Once upon a time, Bollywood was actually Gollywood, a term I coined for German Bollywood, when it grew Indo-German roots. There’s that stunning black-and-white photograph of the time, of a very hot couple associated with Bombay Talkies, that many may recognise: The gorgeous Devika Rani, star and co-founder of Bombay Talkies, and the handsome hero Najmul Hussain (with whom she later eloped), standing very close to each other, looking deeply into each other’s eyes—the frisson is electric. It graces the cover of the coffee table book,  Bombay Talkies: An Unseen History of Indian Cinema, edited by Debashree Mukherjee, that includes marvellous photographs from the Josef Wirsching Archive, lobby cards and letters, and essays by  noted film scholars. It is put together by the Alkazi Collection of Photography, in association with Mapin Publishing (Rs 2,780, hardcover).

This one could be a classic example of “how pictures lie”. We see the same cover photograph on Page 22, a gelatin silver print from Jawani ki Hawa, characters all set in deep pools of darkness, with light bouncing off their faces and clothes. Here the camera has drawn back a little, and we see the complete picture: Devika Rani, relatively short compared to the strapping Hussain, is standing on a low stool covered with carpeting, presumably so her upturned face can be properly showered with kisses, Mills & Boon style. But the stool is so unromantic, I burst into laughter when I saw it, making for a disarming entry into this gorgeous book. Most of the 165 photographs are from the personal archive of the Bombay Talkies cinematographer Josef Wirsching, and taken in the 1930s and 1940s, both on sets and outdoor locations, and reveal a rich, complex world behind the Bombay Talkies stills. The essays are by film scholars and historians, including Debashree Mukherjee herself—Associate Professor of Film and Media, Columbia University in New York, Priya Jaikumar, Sudhir Mahadevan, Kaushik Bhaumik, the late Virchand Dharamsey and Eleanor Halsall.