DEVIKA RANI ,
THE FIRST LADY OF INDIAN CINEMA
1908 MARCH 30- 1994 MARCH 9
Devika Rani Chaudhuri, usually known as Devika Rani (30 March 1908 – 9 March 1994),[1] was an actress in Indian films who was active during the 1930s and 1940s. Widely acknowledged as the first lady of Indian cinema, Devika Rani had a successful film career that spanned 10 years.
Born into a wealthy, anglicized Indian family, Devika Rani was sent to boarding school in England at age nine and grew up in that country. In 1928, she met Himanshu Rai, an Indian film-producer, and married him the following year. She assisted in costume design and art direction for Rai's experimental silent film A Throw of Dice (1929).[a] Both of them then went to Germany and received training in film-making at UFA Studios in Berlin. Rai then cast himself as hero and her as heroine in his next production, the bilingual film Karma (1933), made simultaneously in English & Hindi. The film premiered in England in 1933, elicited interest there for a prolonged kissing scene featuring the real-life couple, and flopped badly in India. The couple returned to India in 1934, where Himanshu Rai established a production studio, Bombay Talkies, in partnership with certain other people. The studio produced several successful films over the next 5-6 years, and Devika Rani played the lead role in many of them. Her on-screen pairing with Ashok Kumar became popular in India.
Following Rai's death in 1940, Devika Rani took control of the studio and produced some more films in partnership with her late husband's associates, namely Sashadhar Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar. As she was to recollect in her old age, the films which she supervised tended to flop, while the films supervised by the partners tended to be hits. In 1945, she retired from films, married the Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich and moved to his estate on the outskirts of Bangalore, thereafter leading a very reclusive life for the next five decades. Her persona, no less than her film roles, were considered socially unconventional. Her awards include the Padmashri (1958), Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1970) and the Soviet Land Nehru Award (1990).
Background and education
Devika Rani Chaudhuri was born into a Bengali family in Waltair near Visakhapatnam in present-day Andhra Pradesh, into an extremely affluent and educated Bengali family. Her father, Colonel Manmatha Nath Chaudhuri, was the first Indian Surgeon-General of Madras Presidency and a nephew of Rabindranath Tagore.[3][4][5]
Her mother, Leela Devi Choudhary, came from an educated family and was a grand-niece of Tagore. Devika's father's brothers were Ashutosh Chaudhuri, Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri, a prominent Kolkata-based barrister and Pramatha Chaudhuri, the famous Bengali writer.[6]
Devika Rani was related through both her parents to the poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Her father, Manmathnath Choudhary, was the son of Sukumari Devi Choudhary, sister of Rabindranath Tagore. Devika's mother, Leela Devi Chaudhuri, was the daughter of Indumati Devi Chattopadhyay, whose mother Saudamini Devi Gangopadhyay was another sister of the Nobel laureate. Devika's father and maternal grandmothers were first cousins to each other, being the children of two sisters of Rabindranath Tagore.[7]
Further, two of her father's brothers had also married their cousins: Prativa Devi Choudhury, wife of Ashutosh Choudhary, was the daughter of Hemendranath Tagore, and Indira Devi Choudhary, wife of Promatho Choudhary, was the daughter of Satyendranath Tagore.[8] Devika thus had strong ties to Jarasanko, seat of the Tagore family in Kolkata and a major crucible of the Bengali renaissance.[citation needed]
Devika Rani was sent to boarding school in England at the age of nine, and grew up there. After completing her schooling in the mid-1920s,[9] she enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the Royal Academy of Music in London to study acting and music.[4][10] She also enrolled for courses in architecture, textile and decor design, and even apprenticed under Elizabeth Arden. All of these courses, each of them a few months long, were completed by 1927, and Devika Rani then took up a job in textile design.[11]
Career
In 1928, Devika Rani first met her future husband, Himanshu Rai, an Indian barrister-turned-film maker, who was in London preparing to shoot his forthcoming film A Throw of Dice.[a][10][12] Rai was impressed with Devika's "exceptional skills" and invited her to join the production team of the film, although not as an actress.[1] She readily agreed, assisting him in areas such as costume designing and art direction.[13] The two also traveled to Germany for the post-production work, where she had occasion to observe the film-making techniques of the German film industry, specifically of G. W. Pabst and Fritz Lang.[1] Inspired by their methods of film-making, she enrolled for a short film-making course at Universum Film AG studio in Berlin.[1] Devika Rani learnt various aspects of film-making and also took a special course in film acting.[10] Around this time, they both acted in a play together, for which they received many accolades in Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries. During this time she was also trained in the production unit of Max Reinhardt, an Austrian theatre director.[14]
In 1929, shortly after the release of A Throw of Dice, Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai were married.[1]
Acting debut
Devika Rani is seen sharing a full-mouth kiss with Himanshu Rai, with the former lying on the top.
