Salunke - Actor - 1912 - 1928
There was total dearth of artistes willing to work for films, because of the peculiar stigma attached to filmmaking. Phalke’s advertisements in Bombay’s Induprakash towards May 1912 viz. ‘Handsome faces wanted for films’ drew only third – rate stage artistes. So much so that he had to add one more line in the subsequent advertisement ‘ugly faces need not apply!” But the toughest job was that of finding suitable female artistes. An expert cameraman, Phalke was convinced that female roles must be played by females to meet the exacting demands of the camera. “ I used to get replies occasionally to my advertisement from such (Red-light) areas as phanaswadi; Akkalkot Lane, Hanuman Lane, Kennedy Bridges etc.; from prospective female artistes and I never lost a single opportunity to meet the applicants” writes Phalke in hi autobiography. But on some cause or the other, all these applicants withdrew later. With great difficulty, Phalke had brought a female artiste for a scene in Raja Harischandra But Phalke regrets that “after coaching her four days, her sheth whisked her away.” Phalke, therefore, had no alternative but no train suitable male actors to play female roles – a practice in vogue on stage, then.
The production problems were many and varied because of total ignorance about the art and technique of filmmaking. “I had to do every-thing”. Phlake told the film Inquiry Committee on February 13,1928. “I had to teach acting. I had to writ the scenario, do the photography and the actual projection too. Nobody knew anything in India about the industry in 1911. Phalke turned raw hands into film acting, fixed up a studio Dadar Main Road, Bombay, where he had stayed formerly for about seven years, in the bungalow of Maturates Manji Walji; wrote the story and scenario of truthful Raja Harischandra; prepared suitable drapery; erected the sets and started the actual work of shooting presumably after the rainy season of 1912, The title role of Raja Harishchandra was played by Dabke and that of Taramati by Saulunke, while Rohidas was played by Phalke’s own son – Bhalchandra.
The Sacred and the Profane
The bathtub sequence, when Harischandra enters the frame to beckon his wife Taramati, seen in the company of her fully drenched attendants, a couple of whom are fiddling with the sprouting fountain located at the centre, is indeed the first bathtub scene in Indian Cinema. The extent of sensuousness which Phalke has managed to infuse into this well designed scene can be gauged, when we realize that all the females in their wet sarees, clinging to their bodies are in fact, all males in female garb! Only a fertile mind as that of Phalke could have gauged the need for incorporating an erotic scene in what is basically a "religious" subject. [1]
