Saturday, October 23, 2010

Father of the Indian film industry

Saw “Harish Chandrachi factory” earlier this week. Had been wanting to see this movie, India’s Oscar entry for a while. A big thanks to Paresh Mokashi was creating this engaging movie which gives Mr Phalke his due, the person who gave up his everything(including selling all his possessions) to create India’s first motion picture and thereby lay the foundation stone for the worlds biggest film industry.

Salute is the first word that comes to the mind for Dadasaheb Phalke after seeing this movie. His passion for making a movie wasn’t restricted to creating a name for himself. His restlessness, his selflessness and his fight against society’s taboo’s was just to create the first motion picture in the country and give the creative minds of this vast country a direction. Post the release of his first motion picture Mr Phalke was offered by many Britishers to shift to England and make movies produced by them and thereby make loads of money. But the only thing Mr Phalke had in mind was to get more people in India make movies and understand the concept of movies. The result, the country now boasts of the worlds largest film industry.

Mr Phalke almost became blind in the process of creating his motion pictures, couldn’t pay much attention towards the upbringing of his kids, was not earning anything for the entire period till the motion picture got released, faced criticism and hardships but still continued to work towards his dream.

The artist must create a spark before he can create a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.(Auguste Rodin) Mr Dadasaheb Phalke got consumed in the art that he created.