Devika Rani kissing Himanshu Rai in Karma (1933).
Devika and Himanshu Rai returned to India, where Himanshu produced a film titled Karma (1933). The film was his first talkie, and like his previous films, it was a joint production between people from India, Germany and the United Kingdom. Rai, who played the lead role, decided to cast Devika Rani as the female lead, and this marked her acting debut. Karma is credited as having been the first English language talkie made by an Indian. It was one of the earliest Indian films to feature a kissing scene.[15] The kissing scene, involving Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, lasted for about four minutes,[16] and eighty years later, this stands as the record for duration of a kissing scene in Indian cinema as of 2014.[17][18] Devika Rani also sang a song in the film, a bi-lingual song in English and Hindi. This song is said to be Bollywood's first English song.[19][20]
Made simultaneously in both English and Hindi, Karma premiered in London in May 1933. Alongside a special screening for the Royal family at Windsor, the film was well received throughout Europe.[21] Devika Rani's performance was internationally acclaimed as she won "rave reviews" in the London media.[1] A critic from The Daily Telegraph noted Devika Rani for her "beauty" and "charm" while also crediting her to be a "potential star of the first magnitude".[21] Following the release of the film, she was invited by the B.B.C. to enact a role in their first ever television broadcast in Britain in 1933. She also inaugurated the company's first short wave radio transmission to India.[22] In spite of its success in England, Karma did not interest Indian audiences and turned out be a failure in India when it was released in Hindi as Nagin Ki Ragini in early 1934. However, the film received good critical response and helped Devika Rani establish herself as a leading actress in Indian cinema. Indian independence activist and poet Sarojini Naidu called her a "lovely and gifted little lady".[21]
Bombay Talkies
After the critical success of Karma, the couple returned to India in 1934. Although the Hindi version of the film, released in India in 1934, flopped without a trace, Himanshu Rai had established the required networks in Europe, and was able to start a film studio named Bombay Talkies, partnering with Niranjan Pal, a Bengali playwright and screenwriter who he had met previously in London,[5] and Franz Osten, who directed several of Rai's films.[23]
Upon inception, Bombay Talkies was one of the "best-equipped" film studios in the country. The studio would serve as a launch pad for future actors including Ashok Kumar, Leela Chitnis, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Madhubala and Mumtaz.[24] The studio's first film Jawani Ki Hawa (1935), a crime thriller, [25] starring Devika Rani and Najm-ul-Hassan, was shot fully on a train.[1]
Elopement
Najm-ul-Hassan was also Devika's co-star in the studio's next venture, Jeevan Naiya. The two co-stars developed a romantic relationship, and during the shooting schedule of Jeevan Naiya, Devika eloped with Hassan. Himanshu was both enraged and distraught. Since the leading pair were absent, production was stalled. A significant portion of the movie had been shot and a large sum of money, which had been taken as credit from financers, had been spent. The studio therefore suffered severe financial losses and a loss of credit among bankers in the city while the runaway couple made merry.
Sashadhar Mukherjee, an assistant sound-engineer at the studio, had a brotherly bond with Devika Rani because both of them were Bengalis and spoke that language with each other. He established contact with the runaway couple and managed to convince Devika Rani to return to her husband. In the India of that era, divorce was legally almost impossible and women who eloped were regarded as no better than prostitutes and were shunned by their own families. In her heart of hearts, Devika Rani knew that she could not secure a divorce or marry Hassan under any circumstances. She negotiated with her husband through the auspices of Sashadhar Mukherjee, seeking the separation of her finances from those of her husband as a condition for her return. Henceforth, she would be paid separately for working in his films, but he would be required to single-handedly pay the household expenses for the home in which both of them would live. Himanshu agreed to this, in order to save face in society and to prevent his studio from going bankrupt. Devika Rani returned to her marital home. However, things would never be the same between husband and wife again, and it is said that thenceforth, their relationship was largely confined to work and little or no intimacy transpired between them after this episode.
