दुश्मन: तपेदिक के विरुद्ध एक गीत-समाज

Born of Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's idea for a film on tuberculosis, Dushman (1939) is New Theatres' social drama in which Nitin Bose's direction, the acting of Saigal and Leela Desai, and Pankaj Mullick's music bring a disease to the screen.

In the 1930s tuberculosis was India's silent killer, and the cinema had said almost nothing about it. Then the Chairman and Patron of King George's Tuberculosis Fund — Viceroy Lord Linlithgow and his wife — proposed a propaganda film on the disease. New Theatres took up the challenge, and Nitin Bose wrote the story. So Dushman (1939) was born: a health message wearing the body of entertainment.

Nitin Bose not only directed but wrote the story and ran the camera too; the dialogue was by Sudarshan. Kundan Lal Saigal played Mohan and Leela Desai played Gita. The tale follows two friends who unknowingly love the same girl until one learns he has tuberculosis. He renounces his love and enters a sanatorium — and on screen, disease, treatment and hope arrive together.

The music was Pankaj Mullick's and the words Arzoo Lucknowi's — in that same Urdu-rich New Theatres tradition that made Saigal's voice immortal. Recovering in the sanatorium, the hero sings on radio to appeal to the public; the chief doctor insists that people must first be made aware of the disease. So the song itself became a health message — a rare meeting of entertainment and instruction.