The last mile was not motorable. I disembarked from the car and walked a rural path under an overcast midday sky. My shadow shrank to its minimum length, pooling tightly around my feet. Walking deep into Bakjuri village in Manikganj last Monday, my faint shadow mimicked my actual width without stretching. As I moved, it looked as though I were stepping on a small, dark puddle of my own shape.
The interplay of light and shadows had captivated a young boy in this very village some 150 years ago.
Born into an affluent Zamindar family, he used to project shadow puppets onto the wall using his palms and fingers. Unsurprisingly, this boy would eventually emerge as the visionary who established British India’s first indigenous film production house—the Royal Bioscope Company—and became the subcontinent's first filmmaker. His name was Hiralal Sen.
The dirt pathway led me through his ancestral roots. The village path, lined with lush green vegetation, was cluttered with sand-dredging pipes for road development, making the trek somewhat hazardous. After a 15-minute walk, I reached Bakjuri Government Primary School. The building that houses the school, established in 1960, is named after Hiralal Sen.
Inside, teachers Tulsi Rani Sarker, Sharmin Akhter, and their colleagues greeted me. They confirmed that the school compound, the adjacent playfield, and the pond were all once part of Hiralal’s ancestral estate.
With the midday school break approaching, I took a few photographs, bade farewell to the teachers and students, and asked for a guide to the remnants of Hiralal’s home. Three children led me to the far bank of the pond. There lay a ruined structure, largely obscured by the creepers of a massive banyan tree. Over decades of abandonment, the tree had grown directly through the old brick house. Its thick, invasive aerial roots wrapped tightly around the colonial-era brickwork like a protective cage.
While many villagers today identify the structure—now just a fragment of a larger ruin—as an ancient temple, others maintain it is the remains of Hiralal’s ancestral home.
Locals warn of snakes, making it too dangerous to enter. Yet, one can still glimpse hints of the decorative archway over the lower doors and windows, even though the masonry is heavily cracked and supported almost entirely by the roots. This was the site Hiralal Sen once called home.
Born on August 2, 1866, Hiralal Sen is recognized by historians as the premier filmmaker of the Indian subcontinent. Long before modern studios existed, he was producing short films, documentaries, and advertisements. His father, Chandra Mohan Sen, was an eminent lawyer who practiced at the Dhaka District Court and later transitioned to the Calcutta High Court, raising his family in Kolkata.
While still a student in Manikganj and later at Dhaka Collegiate School, Hiralal helped found the Amravati Fine Arts Association and established Bengal’s first photography studio, "Hiralal and Brothers," in Bakjuri.
In 1898, a film troupe en route to Paris screened one Mr Stevenson's short film alongside the stage show The Flower of Persia at Calcutta's Star Theatre. Borrowing Stevenson's camera, Sen filmed "A Dancing Scene" from the opera. He then secured funds from his parents to purchase his own cinematograph camera from London, launching the Royal Bioscope Company that same year.
In a creative career spanning until 1913, Sen made over forty short films. Most captured theatrical productions at Amarendra Dutta's Classic Theatre in Calcutta. His longest film, the 1903 production Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, was also based on a Classic Theatre performance. Sen was also a regional pioneer in advertising films, directing promotional shorts for Jabakusum Hair Oil and Edwards Tonic.
Recently, I watched the biopic Hiralal, directed by Arun Roy. The film beautifully captures the artist’s dedication, his creations, and his personal traumas. In one poignant scene, the Calcutta police raid his house and confiscate a film reel to prevent a public screening. This incident highlights Sen's role as a political cinema pioneer; he had documented an anti-partition demonstration and anti-colonial rally at the Calcutta Town Hall on September 22, 1905.
The Royal Bioscope Company produced its final film in 1913. Sen’s poor business acumen caused the company to fold, and a mysterious warehouse fire subsequently destroyed his entire life's work. A cancer diagnosis led to his premature death in 1917.
Long after his passing, historians debated who held the definitive title of the subcontinent's first filmmaker: Hiralal Sen of Bangladesh or Dadasaheb Phalke of Maharashtra, India. This debate is unnecessary when looking at the facts. Hiralal Sen was the first to capture a movie in British India with his 1903 theatrical filming of Alibaba and the Forty Thieves. Dadasaheb Phalke was the first to make a full-length, narrative feature film, releasing Raja Harishchandra several years later in 1913. Both remain monumental pioneers of cinema in colonial-era India.