Despite the additional expense involved in re-shooting many portions of the film, Himanshu Rai replaced Najm-ul-Hassan with Ashok Kumar, who was the brother of Sashadhar Mukherjee's wife, as the hero of Jeevan Naiya. This marked the debut, improbable as it may seem, of Ashok Kumar's five-decade-long career in Hindi films. Najm-ul-Hassan was dismissed from his job at Bombay Talkies (this was the period in which actors and actresses were paid regular monthly salaries by one specific film studio and could not work in any other studio). His reputation as a dangerous cad established, he could not find work in any other studio. His career was ruined and he sank into obscurity.[26]
Golden era of Bombay Talkies
Devika Rani and her frequent co-star Ashok Kumar, in Achhut Kanya (1936).
Achhut Kanya (1936), the studio's next production was a tragedy drama that had Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar portraying the roles of an untouchable girl and a Brahmin boy who fall in love.[27] The film is considered a "landmark" in Indian cinema as it challenged the caste system in the country. The casting of Devika Rani was considered a mismatch as her looks did not match the role of a poor untouchable girl by virtue of her "upper-class upbringing".[28] However, her pairing with Ashok Kumar became popular and they went on to star in as many as ten films together with most of them being Bombay Talkies productions.[1][27]
In the 1930s, Bombay Talkies produced several women-centric films with Devika Rani playing the lead role in all of them. In majority of the films produced by the studio, she was paired opposite Ashok Kumar, who was "overshadowed" by her.[29] Jeevan Prabhat, released in 1937, saw a role-reversal between Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar—she played a higher-caste Brahmin woman who is mistaken by society of having an extra-marital affair with an untouchable man. Her next release Izzat (1937), based on Romeo and Juliet, was set in the medieval period and depicted two lovers belonging to enemy clans of a Maratha empire.[27] Nirmala, released in the following year, dealt with the plight of a child-less woman who is told by an astrologer to abandon her husband to ensure successful pregnancy.[27] In Vachan, her second release of the year, she played a Rajput princess.[30] Durga, her only release in 1939, was a romantic drama that told the story of an orphaned girl and a village doctor, played by Ashok Kumar.[1][31]
Widowhood and studio decline
Following the death of Rai in 1940, there was a rift between two parties of the Bombay Talkies led by Mukherjee and Amiya Chakravarty.[32] Devika Rani assumed principal responsibility and took over the studio along with Mukherjee. In 1941, she produced and acted in Anjaan co-starring Ashok Kumar. In the subsequent years, she produced two successful films under the studio—Basant and Kismet—both starring Ashok Kumar. Kismet (1943) contained anti-British messages (India was under British rule at that time) and turned out to be a "record-breaking" film.[33] Devika Rani made her last film appearance in Hamari Baat (1943), which had Raj Kapoor playing a small role.
She handpicked newcomer Dilip Kumar for a role in Jwar Bhata (1944), produced by her on behalf of the studio. An internal politics that arose in the studio led prominent personalities including Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar to part ways with her and set up a new studio called Filmistan.[33] Due to lack of support and interest, she decided to quit the film industry. In an interview to journalist Raju Bharatan, she mentioned that her idea of not willing to compromise on "artistic values" of film-making as one of the major reasons for her quitting the industry.[34]
Roerich, retirement and death
Following her retirement from films, Devika Rani married Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich, son of Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, in 1945. After marriage, the couple moved to Manali, Himachal Pradesh where they got acquainted with the Nehru family. During her stay in Manali, Devika Rani made a few documentaries on wildlife. After staying in Manali for some years, they moved to Bangalore, Karnataka, and settled there managing an export company.[35] The couple bought a 450 acres (1,800,000 m2) estate on the outskirts of the city and led a solitary life for the remainder of their lives.[1][36]
She died of bronchitis on 9 March 1994—a year after Roerich died—in Bangalore.[37][38] At her funeral, Devika Rani was given full state honors.[39] Following her death, the estate was on litigation for many years as the couple had no legal claimants; Devika Rani remained childless throughout her life. In August 2011, the Government of Karnataka acquired the estate after the Supreme Court of India passed the verdict in favour of them.[36][40]
Persona and legacy
