सम्राट चंद्रगुप्त

Samrat Chandragupta is a big-budget historical, produced and directed by Jayant Desai for his own Bombay banner, about the founder of the Mauryan empire in the fourth century BCE. The film does not follow the historical record so much as the popular legend around Chandragupta Maurya: the young Indian prince is shown as having been close to Alexander's Macedonian army before falling out with the Greeks, defeating them in battle and establishing his own empire with its capital at Pataliputra. Its central romantic thread is the friendship between Chandragupta and the Greek general Seleucus Nicator, whose daughter the Mauryan king is traditionally believed to have married. Chandragupta saves Nicator's life and rescues his daughter Helen from the villainous Antigonus, and is given her hand in return. The film's later political action — Chandragupta's overthrow of the Nanda dynasty and the repeated conspiracies against the new king — is staged as a consequence of that love story rather than as statecraft, which is the standard shape of the 1940s Bombay historical. The wily strategist Chanakya is a key figure in the narrative. Written by Mohanlal G. Dave, Shaheed Latif and Sagar Hussain and photographed by Dronacharya, the picture was mounted on a large scale by the standards of an independent producer in the last years of the war economy.

Ten songs are documented, all composed by C. Ramchandra to lyrics by Buddhi Chandra Agrawal 'Madhur'. MySwar lists the soundtrack as issued on Columbia Records; the Hindi Film Geet Kosh entry for the film names no record company, so the label rests on that single source. The vocal casting is unusually clear for a 1945 independent: Suraiya, then fifteen and in the middle of a five-film year, takes three numbers ('Piya Piya Raat Ke', 'Pee Gore Gore Haathon Mein', 'Chakori Chanda Ke Angana'); Amirbai Karnataki takes a solo ('Har Dil Mein Museebat Hai') and pairs with G. M. Durrani on two duets ('Badla Hai Zamana' and 'O Jaane Wale Kuch Kehta Jaa'). The online catalogues stop there, but the Geet Kosh carries three further credits they omit: Rajkumari on 'Nazar Ki Chot Jab Dil Mein Lagi', Rajkumari again opposite Rewashankar Marwadi on the female-male number 'Mai Albeli Naar Yaar', and Saraswati Rane on 'Dil Rote Rote Khelo' — a singer hindigeetmala and myswar instead call Saraswati Bai. That leaves only 'Mata Ki Jai Ho' without named voices; the Geet Kosh marks it a chorus. It is also the film's set-piece: the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, reproduced on indiancine.ma, singles it out as the picture's nationalist number, sung in the fuller form 'Mata ki jai, janani ki jai ho'.

Jayant Desai had joined Ranjit Film Company in 1929 as an assistant and left in 1943, at the peak of his reputation, to set up Jayant Desai Productions. Wikipedia calls Manorama (1944) the banner's first film, but the Hindi Film Geet Kosh records that picture under a different banner, Chandra Art Productions, with Desai directing; the two sources are left in disagreement here rather than reconciled. Samrat Chandragupta was passed by the Bombay censor on 20 February 1945 — certificate Bombay/31155, with cuts — and ran 10,995 feet over fourteen reels, a little over two hours. It was written by a three-man team — Mohanlal G. Dave, one of the most prolific scenarists of the silent and early sound period, with Shaheed Latif and Sagar Hussain — and shot by the cinematographer credited simply as Dronacharya. The composer signed himself Chitalkar Ramchandra here, one of several names (Annasaheb, Ram Chitalkar, Shyamoo) he used across the 1940s before C. Ramchandra became the settled screen credit. The film was Suraiya's third of five 1945 releases, alongside Yateem, Tadbir, Phool and Main Kya Karoon — the year in which she moved from child performer to leading lady and leading voice at the same time.

The film sits at the meeting point of two careers on the move. For Jayant Desai it was the first release of 1945 from the banner he had founded in 1943 after fourteen years at Ranjit Studios, where he had directed the hugely successful Tansen (1943): the Bombay censor passed it on 20 February 1945, eight months ahead of the banner's other release that year, the K. L. Saigal musical Tadbir. For C. Ramchandra — credited here in his early screen form 'Chitalkar Ramchandra' — it was his third consecutive score for a Jayant Desai picture after Manorama (1944) and Lalkar (1944), written two years before Shehnai (1947) made him the most imitated composer in Bombay. The subject matter also carries a charge specific to 1945: a historical about an Indian ruler expelling a European invader, containing a song the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema identifies plainly as a nationalist number, was released in the last months of colonial rule's wartime censorship regime, when the historical costume picture was one of the few forms in which such sentiment could reach a mass audience intact.

No print of Samrat Chandragupta is in public access and the film survives mainly as a catalogue entry, a plot summary in the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, a censor record in the Hindi Film Geet Kosh and ten song titles. Its interest now is as evidence of two things: the mid-1940s vogue for the ancient-Indian historical as a vehicle for nationalist feeling, and the pre-fame apprenticeship of C. Ramchandra, whose 1945 work for small independents is far less discussed than the Albela and Anarkali years that followed. Chandragupta Maurya returned to Hindi screens in 1958 as Samrat Chandragupt, a separate and better-remembered film by a different production team; the two are frequently confused in online listings, and this 1945 Jayant Desai picture is the earlier of the pair.