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Today's films sadden yesteryears Marathi actress
By Saibal Chatterjee, Indo-Asian News Service

Panaji, Dec 5 (IANS) Yesteryears Marathi actress Vanamala, the oldest delegate ever to grace the International Film Festival of India, is saddened by the turn that present-day Hindi cinema has taken.

"Contemporary films seem to promote nothing but negative values," said the 91-year-old star of the 1940s and 1950s.

"Cinema is too powerful a medium to be wasted in the manner that it is these days," Vanamala told IANS in an interview.

Vanamala's hauntingly pretty face and frail frame understandably betray signs of age, but her demeanour doesn't in the least bit. She thinks and speaks with absolute clarity.

"Of course, I cannot impose anything on anybody. I don't have the power. Whether my appeal to filmmakers to change their approach to cinema will be heeded will depend entirely on their good sense," she said.

The leading lady of P.K. Atre's 1953 Marathi film "Shyamchi Aai" ("Shyam's Mother"), screened at IFFI 2005 to mark the opening of a new annual section of National Award-winning films not only introduced the classic to a packed house but also found time to catch the screening of filmmaker Sohrab Modi's "Mirza Ghalib" (1954), the other film included in the section this year.

In 1953 "Shyamchi Aai" received the Best Film award from India's first president, Rajendra Prasad. The following year, the honour was bestowed on "Mirza Ghalib".

Vanamala said: "Cinema that is divorced from the traditions and culture of the land is of little value. If films like 'Shyamchi Aai' and 'Mirza Ghalib' are remembered to this day it is simply because they are rooted in our ethos and deal with timeless human emotions."

Beginning with K. Narayan Kale's "Lapandav" in 1940, this school teacher-turned-actress went on to star in 30 Hindi and five Marathi films in a career that lasted well into the 1950s.

Among the most notable films that she featured in were Gajanan Jagirdar's Hindi-Marathi bilingual "Charnon Ki Daasi", Sohrab Modi's "Sikandar", in which she played a Persian woman opposite Prithviraj Kapoor's eponymous character, and "Vasantsena", Jagirdar's adaptation of Shudraka's classic third century Sanskrit play, "Mrichchakatika".

"Sikandar" is slated to travel to Paris next year in the form of a new colourised print to participate in a special retrospective of films on the life and times of the great Greek warrior, Alexander.

But the crowning glory of Vanamala's career was undoubtedly "Shyamchi Aai", based on a partly autobiographical novel by freedom fighter and legendary Marathi writer Sane Guruji.

In the fictionalised account of the writer's childhood, Vanamala played the title role with such conviction that the performance remains a high watermark in Marathi cinema.