Devika Rani was called the first lady of Indian cinema.[24][41][42] She is credited for being one of the earliest personalities who took the position of Indian cinema to global standards.[43] Her films were mostly tragic romantic dramas that contained social themes.[29] The roles played by her in films of Bombay Talkies usually involved in romantic relationship with men who were unusual for the social norms prevailing in the society at that time, mainly for their caste background or community identity.[27] Rani was highly influenced by the German cinema by virtue of her training at the UFA Studios;[41]
Although she was influenced by German actress Marlene Dietrich,[24] her acting style was compared to Greta Garbo,[39] thus leading to Devika Rani being named the "Indian Garbo".[44][45]
Rani's attire, both in films and sometimes in real life, were considered "risque" at that time.[46] In his book Bless You Bollywood!: A tribute to Hindi Cinema on completing 100 years, Tilak Rishi mentions that Devika Rani was known as the "Dragon Lady" for her "smoking, drinking, cursing and hot temper".[47]
In 1958, the Government of India honoured Devika Rani with a Padma Shri, the country's fourth highest civilian honour. She became the first ever recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the country's highest award for films, when it was instituted in 1969.[39][48]
In 1990, Soviet Russia honoured her with the "Soviet Land Nehru Award".[49]
A postage stamp commemorating her life was released by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in February 2011.[50]
Filmography
Karma (1933)
Jawani Ki Hawa (1935)
Mamta Aur Mian Biwi (1936)
Jeevan Naiya (1936)
Janmabhoomi (1936)
Achhoot Kanya (1936)
Savitri (1937)
Jeevan Prabhat (1937)
Izzat (1937)
Prem Kahani (1937)
Nirmala (1938)
Vachan (1938)
Durga (1939)
Anjaan (1941)
Hamari Baat (1943)
Devika Rani, The First Lady Of Indian Cinema Who Was A Feminist Before The Word Became Popular
We often hear celebrities take immense pride when a 'woman-oriented film' is on the cusp of its release. Nowadays, movies are promoted with an agenda if there's a woman headlining the act. A female director or a female producer is credited with making a move and special emphasis is laid on the fact that it was a woman who did it.
In the decades of oppression that women have faced in the society, this comes as a reminder that even in 2017, women are still fighting for equal opportunities in their place of work.
However, decades ago, when Indian cinema was just a sapling, there was a woman who broke all those gender barriers. She was a feminist even before the term came in vogue. She stood tall in times of adversity and in many ways, gave Indian cinema the face it has today.
That woman was Devika Rani.
Source: blogspot
Devika, along with her husband Himanshu Rai, established one of India's first well-equipped studios, Bombay Talkies, back in 1934. Together, they challenged gender and societal norms and started a conversation about the changing society.
Art direction, costume design, acting, there wasn't a single department that Devika wasn't involved in.
Devika's debut as an actress, Karma, was the first-ever English language talkie of Indian cinema. Her performance took the world by storm with newspapers in London raving about her acting talent. It is certainly ironical that a kissing scene on screen has the capacity of making headlines in this day and age when Devika did a 4-minute kissing scene way back in the 1930s.
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In her own way, Devika was trying to break free from the orthodox ways that were gulping the society.
When the society was being swallowed by the caste system, Bombay Talkies produced Achhut Kanya (starring Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar). The film was a love story of a Brahmin boy and an untouchable girl. It can easily be called a landmark film in an era when the caste system was engraved in every fibre of the society.
Devika did not shy away from such projects, rather took them head on.
In her film, Nirmala, she challenged the blind faith people have on astrologers. In many ways, the film is still relevant.
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Still from Achhut Kanya | Source: wordpress
Though she was married to Himanshu Rai, she found love when she least expected it.
While working on a film, she fell for her co-star, Najm-ul-Hassan. But the financial pressure on Bombay Talkies, which she co-owned with her husband, did not allow them to get divorced.
The samaaj as they say, could not accept a woman falling in love with a man who wasn't her husband.
There was a fear of bankruptcy but she could not continue pretending to be a happy wife when she wasn't one. She separated her finances from her husband and even though they lived under the same roof, it was just for the sake of their studio.
Source: upperstall
After Himanshu Rai's passing in 1940, Devika got complete control of the studio and it is only thanks to her that Hindi cinema witnessed great actors such as Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and even Raj Kapoor.
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Source: wikinut
Devika was known as the 'Dragon Lady' among her peers.
