, no action that is not found in Natya. Hence, I have devised Natya in which meet all the departments of knowledge, different arts and various actions stories taken out of Vedic works, as well as historical tales (itihasa), are so embellished that they are capable of giving pleasure and hence called Natya.

"A mimicry of the exploits of Devas and Asuras, kings as well as householders in this world is called Natya. And, when human nature with its joys and sorrows is depicted through gestures and words, costumes and moods, that is also called Natya."

Celluloid Connection

Bharata Muni of "Natyashastra” had to wait for aeons before his Bharat Varsha could be provided the "celluloid connection” through the "Cinematographe” of the Lumiere Brothers, Auguste and Lumiere, towards the end of the last century. This actually happened in 1896 at the Watson's Hotel, now known as the Army and Navy Building across the road opposite the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, precisely on July 7 at 7p.m. inspite of the drizzling monsoon rain before an audience that paid for its entrance at one rupee per person.

But India can derive a sort of pride that at the very moment of the debut of "Cinematographe" in Paris, the "celluloid connection" was established. The Lumiere Brothers launched "Cinematographe" in Paris, a few months earlier on December 28, 1895 at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capuchines, Paris in the basement hall, named oddly enough "Salon des Indes" (the Indian Salon).

The importance given to India and Bombay especially by the Lumiere Brothers is noteworthy. Only five months earlier on February 20, 1896, the Londoners themselves got introduced to the "Wonder of the World". And, on the very day the Bombayites were seeing "The Marvel of the Century", the Czar of Russia was also seeing "Cinematographe" at St. Petersburg

One begins to wonder whether the Lumiere Brothers had the premonition that one day India would become the largest producer of films and continue to be so, year after year, for a decade and more, that too, in a variety of languages, unlike in most of the film-producing countries of the world.

Sixty Fifth Art

But we can indulge with comforting thought that while cinema was hailed as the Seventh Art and the Tenth Muse in the Western World, it was just the sixty fifth art for us in India, since we already had sixty four other arts and all these had become the grist to the mill of Cinema. cinema provided to the masses here and elsewhere all those wonders explained in detail by Brahma in Bharata Muni's classic on the performing arts.

No one can say with certainty when and where in the whole world the first poem, the first play, the first history, etc. came to bewritten and by whom. For the first time in the history of the world, we can precisely fix the birth date of cinema, be it the "Cinematographe" of the Lumieres, or the Kinetoscope and Vitascope of Thomas Alva Edison, or the earlier Praxinoscope of Emil Renaud. Let us pay our homage to a whole lot of pioneers ranging fromAthanasiusKirchertoEadweard Maybridge, from Etienne Jules Marey to William Friese-Greene, from Leon Gaaumont to Charles Pathe and from Max Skladanwoski to Georges Melies, not forgeting George Eastman of Kodak.

They were all racing with Time to protect the "moving pictures", patenting their wares, sometimes as collaborators and sometimes as rivals.

The oddest thing is that when Georges Melies, the fantasy film-maker of those days, went to one of the Lumiere Brothers for advice, he was told by their father: "Young man, this invention is not for sale and in any case it would ruin you. Perhaps, for a time it may be exploited as a scientific curiosity but apart from that it has no commercial future whatever!"

But, the French film critic turned filmmaker of the twenties, Louis Delluo, declared in 1919: "We are assisting at the birth of an extraordinary art, which has already found its feet and is destined for future glories-the only modern art, the offspring of the machine and the human ideal."

Sawe Dada

A regular visitor to these Lumiere shows in Bombay was Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatwadekar, more popularly known as "Sawe Dada". He was really spellbound by the "latest wonder of the world," to such an extent that goaded by it, he made arrangements for the screening of films on his own in a couple of months time. He became an exhibitor first. He went further deep into the matter and by the end of 1897, imported a motion picture camera from London at the cost of 21 guineas. The first real-life incidents he shot were a wrestling match and the humorous subject of training monkeys by wandering madaris. He sent the films to London for processing and screened them in Bombay in an open-air theatre in 1898. To this pioneering Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatwadekar should go the credit of being the “Father of the Indian Factual Film" taking into consideration the fact that "factual films" (then called "topicals") and the newsreels were the ancestors of the Documentary Films, which were films of fact and not of fiction.

