In the rich and diverse history of Marathi cinema, Raja Paranjape is one of the names that shines bright. His work was so awe-inspiring and brilliant that it inspired artists across industries and languages. Among them were some legends of Hindi cinema.
Once Upon a Cinema is series which will illuminate the dark, unexplored crevices of Indian cinema. In it, the writer will showcase stories and faces long forgotten, share uncommon perspectives about stars and filmmakers, and recount tales that have never been told.
Seema Deo was busy shooting at Mahalaxmi studios when she got the call. Someone said the call was from Bimal Roy Productions. This was 1960 and that name spelt reverence and admiration. The man on the other end asked if she could come to meet Bimal Roy ‘immediately’. The director Joglekar gladly obliged and gave her his car. It was Bimal Roy, after all. At his office, the majestic Bimal Roy welcomed Seema and wanted to know if she would be interested to work in his new film Prem Patra. He also asked which were the Marathi films she was working on. Jagachya Pathivar was her last film, she said. It was directed by her guru, Raja Paranjape. Bimal Roy is said to have stood up from his chair upon hearing that name. He told her he was a huge admirer of Raja Paranjape’s work, and since she was his shishya, he’d like to sign her on without any further delay!
Raja Paranjape and Bimal Roy had formed a mutual admiration society. Roy admired Paranjape’s work, and Paranjape’s work often reflected the sensitivity and social realism which were the hallmarks of Bimal Roy’s oeuvre. Roy even cast him in his swansong Bandini as Nutan’s father. But none of this can adequately express how big a deal Raja Paranjape was to Marathi cinema. He was a veritable institution in the industry, with a filmography spanning almost three decades, and several iconic films that constantly pushed the envelope. Paranjape’s first step in the movies was through a role in Baburao Painter’s Savkari Pash (1936). Interestingly, this was a remake of Painter’s own silent film of the same name, and V. Shantaram had debuted in it. It was through Shantaram’s Prabhat Film Company that Raja Paranjape was to start his filmmaking career, but his music career begun much before that.
During the silent years, musicians were made to sit in a pit near the screen and perform live music to the action unfolding on the screen. Since no official soundtrack or music wasn’t available, this was an opportunity for many of the musicians to get creative with their sounds. Raja Paranjape used to play music with them. His musical faculties also landed him a job at Natyamanvantar, a theatre company. Well-known actor and theatre personality Keshavrao Date got him the job there as an organ player. Paranjape got his first acting gig when an existing actor had to be replaced and he stepped in. A play called Lapandao was being staged at Natyamanvantar, and one of the actors was not to be found. At the eleventh hour, Raja was asked to step in. He was a keen observer and had started to notice the various beats of the performances by actors on stage. He stood up to the challenge, and Raja Paranjape, the actor, was born.
Eventually, it was the same Keshavrao Date who got him a role in Savkari Pash (1936), his first on-screen work. Paranjape was gradually developing his own footing as an astor. Over the years, he developed an acting style that blended humour and pathos in a way that was quite unusual, something that another actor in another part of the globe was known for: Charles Chaplin. He knew what buttons to press to make his audiences laugh out loud or to have them shed copious tears. Invariably, there was an interest in learning the skill and craft of film directing. Raja joined Bhalji Pendharkar as an assistant. It was 1937 and Pendharkar was in his prime, having spent his years working in silent films and now making talkies with historical subjects. Under Pendharkar, Raja Paranjape not only learnt the ropes of filmmaking but also flowered as an actor. He worked in many films directed by Pendharkar.
