Raj Kapoor mania in Kodambakkam: Awara, Bobby visit city for filmy makeover

CHENNAI: It would be hard to find a boomer whose eyes wouldn’t glaze up wistfully at the sight of Raj Kapoor’s little tramp romancing the luminous Nargis, serenading her to the lilting melody of Pyaar Hua, Ikraar Hua set in a chiaroscuro drizzle, in the iconic Hindi film Shree 420 (1955).

For the rest of us, the privilege of witnessing the cinematic magic of the ‘Greatest Showman of India’ all over again has come knocking, thanks to a retrospective celebrating his birth centenary (December 14, 1924), which is being held in multiplexes across the country.

Interestingly, the Chennai-based Prasad Film Labs is responsible for restoring these films to their past glory as the technicians in Saligramam and Mumbai were tasked with the 4K restoration, colour grading, mastering and QC of eight of the 10 films that are being showcased.

These films include: Aag, Barsaat, Awara, Jagte Raho, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Sangam, Mera Naam Joker and Ram Teri Ganga Maili. The company has also worked on colour grading, mastering and QC for the evergreen hit Bobby, and lent its expertise for the mastering and QC of Shree 420.

Prasad Lab’s association with RK Films goes back to 1957 when Raj Kapoor worked in LV Prasad’s first Hindi fil, Sharada. Kapoor played the hero while LV Prasad directed the film. They had worked together in many films after that.

Speaking to DT Next, Abhishek Prasad, CTO-Prasad Corp, said: “The restoration work of Raj Kapoor films was assigned to Prasad Lab by NFDC-National Film Archive of India (under the National Film Heritage Mission in collaboration with RK Films), keeping in mind the criticality of the project and our ability to handle such high-profile restorations without compromising on quality. We’ve utilised both the Mumbai and Chennai facilities to restore these films.”

For the restoration of these films, NFDC-NFAI used the film elements that were preserved by RK Films at NFDC-NFAI. “Additionally, they had preserved several other 35 mm film elements decades ago as part of their long-term preservation protocols. These elements were also looked into for the restoration,” he added.

But the task at hand was no cakewalk as the teams realised that the original camera negatives of many films were not available in the archive. “For the restoration, NFDC-NFAI, the NFHM’s QC team and Prasad technicians painstakingly compared all available elements in the archives to identify the best possible sources for both picture and sound. There were several instances where even the best source would have certain footage or frames missing, which Prasad and the NFDC-NFAI team identified from other 35 mm film elements in the collection to ensure all the missing frames were retrieved for the final restoration,” explained Abhishek.