Down Melody Lane..::..Article on Films, Personalities, Music Reviews and More..

Devika Rani, now in her early '80s, and her husband, the internationally renowned artist Svetoslav Roerich have made a hotel room in Bangalore their home for the past two years. Their vast house in the Tataguni estate on the outskirts of the city and their Bangalore office-cum residence are looked after by their staff. Devika Rani left Bombay in 1945, six years after her husband Himanshu Rai died at the age of 40. They had been married for 10 years.

Fifty years after he passed away, Devika Rani remembers Himanshu Rai "as a man with a vision far ahead of his time." To build up a Film City was the goal that inspired Himanshu Rai to start the Bombay Talkies Company in Malad, a suburb of Bombay. He had already produced films in Germany for the European market. He moved to producing films based on Indian history, arts and culture.

When asked about her co-star Ashok Kumar in Achhut Kanya Devika Rani said, "Ashok Kumar was a good actor and he should confine himself to acting rather than making silly and stupid comments," a pointed reference to some newspapers articles quoting him. She had not seen the articles and interviews. When told of the comments attributed to Ashok Kumar in the articles, she said her feeling was only reinforced: "He does tend to say whatever comes to his mind. He was the first star created by the studio system. A lovable man, he was a raw newcomer and had to be moulded into a competent performer. He perhaps did no t liked the discipline and the strict regimen of those days and must be ventilating his grievances against what he was peeved about five decades ago. It's very ungentlemanly of him." She felt running down co-artistes and colleagues amounted to talking against her and memoirs of the Bombay Talkies era. She says that Himanshu Rai was a hard task master and even matinee idol were not exempted from the discipline.

Devika Rani remembers Saraswati Devi, the first woman music director, fondly. She gave memorable music to many of the hits of Bombay Talkies. She was in fact a Parsi lady, who adopted a pseudonym for her film career. Saraswati and her sister Manek were trained in the classical singing and music. The very thought that a woman could be a music director was startling in those days. But Bombay Talkies did not hesitate in nurturing her prodigious talent.

Devika Rani rates Pannalal Ghosh as a very gifted instrumentalist and music composer. Anil Biswas was another musician who was trained at and flourished in Bombay Talkies. His score for Kismet is remembered to this day.

Devika Rani recalls Amiya Chakravarthy as one of the most sentimental and emotional directors in the company. She has special regard, in particular, for his film Hamari Baat. His "intense feel for music was evident in his films," she says of the director who went on to handle Daag, Patita and Seema. But it is of Dilip Kumar that Devika Rani speaks with the greatest regard. She says, "Dilip Kumar was the best example of all that the Bombay Talkies strived for in its training system. One day when I was busy in the office, the door opened a bit and a head popped in. An awkward, innocent young man wanted a chance to act. He had been brought to me by my secretary Guruswami. I was impressed and saw that he had the making of a star. We put him through training and tried to make up for his lack of formal education. He was extremely clever and imbibed the training effortlessly. It is not surprising that he has become one of the greatest actors of Indian cinema.

She continues, "Perhaps he was a little too clever at times and wanted to hog all the credit for Jwar Bhata, his first film, even before it was released. We had to tell him not to be so ambitious so early in his career. Madhubala, she says coped well with studio training: what a beauty she was! I think of her over-ambitious father ruined her life. He was a nuisance: when we were shooting late in the evenings, he would become a positive pain in the neck. Artistes like Madhubala come once in a lifetime. She was not only beautiful but also a fine dramatic actress. However, her talent was never fully exploited. It was such a tragic waste of a wonderful actress.

Of Kamal Amrohi, her comments are, "He could be a funny and slippery character." Bimal Roy she remembers was a quiet, dignified man.

Why did she gave up films when she was at the peak of popularity and success? Devika Rani recalls, "Well, my ambition was to build a Film City comparable to the best in the world including Hollywood. The famous RCA Company was even willing to collaborate but after Himanshu Rai's death, my colleagues at Bombay Talkies were not really interested. The project needed a lot of resources, so there was no point in fighting a loosing battle. That is why I quit…..but in any case films with solid story lines started diminishing. Just look at what's happening today. There is so much emphasis on sex and crime. The quality of acting is deteriorating, too. Where are the new Nargises, Meena Kumaris, Dilip Kumars?

Once Devika Rani has dreamt of producing grandly mounted films. She had nurtured dreams of producing Mahabharata on the scale of a Cecil B. Demille. Even till last year she was enthusiastic about producing short educational films on India's flora and fauna, history and myth, art and culture. However, her failing health has led to a scuttling of those plans.