Jairaj Book Promotion Brochure

ABOUT THE BOOK TO BOMBAY, WITH LOVE: P. JAIRAJ'S LIFE, TIMES & FILMS Written and Published by T. Sreekanth Foreword by Shyam Benegal · Size: A4 ; No. of Pages: 264 ; Price: Rs. 2000/- · Copies are available at Creative Links, Ph. 9848506964. or you can also buy online at www.amazon.in

· This extensively researched publication has been brought out for sale on the Occasion of P. Jairaj's 111th Birth Anniversary on 28th September 2020. · The biographical account is a humble attempt to document Jairaj's life, times and films. It is also a pictorial book containing about 400 photos, a feast to the eyes of all the film lovers as well as film researchers. ABOUT JAIRAJ · Paidi Jairaj Naidu, popularly known as Jairaj, was born on 28th September 1909 at Karimnagar in Telangana. He was the nephew of great poet Smt. Sarojini Naidu. His family had shifted to Hyderabad where he had his formal education in All Saints School. While he was studying in Nizam College, he acted in theatre plays directed by Harindranath Chatopadhyay at Golden Threshold, the home of Smt. Sarojini Naidu. He discontinued his studies at Nizam College and left to Bombay in 1929. · He worked in the dockyard of Bombay before joining in the film industry. He acted in silent movies from 1930, talkies from 1932 onwards and never looked back till 1965. Until then he acted in 135 films in lead roles as well as few negative roles. From the year 1966 till 2000 he was cast in character roles, spanning his career in films until he passed away in the same year. Whichever role he was offered, tiny or lengthy, he did it equal passion and dedication, thus, he was associated with films and served the industry throughout his life. · His tall figure with broad shoulders and charismatic physique was at his advantage in doing historical lead roles in films like “Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan, Jai Chithod, Maharani Padmini, Amarsingh Rathod, Razia Sultana, Tipu Sultan, ChandrasekharAzad”, etc. · Along with the Hindi films he also acted in Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Bhojpuri language films. His films were also dubbed in Telugu and Tamil languages. · Very few film historians know that he rubbed shoulders with famous Hollywood actors and directors of his time. He acted in one Russian film (Journey beyond three seas) and three English films (Our India, Nine Hours to Rama and Maya). Thus he travelled extensively to USA, Europe and Russia on his international film work assignments. · He was a director and producer too. He directed 4 Hindi movies. Dilip Kumar's second movie 'Pratima' in 1945 was one among his directorial ventures.

· He established a film production banner called 'P.J. Film Unit' in Bombay itself and produced a film titled 'Sagar' in 1951 starring Nargis and himself in the lead roles. He was also the director of this film. · His regional films in Marathi and Gujarathi have also won best state film awards. · In the year 1980 he received 'Dadasaheb Phalke Award', the highest honour in Indian film industry, for his contribution to the Indian Cinema. He was the first actor from Telugu region to be bestowed upon by this prestigious award. · He also achieved entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for having a longest career as an actor (with acting career spanning 70 years) in any film industry. · With more than 270 films to his credit, from silent era to talkie era, he had witnessed the complete evolution of hindi cinema, owing to his parallel career graph along with the film Industry. · A legend called P. Jairaj passed away on the 30th of August in 2000, leaving a rich legacy of his work for the present and future generations to emulate and draw inspiration from..

ABOUT THE AUTHOR & PUBLISHER T. Sreekanth, a writer-publisher cum graphic designer, also hails from the historic city of Hyderabad. He has been associated with the creative field of graphic designing and publishing for the last 24 years, during the course of which he established a designing & publishing house called 'Creative Links'. He is passionate about Indian film history and takes keen interest in the biographies of veteran film personalities. This inspiration led to his research on few stalwarts of yesteryears and thus one such publication in Telugu, an autobiography of veteran Telugu film hero late Shri Kanta Rao, titled “Anaganaga Oka Rakumarudu' (meaning..Once upon a time there lived a Prince) fetched him state honour 'Nandi Award' given by the government of Andhra Pradesh. He was awarded in the 'Best Film BookAuthor' category in 2007. He started work on Jairaj's project in the year 2010 and quickly realised that not much has been written about such a doyen of hindi film industry. So he decided to bring such an extensive volume, complete with rare photographs and anecdotes, irrespective of the time it took, as he thought that it will be a befitting tribute to such a legendary and dynamic personality. As a part of this project, he visited Mumbai several times to personally meet and interview some of his family members, several actors, actresses, technicians and other relevant people. Sreekanth, thus, met and befriended Smt Sushilarani Patel (who is no more now) a classical singer and wife of Sri Baburao Patel, editor of the then 'Filmindia' and 'Mother India' magazines. Among the other great personalities include legendary actor Dilip Kumar, veteran actors Chandrasekhar, Prem Chopra, actress Jabeen and senior makeup man Pandhari Jukar. Sreekanth also visited National Film Archives of India (NFAI) in Pune and spent sufficient time in their library to collect data and photographs for this project. He also contacted and met some well known film historians to authenticate the data to be published in this book. The author relentlessly looks forward to bring out such books on unsung heroes of not only Telangana region but also south and north India who brought accolades and glory to the nation by their sheer hard work and dedication in their respective field of art. This book on the son of Telangana soil, P.Jairaj, is one such example.