| Directed by | Kanjibhai Rathod |
|---|---|
| Written by | Mohanlal DaveTemplate:Sfn |
| Produced by | Kohinoor Film Company |
| Starring | Template:Plainlist
|
| Country | British India |
| Language | Silent
|
Gul-E-Bakavali (Template:Literal translation) is a 1924 Indian silent fantasy film written in Gujarati by Mohanlal Dave, directed by Kanjibhai Rathod, and produced by the Kohinoor Film Company.Template:Sfn The film stars Zubeida as Bakavali and Khalil as Taj-ul-Mulk.Template:Sfn The film's story adapts a popular legend centered on a mystical flower believed to have healing powers, and a prince who seeks it to cure his father's blindness. Gul-E-Bakavali is described by film scholars as the 'first all-India super hit'Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and among the most successful silent films.Template:Sfn[1]
The film was structured into 97 scenes and included elaborate fantasy elements distinct from the mythological themes common in Rathod and Dave's earlier works like Bhakta Vidur.Template:Sfn According to some sources, Gul-E-Bakavali ran in theatres for more than fourteen weeks and achieved unprecedented success by breaking all the records that came before it.[2] Though the original 1924 version of the film was lost, it survives in popular memory through its several regional remakes.Template:Sfn
Cast
The cast has been listed below:Template:Sfn
- Zubeida as Bakavali
- Khalil as Taj-ul-Mulk
- Fatma Begum
- Sultana as Memudu
- Noor Mohamed
- Savita
- Jamna as Lakhi
- Usha Rani
Origin and adaptations
The story of Gul-E-Bakavali is based on a legend with multiple origins.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Rauf Parekh considers the tale to be of Indo-Iranian origin.[3] According to Parthasarathy and Aleem, "Some scholars suggest an origin in older oral folk traditions in either Bengal or Assam, but the general consensus places it in Rewa or the wider Bagelkhand region of present-day Madhya Pradesh."[4] The legend's popularity largely attributed to Nihal Chand Lahori's translation of Izzat Ali Bengali's Persian narrative, influenced by John Gilchrist at Fort William College in Calcutta in the early 19th century.[4] In 1838–39, Daya Shankar Kaul Naseem Lakhnavi, a Kashmiri Pandit, versified the tale in Urdu as a masnavi titled Gulzar-i-Naseem, first published in 1844.[3]Template:Sfn
Following the 1924 film directed by Kanjibhai Rathod, Gul-e-Bakavali was adapted into several Indian and Pakistani films.[5] Some of them are the 1935 Tamil version starring V.A. Chellappa and T.P. Rajalakshmi, the 1938 Telugu version directed by Kallakoori Sathasiva Rao featuring B. Jayamma, the 1955 Tamil version starring M.G. Ramachandran, and the 1962 Telugu film Gulebakavali Katha starring N.T. Rama Rao. Hindi versions were released in 1932, 1947, 1956, and 1963.[6]
Legacy
A shooting script of Gul-e-Bakavali (1924) was discovered in the personal archive of film historian Virchand Dharamsey. The script, preserved in a bound notebook, contains detailed production information such as scene descriptions, shot lengths, intertitles, and others.Template:Sfn In 2012, it was translated and published in the peer-reviewed journal BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, and it is considered the only known surviving script of its kind from India's silent film era.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Film scholar Debashree Mukherjee notes, citing Kaushik Bhaumik, that the existence of such a document demonstrates that structured and technically detailed screenwriting practices were present at least in some films of Indian silent cinema, countering earlier views that such films lacked formal scripting.Template:Sfn However, scholar Rakesh Sengupta suggests that such isolated archival findings, while valuable, cannot be treated as proof of a sequential historiography of screenwriting.Template:Sfn Rashmi Sawhney regards the film as the first 'secular' film of Bombay cinema.Template:Sfn
See also
Some later adaptations:
- Gul-E-Bakawali (1939 film), 1939 Indian Punjabi-language film
- Gulebakavali (1955 film), 1955 Indian Tamil-language film
- Gulebakavali Katha, 1962 Indian Telugu-language film
References
- ↑ Hundred years of Indian cinema, Gooptu, Sharmistha. The Times of India(6 June 2012). Retrieved 8 July 2025.
- ↑ _
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Literary Notes: Gul-i-Bakawali & Gulzar-i-Naseem: a classical tale of Indo-Iranian origin. Dawn(2 October 2023). Retrieved 27 December 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Persian prose meets pulp fiction: How an 18th-century fairy tale became a multilingual phenomenon. Scroll.in(4 August 2024). Retrieved 8 July 2025.
- ↑ Evacuee Cinema: Bombay and Lahore in Partition Transit, 1940–1960{{#if:Siddique|, Siddique}. Cambridge University Press(2023). ISBN 978-1-009-17552-4
- ↑ Blast from the past – Gulebakavali (1955), Guy, Randor. The Hindu(30 October 2010). Retrieved 8 July 2025.
Bibliography
- Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Routledge(2014). ISBN 978-1-135-94318-9 Alt URL
- The Script of Gul-e-Bakavali (Kohinoor, 1924). BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies({Template:Date).
- Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City{{#if:Mukherjee|, Mukherjee}. Columbia University Press(2020). ISBN 978-0-231-55167-0
- Bombay before Bollywood: Film City Fantasies{{#if:Thomas|, Thomas}. State University of New York Press(2015). ISBN 978-1-4384-5677-5
- Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction{{#if:Rajadhyaksha|, Rajadhyaksha}. Oxford University Press(2016). ISBN 978-0-19-872309-7
- Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India: Shooting Stars, Shifting Geographies and Multiplying Media{{#if:Sawhney|, Sawhney}. Taylor & Francis(2020). ISBN 978-1-000-29331-9
- Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas{{#if:Gangar|, Gangar}. Routledge(2013). ISBN 978-1-136-77291-7
- Writing from the Margins of Media: Screenwriting Practice and Discourse During the First Indian Talkies. BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies({Template:Date).
- Women Screenwriters: An International Guide{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Palgrave Macmillan UK(2015). ISBN 978-1-137-31237-2
- A Dictionary of Indian Literature: Beginnings-1850{{#if:Mukherjee|, Mukherjee}. Orient Blackswan(1998). ISBN 9788125014539
- Towards a Decolonial Media Archaeology: The Absent Archive of Screenwriting History and the Obsolete Munshi. Theory, Culture & Society({Template:Date).