Review: The Longest Kiss; The Life and Times of Devika Rani by Kishwar Desai
Pieced together from sources like romantic missives, film reviews, minutes of board meetings, resignation letters, records of court cases, and interviews with family members and friends of Devika Rani and her husbands Himanshu Rai and Svetoslav Roerich, The Longest Kiss offers a deep dive into Devika Rani’s professional accomplishments and her personal misfortunes
Long before Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra earned accolades from international audiences, there was an Indian film star making waves in London and Berlin. Devika Rani Chaudhuri (1908-1994), who had her heyday in the 1930s and 40s, was an actor who assisted with costume design, art direction and scriptwriting. To learn about her, read Kishwar Desai’s book The Longest Kiss: The Life and Times of Devika Rani.
Though much has been written about her ethereal beauty, her fame as the first lady of Indian cinema has more to do with the fact that she was the co-founder of a major film studio called Bombay Talkies. It was known for making women-centric films, and much of the crew was from Germany. She set it up with her first husband Himanshu Rai. It was located in a Mumbai suburb named Malad, and ceased operations in 1953.
Recently, while dipping into Dilip Kumar’s autobiography The Substance and the Shadow (2014), after his death, I learnt that Devika Rani urged him to change his name from Yusuf Khan. He speaks warmly of her contribution to his career: “Bombay Talkies was the best thing that happened to me at that juncture in my life. I couldn’t have found a better job than the one offered to me by Devika Rani… What was delightful was the ambience of the studio, which was a mix of what one would seek and find in a university or any educational institution.”
I was born in Malad, and have lived here for over three decades, but the history of this place as a hub of filmmaking has been elusive. Kishwar Desai’s book changed that for me. Before reading it, I had heard of Devika Rani only from my paternal grandmother who loved watching films and reading books though her schooling was discontinued by parents who got her married in her teens.
Dadi used to talk fondly of Ashok Kumar, her favourite actor, who worked with Devika Rani on several film projects and also took over the functioning of Bombay Talkies after her retirement. He used to walk from Malad Railway Station to the studio, and my grandmother would eagerly wait to see him from her balcony. The studio is gone but Desai’s book will make that period come alive for you.
How did filmmakers during that time raise funds to make films? What techniques did they borrow from European cinema? Who chose to invest? What kinds of subjects and themes were popular with audiences? How were women treated on the sets? What were the prevailing attitudes around kissing scenes in films? Desai’s book will indulge your curiosity, and also give you an exhaustive filmography to look into.
Karma (1933), Jawani Ki Hawa (1935), Achhut Kanya (1936), Izzat (1937), Durga (1939), Anjan (1941), Hamari Baat (1943) were some of the films that Devika Rani acted in.
If you are keen on watching these films, visiting the National Film Archives of India in Pune might be your best bet. That is where Desai stumbled upon the film reels around 15 years ago. She writes, “I was stunned at the high visual quality and the confidence with which the films were made… It has always surprised me that we do not talk more about the globalization of early Indian cinema.”
Desai offers a deep dive into Devika Rani’s professional accomplishments and her personal misfortunes. The book has been pieced together with skill and imagination, from sources like romantic missives, film reviews, minutes of board meetings, resignation letters, records of court cases, and interviews with family members and friends of Devika Rani and her husbands Himanshu Rai and Svetoslav Roerich.
“Had it not been for the COVID-induced lockdown, I could not have had the uninterrupted time to be able to spread the papers all over the house, to read and put them into a proper context and sequence,” writes Desai. “Though I had started writing the book nearly a decade earlier, the papers required intense and careful forensic scrutiny, which previously I could only manage in short bursts.”
Desai’s passion for archival work is evident from the copious amounts of detail in her book. She also has an intimate understanding of the entertainment world. Before she became an author, she worked as a television anchor and producer for over two decades. She has also written a play titled Devika Rani: Goddess of the Silver Screen (2019) and Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt (2007).
