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ABSTRACT
This paper is an attempt to reimagine the function of the dancing body of Sitara Devi in the topography of Hindi popular films from the 1930s to 1950s. A legendary Kathak dancer, Sitara Devi started performing in films during her teens, and essayed multiple roles as an actor, singer and dancer. Her film career was on high tide during late ‘30s and ‘40s as she acted in a number of films including those which transpired through her collaborations and associations with celebrated filmmakers such as Mehboob Khan, K. Asif and Nazir Ahmed Khan. While most of her films have not survived in their material form, historical readings of Indian cinemas have also – broadly speaking – circumvented the question of dancing bodies, and the import of Sitara Devi’s star-persona in films. My enquiry, therefore, concerns film historiography and I use the gender lens to refocus the debates on cinema onto matters of women, performance, and on/off-screen figurations, and the films in which Sitara Devi played decisive roles fuel such explorations. I consider Ashish Rajadhyaksha’s article on Indian Filmography, which defines the work of the ‘filmographer’ as a ‘Sitara Devi Problem’, as a point of departure, and discuss her surviving films, alongside Saadat Hasan Manto’s landmark writing, Stars from Another Sky, to arrive at the larger ‘problem’ of historical analyses. I remap Sitara Devi’s presence in the texts, and her absences in film discourses, to rethink film histories.
Acknowledgments
I thank Shreosi Ray, researcher, for our conversations in 2014, and the editors of this volume, Urmimala Sarkar and Aishika Chakraborty, who have encouraged me to pursue this project. This paper which began as a short photo-essay, however, grew into a research-paper. If I were to be asked about the process, I would say: “Sitara … my dear, Sitara”.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. See imdb webpage for instance, which includes a truncated list. Accessed on 3 September 2020. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0222493/.
2. See Celluloid Man (d. Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, 2012), a documentary film on the difficulties of archiving, and also the “Miss Cinemawali” series by Mukherjee on kindlemag.in. Accessed on 6 September 2020. http://kindlemag.in/category/column/misscinemawali/.
3. See Mukherjee “Screenwriting & Feminist Rewriting: The Lost Films of Jaddan Bai (1892–1949)”, Sawhney “Writing History in the dark: Fatma Begum in conversation with Ms. Kitty”, as well as Mukherjee ed., Voices of the talking Stars, Gledhill”s collection Doing Women”s Film History and Callahan, Reclaiming the Archive, which principally address questions women and work.
4. Rajadhyaksha, “Reconstructing The Indian Filmography: Sitara Devi and the Indian filmographer”, 13.
5. Accessed on 13 March 2020. https://indiancine.ma/documents/DSP.
6. Rajadhyaksha, “Reconstructing The Indian Filmography: Sitara Devi and the Indian filmographer”, 15.
7. Rajadhyaksha, “Reconstructing The Indian Filmography: Sitara Devi and the Indian filmographer”, 20.
8. For instance, recent reinvention of classics such as colorization of Mughal-e-Azam (d. K. Asif, 1960), 3D version of Sholay (d. Sippy, 1975), as well as the addition of soundtrack to the Indo-German productions like Shiraz (d. Franz Osten, 1928), are cases in point.
9. See Mukherjee “Hindi Popular Cinema and its Peripheries: Of Female Singers, Performances, and the Presence/Absence of Suraiya”.
10. Also see “Unsettling Cinema”, a symposium on the place of cinema in India. http://www.india-seminar.com/2003/525.htm.
11. Also see Rodowick The Virtual Life of Film.
12. A snapshot from the film, juxtaposed with a page from the film”s brochure (author”s collection).
13. Especially see: Indiancine.ma.
14. The site “memsaabstory.com” for example, presents interesting commentaries on the author”s favourite films. Accessed on 9 March 2020. https://memsaabstory.com/hindi-film-index/; also, accessed on 17 May 2020. https://www.osianama.com/indian-film-cinema-publicity-memorabilia and https://www.cinemaazi.com/search-film.
