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Up Gulshan Mahal, down Memory Lane

Syed Firdaus Ashraf

Some items that may find their way into the museum. Click for bigger pic!

Items of clothing, shoes, editing machines... The coat Raj Kapoor wore in Aawara, the editing machine used by V Shantaram in Raja Harishchandra ... All part of Bollywood folklore. All to be available on view at Bombay's first film museum, to be ready by December 1998.

There is still a lot of spadework to be done though. According to Bankim, chief producer of Films Division, "Our first task is to restore the museum. In the initial stages we are going to have all documentary films in the museum. We will see that the machines which were used to produce all the documentaries film since 1948 will be restored in the museum. Keeping the commercial cinema archives is the second step."

FD plans setting up the museum with help from retired Maharashtra state government archaeologists, All India Radio's civil construction (Bombay) wing and the National Films Division Corporation. It is to be housed at Gulshan Mahal, Pedder Road, Bombay, where FD was born in 1948.

The Gulshan Mahal before restoration work began. Click for bigger pic!

There was some hiccups early on, with the Rs 12.5 million given to FD proving insufficient to restore Gulshan Mahal. But this year, the private companies demanded less money, clearing the way for the work to begin. But the restoration activity of the museum is to be supervised by the department of All India Radio's civil construction wing while the money was given to FD. That should take some sorting out.

The Information and Broadcasting ministry, which is supervising the work, is planning to send letters of request to old Bollywood icons, or, if they are dead, to their children, seeking trivia that will be of interest to future generations. But as yet it hasn't decided on the board members or even the curator of the proposed museum.

Click for bigger pic!

Says K S Venkatraman, deputy secretary, films, of the ministry, "We will request R K Studios, Guru Dutt's children and senior stars like Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Ashok Kumar to contribute the clothes or shoes they wore in their earlier films. I am optimistic they will contribute for the museum as they did during the International Film Festival in Bombay in 1994."

During that festival, NFDC had organised a temporary film museum where they had displayed items from the sets of Mughal-e-Azam to the latest Hindi blockbuster, Hum Aap Ke Hai Kaun. Raj Kapoor's coat from the hit Awara, the costumes worn by Dilip Kumar and Madhubala in Mughal-e-Azam, the editing machine used by Dadasaheb Phalke in his first film, Raja Harishchandra was all on display there.

Click for bigger pic!

Randhir Kapoor, son of veteran actor Raj Kapoor approves of the plan.

"It is a very good idea to have a film museum in the city... I will certainly contribute my father's heritage property if the authorities approach me," he said.

Kiran Shantaram, son of V Shantaram, says he has with him the editing machine his father used in 1920 in his first film, Ayodhya Ka Raja.

"If we have a film museum, it will add one more destination to the existing tourist attractions in Bombay," he said, promising that any contribution from him would come free of cost.

Photographs of Gulshan Mahal by Jewella C Miranda