A BENGALI IN HYDERABAD, A HYDERABADI IN BOMBAY AND STRANGE TRAJECTORIES OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND INDIA’s FREEDOM MOVEMENT

Telugu Cinema’s Cross-cultural Character

Telugu cinema is one of the most cross-cultural phenomena on the firmament of Indian cinema and the roots go back to the early 1920s during the silent era. The story that I would like to narrate here on the occasion of the Indian Photo Festival (IPF) 2020 being held in the historic city of Hyderabad, its regular venue, and the unique photographic online journal Samyak Drishti bringing out its special issue on this occasion even while facing the unprecedented times of the Covid19.

Incidentally, my story has also its resonance in photography through an actor-director-producer Dhirendra Nath Gangopadhyay / Ganguly, popularly known as DG (1893-1978) whose life-story is quite fascinating. Though a Bengali from Calcutta / Kolkata, DG came down to Hyderabad where he contributed to the teaching of art and production of films. There is yet another eminent actor from Hyderabad, P. Jairaj, whose story is equally fascinating. Born as Paidipati Jairula Naidu (1909-2000) in Karimnagar (Hyderabad State), he was an alumnus of the Nizam College, Hyderabad. During his college days, he was active in Telugu theatre. His craze for acting went on to cut short his studies and consequently he left home for Bombay before he could graduate. Among several other Telugu film practitioners (acting, direction, cinematography); P. Jairaj remains Indian cinema’s cross-cultural icon from a southern state that has witnessed many geopolitical transformations over years.

Both DG and PJ make an interesting silent-era cultural symbiosis adducing to my argument. Let me also mention that the precedent set by DG in the 1920s, was carried forward later in the 1950s through 1980s as instances of Bengalis making Telugu films and Telugu producers adapting Bengali stories of which Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novella Devdas remains a
prime example.

Also both DG and PJ were honoured nationally with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, which is like India’s Oscar named after the pioneer D.G. (Dhundiraj Govind popularly known as Dadasaheb) Phalke (1870-1944), who had a photographic studio in Godhra in Gujarat before he made India’s first silent feature film Raja Harishchandra (1913). Interestingly, both DG and PJ belonged to families who had ties with India’s freedom movement. P. Jairaj, when I met him was 86 but he had retained a photographic memory and his youthful body-builder agility. My story that follows will have such cross-cultural resonances.

DG in Hyderabad and the Nizam: Bengal in Telugu Land
Trajectories with Photography

DG studied at Rabindranath Tagore’s Viswa Bharati University in Santiniketan and on his completion of studies he became Headmaster of Nizam’s Art College in Hyderabad. In 1915, DG published two slim volumes of photographs of himself in different guises and poses, including the techniques of his make-up, which eventually led to his employment by the Calcutta Police Department to train detectives in the art of disguises. Since his desire was to be a comedy actor, he sent these photographic volumes to J.F. Madan, a Calcutta-based leading Parsi producer and owner of a wide chain of cinema houses across Indian subcontinent. Madan disappointed him and that led DG to make his own films.

Indo-British Film Company and the silent film Bilet Pherat

Nitish Chandra Lahiri, who had gained considerable experience in film production with the Madan Theatres, joined DG to form the Indo-British Film Company, which produced their first film Bilet Pherat (England Returned) in 1920.”All Bengali” band accompanied the film wherever it was screened. DG played the lead role with a certain ‘comic inventiveness’, to use the eminent historian B.D. Garga (1924-2011)’s words. Produced at a cost of Rs.20, 000, it grossed many times more in its three-month run at the Russa Theatre.

Partnership splits and DG returns to Hydrabad and thrown out

After DG-Lahiri partnership split, DG returned to Hyderabad to set up a production unit, Lotus Film Company, under the patronage of the Nizam. He produced about half a dozen films, two of which Lady Teacher (1922) and The Marriage Tonic (1922) were comedies. While in yderabad, he also set up a film processing laboratory and acquired control of two theatres to exhibit films. But just when all seemed to be going well, he incurred the wrath of the Nizam by releasing in his theatre the Bombay-based Majestic Film Company’s Razia Begum, a historical film about Delhi’s only woman ruler, who succeeded her father, the great ‘Slave-King’ Iltutmish, in 1236. She fell in love with an Abyssian slave at her court, which eventually brought her to a tragic end. An infuriated Nizam ordered DG out of the state within twenty four hours. DG comes to Bombay to set up a film distribution company but his attempt remained abortive. In 1928, he returned to his home town, Calcutta.

Smoky Hill, Ground Floor, Palimala Road, Bandra West, Bombay

Here lived the Hyderabadi actor P. Jairaj. He had shifted to this Bandra house from the neighborhood suburb of Khar where he had built a bungalow named after his wife Savitri, who was a Punjabi woman from Delhi. Along with my senior friend and the silent film scholar, Virchand Dharamsey, I had met him around 1995 at his Smoky Hill’s ground floor apartment. P.Jairaj was born on 28 September 1909 in Karmnagar, Hyderabad State now in Telangana. Since then much water has flown down the River Godavari.