15. See Terras et al eds. Defining Digital Humanities, A Reader.
16. See note 9.
17. Uploaded on “tommydan55” YouTube channel.
18. See Ahmed “Reclaiming Mehboob”s Roti: A Key Work of 1940s Pre-Independence Indian Cinema”.
19. Also see Willemen “Negotiating the transition to capitalism: The case of Andaz”.
20. Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHkGn5IFBOs. Accessed on 11 October 2020.
21. On the subject of “stars” see Dyer”s seminal book Stars and Christine Gledhill”s edited collection Stardom, Industry of Desire.
22. See, Sengupta et al eds. “Bad” Women of Bombay Films: Studies in Desire and Anxiety.
23. Also see Gopalan, Cinema of Interruptions.
24. Vasudevan, “The Melodramatic Mode and the Commercial Hindi Cinema: Notes on Film History, Narrative and performance in the 1950s”, 41.
25. Also see Vasudevan, “Shifting Codes, Dissolving Identities: The Hindi Social Film of the 1950s as Popular Culture”.
26. Iyer, Film Dance, Female Stardom, and The Production of Gender in Popular Hindi Cinema, Unpublished dissertation, 122.
27. Iyer, Film Dance, Female Stardom, and The Production of Gender in Popular Hindi Cinema, Unpublished dissertation, 8.
28. In her interview with Kapila Vatsyayan, Sitara Devi explains how her father, Sukhdev Maharaj (and also the Benaras gharana) invented, emphasized and trained her in “bhav” or facial expressions, gestures, and particularly in narrative modes. Accessed on 30 September 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgh-jljPiT0.
29. On song and dance sequences see Mukherjee, “The Architecture of Songs and music: Soundmarks of Bollywood, a Popular Form and its Emergent Texts”, Gopal, Conjugations as well as Majumdar, Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!.
30. Note, Alfred Hitchcock”s milestone Pyscho, which also dealt with taxidermy, was released in 1960.
31. Accessed on 12 September 2020. https://scroll.in/magazine/914058/may-i-touch-you-when-kathak-legend-sitara-devi-met-hollywood-royalty-marlene-dietrich.
32. See Mukherjee “The Architecture of Songs and music: Soundmarks of Bollywood, a Popular Form and its Emergent Texts” and Gopal and Moorti eds. Global Bollywood, Travels of Hindi Song and Dance.
33. Iyer, Film Dance, Female Stardom, and The Production of Gender in Popular Hindi Cinema, Unpublished dissertation, 6.
34. Also see Mukherjee “Mixed Genres and Multiple Authorship: Of Hindi-melodrama and Film-noir of the 1950s”.
35. Bhaumik, The Emergence of the Bombay Film Industry 1913–1936, 151–52.
36. See Mukherjee “Photoshop Landscapes: Digital Mediations and Bollywood Cities”.
37. Also see Mukherjee New Theatres Ltd., and the edited volume Aural Films, Oral Cultures.
38. Also see Vasudevan “Film Genres, the Muslim Social, and Discourses of Identity c. 1935–1945”, Prasad “Genre Mixing as Creative Fabrication”, as well as Vitali Hindi Action Cinema and Thomas Bombay Before Bollywood.
39. Bhaumik, The Emergence of the Bombay Film Industry 1913–1936, 164.
40. Also see Sitara Devi”s biography on “Bharatnatyam and worldwide web”. Accessed on 8 November 2020. https://sangeethas.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/sitara-devi/.
41. See Mukherjee “Creating Cinema”s Reading Publics” and Mukherjee ed. Aural films, Oral Cultures.
42. Chand and Hulchul have been uploaded on YouTube by Cinecurry Classics.
43. Also see my article on Sulochana, “The Shinning Ruby”. http://kindlemag.in/shinning-ruby-cinema-ki-rani-stories/ as well as my graphic-story “Whispers of a Wild Cat” (2016) and Sulochana”s (annotated and edited version) interview from ICCR in Mukherjee ed. Voices of the Talking Star.