Sawe Dada richly deserves the title because he did not rest content with routine and casual items. He also made the first newsreel of the public reception given to Dr. R.P. Paranjare in 1901, the first Indian to become a senior Wrangler at the Cambridge University (grandfather of Sai Paranjape, the stage, film and television producer/director). Sawe Dada also made a topical of the Durbar organised by Lord Curzon to mark the succession of Edward VII in 1901.

Sawe Dada was followed by Hiralal Sen and Amritlal Bose of Calcutta, S.N. Patankar of Bombay and others, apart from the Britishers, who owned Clifton & Co in Bombay and Bourne and Shepherd in Calcutta. All of themwere involved in making and screening short "animated photographs".

Dadasaheb Phalke

Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, to give the full name of Dadasaheb Phalke, was much more than the pioneering maker of India's first feature film, "Raja Harishchandra", even though the ghost of a film called "Pundalik' haunts him, trying to deprive the honour bestowed on him. He was a visionary, a passionate patriot, a showman par excellence, a publicist and an utter genius, who triumphed over his circumstances and made during his life-time over 40 films (mythologicals, socials, historicals and biographicals) and also over a score of topicals and educational films) and died in near penurious conditions.

Phalke was a Maharashtrian Brahmin, born in 1870 at Tryambakeswar, near Nasik, who had acquired "knowledge of fundamental crafts like drawing, painting, architecture, photography, theatre and magic". Besides, he was an expert colour printer having been trained in Britain and Germany. He was working as a "draughtsman-photographer" in the Archaeological Survey of India. Like all good shastries and pandits, he was well-versed in Sanskrit and Marathi literature his father being a great scholar. He was married to a devoted woman and had a small family. And, he had "won gold and silver medals for excellence in skills".

In 1917, he wrote a longish article in "Navyug", a Marathi magazine at their request to popularise the cinema. From this article, translated into English by Narmada Shahane, a long-time researcher at the Film and Television Institute, Pune, the following snippets have been culled to provide an idea as to how his mind worked:

"In 1910, I happened to see the film "The Life of Christ" in the America- India Picture Palace in Bombay... That Saturday in Christmas marked the beginning of a revolutionary change in my life. That day also marked the foundation in India of an industry, which occupies the fifth place in the myriad of big and small professions that exist (in the country). All this has happened at the hands of a poor Brahmin...I was unconsciously clapping hands at the sight of the noble incidents in Christ's life. While the life of Christ was rolling fast before my physical eyes, I was mentally visualising the Gods, Shri Krishna and Shri Ramachandra, their Gokul and Ayodhya... The whole night passed in mental agony.

“I was constantly preoccupied with the analysis of every film which I saw and in considering whether I could make them here.

"In spite of my enthusiasm and confidence in my success, I knew very well that nobody would dare to give me the capital, unless I had something tangible in hand to attract them. So, I liquidated whatever possessions I had and directed all my efforts towards this end...

"The responsibility of maintaining the family, the contemptuous treatment I received from my relatives and above all the lurking fear of the possible failure of my plans, all these adversities resulted in complete blindness, as both my eyes were affected by corneal ulcer. Thanks to the timely treatment of Dr. Prabhakar, the visual world was restored to me again and I resumed my usual activities with the help of three or four spectacles.

"This was the period of the Swadeshi movement and there was profuse talking and lecturing on the subject. For me personally, it led to the resignation of my comfortable government job and taking to an independent profession. I took this opportunity to explain my ideas about cinema to my friends and to the leaders of the Swadeshi movement.

"At last, one of my friends, who was associated with me for the last ten years and could vouch for my conduct, financial honesty, love for the profession and perseverance was willing toconsider me sympathetically.

"Thus, I laid the foundation-stone. of a gigantic profession with very scanty capital, sufficient only for an enterprise like a tea shop or a barber shop because I had intense love for the job and I had self-confidence that I would definitely establish this new professionagainstallodds."

"RajaHarishchandra”

Phalke somehow managed to go to England in 1912 to learn about cameras and "cinematography". On his return, he started producing "Raja Harishchandra" the mythological tale, keeping the story of Krishna aside for a while. With the help of his wife and children and some moneylenders, and by shifting from Bombay to Nasik, where at his own home and the backyard he made the film with "57,000 photographs" that moved for one-and-a-half hours and for which the public paid a paltry amount of "three annas" at the Coronation Cinematograph and Variety Hall on May 3, 1913.

