Memories of a summer with Devika Rani

Rajendra Rajan

It was on 18 April, 1993, that Devika Rani, pioneer of talkie films in Indian cinema, had arrived in Kullu from Bangalore. As a protocol officer, the Deputy Commissioner of Kullu gave me the task of taking care of Devika Rani. I was posted as a District Public Relations officer. She had been requested by the Indian and Russian Governments to ink a trust deed to conserve and preserve the repository of her late husband Svetoslav Nikolaevich Roerich and her own heritage at Naggar near Kullu. She had lost Svetoslav on January 30 that year. At 85, she was very frail and moved about on a wheelchair. P.P. Shrivastva, Adviser to Governor of Himachal Pradesh, had come to Kullu from Shimla to assist the signing of the deed, which proposed to set up the International Roerich Memorial Trust. 

Later, sitting on the lawns of the hotel in a glistening yellow and red Banarsi saree, she expressed her desire to smoke. She asked me to light her cigarette. Soon the Dada Saheb Award-winning actor, who headed the first cinema studio Bombay Talkies, became nostalgic and shared memories of her bond with the Roerich Estate, every bit of which was nurtured by her. 

In 1945, she, along with her husband,  had moved to Manali. Soon they became friends with Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Devika produced a few wildlife documentaries during her stay in Manali. There is a summer studio in Roerich House in Naggar where a small museum has been set up in the memory of Devika Rani.  

Devika, along with her husband, had started building the Roerich Art Gallery in 1948. It was opened to tourists in 1961. In 1964, Devika  wrote to Pavel Belkov, biographer of Nicholas Roerich, “You will be glad to know that now hundreds of visitors go up to the very Naggar in order to see the paintings of Professor Roerich here at the Gallery. They leave wonderful notes on the guest book.” In another letter to Pavel, she wrote, “ At the moment when I am looking at the magnificent mountains appearing before my eyes, just opposite my husband’s  studio window where I am sitting I am mentally with you.” 

During that summer of 1993, the Padma Shri awardee stayed in Kullu for about a week. Devika died in March 1994. While a part of her ashes were dispersed in the Beas river, another part was buried under a lime tree outside the art gallery where she was fond of sitting and meditating for hours together.