To this day, women always get 'the look' when they are seen smoking and are presumed to be a 'certain kind' if they are seen with a drink in their hand. Devika was not the kind to bow down to the constructed customs of society and her peers feared her for her hot temper and feisty curses.
For her immense contribution to Indian cinema, Devika was honoured with the first Dadasaheb Phalke Award.
At the peak of her career, Devika decided to retire from the movies. She was an artist first and a business woman later and thus, retired for the sake of her artistic integrity.
Looking back, it feels like the society's tolerance for strong women has only gone weaker with the passing decades.
Women as strong as Devika were limited in number back then but even today, we are struggling to give them the pedestal they truly deserve.
Devika Rani Roerich (Chaudhuri)
Russian: Devika Rani Рерих
Birthdate: March 30, 1908 (85)
Birthplace: Visakhapatnam, Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India
Death: March 9, 1994 (85)
Bangalore, Bengaluru Urban, Karnataka, India
Immediate Family:
Daughter of Manmathanath Chaudhuri and Leela Devi Chaudhuri
Wife of Svetoslav Roerich
Ex-wife of Himanshu Rai
Sister of Nikhil Chaudhuri and Mahim Chaudhuri
About Devika "Rani" Roerich (Chaudhuri)
Devika Rani Chaudhuri Roerich (Bengali: দেবিকা রাণী) (30 March 1908 – 9 March 1994) was an early Indian movie star. Born in Waltair (now Visakhapatnam), Devika Rani came from a distinguished background: she was the great-grandniece of the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and her father, Col. M. N. Chaudhuri, was the first Indian Surgeon-General of Madras. Her mother's name was Leela. She completed her early schooling in the early 1920s. She then studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK, where she won scholarships. She also studied architecture, textile and decor design, and apprenticed under Elizabeth Arden. Here, through her Brahmo connections, she met with scriptwriter Niranjan Pal who would eventually write many of her most successful screen roles. Devika Rani married Indian producer and actor Himanshu Rai in 1929. Together they starred in Karma (1933). They soon founded the Bombay Talkies film studio, along with retainers Niranjan Pal and Franz Osten, whose films challenged the caste system. In addition to Devika Rani, other notable actors to work for Bombay Talkies at one point or another included Ashok Kumar and Madhubala.
In 1936, Devika Rani eloped with her lover actor Najam-ul-Hassan. Himanshu Rai somehow managed to bring her back but her paramour did not return. And the studio head Himanshu Rai called upon his laboratory assistant Ashok Kumar to take the leading man's part and thus began a six-decade-long acting career for that actor. Ashok Kumar later starred with the actress in Achhut Kanya (1936). This, her most notable film, is the story of a relationship between an untouchable girl (played by herself) and a Brahmin boy (played by Ashok Kumar). Devika Rani is also accredited for having acted in the longest kissing scene in the movie world with her husband Himanshu Rai in Karma (1933). It was 4 minutes long and very controversial in the then culturally orthodox India.[1] Later life
Widowed in 1940, she fought for control of her husband's studio Bombay Talkies, she had to share control with Sashadhar Mukherjee, but in 1943 Sashadhar, Ashok Kumar and a lot of Bombay talkies veterans left and formed a new studio - Filmistan. After that Bombay Talkies started to fade and she married Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich in 1945. She left films and joined her husband in Bangalore [1] in their sprawling estate 'Tataguni' on Kanakpura Road, where she lived till her death in 1994, though maintained her link with the film industry... In 1958, the President of India honoured Devika Rani with a Padma Shri. In 1969, she became the first recipient of the prestigious film prize, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. At her funeral, Devika Rani was given full state honors. The Tataguni estate became famous for the dispute that ensued over it after her death as the Indian and Russian governments and relatives went to court over its control. [edit]Trivia
Devika Rani is best remembered for her discovery of Dilip Kumar. Despite being an actress of the Thirties, she was most accomplished and modern in every sense. She was a student of architecture in London and met Himanshu Rai there, where she had agreed to design the sets for his film production.... Mr.Rai was the only Indian producer with the famous German film concern U.F.A. in Berlin. At the U.F.A. Studios, Devika Rani learnt costumes designing, make-up, decor and other different branches of film production with special training in acting.
