Fire at Bombay Talkies engulfs archival documents

2 Jul 2014

Even though fire has always played an integral role in reel life, it is just the opposite in real life. The same was witnessed last week when many of the archival documents relating to Bollywood got burnt lost in a fire that broke out at Bombay Talkies, which also gutted down one of the floors of said film studio.

Reports state that when a fire broke in the building's basement, lot of valuable documents which were related to Indian cinema were reduced to ashes. Luckily, no casualties were reported. A rough estimate of 650 negatives and around 102 film reels alongwith many photos, agreements and records got burnt.

Talking about the incident, Abhay Kumar (late Ashok Kumar's grandson) said that a lot of documents, which included rare letters from Subhash Chandra Bose, Ravindranath Tagore and other personalities were lost in the fire. He also added that they did not want to blame anyone for this ill- fated incident.

Readers may recall that the iconic Bombay Talkies was established by the legendary Himanshu Rai in 1934.