Khote: A reluctant pioneer

The plucky Durga Khote opened up the film industry to women. Labonita Ghosh on the actress whose Marathi autobiography was released in English as I, Durga Khote, earlier this week.

 

 

There’s a photograph in I, Durga Khote, the English translation of Khote’s Marathi autobiography, which released this week. The young actress is scanning a letter, wearing trendy trousers and a Bush shirt, her hair pulled back. Khote is a picture of quiet control—focussed, determined and businesslike. It is tempting to believe that the late actress had much in common with the strong characters she played in Amarjyoti, Sita or Maya Machhindra, from warrior princess to female pirate. In fact, critic Shanta Gokhale, who translated the book, says, “Durgabai was very different from her screen persona of the hard, intimidating woman. She was extremely vulnerable and always a family person first.”

 

Khote was one of the pluckiest and most prolific actors in Marathi and Hindi cinema. She had over 100 films to her credit, from Ayodhyecha Raja and Mughal-e-Azam to Bobby and Abhimaan. “She was a pathbreaker—one of the first women to come into cinema from an educated, affluent family,” says film historian Firoze Rangoonwalla. “At that time, when cinema was taboo and female stars came only from the lower strata of society, Durgabai brought respectability and opened up the industry to more women.”

 

She belonged to the famously rich Laud family, and married into the equally wealthy Khotes. She defied tradition and stereotypes when she joined films.

 

“I would have found it difficult to fit in with the way films were handled in the Bombay film industry,” Khote writes in her book. “A 26-year-old woman, a mother of two, a housewife with a home and family to run—such a woman would hardly be considered suitable for the heroine’s role in Bombay.” Her extended family was livid at her career choice, but her parents backed her.

 

However, Khote wasn’t in it for the glamour. Her first husband Vishwanath was a wastrel, and after his early death, she decided to earn a living for herself. “Her dignity would not allow her to depend on her family. That was her greatest strength,” says Vijaya Mehta, theatre stalwart and executive director, NCPA, who was once married to Khote’s younger son Harin. The autobiography deals with her long association with Prabhat Studios, filmmakers like V Shantaram and co-stars like Bal Gandharva and Prithviraj Kapoor (she was his “rakhi sister”), all in well-etched, anecdotal detail.

 

“The book is an excellent comment on the nostalgia of those days and the film and theatre industries of the time,” says Mehta. When she was in her 40s, Khote—correctly gauging that her acting days were numbered—established Durga Khote Productions that made ad films. She was never considered a fabulous actress, but was extremely professional. “She saw every challenge as positive, something that needed to be overcome,” says Mehta.

 

For all Khote’s stardom, cinema actually plays a cameo in her autobiography. It is, instead, a personal narrative of a pampered daughter, young widow and sole breadwinner, who worked tirelessly to fend for herself. Says Gokhale, “It’s an important sociological document of the time. These women (including Hansa Wadkar and Leela Chitnis) wrote because they knew they were among the first in the business, and realised it was necessary to record their experiences.”