Witnessed a part of cinematic history

By

Sharada Iyer

March 2^nd, 2024, was a memorable day for yesteryear fans and lovers of old Hindi films when we witnessed the screening of the 1939 Ashok Kumar-Leela Chitnis starrer Kangan on big screen at the iconic Regal cinema of Mumbai. Organized by Film Heritage Foundation, NFDC-National Film Archive of India, The German Consulate General of Mumbai, and The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, it was a historic evening as we were transported back in time to 1939 to watch this super-hit film being screened after 85 years!

Produced by the legendary studio Bombay Talkies Ltd., the film was directed by Franz Ozten, and had cinematography by Josef Wirsching. Anyone aware of our cinematic history knows about the important role played by Bombay Talkies in shaping the destiny of our film industry. Bombay Talkies was a movie studio founded by Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani in 1934 and produced about 40 movies starting from Jawani Ki Hawa in 1935 to Baadbaan, in 1954. At the time of its inception, the studio was considered the best film studio in the country equipped with the most technically advanced facilities related to film production which included sets, camera, lighting, sound quality, photography, costumes, and music.

Having familiarized themselves with the latest film-making technique in Germany, when the couple came back to India to start their own studio, there were several German technicians who came with them as they were an integral part of the studio team, and hence played a major role in laying down the foundation of Hindi cinema. The most important among them were director Franz Osten, and cinematographer Joseph Wirsching.

It was an emotional and historic moment on March 2^nd, to have the presence of Himanshu Rai’s grandson Peter Dietze, attend the screening. Though Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani had no children of their own, he had a daughter Nilima, from his first wife Mary Heinlin, who was a German. Soon they parted ways and mother and daughter moved to Australia. Peter is Nilima’s son.

It was a chance discovery of an old photograph of Himanshu Rai one day in his home that led Peter to become aware of his Indian ancestry. From then on, Peter has been on a mission to get to know about the pioneering role played by his grandfather Himanshu Rai in laying the foundation of our film industry. Today, as the owner of all the archival material of Bombay Talkies, he wants to bring to life the priceless photographs and artefacts of this once-flourishing studio in the form of exhibitions and screening of restored films.

After her retirement from films and marriage to Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich, Devika Rani passed on all the documents ,photographs, etc., of Bombay Talkies in her possession to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York. In the 1980’s, when Peter Dietze visited this museum and informed the curator about his connections with Himanshu Rai and Bombay Talkies, he received all the archival material from the museum, as the rightful legal heir.

The screening was also attended by the grandsons of the cinematographer Josef Wirsching- Georg and Joseph. When a young 16-year-old Josef received a camera as a gift on his birthday, little did he realize how this was not only going to change his life but also how he would one day shape the aesthetics of Indian cinema with his priceless contribution in the fields of photography and cinematography. He is credited for bringing aspects of German Expressionism including dreamy lighting, atmospheric compositions, unconventional camera angles and fantastic images to the Indian talkies.

He started as an assistant cameraman in 1925 when he worked in the film Light of Asia, co-directed by Himanshu Rai along with Franz Osten. His first film as a cinematographer in India was Jawani Ki Hawa (1935) which was also the first film produced by Bombay Talkies. It is said that ‘His camerawork brought luminosity to the screen and turned the heroes and heroines of the time like Devika Rani, Leela Chitnis, Ashok Kumar and Dilip Kumar among others into ethereal creations on celluloid’. {Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42422599}. He was part of the crew of Bombay Talkies for 20 years and his last film before he passed away was Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah, released in 1972.

Josef remained in India and when he passed away, his son Wolfgang Wirsching donated all the photography equipment to the Pune Film Institute but preserved all the priceless photographs very carefully in waterproof boxes. When his sons Joseph and Georg came of age, they realized the importance of the materials in their possession and decided to study their grandfather’s contribution to Indian cinema.

As things stand today, the trio of Peter, Joseph, and Georg, are the keepers of the wonderful legacy of everything connected with the Bombay Talkies studio. It is to their credit that not only have they taken care to preserve a priceless part of our cinematic history, but realizing the historical value of these rare visual and printed materials in understanding the glorious past of this century-old industry of ours, they have taken the trouble to bring it back to India to showcase them via exhibitions and movies.

[The gentleman in white-Peter Dietze & the two men in suits-Georg and Joseph Wirsching]

After the screening, all three of them came on stage and said a few words about the importance of the pioneering works of their respective grandfathers to our cinematic legacy.

This was followed by the book release of ‘Bombay Talkies: An unseen history of Indian cinema’, edited by Debashree Mukherjee. She is an Associate Professor of Film and Media at Columbia University, New York, USA.

This book has photographs taken by Josef Wirsching and some essays regarding the historical value of photographs from Wirsching’s archive to understand our cinema of that time. The images show that as an industry we were technically very good and our pioneers belonged to different classes, religions, genders and nationalities and everyone worked in tandem out of their love for the craft. Bombay Talkies was the first to hire a female music director Khorshed Homji who took the name of Saraswati Devi and is regarded as Indian cinema’s first female music director.

Priced at rupees 2700/-, the book was a steal and many people ended up buying it. Yes! I did too…

KANGAN (1939)

Coming to the film, Kangan was one of the first super-hit films of Bombay Talkies and after much hard work by many people a brilliant restored version of the original print was now available for people to enjoy the film. The show started on the dot at 5.00 pm and was free for all viewers. It was wonderful to see a large turnout of people to watch this gem from a bygone era including many youngsters also.