At the time, Devika Rani also acted with Himansu Rai in a play for U.F.A. which took them to Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, where they were received with the highest honours. It was in "KARMA" that Devika Rani established herself as a "star" of first magnitude. During the screening of "KARMA", Devika Rani was honoured by an invitation of the B.B.C. at London to act in the first television broadcast in Britain which was relayed throughout the country. She was also chosen to inaugurate the first B.B.C. broadcast on the short wavelength to India.
She was a member of the Central Government Audio Visual Education Board. She was also nominated to the National Academy of Dance, Drama, Music and Films, the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Delhi, as a nominee of the Central Government. She was a member of the Executive Board of the National Academy, Member of the Lalit Kala Akademi and the National Handicrafts Board and Member of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
Equally invaluable is the prestigious Soviet Land Nehru award conferred on her in 1989. [edit]Family background
Devika Rani was the great grandniece of Rabindranath Tagore. Devika Rani's maternal grandmother Indumati Devi was the daughter of Tagore's elder sister Saudamini Devi; she thus is related matrilineally to Tagore. Her father M N Chaudhuri also belonged to an illustrious family of Bengal. Her uncles, i.e. her father's brothers, were famous men, like Justice Sir Ashutosh Chaudhuri, Barrister Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri, and author Pramatha Chaudhuri.
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Devika "Rani" Roerich (Chaudhuri)'s Timeline
1908 March 30, 1908 Birth of Devika
Visakhapatnam, Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India
1994 March 9, 1994 Age 85 Death of Devika
Bangalore, Bengaluru Urban, Karnataka, India
The Torrid Affair That Turned a Lab Assistant Into Ashok Kumar
(This story is from The Quint’s archive and was first published on December 10, 2015. It’s being republished for Ashok Kumar fans on the iconic actor’s birth anniversary.)
To trace the birth of Ashok Kumar, we have to go back in time, because all it took was a scorching affair to turn a lab assistant into a screen icon.
The story begins with Jawani Ki Hawa (1935), a film produced by Bombay Talkies starring Devika Rani and Najam-Ul-Hasan. A crime thriller on the lines of Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express, directed by Franz Osten, Jawani ki Hawa was one of the earliest films to be set in a moving train. Devi soon fell for the charms of Hasan who was described by his contemporaries as strikingly handsome.
The pair was cast opposite each other once again in Jeevan Naiya (1936). This time, the madly-in-love couple eloped to Calcutta. There was however a minor roadblock: Rani was already married to Himanshu Rai, the co-founder of Bombay Talkies. Soon, rumours began to spread, and all was not well.
Sashadhar Mukherjee, Rai’s friend and co-worker searched all over and finally tracked the couple. Divorce was unthinkable at the time, and finally Mukherjee managed to convince Rani to return to her husband. Hasan was sacked unceremoniously by the jilted Rai. Ironically, it was Rai who had earlier persuaded Hasan to take up acting and become a hero.
Back in Bombay, the hunt for a new lead was on. Rai, who had already lost his wife once to a handsome man, wanted to make sure the same wouldn’t happen again. The solution: cast someone who was nowhere extraordinary, rather average. Mukherjee’s brother-in-law Kumudlal Kunjilal Ganguly was a lab assistant in Bombay Talkies, and his name suddenly popped up in a meeting. Soon, Ganguly was dragged out of his dreary lab environment. Osten was certain that the lowly lab assistant did not meet the standards of a Hindi film hero. But Rai was convinced he had found his leading ‘average’ man, and Ganguly’s long name was rechristened as Ashok Kumar, to suit popular taste.
Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani in a still from <i>Achhut Kannya </i>(1936)
Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani in a still from Achhut Kannya (1936)
Soon, Jeevan Naiya released, followed by Achhut Kannya (1936). The love story between a Brahmin boy and a Dalit girl caught the fancy of the nation, and it was declared a monster hit, both critically and commercially. And thereon, there was no looking back. The average everyman face played all shades of characters over many decades making an illustrious career, and became one of the most recognised faces and voices of Indian cinema.
Ashok Kumar is remembered as an icon of India’s cinematic legacy (Photo: <a href="http://www.bollywoodirect.com/ashok-kumar-a-legend-par-excellence/">www.bollywoodirect.com</a>)
Ashok Kumar is remembered as an icon of India’s cinematic legacy (Photo: www.bollywoodirect.com)
An icon of India’s cinematic legacy, Ashok Kumar’s appeal lies in the story o
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