Articles

Articles on Hindi Films

Details: Published: 10 October 2021; Last Updated: 10 October 2021

Notwithstanding the fact that some time ago I had mentioned the coining of the word Tollywood (from Tollygunj) in Calcutta in 1932, it appears that people don't know about it. So, let us do some research. Go to the Hindi Film Geet Kosh (HFGK) Database Website, click on the Censor Certificate information page. As you may know this page has information about more than 11,000 films (1931-2010). The information comes directly from the Government gazettes, where it was originally published. It was copied and painstakingly checked by volunteers. It is available to browse or to search for free, no login. no registration, no annoying pop-ups or ads. . Now, a part of this information (after 1949) is available on the Official Censor Board website, but no browsing, only search. If you want info about films before 1950, our website is the only internet resource.

In the Censor Certificate page, type tollywood in the search box. You will see

You can see all the information that is available in the Gazette for Javaanee Kaa Nashaa (1935), produced by Tollywood Studio. Scrolling down you will see more,

a total of 9 films.

Now You Know!

New j048

Details: Published: 11 October 2021; Last Updated: 11 October 2021

The Database Website is both in English and in Hindi, whereas the HFGK is only in Hindi. In fact, the database was typed in Hindi and the English version was generated with a little Python script I wrote. There was no easy way to produce names like Vishwnath, so I went for char-to-char substitution, giving phonetic English. Here is a sample from the Tollywood search in Hindi (see Musing 961).

What about Urdu? Some people can read neither English nor Hindi.We decided to use Google Translate for that. Here is what it gives for the same page in Urdu.