The body-builder actor who lived his early life in Hyderabad holds the record of having the longest career in Indian cinema. For us it was very important to meet him because he was one of the most significant surviving actors who had acted both in silent and sound films. Being a bridge between the two, he also carried a photographic memory even at the age of 86 then. He had come to Bombay when he was 19! A polyglot, he was still a Telugu (he had studied in Telugu medium and was a voracious reader of English literature) and a Hyderabadi, so to say. Besides acting, he was interested in body building, gymnasium, astrology, sports, painting, homeopathy, reading, meditation and dramatic arts. In his film acting career, P. Jairaj had acted in 11 silent films and 234 Hindi films. And there is an interesting Nizam connection with him too.

P. Jairaj and the Hyderabad Nizam

In the Bombay-based Basant Pictures’ production Hatim Tai (1956), the song Parvar Digar-e-Alam was filmed on P. Jairaj. When this film was released in Hyderabad, the former Nizam came to know that the hero of Hatim Tai belonged to his state. The Nizam, organized a special screening of the film, and he must have rewound the film ten times just to see the song-scene (featuring P. Jairaj). This experience gave P. Jairaj the confidence that his choice of the film acting career was worthwhile. [Inhe na Bhulana (in Gujarati) by Harish Raghuvashi, 2003].

The Nizams were the 18th -through- 20th century rulers of Hyderabad. Nizam of Hyderabad (Nizam ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State (as of 2019 it divided between the states of Telangana and Andhra, Hyderabad remains as their joint capital) Nizam, shortened from Nizam-ul-Mulk, meaning Administrator of the Realm, was the title inherited by Asaf Jah. He was the Viceroy of the Great Mughal in the Deccan, the premier courtier in Mughal India in 1724, and the founding “Nizam of Hyderabad”. The last Nizam was Mir Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (1886-1967)

DG, P. Jairaj and the trajectory of India’s Freedom Movement

Ironically, India’s freedom movement and eventual downing of the Union Jack, also rang the final bell on the abolition of the Nizam rule in Hyderabad state (on 17 September 1948). Well, it is a story that would need a separate chapter and space, the interesting conjecture, nevertheless, is the two screen actors’ close relations with other two important actors in India’s political
theatre.

One of India’s leading women freedom fighters Aruna Asaf Ali (nee Ganguly, 1909-1996) was DG’s niece. Mahatma Gandhi called her his daughter though she was a rebel and dissented with Gandhi on many issues; Gandhi fondly called her the ‘Vidrohini’. Incidentally, in my Facebook series “Gandhi and Women” my post of 6 October 2020 had narrated the story of Aruna Asaf Ali and referred to Dhirendra Nath Ganguly’s familial relation.

P. Jairaj was nephew of yet another luminary of India’s freedom struggle who, as a remarkable poet, was called the ‘Nightingale of India’ – Sarojini Naidu (nee Chattopadhyay, 1879-1949). Born in a Bengali family in Hyderabad, she was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1895, the Nizam’s Charitable Trust founded by the 6 th Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan gave her a chance to
study in England. Juxtaposing both DG and PJ within this preamble could provide an interesting study on this occasion of IPF 2020.

The First Telugu Talkie and H.M. Reddy, the pioneer

H.M. Reddy (1892-1960) was a pioneer Telugu film director-producer who directed the first Indian multilingual sound film Kalidas (1931), basically shot in Telugu and Tamil. He then produced and directed the first full length mythological Telugu sound film Bhakta Prahlada in Kalaidas was produced by Ardeshir Irani’s Imperial Film Company that produced India’s first talkie Alam Ara (1931) in which another Telugu cinema pioneer and stalwart L.V. Prasad had acted.

Even in H.M.Reddy’s career, India’s freedom movement resounds. After completing his studies in Bangalore, he worked as a police inspector but left the job because he refused to work for the British imperialists. His interest in film making led him to Bombay where he worked as a reflector boy in a studio, and continued his research on Telugu cinema to become film producer
and director himself.

Even in H.M.Reddy’s career, India’s freedom movement resounds. After completing his studies in Bangalore, he worked as a police inspector but left the job because he refused to work for the British imperialists. His interest in film making led him to Bombay where he worked as a reflector boy in a studio, and continued his research on Telugu cinema to become film producer
and director himself.

Such is the pioneering story of Telugu cinema’s cross-cultural values, on screen, off screen, still living immortally, as memory so photographic…

Amrit Gangar

Mumbai-based film theorist, curator and historian

He has to his credit three books on German filmmakers and a musicologist, viz. (a) Franz Osten and the Bombay Talkies: A Journey from Munich to Malad, 2001; (b) Paul Zils and the Indian Documentary, 2003; (c) Walter Kaufmann: The Music that Still Rings at Dawn, Every Dawn, 2013. All these three books have been published by the Goethe Institut (Max Mueller Bhavan), Mumbai. Gangar was the consultant curator of the National Museum of Indian Cinema, Mumbai which is India’s first national film museum under Government of India. He has also curated film programs for the Kala Ghoda Artfest, Mumbai; Kochi-Musziris Biennale, Kerala; Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen, etc. He has presented his theory of Cinema of Prayoga at various venues in India and abroad, including the Pompidou Centre, Paris; the Tate Modern, London; Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan; West Bengal; NCPA, Mumbai, etc. He writes both in English and Gujarati languages and has been awarded by the Gujarat Sahitya Akademi, Gandhinagar.