The Other Teacher

P.K.Nair.

Mr. P.K. Nair was the man who established The National Film Archive Of India in Pune.He was not only the first Director of the film archives  in Pune but was the person behind the vision and also the man who single handedly built the archives in to an institution of  not only of national but of international importance. For his contribution to cinema his name is being mooted for the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award.

For us who graduated from the Film And Television Institute of India,Pune he was a man of great importance and a recent documentary film 'Celluloid Man'  directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur highlighted the contribution of Mr.P.K.Nair in making of The National Film Archive of India and which was shown widely not only in India but was screened in many international film festivals where Mr. Nair was also personally honoured.

Some time back Mr. Nair who lives in Pune, celebrated his eightieth birthday and on that occasion he was felicitated in  many different ways and rich tributes were paid to him in the media as well as in private functions. On that occasion I had up put a small piece I had written earlier about him on our site used by the graduates of FTII. I am reproducing the write up here for those not familiar with Mr.P.K. Nair and his contribution for building up of The National Film Archives Of India. 

The Other Teacher.

         

It was the first week of July in 1967 that I first met Mr. Nair in the campus of then 'The Film Institute of India'. The admission list was up and I was among the first ones to occupy a room in the newly built boys' hostel. Before that students lived outside the campus and some lived in the studio No 5 which later became part of the Acting Dept. The course had not yet started and I was spending my time walking around the 'Prabhat Studio' smelling the air of a space which had hosted many stalwarts of the Indian Cinema. One fine morning after a couple of days I found out that the film 'Meera' starring M S Subbulakshmi was being screened in the R.R. Theatre of the old Sound Dept. My first encounter with films of the bygone days and Mr. P K Nair. When the lights came on I saw Mr. Nair with his notepad and pen and the ever present half smile.

That was my first meeting with Mr. Nair.

That I can say was opening of my window to the world not only to the world of cinema. And Mr. Nair was the first one to usher that journey to the world of cinema. If one has to truly analyse our journey through FTII in the field of cinema one would give fifty percent credit to the fact that one got an opportunity of seeing literally thousands of films of all hues which gave us the solid grounding to our pursuit of the language of cinema and all that happened because there was the National Film Archive and there was Mr. P K Nair. Sitting in his humble office in the campus that time regulating an endless supply of films for the students through his close ally Prof. Satish Bahadur who was the only cinema teacher we ever had at the Institute. Mr. Nair can take credit for the solid foundation he helped to build for the great institution called FTII. Prof. Satish Bahadur and Mr. P K Nair gradually devised the well known 'Film Appreciation Course' which like a travelling circus went from city to city and from one town to another spreading the awareness of cinema in India like wild fire preparing the ground for the Indian New Wave and new Regional Cinema. The Appreciation Courses were armed with cans and cans of films from the Archive. They included classics from around the world. Mr. Nair and Prof. Satish Bahadur often personally travelled around the country spreading the message of cinema, so to say.

Apart from the so called 'General Screenings' every week there were these innumerable hours of projection in the various theatres of the campus when Mr. Nair was checking the prints of the films which had freshly arrived in the Archive or which were just in transit which whetted our appetite for asking for more. Various packages of films from other countries would arrive in India for participation in film festivals or just for promotion by various embassies and irrespective of the fact that 'Poona' may not be in their itinerary Mr. Nair saw to it that the prints of those films were somehow routed through Pune so he/the students, could get to see them one way or the other. Sometimes they would be in the campus for a few hours. I remember the packet of the 'American Underground Cinema' was in the campus only for one night and we all sat and saw the entire package of eight hour screening till the wee hours of the morning in the Sound Theatre. There were others like the 'New German Cinema' of that time and many films from the ‘French New Wave’ and scores of films from the east European Countries apart from classics of Indian cinema arriving from various laboratories in India.

Mr Nair would personally check every scrap and pieces of celluloid which arrived at the Archive and take notes in a small note book which he always carried in the auditorium along with a torch. Many a time few of us would be sitting with him watching some very innocuous short films from some obscure countries. I remember also seeing scores of routine educational, instructional and management films in the post-dinner sessions of Mr. Nair’s screenings till midnight when he would call it a day mainly to relieve our favourite projectionist Mr. Ramyan. who had to join duty again at 9 A.M. in the morning. One of the most popular screenings was the cuttings the archives received from the censor board of the deleted portions of various Indian and Foreign films which made very entertaining viewing with some ‘Thumkas’ from dance routines or a snippet of vulgar dialogues or four letter words..

As we progressed through the course of three years the Film Archive grew and got firmly established through the relentless efforts of Mr. Nair and started receiving prints and dupe copies of great masterpieces from around the world and Mr. Nair became synonymous with the Indian cinema along with its filmmakers. And we merrily gorged the endless reels of films which came our way till the course ended, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Nair and his love of cinema. I still cannot forget that some of the prints of the Archive were permanently lying in the classroom theatre projection room for ready reckoning during the classes of Mr. Satish Bahudur. I distinctly remember Reel No 9. of the film 'Pather Panchali' which Prof. Bahadur so often used to make a particular point in the method of structuring a scene.

National Film Archive is still standing and so is the great institution of FTII. And so are the innumerable prints of films which may have multiplied many folds in so many years but one cannot forget the immense love and care with which Mr. Nair nurtured the National Film Archive and the way he lent himself and the Archive in a self effacing manner to the learning of cinema at the Institute. To my mind his contribution to Indian Cinema is perhaps as great as maybe many of us put together towards cinema. And today it seems most appropriate that his name is being put up as a possible recipient of the prestigious 'Dada Sahib Phalke Award'. Surely it will be an honour for him and the great institutions he has helped to create, The National Film Archive and The Film and Television Institute of India.

Vishnu Mathur.

December 19^th, 2012.