With his very first directorial Jivacha Sakha (1948), Paranjape showed his true colours as a filmmaker. The film harked back to his acting debut Savkari Pash in the way that it dealt with the iron grasp of moneylenders on the lives of poor farmers. But what made Jivacha Sakha remarkable was its restraint in handling the subject. In an era where cinema as an art form was riddled with over-dramatic depictions and animated performances, Raja’s film was seeped in a sense of realism which made the subject even grittier and more engaging. Close on its heels followed the Marathi/ Hindi bilingual Balidan/ Do Kaliyan (1948) and Pudhcha Paool (1950), both progressive films which spoke about class struggles and breaking the shackles of the past. Acclaimed litterateur and humourist Purushottam Laxman Deshpande, popularly referred to as Pu La Deshpande, played the lead in Pudhcha Paool. Deshpande also collaborated with writer G.D. Madgulkar on the screenplay.
If V. Shantaram’s films were marked for their experimentation, Raja Paranjape’s work marked the contours of popular Marathi cinema. But Paranjape’s triumph lay in the fact that he achieved it without giving in to sensationalism or melodrama. He developed a distinctive style which applied to his films and his films alone. This came to be known as the ‘Raja Paranjape style’ of filmmaking. All his scenes had a naturalistic flavour, which was intensified by his control over the craft of editing. As a filmmaker, he retained mastery over almost all departments that encompassed cinema. During the 50s, Raja Paranjape went on a rampage, making film after film in quick succession, while managing to maintain sterling quality in cinema and storytelling. Pedgavche Shahane (1952) was a watershed moment in Marathi and Indian cinema. It was a film in which Paranjape soared the depths of human psyche, daring to look at society through the lens of insanity. He himself played the lead character of a surgeon who loses his mind after performing a procedure on his wife which goes sideways. In a case of mistaken identity, the doctor finds himself living with the family of his doppelganger. After a point, the lines between who’s “normal” who is really “mad” starts blurring. Raja later remade the film in Hindi as Chacha Chaudhary (1953).
Around the early 1960s, Raja Paranjape was making a film called Ha Mazha Marg Ekla, which was partially inspired from Chaplin’s The Kid (1921). He was looking for the right child actor for the role. It was a specific brief, so they were looking for a boy with a unique “presence”. Raja ended up auditioning more than two hundred children, and realized he was nowhere near finding a child who fit the description. He’d almost given up decided to pick one of the kids he had already seen, when Sudhir Phadke, the producer of the film, came with a suggestion. Sudhir was also the composer for the film. Raja and Sudhir Phadke had collaborated on many a classic, resulting in classic, timeless songs that continue to hold sway over the Marathi manoos. Now, Sudhir happened to have found someone who he thought would fit the role of the kid perfectly. But Paranjape was tired and was in no mood to talk to another child. But Phadke persisted, and he had to give in. Within moments of the boy walking into his room, Raja Paranjape was sure he had found what – or who – he was looking for. They clicked instantly. Ultimately, Raja Paranjape and this child, Sachin Pilgaonkar, were to create history with Ha Mazha Marg Ekla. The “kid” won a National Award for Best Actor.
Sachin went on to create a name for himself in Hindi and Marathi films, eventually becoming writer/director himself, much like his guru. Besides Sachin, Raja Paranjape was known for mentoring and supporting several talented actors, including the legendary acting couple Ramesh and Seema Deo, who were formidable stars not only in Marathi films but built a niche in Hindi films as well. Among others, one of the couple’s more iconic appearances was in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand (1971). Of the various acting assignments Raja fulfilled in the two film industries, one of the more notable ones was Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963), where essayed the role of Nutan’s father, a wise old postmaster who was also an authority on Vaishnavite poetry. Raja delivered an exquisite performance in that relatively minor role, and it remains one of his memorable works.
For three decades, Raja Paranjape blazed a trail through Marathi cinema, creating classics that are hailed as some of the best in the language. His films were remade into popular Hindi films which are themselves considered classics, like Raj Khosla’s seminal Mera Saaya (1966) which was a remake of Pathlaag (1964). Raja Paranjape’s last film as a director was Aadhar (1969). He breathed his last on 9 February 1979.
Amborish is a National Film Award winning writer, biographer and film historian.
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