One important fact to note is that at that point of time, no woman would dare to act the role of Taramati, the devout wife of Raja Harishchandra. But Phalke was a great innovator. He picked up a young man, named Salunke, who was a cook at a restaurant frequented by Phalke. Salunke had a slender body and fingers, was a bit of effeminate. He was working on a monthly salary of ten rupees. Phalke offered him fifteen rupees and he became the "male heroine" of the film.

""Raja Harishchandra” became the first box-office hit and Phalke wrote, "Oh, India, I am a Karma Yogi” and he added "I am determined to do my duty even at the cost of my life... with the firm conviction that the Indian people would get an occasion to see Indian images on the screen and people abroad would get a true picture of India". It is to be remembered that Phalke mortgaged his wife's jewels and even sold some to make his mark.

An interesting foot-note to Phalke's "Raja Harishchandra” is that while it is fairly well-documented and part of the film is available, there is no trace of a feature called "Pundalik” made one year earlier, in 1912, by R.G. Torney. There is only one review in the “Times of India" of the period. Till today, it is a mystery.

“Alam Ara”

In this hurried journey through the first century of cinema in the next halt, the image of Khan Bahadur Ardeshir M. Irani materializes. He was the "pioneer who gave the tongue to the Indian screen". And he was the man, who created an Indian style "Tower of Babel".

**Ardeshir Irani's "Alam Ara" was the first Indian feature film that was "all-talking, singing and dancing”, that mesmerised the Indian masses and led to emergence of films in various Indian languages as also of the languages on neighbouring countries. This film produced under the banner of Imperial Movietone of Bombay featured Master Vithal, Miss Zubeida, Miss Sushila, Miss Jiloo Elizer, Prithviraj Kapoor and Jagdish. It was an "all-living, breathing, 100 per cent Talking Peak Drama” revealing the “essence of romance, brains and talents unheard of under one banner".

This “talkie” was released at the Majestic cinema on March 14, 1931- a watershed year in the history of Indian cinema. The dialogues were in a hybrid language of Sanskrit-based Hindi and

Persian-based Urdu; so were the seven lilting songs, backed by music that enthralled the audiences. The very first song that was recorded was rendered by one W.M. Khan, who had come “to see merely the working of the recording machine". His voice was good and phonogenic. When he rendered a song in Pushto languatge, he was given the role of a fakir. He commented that in those days, "we had to sing without allowing time for breathing and the camera also ran simultaneously. If by mistake we fumbled or spoke a wrong word, the whole process had to be repeated”. Oddly enough, the hero in the film never sang a song!

Ardeshir Irani, when he was felicitated years later for his distinct achievement, very modestly said: “I don't think anyone should lionise me for producing the first Indian talkie. I merely did my bit for our national industry. My film career is just the career of a humble worker of filmdom".

Ardeshir Irani was much too modest. Born in Poona (now pune) in 1885, he started his career as a

distributor of foreign films. He became a partner of the famous pioneer exhibitor of films, Abdullally Esoofally of the Alexander Cinema in those days, said to be the most uptodate in equipment and auditorium design. For a short while, he was the Indian representative of the Universal Pictures. But inspired by the success of Dadasaheb Phalke, he decided to become a producer-director. It was then he started the Imperial Movietone, in partnership with Esoofally and Mohamedally Rangwala, which acquired much reputation in subsequent years.

If "Life of Christ" inspired Dadasaheb, it was "Showboat” (a forty per cent foreign talkie) that inspired the Khan Bahadur. He has said in an interview: “When I witnessed "Showboat" I was inspired to make a Talkie in India. The project at first appeared too hazardous because in India we had absolutely no facilities, no equipment, no experience to start sound film. Anyhow, I decided to go ahead with the preparations as the temptation to make a picture in our own national language was simply irresistible."

As it happened in the case of Phalke, Irani too was pooh-poohed by his friends and colleagues. His rivals even advertised that "Silence is Golden in Motion Pictures". But all of them "who came to see "Alam Ara" and to scoff at him, went to him for forgiveness".

