Everyone knows that in 1931, the country’s first talkie film was made, whose name was ‘Alam Ara’. Almost a year later, a film was made, ‘Indrasabha.’ It was produced by a film company named Madan Theater and Jahanara Kazan played the heroine in it. It was based on an Urdu play by Aga Hasan Amanat, written in 1853, even before Ghadar. The special thing is that there were 69 songs in this 211 minute film. Some film historians claim that the songs were actually 72, but they kept on coming in such a way that there were only 69. This is probably a world record.
One such record was made by Hindi film actor Sanjeev Kumar. He played nine roles in his 1974 film Naya Din Nai Raat. In this film, he first became a wealthy widower, then a ruthless drunkard, then a psychiatrist, then a dreaded robber, then a priest who also does a smuggling business in secret, then a leper who was once a well-known Seth, then A gay dramatist and then a daring hunter. A girl who runs away from home to avoid her marriage at a very young age, is hit by all these characters one by one and eventually she finds the person of her choice who changes her outlook on life. Directed by A. Bhimsingh, these nine roles in the film actually represented the nine rasas.
Almost five decades after this, it is going to happen again. This time actress Swara Bhaskar is going to play nine characters in a single film. The film, directed by Manish Kishore, is titled as ‘Mrs Falani’. In this, all the characters of Swara will be of married women between thirty-five to forty-five years. Some of these characters will be of mothers of ten-fifteen-year-old children who will be seen struggling with life’s troubles. People have seen Swara’s talent in ‘Nil Battey Sannata’ and ‘Anarkali of Aarah’. But playing nine different roles in the same film is a different challenge.
