Devika Rani : An Iconoclast in world of cinema.

The Statesman dated 24th March 2023

Photographs : taken from internet.

In 1933 when talkies in Indian motion picture was at it’s infancy and most of it’s performers were at their learning phase of acting before camera an Indian lady with her elegance, sophistication, charms and bravery was setting the silver screen on fire. She was not only mesmerizing the audience of Europe and US with her acting skill, command over English language and enigmatic screen presence but also daring to enact in a nearly 4 minutes long kissing sequence on the screen with her co-actor.
The lady behind this near impossible thing was hailed from two most elite and educated families of Bengal. She was Rabindranath Tagore’s grand niece and daughter of Dr Manmatho Chowdhury the legendary surgeon of India.
She was Devika Rani.
Devika was the first diva of Indian silver screen who apart from being an actor imprinted her footprint in history as one of the earliest pioneer head of a film studio in the world. In 1941 when she was 34 years and at the twilight of her career The Mirror magazine voted her the most beautiful woman of Indian screen keeping her much above of much younger actresses like Leela Desai, Kanan Devi, Shanta Apte, Naseem, Leela Chitnis and Hansa Wadkar.
Born in Vizag in 1908 and educated in boarding school of England from the age of nine she also completed he training from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Royal Academy of Music of London with scholarship. Devika went on to learn textile designing and home decoration in England. In an era when association with cinema for lady used to earn social stigma she by every standard was an exceptional iconoclast Indian having a huge exposure, knowledge and experience of both the world. From her early youth she was a Bengali by culture, an Indian by spirit and a global citizen by attitude.
Devika Rani was actually much bigger a titan than a mere actress shown her talent in every aspects of cinema like running production, distribution, searching new talent and controlling finance of a large business entity. She did all these from 1934 to 1945 while delivering stealer performance in acting and singing.
At 16 Devika’s life changed when dashing handsome Himansu Rai another elite Bengali lad educated in Tagore’s school and in Britain met her at Niranjan Pal’s London house. Niranjan who was a close friend of Savarkar teamed up with Hinansu in 1928 and made a silent movie named “ Light of Asia “ in 1925 the first Indian film that made wave in western world. Himansu –Niranjan together also made movies like Siraj in 1928 and A Throw of Dice in 1929. Last two films were jointly produced by UFA, British Instructional Company and Bruce Wolf of UK.
Devika worked in last film as costume designer and soon secretly married much older and already married Himansu in Madras. This fairly tale marriage within few years will be converted into a nightmare and will change Devika’s destiny forever.
In 1933 the couple produced and acted in an English movie named “ Karma “ directed by JL Free Hunt. In this movie Devika and Himansu locked their lips for nearly 4 minutes and scripted the history of longest kiss in world of cinema. The record is still unbroken even after 90 years. Karma was also made in Hindi under the title “ Nagin Ki Ragini “ and released in India but failed in box office. However she got an offer from Hollywood’s 20th Century Fox for the film “ The Snake Charmer’s Daughter “ which she returned.
BBC ‘s short wave radio service to India started with a Rabindrasangeet “ Gram chara oyi ranga matir path “ sung by Devika in 1934.
Himansu Rai was a pioneer in Indian movie making and in 1933 itself he had decided to make movies in India under the most modern infrastructure that he had seen in Germany and USA. Backed by Devika’s strong support the couple moved to India and purchased a huge piece of land in Malad near Bombay. There in 1934 Himansu Rai and Devika Rani converted their dream into reality.
They with active financial and technical support of Sir Chimanlal Setalvad a Bombay stock broker, Shir Chunilal Meheta of Central Bank of India, Sir Cawasaji Jehangir and Sir Phiroze Sethna formed India’s first ultra modern film studio in pure Hollywood line named Bombay Talkies.
A report published in The Times of India dated 9th August 1934 shows Bombay Talkies’ ambitious dream o making six films in twelve months with a projection of making atleast Rs 35000 profit per film. It also had a plan to distribute films made by other studio and to make a profit of Rs 100000 per film.
The Bombay Talkie was equipped with best of infra and human resources. From Germany, France and Britain Himansu and Devika brought some of the finest technician and creative brains to Bombay as permanent employees. The studio employed nearly 400 people almost all living inside the studio complex. It brought director Franz Osten, set designer Karl Von Spreti and cameraman Josef Wirsching on its payroll.
The studio had sound proof floors, lab, editing room, projection room, archive, talent hunt, provision for natural lighting in indoors, acting and music workshop studios and many more. It’s size and facilities in Malad were much bigger than Calcutta’s New Theatre and Pune’s Prabhat Studio.Devika was extremely selective of taking actress in her payroll but except Leela Chitnis, one princess of Burdawan royal family and Khoshed Minocher Honji known as Saraswati she found none with sound education and decent family background.
Nevertheless she got a bright bunch of male employees all having University degree
The first film produced by BT was “ Jawani Ki Hawa “ released in 1935. Devika played the leading lady of the film and film poster featured mostly of her photo and name even skipping name of the hero. This shows the weight of Devika’s brand value as cine star of 1930s. It was directed by Franz Osten who joined BT with many other highly talented and trained German, French and Brits on Himansu and Devika’s call.
“Jawani Ki Hawa” had tough competition with New Theatre’s Street Singer starring KL Saigal and Kanan Devi. The film did moderate business but was highly appreciated in media for it’s advanced technology and natural acting of Devika.
