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Published: 17 March 2022

Last Updated: 17 March 2022

A few years ago I wrote an email to AGFA Belgium:

In the 60s your company sent this gentleman to India as a color consultant to Bollywood film producers. I would greatly appreciate if you could tell me more about him or/and introduce me to anyone who knows. Thanks,

I received the following reply:

Dear Surjit,

I am afraid that there is no one left in this company who knows about him.  I am the last one that knows of his existence but I never met him.

I think he came to India in the late 1950's.
The first film he assisted on was Mehboob Khan's Mother India.
One of his next films was Zimbo in 1958.

He worked on over 100 film and returned to Belgium in 1972 after finalising his last film Reshma Aur Shera which was released after his return to Belgium where he died a couple of years later.

If there is someone who still knows something more about this man then I think you should look in India.
I am thinking about the Patel family (Filmcenter)  in Mumbay or Ramesh Prasad (Prasad Laboratories) in Madras.

There is also a possibility that RN Viswanathan knows him.  I lost track of Mr Viswanathan who on a certain moment lived on the "Palm Meadows" resort in Bangalore.

Kind Regards,

Marc Sutherland | Agfa Materials
Business Unit Manager | MAT/SP/Classic

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Musing 1075: More JFH Van der Auwera. J 147 

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Published: 15 May 2022

Last Updated: 15 May 2022

When that Julie song (My Heart is Beating) came, many ignorant people said that that was the first English song in a Hindi film. Many websites still say that.

People with a little more knowledge pointed to the poem read by Shanta Apte in Duniya Na Mane (1937) and many people still believe that.

However, people who have the first volume of Hindi Film Geet Kosh know that the first English song in a Hindi film is from Karma (1933) sung by Devika Rani. All songs of this film, including the English song, can be heard here (in the Girdharilal Vishwakarma Collection)

Karma and other songs

Disclaimer: We know that full information of Indian films is not available, many early films are lost, records were not made, magazines and books do not mention every single film ever certified, therefore, the first of anything must remain tentative, as of now, based on the present information.

Now You Know!

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Published: 07 April 2022

Last Updated: 07 April 2022

Found more information about this singer, music director who worked for All India Radio for a long time (also gave music to Pamposh 1953).

His biography from Who's Who of Indian Musicians published by Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1968 and 1984. No idea why the birth details differ.

Now You Know!

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