Film traces cinematic journey of Assam’s first AIR announcer
The Hindu
Jnanada Kakati’s movie ‘Puberun’ was selected for screening at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1960
A new documentary has traced the “unplanned” cinematic journey of Assam’s first announcer for All India Radio in 1948.
Jnanada Kakati stepped accidentally into the world of cinema at a time when working in films was taboo for women in Assam. Her first film in 1949 was Parghat.
Her film Puberun directed by Prabhat Mukherjee was selected for screening at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1960 where she was invited as a special guest.
“When I received the letter of invitation to the Berlin Film Festival, I was so excited that I ran wearing my Hawaii chappals to my husband’s office to give him the news. I was almost out of breath and my husband had to give me a glass of water to calm me down,” Ms Kakati, 90, recalls in the biographical film titled Jnanada: Reflections of Light and Shade directed by Bobbeeta Sharma.
The distance she covered from her residence in Shillong’s Oakland to her husband’s office in the Assam Secretariat was about 1 km. Shillong was then the capital of undivided Assam.
Her role in Puberun garnered appreciation in Assam and abroad and former Chief Secretary, Dharmananda Das, and Finance Minister Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed – he became India’s President later – ensured her trip to Berlin.
Ms. Kakati was the first Assamese actress to receive the President’s silver medal from President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in 1960 for her work in Puberun.