The National Film Archive of India lands a coup in the form of 1,790 songbooks from the past

Going for a song

The National Film Archive of India lands a coup in the form of 1,790 songbooks from the past

From the song booklets of the 1934 JBH Wadia film Bag-e-Misar and Nitin Bose’s K.L. Saigal-starrer of the same year Chandidas (that had the famous duet with ‘Prem nagar main banaungi ghar mein’) to that of Ashu Trikha’s 2012, The Notebook-inspired Mithun Chakraborty-starrer Zindagi Tere Naam—in a single swoop the National Film Archives of India (NFAI) has obtained songbooks of 1,790 Hindi films in what could well be its biggest acquisition in recent times. “We have a collection of 15,000 booklets as of now and in a single day we have added almost 2,000 more to it. It’s rare that in one instance we’d get to increase it by so many,” Prakash Magdum, director, NFAI, told The Hindu.

The booklets represent every decade of Hindi cinema and are a visual and textual journey through our cinematic history and heritage. They are also an indicator of the changing printing technology and art-work down the ages.

“Song booklets are a rich source of information and are of great reference value,” says Mr. Magdum. They contain the full lyrics of songs and are treasure troves of information on the films, including the cast, credits and story-lines.

According to film buff Pavan Jha, they contain full set of songs with lyrics, even those which may have later got snipped out on the editing table.

In the 1960s and ’70s Urdu film magazines like Shama and Hindi film magazines like Sushma, Madhuri and Mayapuri started publishing such information and the interest in the booklets started declining. Though not in use any more, the songbooks of the past were a great way to build hype, spark curiosity about the film, and draw viewers to the theatre.

The NFAI keeps tracing and sourcing rare, cinema-related artefacts from private collectors across India but the name of the contributor is not made public. Neither is a value put to the acquisition. “We appeal to the public to come forward with rare, archival material that will help us in conserving India’s heritage, under the umbrella project of National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM),” Mr. Magdum said in a press statement.

The NFHM set rolling last year it’s mission to conserve 1,32,000 film reels, digitisation of 1,160 feature films and 1,660 short films, construction of state-of-the-art archival and sound restoration of 1,086 landmark feature films and 1,152 short films.

Source | The Hindu | 1 June 2016

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Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

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