FROM THIS DAY FORTH CALL ME ‘HUNTERWALI’
Dorothee Wenner
A whip in hand, her face masked, her portly form encased in leather, Nadia Hunterwali made an unlikely heroine. But she represented something else, something so exotic, unique and improbable in Indian—indeed in South Asian—cinema that every attempt to replicate it has failed. Dorothee Wenner presents the first meetings between the Wadia Brothers and Nadia, until then a circus performer.
By 1934, auditions were nothing new for Nadia. After the break with Madame Astrova, she had sought out possibilities for performing with theatre and cinema owners on her own steam. To these meetings she always took her brown photo album that still exists today. Each page shows Nadia posing in various guises: saucy as a vaudeville dancer or a fiery gypsy woman, as a Greek nymph or an athletic free dancer in a scanty bathing costume. Yet, in spite of her considerable stage experience, illustrated impressively in the photo album, Nadia by no means had insider studio knowhow at her fingertips. She knew neither the Wadias nor the films they had produced. The two Wadia brothers, Homi and Jamshed (known to everyone as JBH), were among ten producers in Bombay with good prospects of mastering the complicated transitional phase from silent movies to sound films without going bankrupt in the process. Eruch Kanga, the befriended cinema owner from Lahore, had waxed lyrical about Nadia’s capabilities to the two film pioneers and had set up an appointment.
Nadia was so nervous that even decades later she could recall this momentous meeting down to the last detail. ‘I’d told friends I was trying out for work at Wadia Movietone and they told me it was a film production company with a good reputation. Well, when the day came I took the tram from Wellington Mews in Colaba, not far from my home at that time, and rode out to Parel where the studio was. Parel was a very posh neighbourhood and the studio was located right next to the house of the governor of Bombay. In those days, the area was on the edge of town, and behind the studio were lots of paddy fields, and you could look over to Antop Hill and out to Borivili—no skyscrapers blocking the view. I remember I had treated myself to a sweet, sky-blue dress for the interview, along with a pretty little hat complete with sunflowers. When I alighted from the tram, Mr Kanga was there waiting for me in his red Chrysler and we drove through the wrought-iron studio gates together. I had rather anticipated some sort of tin shed structures as I had seen these in Imperial Studios where I had sometimes watched filming in the silent-movie days. But suddenly we were driving up to a grand villa! The whole atmosphere led me to prepare myself for a meeting with some respectable elderly gentlemen. As we entered the lobby all I could see were some actors hanging around dressed as monkeys. It was quite funny.’
But Nadia was professional enough not to be further distracted by curiosities on the way to the head office and thus she swept past her late director and husband in a ladylike manner—she didn’t even notice the rather weedy figure in the corridor! However, J.B.H. Wadia corresponded rather more to Nadia’s picture of a studio boss: older than his brother Homi by ten years, JBH sported an impressive pair of intellectual glasses and received Nadia as he continued chain-smoking behind his desk. The horror in his expression at her entry couldn’t have escaped Nadia—his friend Kanga apparently hadn’t prepared him for such a white, such a blonde and such a large woman. JBH later admitted that at first he thought Kanga was playing a trick on him. To salvage the embarrassing situation, Nadia remarked confidently that she was really rather famous in the world of theatre. JBH responded coolly that he had never heard of her. ‘To which I said that until now I hadn’t heard of him either! He then laughed a lot and I think he decided to hire me because of that.’ At any rate, after the somewhat brusque introduction, the interview proper went rather well, during which Nadia presented her brown photo album and listed off her talents: she could swim, ride a horse, dance, she was very athletic, of a gymnastic disposition, no less, and could do splits.
For an Indian actress in those days, these were unusual qualities. Furthermore, it didn’t escape JBH’s producer’s eye that Nadia had a majestic figure, beautiful teeth which gleamed in her mouth, and piercing blue eyes framed by corn-blonde hair. When he inquired about her competence in languages, things got tricky. Nadia could speak Greek but didn’t understand any of the Indian languages, either Hindi or Urdu nor Marathi or Gujarati. JBH sent for his brother—he didn’t want to make the decision about employing the future actress on his own. Homi felt snubbed at the first official confrontation: ‘She laughed herself blue in the face when she saw me! “What, this man decides such matters?” she asked my brother!’
Somehow, all four characters must have found each other very curious that day, curious enough at the same time not to go their separate ways immediately. So JBH offered Nadia a starting salary of sixty rupees a week. His brother thought him crazy for this, but accepted the decision. Nadia’s first task was to take home at Hindustani scene and learn it by heart. A week later she was to return and Homi would do the test shots. ‘I was still unsure after this interview, but sixty rupees a week wasn’t a bad start and I wanted to come and settle in Bombay as I was tired of travelling!’