With this background and training, Desai has managed to write a book that will appeal to lovers of both cinematic history and filmi gossip. It is about a visionary who helped launch the careers of Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Raj Kapoor and Leela Chitnis. It is also about a wife whose only way out of a violent marriage was the death of her husband who once hit her so hard that she started bleeding.
The book has enough masala for a web series in need of a dramatic storyline but it is, eventually, a portrait of suffering. People who lead glamorous lives sometimes hurt deep inside in ways that are not seen by those who view them only under the spotlight. Desai shows how much Devika Rani yearned for a father figure who would take care of her after her father died. Instead, she ended up with men whom she had to mother.
The author seems to feel sorry for her subject but does not treat her as a helpless creature and discusses the strategies that Devika Rani used to survive. “She knew that hers was a high-caste family and was very particular about claiming her legacy,” Desai says. She let people know that she was the great-grand-niece of poet Rabindranath Tagore. Himanshu Rai helped embellish her credentials.
In one of her letters, Devika Rani wrote that she was a “Varindra [Brahmin], and my Gotra is Cashyapa on my father’s side, my mother’s father was a Kulin Brahmin.” Her caste and class consciousness meant she was miffed that Himanshu was bringing in “the daughters of courtesans and Devadasis” to act in films made by Bombay Talkies. Desai mentions that she was particularly unhappy about a six-year contract he had offered actor Hansa Wadkar.Still, being with Himanshu gave Devika Rani access to an elite social circle, one that she was unwilling to abandon even when things started going downhill. If all this wasn’t complicated enough, the book also introduces you to Himanshu’s first wife Mary Hainlin and to Devika Rani’s extramarital affair with Najam-ul-Hussain.
Did you know that Saadat Hasan Manto, who wrote over 20 collections of short stories, also wrote a story entitled A Woman for All Seasons about Himanshu, Devika Rani and Najam? The central female character is named Lateeka Rani.
“In this thinly veiled satire based on the happenings at Bombay Talkies around the time Devika left with Najam, all of Manto’s latent bias is revealed,” says Kishwar Desai, “Devika is exploitative while Himanshu is hardworking and nice.” Manto was a film journalist, and also a script writer for films. Whose word should we go by, Manto’s or Desai’s? I would say neither because the people involved in the love triangle are dead.
What we do know is that Devika Rani left Najam, came back to Bombay Talkies, and stayed with Himanshu Rai until the end. There can be endless speculation about whether that was a good choice or not but the fact is that it was her choice. It was only after Himanshu’s death that she met the artist Svetoslav Roerich through a common friend. Each wounded in their own way, they were able to heal each other.
Desai writes, “Before they met, Devika had imagined that the rich Russian could bring in some much needed business to Bombay Talkies. Perhaps she could charm him into producing some films based on his ideas. Or he could help Bombay Talkies get contracts for film production from the Russian government.” He did help her but work became secondary. They fell in love with each other, and got married.
You will learn enough about Svetoslav from this book to think that he was a better match for Devika Rani than Himanshu was but Desai does not use up all her material. As indicated in the introduction, she has access to letters written by Svetoslav, which “will probably become another book.” She offers some glimpses of their courtship, in which art, spirituality and the crisp mountain air of Kulu, have a major role to play.
They spent their last years together on a large estate in Bangalore. Svetoslav died first, and Devika Rani followed a year later. Her legacy is one to be remembered, and thankfully Desai’s book presents her as a multi-faceted person instead of extolling her virtues or exaggerating her vices. What she misses, however, is the effect that Devika Rani had on women who were her contemporaries.
Radhika Raghav’s essay Between Nationalism and Consumerism: Devika Rani’s Star Persona in Indian Visual Culture (2020) in the journal Film, Fashion and Consumption reveals that she “embraced global fashion trends” and also “drew upon her cultural heritage” to fashion an image of Indian womanhood that made many young women write letters seeking her guidance on how to become “a star” and “a lady.”
Our obsession with film stars continues to date. No wonder then that there is a market for a book with pregnancy advice from actor Kareena Kapoor Khan.
Chintan Girish Mod is a writer, educator and researcher. He is @chintan_connect on Twitter.