India Connection

Peter Dietze

How would you feel if you discover, completely out of the blue, that you are connected by birth to one of Indian cinema’s early greats? Peter Dietze (pictured), long-time resident of Melbourne and full-fledged Australian of German descent, remembers feeling “centred” rather than “thrown”, when he found out that he was the grandson of Himanshu Rai, pioneer of Indian cinema, and founder of the iconic Bombay Talkies. It turned out that his grandmother, Mary Hanlin, was Rai’s first wife, and the one who introduced Rai to filmmakers in Germany. Rai met Devika Rani, the true love of his life soon after, and returned to India, abandoning his young German wife, and their daughter Nilima ( Peter Dietze’s mother, who migrated to Australia, hiding her descent).

I marvel at the fully filmi story, as we chat at the Australian Centre For The Moving Image ( ACMI), a perfect spot for the retelling. Dietze’s resolve to find out more about his heritage led him to a New York museum dedicated to the works of Nicholas Roerich, whose son Svetoslav, also a painter of renown, was married to Devika Rani, after the death of Rai.

The boxes of photographs, letters and other mementoes at the museum that came into Dietze’s possession, were a never seen-before treasure trove of early Indian cinema history. Since then, he and his family (his two brothers Paul and Walter, and his wife and children) have been busy unraveling layers of this rich legacy.

Early in 2017, an exhibition called “Bombay Talkies”, showcasing nearly 3,000 photos and letters and other precious documents from the Dietze archives, was mounted at the ACMI. It ran up until July. Now Dietze, 63, is on a mission: to find enough funds to travel with the exhibition around the world, and fetch up in India, which is where, he says, it truly belongs.