Nadia, therefore, took great pains and practised the Hindustani text at home—yet the results were shattering. ‘A disaster!’ was Homi Wadia’s verdict. Her utterly wooden way of declaiming was dreadful. Added to that was her grotesque accent. ‘It was a pure joke.’ But Nadia had other talents that simply fitted too well into the Wadia brothers’ history. Swimming, horse riding, acrobatics— the stuff of stunt films …
The First Leap from the Roof
In December 1934, preparations for the production of the next extravagant melodrama from Wadia Movietone shuddered to a halt because the lead actress fell ill. The screenplay for the planned stunt film with Nadia in the lead role had been completed in the meantime. The story of Hunterwali (roughly Lady with the Whip in English) was tailor-made for Nadia. JBP pushed for this rather small and cheap production to be given priority so as not to waste too much studio time. Homi Wadia was sceptical for he doubted the talents of the blonde lead.
‘Homi didn’t know how to approach the job,’ Minoo Tampal, the sound engineer, recalls. ‘Miss Nadia was a white lady after all and everyone in the studio felt out of their element when asked to work with her as a stunt actress. Back then she was still very reserved, very quiet, and a far cry from messing around like a buddy with those of us who had been on the team longer. I think it had to do with her not speaking Gujarati. At the same time, she was very professional and came to work every morning just like us. In those days the studio functioned almost like a factory, there were even time-cards that we had stamped each morning. Afterwards we were told what had to be done in the course of the day, depending on which film we were currently working on. Homi Wadia told us which scenes were planned; the screenplays came from J.B.H. Wadia. These instructions were taken as seriously as the Bible and carried out meticulously by everyone. But I still remember how our routine was somehow thrown into confusion during the first production discussion of Hunterwali. The screenplay envisaged a great number of stunts and fight scenes for Nadia, although there were also palace scenes in which she—traditionally feminine—was to appear in a sari and had some dialogues to deliver. That’s where we wanted to start, with these simple tasks. Unfortunately, the set designer said that wouldn’t be possible because the intricate scenery wasn’t complete when filming began. We pondered back and forth until Homi Wadia declared that we should begin with the fight scene on the roof. Nadia had to fight some bodyguards at quite a height and then leap from the roof. It was a very tricky stunt scene that would have been a real challenge even for our experienced stuntmen like Boman Shroff and Ustad Haque. We didn’t believe Nadia capable of it. In the studio the news spread like wildfire that our director planned to start with that of all scenes … but no one dared suggest something easier to him. Meanwhile, Nadia turned to Homi Wadia and said: “I’ve heard I am to jump from a roof? Which one is it then?” Upon which he went outside with Nadia and showed her the sharp steep roof, about five metres high. She looked at it and simply said: “Okay.” We were fairly amazed—and feared the worst.’
Not long before, an experienced Wadia stuntman had almost drowned, having miscalculated a jump from a freight ship. In general, scrapes, dislocated joints and often more severe injuries were part of the daily fare. Nadia may have practised some jumps and falls under the guidance of experienced stunt people on the studio training area—however, most members in the team had an uneasy feeling when the coconut was smashed on the first day of filming. This so-called mahurat ritual, customary in all Indian studios, is supposed to bring good fortune to the film and protect the film-maker from misfortune and mishaps.
‘Nadia was the only one who was confident and in good spirits that day. We made the final preparations, set up the camera; the other stunt people were dressed in police uniforms. They climbed onto the roof—and the first take was flawless. Nadia was masked and made a convincing bandit. One after the other, left and right she punched them from the roof and paid not the slightest heed to the camera. But then came the dreaded wide shot where she was supposed to jump down. Apparently, Homi Wadia was rather nervous too, as he sent for Mr Dhunbhoora, regarded by everyone as an experienced “bone-setter”. Scarcely was he on hand than Nadia was back on the roof again—and Homi called “action”. Nadia hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second, and leapt. Everyone held their breath. Her landing was perfect! Today it’s impossible to imagine what working conditions were like then— Nadia had nothing more than a thin mattress to land on. When the cameraman said “okay”, Homi shouted “cut”. But Nadia didn’t get up—so we all ran over and looked at her with worried expressions to see what was wrong. Nadia looked at us with suffering in her eyes, until she could no longer suppress her laughter. That was the moment I will never forget—her wonderful laughter, our bafflement that ended in ethusiastic spontaneous applause. After work that day, we were called into the office and Homi Wadia gave a little speech. He said that the first day of filming was the prelude to a most special film and we should all work together better than ever. Then he congratulated Nadia on her courage and called her “fearless”. From that day forth she was “Fearless Nadia”.’