The choice of Regal cinema also had a story. Regal cinema is an Art Deco movie theatre located in Colaba Causeway in Mumbai and holds the distinction of being the first air-conditioned cinema hall of the country.  Built during the cinema boom of the 1930’s, it opened to the public in 1933, and ironically Kangan was released in this very cinema hall in 1939. It was indeed a rare occasion to have the movie screened in the same cinema hall after 85 years!

The film saw the pairing of Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis for the first time and after this they went on to become a much loved and highly popular on-screen pair of that era. Others in the cast included artistes associated with Bombay Talkies at that time- V H Desai, P F Pithawala, Pratima, Nana Palsikar, Saroj Borkar, etc. Lyrics were by Kavi Pradeep and music was by Ramchandra Pal and Saraswati Devi.

Kangan is basically an innocent love story between a rich zamindar’s son and a poor orphan girl brought up by the village priest. Actor Mubarak plays the zamindar and Ashok Kumar the protagonist, is his son. He has no interest in his father’s zamindari business and wants to become a poet and writer. The zamindar has a ‘munshi’ or accountant played by V H Desai and he provides the comic scenes in the film. Leela Chitnis plays the orphan girl and P F Pithawala plays the priest who brings her up like a father. V H Desai’s wife played by Pratima is Leela Chitnis’s friend and confidante.

It is said that cinema reflects society and the events unfolding on screen give us a clear idea of the thought process of the society in those times. In the film, how the lead pair meet and fall in love captures the innocence and simplicity of that era. He gifts her a pair of bangles or ‘Kangan’ as a token of his love for her and wants it to be kept a secret from his father. But one of the father’s workers Banwari, who also fancies Leela Chitnis sees this and immediately reports this.

Here is the YouTube link of a duet from the film- ‘Radha Radha Pyari Radha…’. This print is not very good but one can get an idea…

When the zamindar comes to know of his son’s activities, he gets angry and goes and threatens the priest that if he does not get Leela Chitnis married off to someone and stop her from seeing Ashok Kumar ever again, he would burn the temple complex and all the hutments of the workers including the priest. And realizing his son’s non-interest in the family zamindari, he packs him off to the city where he pursues his luck to become a writer.

Meanwhile, Banwari is sent to enquire whether Leela Chitnis’s wedding ceremony is being planned or not. But the priest has no intentions of forcing her and in the ensuing scuffle between the zamindar’s workers and the priest’s helpers, the temple complex gets burnt and Banwari manages to whisk away Leela Chitnis to an empty place with evil intentions. But she jumps out of the window and falls into the deep river from a height and the villagers assume her to be dead as her body is never found.

When this news reaches Ashok Kumar in the city, he is very angry with his father and feels sad that she had died without seeing the first published copy of the novel he had written and now he was becoming well-known as a writer. A female running a theatrical company falls for Ashok Kumar’s charm and wants to buy the rights of the book to direct a play based on it.

We are then shown that Leela Chitnis had not died, but had only been washed ashore. She proceeds to the city in search of Ashok Kumar. After days of searching, ironically when she finds the house and is waiting to meet him, she hears romantic dialogues from inside in Ashok Kumar and a lady’s voice. The two had been rehearsing the dialogues from the play based on Ashok Kumar’s novel, but Leela Chitnis misunderstands that he has found another woman. After she watches them get into a car and drive away, she removes the bangles, leaves them at his doorstep and proceeds towards the riverfront to end her life.

In the village by now the zamindar has realized his folly and the fear of losing his son forever makes him regret his own behaviour. He also proceeds to the city with the munshi in search of Leela Chitnis.

Ashok Kumar upon his return finds the bangles and realizes that the love of his life is alive and soon the action shifts to the path of the riverfront where all the characters are shown chasing one another. Ashok Kumar reaches on time and manages to save her. The ending is happy with the ‘Kangan’ being duly placed on her wrists again and the zamindar blessing them both.

If one looks at the narrative, Bombay Talkies had clearly set in motion the kind of template which seemed to have been copied for decades to come. The lovers facing the rich boy-poor girl dilemma, the villainous henchman, the comedian sidekick, the father vs son drama, the social commentary, the mentality of the girl to end her life if her lover does not accept her, etc. The film released in pre-independent India at a time when class and caste differences mattered a lot in society and the zamindar’s son rebelling against his father to stand by his love resonated with the audience.

The USP of the film is the natural acting by all especially the lead pair. Their on-screen chemistry reeks of simplicity and that is what is touching. Ashok Kumar looks so handsome and young Leela Chitnis looks beautiful.

The camera work is superb and the close-up shots and outdoor shots especially that of the moving train are all laudable. Watching the restored version of this classic was indeed a dream-come-true, as we travelled back in time to get a glimpse of an era gone by, when our founding fathers were trying their best to use all techniques at their disposal to tell a story in an entertaining way.

Destiny played a big role in joining the seemingly unconnected incidents taking place in different parts of the world from the 1930’s to the 1990’s involving three generations of people who had taken the trouble to preserve the original material without realizing how precious and priceless it would prove one day to familiarize us with the roots of our own film industry.

As I had mentioned in the beginning, the evening felt like walking into a part of our film history…