A cinematic odyssey

What started as a diversion of a star-struck teenager way back in 1952 has today become a massive collection that includes 6,500 booklets of Hindi films and 950 Marathi films, approximately 2,000 autographs of personalities from all walks of life and around 3,000 photographs of film stars, which he claims are original stills. The collection has found a mention in The Limca Book of Records 1997-98. “I have always loved watching films. When I became aware of these booklets, I started to contact cine-publicists, and later producers, to acquire them. Films fascinated me and I wanted to find out all I could about them,” says Phadke. And find out he did.

It was not an easy task tracing booklets, specially of early films like Ayodhyecha Raja and Ramrajya dating back to 1930s. Phadke began by doing the rounds of cinema publicity concerns in the city like Cinecom Publicity, Trimurti Advertising and Abhinav Publicity with whatever time he could spare from his job at a paper merchandising company. “An interesting fact about booklets belonging to an earlier era are that the songs would be printed in Hindi and Urdu. And an entertainment tax used to be levied on them!” he says.

“When I started my collection, I followed a simple motto – never be disappointed and keep trying.” A motto that has served him well. He has had to face slammed doors, irate producers, frayed tempers and hours of waiting before he could get his hands on a booklet but he persisted. “I remember a trip to Mumbai when I visited Mehboob Studios hoping to meet Mehboob Khan for a few booklets. The man I met was in an angry mood and told me that I would need to pay him to meet Mehboobsaheb.” When an undeterred Phadke went to the studios again three months later, he was told to leave his address. Phadke was pleasantly surprised to receive a registered packet soon after containing 20 film booklets.

Phadke, who was in contact with film producers, soon started to broaden his interests into seeking autographs of personalities – but this time, from all fields. Among the signatures in his collection are those of Daisy Irani, Raj Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Veer Savarkar and Balgandharva. He relates an interesting nugget about an autograph from Morarji Desai. “When he had come for a function to Pune in 1981, he said he would give me an autograph only if I pledged to wear khadi all my life.” Another time, activist Sharad Joshi, when given a plain paper to autograph on, said he would not sign unless given an autograph book. “He told me that he was fighting cases in the court because miscreants had written their own appeals above his signature when he had signed on a plain piece of paper!”

Phadke goes armed with a camera to the various venues that a famous personality may be visiting. He reasons that this is the only way he can convince people he actually met the person whose autograph he has taken.

He has already come out with a kind of bibliography of Marathi films from 1932 to 1989 and is also planning a reference book on similar lines on Bollywood films, a more daunting task.

Phadke has lost none of his zest for watching his favourite films. There was a time when he’d watch a good film first day first show. Now he catches them on television. Mad about the movies is Mr. Phadke.