44. Majumdar, Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!, 94.
45. Majumdar, Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!, 97.
46. Majumdar, Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!, 100–101.
47. Also see Mukherjee, “Of Bhadramohila, Blouses, and “Bustofine”, “Rethinking popular cinema in Bengal (1930s–1950s)” and “When was the “studio era” in Bengal” on public and fan cultures, with regard to female stars.
48. Originally published in 1952 as “Ganje Fariste”.
49. Major Research Project titled “The Shadow and the Arc-Light: An anthology project of the Indian film industry and women as workers” under the category “Research Support to Faculty Members”, Jadavpur University-RUSA 2.0, 2019–2021.
50. Also see Mukherjee, Bombay Hustle.
51. Flemming, Another Lonely Voice: The Life and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto, p. 24.
52. Daruwalla “The Craft of Manto: Warts and All”, 119.
53. My formulation; loosely deriving from Kafkaesque.
54. Publicity tagline.
55. Stars from Another Sky, 87–88.
56. See Gopi Krishna and Vyjayanthimala dance recital. Accessed on 9 October 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUHMUs65rFU.
57. Also see Rahman Niazi “White Skin/Brown Masks: The Case of “White” Actresses From Silent to Early Sound Period in Bombay”.
58. Stars from Another Sky, 95.
59. Stars from Another Sky, 87.
60. Published in the books My Name is Radha and Bombay Stories respectively.
61. Also see Mukherjee “A Specter Haunts Bombay: Censored Itineraries of a Lost Communistic Film”.
62. Stars from Another Sky, 104.
63. Stars from Another Sky, 88–89.
64. Stars from Another Sky, 89.
65. Stars from Another Sky, 91.
66. Ibid.
67. Al Nasir primarily did supporting roles, and eventually married Veena, one of the biggest stars of the period.
68. Also see Chugtai”s Masooma.
69. See Lakshmi, Mirrors & gestures: conversations with women dancers.
70. “Suraiya” in Yeh Un Dinoñ Ki Baat Hai: Urdu Memoirs of Cinema Legends, 94–95.
71. See note above 9.
72. As indicated by Pradhan (1979, 248), they planned a movement through “film shows of progressive films depicting the life of the people like “Grapes of Wrath” [John ford, 1940] or by producing films in consonance with the ideals of the People”s theatre”.
73. Also see Sahni, Non-Conformist, Memories of my father Balraj Sahni.
74. Stars from Another Sky, 94.
75. Stars from Another Sky, 93.
76. Sitara Devi, however, in her interviews suggests that it was K. Asif who married three times more, and how she felt betrayed. Accessed on 6 September 2020. https://www.cinemaazi.com/feature/katha-nrityangana-sitara-devi.
77. Stars from Another Sky, 98.
78. Stars from Another Sky, 99–101.
79. He choreographed dance sequences of Mahal (d. Kamal Amrohi, 1949), Mirza Ghalib (d. Sorab Modi, 1954, written by Manto), Mughal-e-Azam, Teesri Kasam (d. Basu Bhattacharya, 1966), and Pakeezah (d. Kamal Amorhi, 1972) etc.
80. Accessed on 9 September 2020. https://scroll.in/magazine/914058/may-i-touch-you-when-kathak-legend-sitara-devi-met-hollywood-royalty-marlene-dietrich.
81. Also see the introduction of Morcom, Courtesans, Bad Girls & Dancing Boys and Mukherjee, ed. Voices of the Talking Stars.
82. See Mukherjee ed. Voices of the Talking Stars, and Majumdar, Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!
83. I am thinking of the classic Luis Bunuel film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).
84. Also see Vasudevan, “The Cultural Space of Film Narrative” and Rajadhyaksha, “The Curious Case of Bombay”s Hindi Cinema”.
85. See Chitrapanji 6, no. 6 (1936).
86. Also see Mukherjee “Dear Sir: Letters from Ratan Bai”. Accessed on 14 June 2020. http://kindlemag.in/dear-sir-letters-ratan-bai/.
87. Also see Mehta and Mukherjee eds. Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India, and the section on “The female star, traveling figures and transgressions”.
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