Films In Indian Languages

As a result of popularisation of the Talkies by Ardeshir Irani in the west and south of India and by the Madan brothers in the West, Burma and Ceylon, there was a great demand for films in various Indian languages. Enterprising producers and directors were popping up here, there and everywhere. In 1931, the year of the release of “Alam Ara", 22 other Hindi films were released, as also three Bengali films, one Tamil and one Telugu film. Next year, eight Marathi and two Gujarati films delighted the audiences in western India. In 1933, as many as 75 Hindi films were made.

However, we must pay homage to the makers of the "first sound film ”in the major languages. In 1931 "Jamai Sasthi” (Bengali), “Kalidas" (Tamil), "Bhakta Prahalad". (Telugu) and in 1932, “Sant Tukaram" (Marathi) and "Narasinh Mehta” (Gujarati)" were made.

It is to be noted that the ethnicity of regional groups that constitute the vast mosaic of people called India asserted itself through films made in various languages. As a result, new centres of film production sprang up in Pune, Kolhapur, Madras, Salem, Coimbatore in the South andLahore in the years before the Partition.

The Talkie set the special pattern of Indian films-the song-dominated films. The Hindi film, "Indra Sabha" had as many as 60 songs. A Tamil film ranked next with 40 songs. As all actors and actresses, all heroines and heroes could not be singers as well, thesystemofplayback singing (and recording)was engendered. And, a time came when the unseen playback singers became more important than thespians, male and female. This was inevitable in a country, where its greatest authority on dramaturge, Bharata Muni had said, "musical instruments are the rock-bed of a dramatic performance". Another Sanskrit dramatist had justified the inclusion of many songs in his play by saying that they "delight the hearts of the audience and establish the emotional continuity!"

One deleterious development that has been the bane of the cinema exhibition trade also emanated from this period-the black-marketing of cinema tickets. Such was the craze of the people to see “Alam Ara” and listen to the songs and dialogues, they did not mind paying as much as four rupees for a four-anna ticket. This has continued; so much so that today a ten rupees ticket is sometimes sold for a hundred rupees!

In Calcutta, there was much of film activity. Jamsedji Framji Madan, a Parsi from Bombay laid the foundations of a vast distribution and exhibition network in Bengal, which extended to Ceylon, Burma and elsewhere. He also financed the making of short films. Another commercial venture which has lasted till today is Aurora Cinema Company founded by Anadi Bose and Debi Ghosh.

Birendranath Sircar's New Theatres in Calcutta nurtured the talents of Dhiren Ganguly, P.C. Barua, K.L. Saigal, Nitin Bose, Premankur Atorthy and many others. Even the great Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore got involved in film-making and directed “Natir Puja" under the New Theatres banner.

In Bombay, Imperial Film Company, Kohinoor Studios, Bombay Talkies, Wadia Movietone and other studio complexes provided enormous opportunities for the emergence of talents as producers, directors, actors and actresses, cameramen, audiographers etc. Among them were Devika Rani and her husband, Himanshu Rai, Gohar and Chandulal Shah, Shantaram, Fatehlal and Damle and a whole lot of others, including Nadia, the "hunterwali”.

In Madras, R. Nataraja Mudaliar, R. Venkiah and his son Surya Prakash were the pioneers who blazed the trail.

The Indian Cinema industry attracted self-taught filmmakers and thespians from every caste and creed right from the beginning. Even today in the credit titles of most films, almost all communities are represented.

The Indian cinema also launched film journalism, which is a distinct genre of journalism with spice and sex, gossip and serious writing on the aesthetics of cinema. The earliest was "Bijoli”, a Bengal film weekly, started by Nalinikanta Sarkar, which during the 1920s became very popular. Similarly, journals were started in other languages, including English. They all have had wide circulation.

In this article, homage could not be paid to all the pioneers but an attempt has been made to salute the memory of the few, who gave a definitive direction in the evolution of the cinema. But this chronicle would be incomplete without a mention of Satyajit Ray (1921-92). He was a pioneer in many ways, an auteur, who had complete control over every aspect of his films and who evolved a style of his own. In the history of Indian cinema, spread over a century, he was the only Indian filmmaker to be honoured with a Bharat Ratna from India and an "Oscar" by Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for his “life-time achievement”. More than a score of books have been written about him and his films in English, Bengali and other languages. And there are half a dozen films on him with copious extracts from his 30 odd films. Ray's contribution to the Indian cinema is many-sided and he will continue to be a titan even as we march into the 21^st century.

The author is a veteran film-writer and one of the seven founders of the Federation of Film Societies of India.