Durgabai Kamat - The First Actress of Indian Film

Durgabai Kamat and Kamalabai Gokhale

When I came across the name of Durgabai Kamat, I was intrigued. How much of a risk-taker she must have been to be willing to participate in an absolutely new venture such as film making! I read all the available literature on her and her times, it appears she only worked in one film. Her milieu was actually the stage. Durgabai’s daughter Kamalabai, however, acted in about 35 films in her career, right up to Gehrayee (1980).

When Dadasaheb Phalke, the pioneering film maker in Indian cinema made the first Indian film Raja Harischandra in 1913 he was forced to cast male actors impersonating females. This was because it was taboo for women to work in films and theatre in the conservative society of the time.

Following the huge success of Raja Harischandra, for his second film Mohini Bhasmasur Phalke decided to cast women for female roles in defiance of societal norms. 

Beginnings

Durgabai Kamat was Phalke’s choice for the important role of Parvati. Durgabai was a pioneer female actor in a travelling theatre company who was born in 1879. She had studied upto the then-7th standard, currently the 10th standard. She married Anand Nanoskar, a History teacher at the JJ School of Arts, Mumbai. When the couple parted ways in 1903, she decided to bring up her young daughter Kamalabai on her own. Kamalabai travelled with Durgabai on the theatre circuit, being homeschooled due to their unsettled lifestyle. She began acting on stage from the age of four. 

Path-breaking role

Phalke cast Durgabai as Parvati and young Kamalabai as the lead, as Mohini in Mohini Bhasmasur. It was filmed in Nashik where Phalke had set up his studio. The mother-daughter duo could shoot at the time since the travelling theatre company Durgabai worked in had temporarily ceased operation. The film was on an episode from the Hindu epics. Essaying her role of the Goddess in this film, Durgabai had an unwitting hand in beginning the process of changing the pervading low opinion about actresses. Mohini Bhasmasur became a pioneering  film in many ways - it had the first female actor and the first child actor of Indian cinema. Another first was Phalke’s wife Saraswatibai, his tireless collaborator. She helped wash the film, among performing many essential filmmaking tasks, which effectively made her the first female laboratory assistant in Indian cinema.

Mohini Bhasmasur was released on 1st January 1914 and the entire cast was taken to Bombay (as it was then) to watch it on the big screen at Coronation Cinema. Unfortunately, the film has not survived to the present day.

Durgabai’s legacy

Durgabai had to battle social stigma at every turn in the early days due to her choice of career, but that did not deter her one bit. Her family continues to be deeply engaged today in cinema. Kamalabai Gokhle went on to have a long career in films. Her grandsons and Durgabai’s great-grandsons Vikram Gokhle and Mohan Gokhle became well recognised for their acting prowess.

                                                                 Kamalabai Gokhale

                                                                    Source: Wikipedia