PUNE: The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) has acquired rare footage from a 1948 Marathi classic, ‘
Vande Mataram’, featuring iconic writer and playwright P L
Deshpande
, who is affectionately known as ‘Pu La’.
The film, directed by Ram Gabale, was presumed to be lost for years, but 35 minutes of footage was recently recovered. The footage, in the form of a VHS tape, was donated to the NFAI by
Dinesh Thakur, a nephew of Deshpande’s wife Sunita, who had also starred alongside Pu La in the movie, and Satish Jakatdar, founder of the Aashay Film Club.
The NFAI also acquired two other tapes in which Deshpande can be seen playing the harmonium at a venue in Mumbai sometime in 1980. Among other things, Pu La was known to be an accomplished exponent of the instrument, having played at multiple public concerts with several classical singers.
The movie is hailed as an iconic work of cinema as it had the involvement of two other illustrious Marathi movie personalities — famed writer-poet GD Madgulkar penned the dialogue, while renowned singer Sudhir Phadke composed a soundtrack that remains popular to this day.
“It is interesting that this piece of footage was discovered in the birth centenary year of all three personalities,” said NFAI director Prakash Magdum.
NFAI officials said that the sound quality of the film was “fairly good”, while the picture quality needed enhancement. They also said the recovered footage has continuity issues, since the tape was prepared from disjointed recovered bits. The footage features a couple of songs from the movie and has Pu La singing a powada (traditional music).
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