The Princess Becomes the Stunt Queen
J.B.H. Wadia’s idea of making a stunt queen of a woman sprung from his old admiration for American serial heroines such as Pearl White, Helen Holmes, Ruth Holland, Grace Cunard and Marie Walcamp. However, for the story of Hunterwali, he had drawn inspiration from Douglas Fairbanks’s Robin Hood, the greatgrandfather of all cloak-and-dagger films. He combined both these recipes for success and transferred them to an imaginary mystical Indian kingdom, and something unconventionally new came into being.
This Wadia Movietone kingdom, a good seventy years after its creation, seems touchingly naïve at first. From the coarsely constructed palace setting it is clear that only people from a poor background could take the somewhat ridiculous fountain, gates and halls to be the home of a royal family.
Nadia is Madhuri, the daughter of an ageing king who is threatened by the putsch attempts of the evil minister Ranamal (played by Sayani ‘Atish’). One day, when Nadia is returning to the palace after an excursion, Ranamal causes a bad car accident: Jaswant (Boman Shroff), a man begging for milk, is dragged under the wheels. Nadia rushes over to him, but is held back: ‘You mustn’t touch him!’ Nadia nonetheless insists on driving the injured man to hospital. Later, the good king has the beggar brought to him and offers him money as compensation for the pains suffered. He refuses. This proud gesture pleases Nadia as much as it does her father and there’s a feeling that a romance may be budding.
A little later, Nadia is sitting at the piano, well groomed in a sari, when the devious Ranamal tells her that her father has been kidnapped, and could possibly have been killed. This has brought him one step closer to his goal—succession to the throne. Now he has to marry the princess. However, the clever daughter of the king already senses that Ranamal himself is the kidnapper. Barely has the father been kidnapped than the action begins. To today’s audience, the action may seem funny rather than exciting—but it is still rousing. A great rumpus follows during which Nadia is initiated into politics. For the first time in her life the rich princess discovers just how far the evil minister has already pushed the regime of injustice—the kidnapping of her old, weak father is only one piece in the jigsaw puzzle of his diabolical endeavours.
Surrounded by plaintive friends from the so-called simple folk, Nadia stands gravely in the midst of the gathering, and her gaze sweeps to the whip on the wall. With an expression of resolve she grabs it, cracks it and solemnly swears that revenge shall be hers from now on. All those present seal the vow by placing their hands on Hunterwali’s new symbol by which she will be henceforth recognized. Yet, she is still clad—femininity personified—in a dark sari!
In a skilled piece of drama, a few alcohol-drenched swaggering statements by men serve as a prelude to her first appearance as ‘avenger of those stripped of their rights’. In a dive, cowardly, bragging soldiers are laughing at Hunterwali as though she were a ghost that hard men don’t believe in. Seemingly out of thin air, she is suddenly on the small balcony above the doorway, cracking her whip and sending, by way of a greeting, a barrel of whisky flying into the circle of men with all her might, laughing provocatively. ‘I have come to show you who I really am!’ Even a less wild entrance would have had the audience of the 1930s gasping for breath: the transformed king’s daughter had traded her chaste sari for extremely daring shorts revealing two spectacularly muscular thighs. Moreover, she now sported erotically tightfitting, knee-length boots, and a scanty, sleeveless blouse with an elegantly jaunty cape fluttering about it. The magnificent head of blonde hair is tucked beneath a Russian-like fur cap. The black eye-mask completes the disguise to perfection. Thus adorned, Fearless Nadia leaps into the male domain, provocation made flesh, and—laughing contemptuously—starts thrashing up to ten men at a time! Nadia determines the dynamics of the fighting, she dishes out punches, cracks her whip wildly, rushes up the stairs and down in the thick of it. The fighting, far from feeble, comes over so playfully, as though nothing could be more fun for this strong woman than knocking the living daylights out of this flock of idiotic machos. No sooner are the weaklings defeated than Nadia is pole-vaulting to the archway—and in the next scene she disappears into the palace again through a secret passage. Quick as a flash she is back to being a crimped princess ready to confront her most dangerous rival who questions her on the dangerous Hunterwali. ‘Why don’t you just go to her?’ Nadia asks cheekily— at which point he proposes marriage to her, for the third time. In response he gets nothing but loud peals of laughter. The absurd notion of marrying such a person sends the princess into painful paroxysms of laughter.
