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ON THE COVER BOMOLA & MANORAMA IN "KHAZANCHI"
Proprietors : FILMINOIl PURIICITIONS lid
Sir Pherozshah Mehta Cd., Fort BOMBAY
filmindia
Editor: BABURAO PATEL
VOL. 7 NO. 11
NOVEMBER, 1941
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EASTER 1939. Who can forget the gala week of that Easter? The Indian film industry was on a well deserved holiday. It was celebrating its Silver Jubilee. Showmanship ran riot. An exhibition! Thousands of multicoloured lights sparkled on the gates and pillars, melody burst out from the Brindaban Gardens to keep company with a score of string instruments, glamorous stars lent colour to the show by being here, there and everywhere. The Exhibition was a huge success. Thousands passed through the gates every day to see the producers' first show of shows. Yes, it was a good advertisement to our film industry.
Outside the Exhibition, we also made another show of serious business. In a huge pandal, all — the producers, the distributors, the exhibitors, the artistes, the technicians, the film journalists, and even the sympathisers — gathered every day and put the industry on the anvil of a public debate. We hoped, feared and sighed for our film industry. As Mr. Satyamurthi says we even quarrelled to give reality to the proceedings. We went through several sectional conferences and at the end emerged from the principal Congress with a number of pious resolutions in hand.
Newspapers and journalists, the former true to their advertisers — the latter attached to the progressive ideals of the industry, boosted the whole show with an enthusiasm never before shown. The whole of India woke up at the noise made by our film men. What was it all about? People asked that question again ^nd again. An4
again and again they were told that we were celebrating our Silver Jubilee and were planning for the future.
It did look serious — perhaps too serious to last. It was by itself a perfect illusion — as perfect as the flickers our producers turn out from month to month from their sausage factories. All India was in it. Delegates came from the North, the South, the East and the West. They came in turbans, dhoties, chaddars, suits, in sandals and what not. Those from the North were too loud in their noise with a smaller stake. Those from the East participated with an intellectual cynicism. They seemed to have smelt the rat. Those from the South, honest and credulous people, looked up to Bombay sympathetically to solve the problems of the Indian film industry for the general good of all.
And yet they all met in a fraternity of common interest. An organization called the Indian Motion Picture Congress was established. All too willingly Mr. Y. A. Fazalbhoy, as the youngest and most enthusiastic producer, was made the Secretary.
Since then two years have passed. And in the light of the nothing that has happened, the first Indian Motion Picture Congress looks today like an assembly of gold-gilded frogs in early monsoon, making a din which dies out with the passage of time.
The organization of the Indian Motion Picture Congress has been given a decent burial,