A rare footage of an iconic Marathi film “Vande Mataram” (1948), in which legendary writer and playwright PL Deshpande played the lead role along with his wife Sunita Deshpande, is now part of the Pune-based National Film Archive of India (NFAI) collection.
Dinesh Thakur, nephew of Sunita Deshpande and film historian Satish Jakatdar donated a Video Home system (VHS) cassette containing about 35 minute footage of the film ‘Vande Mataram’ along with two U-Matic tapes containing rare footage of PL Deshpande playing harmonium.
“We are extremely delighted to receive this footage of a film that was considered to be lost. It is such a happy coincidence to discover this footage at a time when the birth centenary of PL Deshpande and Sudhir Phadke is being celebrated this year along with the producer of the film PR Bhide”, NFAI’s Director Prakash Magdum said, while receiving the footage from Thakur and Jakatdar.
The iconic Marathi film was directed by renowned filmmaker Ram Gabale.
Considered a landmark film in Marathi, “Vande Mataram” is based as the story was based on India’s freedom movement. While renowned writer GD Madgulkar had written the script, dialogue and lyrics for the film, while renowned composer Sudhir Phadke composed music for the film.
The iconic film was released a year after independence and presented narratives woven with patriotism and humanist affection. Songs like “Ved Mantrahun Vandya…” became very popular and are remembered even today. The shooting fore the film took place in early 1948 at Shalini Studio in Kolhapur.
The original hand-written script of another classic film “Gulacha Ganpat”i had also been donated to NFAI three years back. The film, digitized by NFAI, was directed by PL Deshpande and he himself played the lead role, apart from writing the script and composing music for it.
“We hope to find the remaining footage of the film and I appeal to all film lovers to come forward in donating or submitting the rare film footages and paper material such as posters, song booklets, photographs etc so that it can be preserved for future generations,” Magdum said.
The two U-matic cassettes of about one-hour duration that were donated along with VHS cassette of Rs Vande Mataram’ contain the rare footage of P L Deshpande playing harmonium in 1980s. One cassette has footage of Lalji Desai accompanying Deshpande on Tabla who was part of the crew of Varyavarchi Varat, a very popular comedy play by PL Deshpande whereas the other contains Tabla by Jhavba.