The Nehru Centre virtually launched Lady Kishwar Desai's latest book “The Longest Kiss, The Life and Times of Devika Rani" on February 19. The launch was moderated by The Nehru Centre’s Director, Amish Tripathi.
Lady Kishwar Desai is an award-winning author and playwright who writes both fiction and non-fiction. She worked in television as an anchor and producer for over twenty years before becoming a writer. She is the chairperson of The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust that set up the world’s first Partition Museum at Town Hall, Amritsar. Most recently, in 2019, her play, Devika Rani: Goddess of the Silver Screen, was successfully staged in venues across India.
Lady Desai’s book is about Devika Rani, who was India’s first international superstar in the 1930s and 1940s. Touted as “prodigiously talented”, Devika Rani was the great-grand-niece of Rabindranath Tagore. She was married to Himanshu Rai and the duo set up Bombay Talkies together, which was India’s first truly professional studio.
During the virtual launch Lady Desai shared details about the early life of Devika Rani, and she said that about 400 people attended the premiere of her film ‘Karma’ in 1933 with her husband in London at Marble Arch amid rain. The elite of London turned up to watch an Indian film in those times.
“She was the most glorious thing they had ever seen,” Lady Desai said as she marvelled over the exceptional charm that surrounded Devika Rani who also had a British accent. As a result of that, many people wanted her to make a Hollywood debut.
Talking about the longest kiss in the history of Indian cinema, Lady Desai said, “This is a kiss Devika herself had written in the script.” Amish Tripathi chuckled and said that, “This was before Hindi movies moved to two flowers touching each other.”
She said, “This was a woman who grew up in the west. She did understand what was the hesitance to kiss.”
Explaining the scene, Lady Desai said that in the movie - in that particular scene, Himanshu, a Prince has been bitten by a snake. A snake charmer is called with another snake so that he can bite him again and cure him of the poison (as was believed back in those days). Devika Rani, who was madly in love with the Prince in the film, couldn’t watch him die, so she kissed him.
“She practically lies on the top of him and kisses him. A lot of people thought that this was quite amazing, and a lot of people were shocked to see a saree clad woman lying on the top of a guy, kissing him very passionately,” Lady Desai said.
There is a lot of speculation about the length of the kissing scene and most people believe that it is about five minutes long. Lady Desai however said, “I timed it! It is about a little less than two minutes.”
She also went on to acknowledge that after that kissing was banned in Indian films, not necessarily because of Devika and Himanshu’s film, but in general, due to the hesitation among Indians to watch love making on screen. Lady Desai spoke at length about the book, sharing anecdotes about Ashok Kumar, Devika Rani, Leela Chitnis and Dilip Kumar. The book has been published by Westland Publishers.
