Booklets of Nazrul films also in archive

Kolkata: The Jibansmriti Archive in Uttarpara also has a letter from Jagat Ghatak’s daughter, Madhumita Mukherjee, mentioning how the book was lost. “She was happy it had finally been retrieved, and gifted it to the archive so that it could be digitized. I have preserved the original note book. On Nazrul’s 46th death anniversary on August 29, I want to give access to his admirers to take a look at it,” Saha Sardar said.For Nazrul’s admirers, the archive also has some 350 rare books on him and the first edition of books written by him. Data on the films he had worked on have been collated, including booklets of some of those films. Among these is the booklet of a 1934 film titled ‘Dhruba’ — the only film co-directed by Nazrul. “He acted in it, and was also its lyricist, singer and music director. He was the lyricist and music director of ‘Chowrangee’ as well, and wrote a song for ‘Gora’ — ‘Usha Elo Chupi Chupi’. Earlier, companies would bring out small books during the release of records with all details. I have at least 50 such books in my collection. We have also digitized 1,400 songs of his released between 1925 and 1942,” Saha Sardar told TOI.