Everyone has heard and read about Rabindranath Tagore’s massive influence on the present-day Indian cinema, However, many of us has never heard much about his contributions on the silent era films way before talkies came into existence.
On the 80th death anniversary of India’s first Nobel Laureate, let’s take a look at how the iconic writer, poet, musician and painter interacted directly with Indian cinema.
Rabindranath Tagore directed a film named Natir Puja. It was an all-women dramatised version of his long poem, Pujarini. Tagore wrote this drama on the request of his daughter-in-law, Pratima Devi as she wanted to perform this on his 70th birthday.
Natir Puja was staged twice as a play before being made into a film. First it was staged at Jorsanko Thakurbari in 1927 in Kolkata and then at New Empire Cinema in celebration of Tagore’s 70th birthday. The founder-proprietor of New Theatres, BN Sircar was very impressed with the play and invited Tagore to direct a film version under the NT banner. In 1932, when Tagore’s first directed film was released at Chitra Talkies on March 14, the studio was flooded with crowds to catch a glimpse of the poet.
The film was shot within 4 days. Moreover, Tagore also played a role and assembled his acting cast from Shanti Niketan. Nitin Bose was the cinematographer and Subodh Mitra edited it. After editing, the footage was 10,577 feet! Unfortunately, the prints of the film are not available now as it was destroyed in a fire at the New Theatres.
Because of Tagore’s presence in the film, it was believed that it would be a great hit. Sadly, Natir Puja was a commercial failure. Even producers of the film agreed to donate 50 percent into Tagore’s Shanti Niketan project but because of the failure the staginess of the film was blamed for the same.
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