Forgotten Indian actor who has lost inheritance to forge oppression

At the time when the women’s participation in the film industry was furious, the young woman dared to dream of others.

In the 1920s, before India’s independence, Rosi PC became the first female role in the Malayalam cinema, in the modern southern state of Kerala.

In the 1920s, she starred in a movie called Vigathakumaran or “Lost Child.” But instead of remembering as a pioneer, its story was buried – erased caste discrimination and social reaction.

Rosie belonged to the community with the lower caste and was confronted with intensive criticism for the reflection of a woman of the highest karst in Vigathakumaran.

Almost a hundred years later, there is no surviving evidence of Rosi. The film coil was destroyed and the acting and the crew died.

Just a few pictures of the movie with challenged press -released Dated October 1930, survive, as well as unverified black and white photographs, popularized by local newspapers as the only portrait of Rosie.

Even Google Doodle that celebrates your 120 birthday The photo uses an illustration similar to a woman. But the nephew of Rosie and others who researched her life told the BBC that they could not finally say that she was in the picture.

PK Rosie was born in the role of Rajam in the early 1900s in the former Kingdom of Travunkor, now Kerala.

It belonged to the family of herbaceous cuts from the community of the pool, which is part of the hierarchy of India’s caste and were historically depressed.

“People from the Pulay community were considered slave works and were auctioned by the land,” says Malavik Bini, Professor of the University of Kanur.

“They were considered” the lowest “. They were raped, raped, tied to trees and set fire to any so-called crimes,” she adds.

Despite the difficult social problems, Rosie decided to dream.

She was supported by his uncle, who was the theatrical artist himself, and with the help of Rosie entered the fun field.

“There are several available facts about Rosie’s life, but it is known that she was popular with her performances in local plays,” says Abraham’s guilt, author of “Lost heroine”, a novel based on Rosie’s life.

While her acting skill was delight, it was rare when the woman was engaged in acting.

“She probably knew that it was a new arena and make herself visible,” says Professor Bini.

Soon she became a famous figure in local theatrical circles, and her talent came into the eyes of the director JC Daniel, who then sought the presenter of his film – a character named Sorodzhin.

Daniel was aware of Rosie’s caste identity and decided to discard her as a role.

“She was paid five rupees a day for 10 days,” Mr. Abraham said. “It was a significant amount of money in the 1920s.”

On the day of the premiere of the film Rosie and her family were forbidden to visit the screening.

They were stopped because they were the valleys, says Rosie Biji Govindan’s nephew.

And so the chain of events that pushed pink from the public view and her home began.

“The crowd that came to watch a movie triggered by two things: Rosy plays a woman with high castes, and a hero who chooses a flower from her hair and kissed it in the same stage,” said Mr. Abraham.

“They started throwing stones on the screen and chasing Daniel,” he added.

There are various reports about the degree of damage to the theater, but it is clear that the incident has taken over both Russia and Daniel.

Daniel spent a lot of money on the creation of a studio and collecting resources for the production of the film, and was heavily collected. Faced with a huge social and financial pressure, a director who is now widely considered the father of Malayalamsky cinema, never shot another movie.

Rosie fled his hometown after the angry crowd set fire to the house.

She cut all the connections with her family to avoid recognition and never spoke publicly about her past. She resumed her life, married with a man of the highest caste and took the name of Rajamal.

The rest of her life she lived in the unknown in Nagercoy in Tamil Nadu, says Mr. Abraham.

Her children refused to accept that PC Rosie, actor Ditel, was their mother, says the nephew of Rosie Mr. Govindon.

“Her children were born from the identity of the highest Caesan Pila. They chose their father’s seeds for the womb,” he says.

“We, her family, enter the identity of the PC Rosie PC before the film’s release,” he said.

“In the space they inhabit, the caste limits their inheritance. This is their reality, and there is no place in our family.”

In 2013, TV channel He found Rosie’s daughter, who lived in the financial tension somewhere in Tamil Nadu. She told them that she did not know much about her mother’s life before her marriage, but after that she did not act.

The BBC made attempts to contact Rosie’s children, but their relatives said they were not convenient.

The professor says the erasure of Rosie shows how deep the caste injury can run.

“It can be so intense that it forms or determines the rest of life,” she says, adding that Rosie eventually found a safe space.

In recent years, directors and activists have sought to return Rosie’s legacy. Influential Tamil Director Randzhit launched an annual film festival in her name, which marks the movie Ditel. A cinema society And the fund was also created.

But there is still a restless meaning that, while Rosie was eventually saved, it was the price of her passion and identity.

“The pink priority is of the evidence of art and, as a result, has never tried to talk publicly or returning its lost identity. This is not her failure is a society,” says Mr. Govindon.

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