Children's movies and social awareness

Sai Paranjpye, a renowned Indian director and children's filmmaker, was born today in 1938. She would direct famous movies like Sparsh in her career.

Sai Paranjpye; Source: Public Domain

Sai Paranjpye, a legend among Indian directors and filmmakers, was born on the 19th of March, 1938. Living with her grandfather since her parents divorced early, she would receive education both nationally and internationally, and would also come into contact with Bollywood for the first time - for her uncle, Achyut Ranade, was a filmmaker back in the 40s.

Writing and screenplay came easy to her - she would publish her first fairytale book at the age of 8, and would also be a graduate from the National School of Drama later. Starting her career with broadcasting for AIR, she got involved into the Children’s Programme, writing plays in Marathi, Hindi and English over adults and children.

Then, she would get an opportunity to work with Doordarshan, and made TV movies - producing The Little Tea Shop, and the inaugural program of Bombay Doordarshan as well. Children’s films seemed to be her area of expertise as she would serve in the Children’s Film Society of India, a government agency with a programme of promoting and ensuring value education for children.

All this would be swept aside when she directed her first feature film, Sparsh. Released in 1980, it won numerous awards, including the National Award. From then on, she would direct numerous comedy movies - Chashme Buddoor and Katha being the most prominent. Her career was not restricted to comedic styles, however, and she followed up with numerous awareness generating movies - Disha, Saaz, Papiha and Chaka Chak - all generated at one or the other issues like immigrant workers, environmental issues etc.

Since then, her movies have been reviewed again and again for some of their best content. She would also release a movie after a long break in 2009, called Suee (needle).

This movie explored the lives of injecting drug users, and their rehabilitation. Her knack for social work was not diminished by her age.