FilmIndia (1940)

August 1940 FILM INDIA With tennis racquets and a motor car, romance begins between BABURAO PANDHARKAR and VANMALA in "Lapandav" That wound took 12 days to heal. It hurt me to think of it but it made me more careful. On the fifth day, the producer who had hit me, called on me and apologised for his action. In that moment I forgot both the injury and the insult and till today we are good friends. That is why I am not mentioning his name. But the incident is too well known in the industry and everyone knows my present friend who attacked me once. But in this grim struggle my publisher was beaten. He could not hold out through threats, abuses and court cases. One day he told me that he had decided to stop the paper and in a week he did so. I sat on my oars for three years — writing stray articles in the dailies. Then one day my friend and present colleague Mr. Parker asked me to edit a new film paper which he intended publishing, primarily, to feed his printing machines in his press. I warned Mr. Parker about the risk of taking me. I asked him whether he was prepared to face a general boycott. I asked him whether he had seen a stick raised in the air. I asked him whether he likes the look of a naked knife. And in the end I asked him whether he would allow me to write what I liked. Mr. Parker smiled back and after what we have both been through for six years, I must admit that I have come across few men with his guts. That paper is "Filmindia." During the last six years I have been carrying on the crusade which I launched fifteen years back. And truth today is as unpopular as it was fifteen fears ago. Today, those brothels have disappeared and in their place we have temples of art. Those prostitutes have vanished and in their place we have educated artistes with University qualifications. Pimping producers are no longer there and in their place we find serious industrialists. The whole order has changed and the film industry has come to occupy its own place of importance in the new order of things. Today, even the little Ahmad Abbas can write a stinging review of a picture and escape with a whole skin. Because, once a single-handedly, I faced all the abuses, all the threats and all the beatings. And yet today with all the progress made in every direction producers are still hyper-sensitive to criticism and I am still an outcast. Bad blackmailers call me a good blackmailer. Rivals call me a rogue and producers say that I can be bought. I wish I could be all that. I would have at least been successful in material gains. In these sharp practices, I am a bad artist allround. Even now when I say that Sohrab Modi is a good man, Sohrab Modi is the first man who does not believe me. How could I, of all people — with what Sohrab Modi thinks of me — tell the truth? Dear Sohrab works himself up with fancy grievances and actually believes that he is not a good man merely to disbelieve what I say of him. If I say that a picture is bad, its producers think that I have an axe to grind. If I say that Shantaram is India's greatest director, all other directors feel that I have abused them. If I say that Baburao Pendharkar is a great actor, my friend Kriparam asks me what is wrong with Prithviraj. This film world is a queer place. You cannot tell the truth and get away. You cannot tell a lie either, without being punished. And yet I feel that what I have been doing, is the right thing and I still choose to go on with my mission in the hope that some day people, who condemn me today, will realise that while I lived, I worked for our film industry as sincerely as they did. In all these years, the only solace I had, was the unanimous support of thousands of my readers all over the country. That in itself is a prize worth fighting for Bahurao Patel ZAHUR RAJA and SITARA make a splendid team in "Puja an ABDUL RASHID KARDAR production at National Studios 5