First Bollywood Movie - Raja Harishchandra

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Bollywood,the Indian Hindi language film industry of  Mumbai,Maharashtra is not only a craze for Indians but also the people from different segments of the world are fascinated by the flamboyance, colours, songs and dances of Hindi films.Bollywood is the largest film producer in India.Altough Bollywood has now become a reflection of glaze and luster but the story was different at the outset.

"Raja Harischandra" is the first full-length, silent movie of bollywood,directed and produced by Dhundiraj Govind phalke,popularly known as Dadasaheb phalke,the"Father of Indian Cinema". This 40-minute-long film was released on 3rd may,1913 and the main protagonist of the movie is Raja Harishchandra,a mythological honest Indian king, described broadly in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.The film was partly shot at Dadar which is presently known as Phalke Chowk and the other outdoor scenes were shot in a village near Pune.

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The film released in the Coronation Theatre and continued for 23 days.In 1914 it was also shown in London.Though it was Phalke's biggest hit, but he had to go through a lot of hardships during the film production. Getting compatible actors was really a difficult task for Phalke because  in that society acting  was not considered a decent profession for women.In "Raja Harishchandra" Phalke introduced a male actor in the role of QueenTaramati, the leading heroine. An attractive cook named Annasaheb Salunke performed the role of the heroine and culled an immense applause from the audience."In Lanka Dahan" Salunke also redacted the role of both Rama and Seetha.


The story revolves around the main protagonist, Raja Harishchandra who undesignedly transgressed  the 'Yajana'(worship) of saint Viswamitra and in order to calm him and keep his honour he had to loose his Kingdom, wife and son gradually.However in the end,satisfied by his generosity the gods decided to restore everything including a lot of blessings.The role of  Raja Harishchandra was played by Marathi theatre actor Dattatraya Damodar Dabke.

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Dadasaheb was born on 30 th April in 1870 at Trimbakeshwar,Nashik as the son of Sanskrit scholar.He joined J.J School of Art Mumbai in 1985 and later joined drama companies as a photographer.He had to leave his business after the death of his first wife and son due to the prevalence of Plague.It is believed that the French film "The Life of Christ" inspired him to enter in the world of film-making.After quitting his job at the printing press he decided to explore London in order to learn  the technical parts of film-making.When he returned  to India he brought with him the general equipments of film-making and to chase his dreams of film making he mortgaged his life insurances and the jewellries of his wife.


It's often said and almost known to all that there is a woman behind every successful man, which also goes right in the case of Dadasaheb. Saraswati,the wife of Phalke has a lot of contribution to this blockbuster movie.Not only she fed all the team workers but also washed their costumes.It is heard that in those days she used to cook alone for 500 people everyday. Phalke and his entire crew finished the filming of "Raja Harishchandra " within six months.His son played the role of Harishchandra 's son in this film.Phalke's daughter Mandakini is also seen as a child artist in his later films namely "Shri Krishna Janma", "Kaliya Mardan" etc.


Phalke choosed to make a film on Raja Harishchandra for two major reasons:

• Raja Harishchandra was a popular heroic figure known for his integrity and his stories were popularly played on stage at that time to blow the mind of the audience.
•  Phalke was deeply inspired by Ravi Varma's story paintings.

Phalke inserted the title plates in between the silent scenes in English and Hindi.Around 100 feature films and 30 short films were made by Phalke.
Phalke passed away in 1944.The Dadasaheb Phalke award,India's greatest award in cinema started in 1669.Devika Rani first received this award.The budget of the entire movie was nearly 20,000.As the movie got a big commercial success Phalke had to print more copies of the film in order to show in the rural areas too.But it's really sad that  now this movie subsists only in fragments. It's almost 100 years of the film "Raja Harischandra"  but still the loftiness of the movie exists in the hearts of the Indians as well as in the other nations.