By this time Devika who was grown in liberal atmosphere and always enjoyed her freedom was passing through an emotional crisis with her husband Himansu who was too engrossed in making cinema and ruthlessly delegating massive responsibility to her both in production and in acting.
This gradually converted into mental and physical abuse and soon Devika became a victim of domestic violence in the hand of her husband a man whom she loved madly. It was later revealed that she was forced to act and dance before camera with 104 degree body temperature and even when she was on her heavy period.
At this time Devika as bold as she always was dared to elope with an actor named Sheikh Najam-Ul-Hussain to Calcutta and locked them inside of hotel Oberoi Grand for days. It is believed both had a plan to join Calcutta’s New Theatre and resettle in life as a couple.
This was such a big personal and professional devastation to Himansu.
He had no option but to bow before Devika to call her back on her terms to complete a film named “Jeevan – Naiya” in which both Devika and his elopement partner were acting.
Devika leaving Najam at Calcutta backed to Bombay as a stronger woman grabbing more power to dominate both the workplace and at home. Her relation with her husband was never repaired after this.
Ashok Kumar then working as lab assistant in BT replaced Najam and the film was completed. Next year the same pair Ashok and Devika gave Indian cinema it’s first block buster “ Achyut Kanya “ .
The film released in July 1936 at Bombay’s Roxy cinema rocked India with it’s strong social message. Jawaharlal Nehru and Sarojoni Naidu came to watch the movie at Roxy and ever since Neheru became a fan of Devika Rani. The Times of India dated 26th July 1936 reports that “ ……a real gem of pure acting which places her at the head of India’s screen starts which Garbo herself could hardly surpass…Her singing too is marvelous…..”.
All film magazines of that era like Film India, Mirror, The Motion Picture Magazine unquestionably hailed her the most elegant face on Indian screen.
In next few years thanks to Himansu’s falling health and his untimely demise in 1940 Devika ruled Bombay Talkie’s with her iron fist but she drastically failed to keep the team that her husband shaped up.
Devika’s arrogance, over powering propensity, dominance and lastly untamed smug of her aristocratic background created a huge gap with her team. More to that her bold life style and attitude like openly smoking, drinking and frequently expressing dis-comfort about those co artists whose back grounds contain social stigma made her most unpopular in the organization. It is said that once she openly expressed her displeasure on knowing the social background of Hansa Wadkar one of the legendary Mararthi actress working in BT. Above all her elopement with Najam and then ruthless discarding of him made a very negative image of her in a world of men where she being a woman holding the highest office in the organization.
It led infighting in organization and from 1940 BT team was divided into two rival camps - one under Devika and other under Sashadhar Mukherjee with whom Ashok Kumar and Gyan Mukherjee teamed up.
It was decided that each group will produce one movie but the actors will work in both. Surprisingly most of the movies produced by Sashadhar and directed by NR Acharya and Gyan Mukherjee like Bandhan ( 1940 ) and Jhula ( 1941 ) both starring Ashok Kumar and Leela Chitnis became smash hits while film like Anjan ( 1941 ) produced by Devika and directed by Amiya Chakraborty did not well. In Anjan Devika paired for the last time with Ashok Kumar ending a saga of eight most memorable films of early India cinema as it’s first romantic pair.
In an interview to Chandi Mukherjee given in 1988 Ashok Kumar clearly said that he was never comfortable with Devika for her suppressing attitude. She as per Ashok was always a boss or bosse’s wife than co-star. As there was serious lapses of cordial bonding among them their films like Janmabhumi ( 1936 ), Prem Kahani ( 1937) and Nirmala ( 1938) did not do well. However films like Izzat ( 1937), Savitri ( 1937), Bachan ( 1938) did good to moderate business.
In 1942 Devika grabbed more power in BT management board by making herself production head of all films under the studio. This culminated into a mass resignation of a huge number of talented people like Sashadhar, Ashok Kumar, Gyan Mukherjee, Pradeep, VH Desai, Harbans Singh and Rai Bahadhur Chunilal the General Manager of the studio from Bombay Talkies.
However before leaving BT, Gyan Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar completed Kismat ( 1943 ) which became the biggest ever commercially successful cinema of that era. It was produced by Sashadhar Mukherjee.
Devika now the un-challenged boss of BT ran the studio in her best possible capacity.
She scouted a young handsome boy and launched with by the name Dilip Kumar in a film named Jawar Bhata .She also introduced a teenaged beauty giving her a name Madhubala who will later became a legend in Hindi cinema. .Even Raj Kapoor worked in BT as assistant director to Amiya Chakraborty.
Devika made BT extremely profitable and earned good money for herself.
In 1943 thanks for the success of her last appearance on screen in “Hamari Baat” she took Rs 20000 bonus from the Board of Directors and hiked her monthly salary to Rs 2750 with an additional entertainment allowance of Rs 300.
Meanwhile she got involved with Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich son of legendary Russian humanist Nocholas Roerich from 1943-44. She found him a shelter to nurse her various emotional wounds and gradually their love turned into a relation of bonding, This stimulated Devika to leave Bombay by selling all her shares in BT to marry Svetoslav. She left Bombay to settle with her husband in Naggar near Manali and after some years sold everything and settled at Bangalore where she died in 1994.
Devika Rani is a name of a revolution,
In today’s India when women empowerment is still under challenge, she in 1930s to 1940s not only participated but also literally dominated a men’s bastion which was unprecedented in contemporary world that she lived. No wonder once The Era magazine said on her that “ Culture is Her Birth Right “.
A winner of India’s first Dada Saheb Phalke award and also The Soviet Land Neheru Award she was a lonely soul and at the last stage of her life said with a regret that she had a long life and no one should have a long life like her.