Monday, 16 May 2016

15 MAY 1913 YESHWANT PETHKAR

Note #11: A Sub-Plot that became the Main Story for Early Indian Cinema

[Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my friend Suhrud Godbole and Mr. Vivek Damle from Pune for helping me in my research for this note. Cheers!]
Mahabharat is teeming with interesting sub-plots that lend themselves beautifully to a film script.
And yet, at around the same time that Dadasaheb Phalke made India’s first full-length feature film Raja Harishchandra (1913), Indian filmmakers got fascinated with one small sub-plot of the epic, which then became a recurring theme for many films that were released at that time.
The sub-plot:
After finishing 12 years in exile, the Pandavs went into hiding at King Virat’s palace to complete the condition of living incognito for one year. Pandav wife Draupadi disguised herself as a maid servant (Sairandhri Malini).
King Virat’s commander and bro-in-law Kichak was drawn to Sairandhri’s beauty. वो तो हाथ धोके उसके पिछे पड़ गया ।
When senior hubby Yudhishthir tried to rationalize with her, an enraged Sairandhri complained about Kichak to the most trustworthy amongst her five husbands, Bheem, who was living disguised as a cook.
Together, Sairandhri and Bheem laid a trap and sure enough, Kichak walked into it. Seeking the opportunity, mighty Bheem slayed Kichak ending Sairandhri’s trauma.
This episode occurs in Chapter IV, that is, Virat Parva of Mahabharat.
Kichak’s slaying inspires a playwright:
In 1907 playwright Krushnaji Prabhakar (aka Kakasaheb) Khadilkar wrote a Marathi Sangeet Natak (musical play) called Kichak Vadh (The slaying of Kichak).
The play was an instant hit because it touched the right cord with Indians who were living under British rule at that time. They saw themselves as Sairandhri who was being traumatized by modern-day Kichak, British Viceroy Lord Curzon and were hoping that Bheem in the guise of armed revolutionaries will free them of his harassment. Naturally, the British administration banned the play in 1910.
Filmmakers take up the story:
Eight years after this play and within five years of the release of Raja Harishchandra, Tamil filmmaker R. Nataraja Mudaliar made a silent film Keechaka Vadham in 1918 (whether this film was inspired by the Marathi play OR whether both Khadilkar’s play and Mudaliar’s film were inspired by a 10th AD Sanskrit play Kichak Vadha by Nitivarman OR by yet another unknown source could not be confirmed!).
Nataraja Mudaliar shot Keechaka Vadham in seven weeks and released it in January of 1918 at New Elphinstone Theatre, Madras (Chennai) and was subsequently screened in Burma (Myanmar), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Malay States (Malaysia) and Singapore. The cost of making the film was Rs. 35,000/- and it netted Rs. 50,000/-:) That’s pretty neat!
Keechaka Vadham is the first known feature film based on a Mahabharat story. After this, films based on the same theme but with different names followed in quick succession.
In 1920, Baburao Painter’s Maharashtra Film Company based in Kolhapur released Sairandhri (silent film). Baburao Painter, who was a visual artist, was the director as well as the cinematographer for this film. About this film it is said that the scene of Kichak’s slaying was too gory and the scene got heavily censored. Baburao Painter also made Kichak Vadh, another silent film in 1928.
In 1929 Vishnupant Govind Damle, Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre (aka V. Shantaram), K.R. Dhaiber, S. Fatelal, all part of Maharashtra Film Company and S.B. Kulkarni, a financier, floated their own Prabhat Film Company in Kolhapur.
The company eventually shifted its base from Kolhapur to Pune and in 1932 a Marathi talkie, Sairandhri directed by auteur V. Shantaram was Prabhat’s first attempt at color. The work however had to be called off when the negative got damaged while processing abroad. The film was then released in 1933. That made Prabhat’s Sairandhri the first Indian film in color. However, since the processing and printing was done in Germany, the honor of India’s first indigenously made color film went to Kisan Kanya (1937). Prabhat’s Sairandhri was also the first film to have gramophone records, pressed in Germany from original the sound-track.
Poster of Prabhat Film Company's Sairandhri (1933)
Poster of Prabhat Film Company’s Sairandhri (1933)
Alas! like many other films of the pre-independence era, NONE of the films mentioned above are available anymore. Film archivists consider them to be lost films! Now, THAT truly sucks! Big time !!😦😦😦
Post independence, director Yeshwant Pethkar released yet another Marathi film Kichak Vadh in 1959 (also remade in Hindi).
One song from this film composed by Master Krishnarao, written by G. D. Madgulkar and sung by Lata Mangeshkar became an instant hit and still lingers in Marathi film connoisseurs’ minds.
What was the reason that a small sub-plot in Mahabharat appealed so much to the early filmmakers? Was it because like Kakasaheb Khadilkar they too wanted to generate a patriotic fervor in the country? Or was it purely business consideration because the story had the right combination of “emotional content, action and an element of sex” as was suggested to R. Nataraja Mudaliar by his writer/advisor? Or was it ‘all of the above’? We do not know.
What we do know is that this sub-plot inspired one popular play and six films in a short span of 40 years (there were other films too that were being made on other stories of Mahabharat during this time, but more on them later).
Signing off by sharing link to a Hindi song from the 1959 film Kichak Vadh that shows Kichak being led into the trap. And for friends who are conversant in Marathi, link to the very popular original Marathi version of the same song.
Jai Ho!
Note: I am no authority on Mahabharat or on this topic. Only “passionately curious” about it:) My research, as I like to call it, is still evolving. Consequently, drawing attention to any discrepancy OR supplementing my notes with any alternate version/interpretation would be truly appreciated. Cheers!
For nerds interested in knowing more click on the relevant links:
1. Dadasaheb Phalke, Father of Indian Cinema
2. Raja Harishchandra, India’s first full length feature film
3. King Virat
4. Kichak, King Virat’s commander and bro-in-law
5. Kakasaheb Khadilkar, writer of the Marathi play
6. Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy
7. R. Nataraja Mudaliar, maker of Kheechaka Vadham (1918)
8. Keechaka Vadham, first film on Mahabharat
9. Baburao Painter, one of the founders of Maharashtra Film Company
10. The Founders of Prabhat Film Company
11. V. Shantaram aka Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre
12. Film page from Official website of Prabhat Film Company
13. Kisan Kanya, India’s first indigenously made color film
14. G. D. Madgulkar, lyricist of the Marathi song
15. Lata Mangeshkar, singer of the Marathi song
Research sources for this note:
1. Telephone conversation with Mr. Vivek Damle of Pune on Sairandhri (1933)
2. A Dictionary of Indian Literature (Beginnings -1850) by Sujit Mukherjee
2. Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema by Ashish Rajadhykasha
3. Madras Miscellany by Muthaiah S
4. Other misc. Internet and library sources
Photo Courtesy:
1. Poster of Sairandhri from Prabhat Film Company website

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