There were many things rare about watching Shiraz: A Romance of India last weekend. Viewing a 90-year-old film produced by the legendary — although the word legendary seems to pale in comparison to the name – Himanshu Rai. Watching a film so painstakingly restored frame by frame by the British Film Institute (BFI) that it felt nothing short of a resurrection. It was like seeing a story about the Taj Mahal that was perhaps an urban myth of sorts, like the Anarkali story, but never quite made it to the annals of popular culture in the same way. And most of all, witnessing the genius of Anoushka Shankar perform the score live to the film, not only setting it to music, but pretty much on fire. Shiraz was produced in 1928 and there are very few surviving Indian silent films from that era.
The film’s actor-producer Himanshu Rai, came upon Niranjan Pal’s play based on the same story whilst in London and decided to adapt it to screen. Franz Osten, a German director who went on to join Rai’s studio Bombay Talkies and direct many films for him including Achhut Kanya (1936)was roped in immediately. The rest is film history.
The film opens with a caravan travelling from Persia to India, with a baby girl in a palanquin. They get looted en route. Everyone, but the baby girl dies. A potter rescues the girl, takes her home and names her Selima. His son Shiraz, also a gifted potter, becomes her best friend. As they grow up, there is an infatuation simmering between the two, but before friends can turn lovers, a twist arrives in tale in the form of slave traders who abduct Selima and sell her off into the harem of Prince Khurram (later known as Emperor Shah Jehan) Khurram is besotted by Selima and in a beautiful scene where the two walk in the gardens at Agra Fort (definitely an inspiration for Mughal-e-Azam ) Khurram and Selima have perhaps the first conversation about consent in Indian cinema. He tries to kiss her, she turns away, he says, “I am the prince; I can have what I want at will”. She looks deep into his eyes and says, “No you can’t. You can’t have my heart at will”. Khurram smiles, “I wouldn’t want you without your heart. I will wait until you are ready.” And indeed, when she is ready a few reels later, their passionate kiss burns the screen even 90 years on.
Shiraz, meanwhile, overcome with grief and longing comes to Agra to search for his beloved. Lots of palace intrigue, drama, poisoning plots follow. One particular sequence where Khurram announces that Shiraz will be executed by elephant foot, was so well mounted, edited, shot, written and performed that by the end of it, the 3000 seater – packed to capacity – Shanmukhananda Hall went into collective rapturous applause.
The film eventually tells the tale of two men, who love Selima, whose name was Arjumand Bano, and who eventually married Shah Jehan to become Mumtaz Mahal, the Queen Empress of India. It’s the tale of two men who loved her and built an unparalleled monument to love – the Taj Mahal, in her memory. Shah Jehan, who commissioned it and Shiraz, who designed it. This is possibly India’s first love triangle and not Mehboob Khan’s Andaz (1949).
In our filmic culture there is a binary of story-screenplay and dialogue and it seems to most of us as though this binary has always existed. Perhaps, for a brief period, when cinema was taking silent baby steps (and giant leaps) this dichotomy didn’t exist. The screenplay by WA Burton (based on Pal’s play) is so strong, and because there is no better word for it in English – gaadha (rich in texture), that one hardly missed the dialogue. As a dialogue writer, this was one of the biggest takeaways for me. And it made one wonder about how the thrust shifted from screenplay to dialogue in our films by the 70s. Maybe it’s because films in the 50s were of the quality they were, owing to a delicate balance between both screenplay and dialogue, coming soon after the silent period and yet comfortably settled into the talkie era. Since, Shiraz was an Indian/ British/ German production, inter titles (the a wee bit of connecting dialogue that appears in between scenes) were available in all three languages for all three markets. One observed that when the actors were talking to each other, the lip movement seemed to suggest that they were speaking in English. One of the characters of the film, the General’s highborn daughter played with much panache by Seeta Devi (Renee Smith) is actually called Lady Dalia. I assumed her real name in the play was possibly Champa, Gulab or some such, until I googled it and realised Dalia is actually an Arabic origin name. Who knows, may be there is some historic authenticity to the story, after all?
Shankar, whose first film background score this is – elevated the experience to West End level with her composition and her accomplished troupe of musicians. The score isn’t a traditional one where one expects it to run parallel to the narrative, for instance, when you see trumpets on screen; you don’t hear trumpets. The score complementary to the film is a pure mood piece. After the performance, Shankar confessed that within the first few minutes, their equipment had malfunctioned and so none of the musicians could actually see the visuals while playing. And yet they played pitch perfect, each note on point.
The writer is the dialogue writer of films ‘Half Girlfriend’, ‘Noor’, ‘Mere Dad ki Maruti’ and ‘Ragini MMS2’.
