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Rare footage of 1948 film Vande Mataram to be part of NFAI, Pune collection
A video home system cassette with 35 minutes of footage of the film was donated by Deshpande’s nephew Dinesh Thakur and film historian Satish Jakatdar
Rare footage of the iconic Marathi film Vande Mataram (1948), featuring legendary writer and playwright PL Deshpande and his wife Sunita in lead roles, was handed over the National Film Archives of India (NFAI) on Tuesday.
A video home system (VHS) cassette with 35 minutes of footage of the film was donated to NFAI by Deshpande’s nephew Dinesh Thakur and film historian Satish Jakatdar.
“We are delighted to receive the footage of a film that was considered lost. It is a happy coincidence that this footage has been discovered in the birth centenary year of both Deshpande and the film’s music composer Sudhir Phadke,” said NFAI director Prakash Magdum.
Besides the footage cassette, there are two U-Matic tapes that has about an hour of rare footage of Deshpande in a harmonium rendition sometime in the 1980 during a private sitting in Mumbai. The footage had Lalji Desai accompanying him on the tabla, and he was a part of the crew of ‘Varyavarchi Varat’, a very popular comedy play by Deshapnde, and the other footage has tabla played by Jhavba.
The other material donated contains Deshpande’s recitation of few of his popular comic characters.
Considered important from the historical viewpoint, Vande Mataram was based on the country’s freedom struggle, with script, dialogues and lyrics by Gajanan Digambar Madgulkar. The film was directed by Ram Gabale, whereas, the music was composed by Sudhir Phadke.
Incidentally, the screen test for the young lead pair - Deshpande and Sunita - was done in Pune while the film was shot in early-1948 at Shalini Studios, Kolhapur.
The nationalist project was released only a year after independence and presented narratives woven with patriotism and humanist affection. Songs like Ved Mantrahun became very popular and are remembered even today.
The NFAI hopes to recover the remaining footage of Vande Mataram and has appealed to film lovers to come forward with such rare material which can be preserved for posterity.
The original hand-written script of another classic film Gulacha Ganpati was donated to NFAI three years ago. The film, digitised by NFAI, was directed by Deshpande and he himself played the lead role, apart from writing the script and composing music for it.