Constantly moving back and forth between her staid palace life and her adventurous existence as a fighting, climbing, riding, courageous ‘Lady Robin Hood’, Nadia—the Good—triumphs, as is obligatory in Indian cinema, over Evil. First, though, a reward of 1,000 rupees is placed on her head and she has to traverse numerous tests and trials to get the better of the unjust regime. Time and again she leaps unexpectedly to the side of her loyal followers just at the moment they need help: where someone is being unfairly whipped, she knocks the whip from the tormentor’s grasp. She crouches like a tigress in the trees and, should the situation require it, swings on vines onto the back of the galloping horse of her enemy. In the course of the story, the rather handsome beggar, Jaswant, becomes her companion, and also chances upon her at the river where Nadia refreshes herself from her many scraps, wearing nothing more than a bra and a little slip. At the end, not only is the old father freed, but a rape is avenged, too, and, thanks to a very unconventional woman, happy harmony restored for all concerned. It’s left to the viewer’s imagination whether the old king is reinstated or whether the good-looking comrade-in-arms at Nadia’s side becomes heir to his potential father-in-law. It is of course also conceivable that Nadia as a single heroine takes on this lofty position.
During filming, Homi Wadia, stimulated by the abilities of his new star, grew more and more daring. In the production office it had long since been agreed that the internal studio name ‘Fearless Nadia’ would also be built into the publicity strategy. To live up to this image, Homi Wadia came up daily with new ideas of things Nadia could do. Simply imitating everything that only men had done formerly wasn’t enough for him. One day—Nadia was back up on a roof—Homi called: ‘Lift him up—and carry him around!’ ‘Never in my life had I carried a man, but as I say, I’ll try anything once. And so I heaved my stunt partner onto my shoulders. Homi liked it—and ever since he’s been commanding me to drag all manner of men around the place.’
A little later, filming was unexpectedly interrupted. After a tiring day which Nadia had spent entirely on horseback, one scene had to be redone in the studio. Nadia was supposed to swing through a room, from a stair-landing onto a chandelier, to escape from her enemies. It was a risky scene, and J.B.H. Wadia suggested using a double for Nadia for the stunt. At the rehearsal, someone was standing by to catch her in case of an emergency—but everything ran smoothly. During the shooting, however, the rope snapped and Nadia fell from quite a height, landing awkwardly on the floor. ‘For three days I couldn’t move, I lay at home and the whole time my mother kept at me, trying to persuade me: “If you keep going with this madness you’re asking for your death”—oh, well, just what mothers say in such situations.’ For several weeks, Nadia was helplessly at the mercy of her mother’s tirade. But she didn’t cave in and went back to the studio as soon as the doctor allowed.
In the meantime, the Wadia brothers, having watched the finished material several times, were sure they had a hit on their hands. JBH pumped more money into the film than originally envisaged to insert some additional songs and romantic scenes which he directed himself. Only their business partner Billimoria got cold feet—he was afraid that the Wadia brothers had let their enthusiasm for Miss Nadia turn their heads. To his mind the film had become too radical. As often before, his business sense hadn’t deceived him. When Hunterwali was finally finished, six months later, they couldn’t find any cinema owner willing to take on the risk. A blonde heroine who fought Indian men and, to top it off, is anything but modestly attired? Lots of men who had previously been regarded as dependable business partners in the marketing of Wadia films, considered Hunterwali too bold, too risky—and jumped ship.
Finally, JBH, Homi and Billimoria decided to take the film to the cinema on their own steam with a lavish advertising budget. In Super Cinema on Grant Road a film had been cancelled and the cinema manager was looking for a replacement. That seemed the right place for the Hunterwali premiere! A cinema programme was also printed: ‘Hunterwali! What visions does that film stir up! It is the story of a brave Indian girl who sacrificed royal luxury to the cause of her people and country.’ The advertisements in the film magazines showed the drawing of a woman: Nadia sitting on a rearing horse, whip in her hand. Beneath it the slogan: ‘A spectacular thriller, the first of its kind in India!’
‘From This Day Forth Call Me “Hunterwali!”’
On the evening of the premiere, the screening was sold out and more. Nadia arrived with her mother and Bobby. ‘I was so nervous that my whole body was trembling. I spent the whole time looking around and trying to gauge the reactions on the faces of the audience. Mummy had to hold my left hand, Bobby my right. My first appearance was in the second reel, fifteen minutes into the film, and when my voice was heard I heard the public gasping for breath. They were stunned by my performance. In the third reel I swear I’ll avenge my father’s abduction and free him from the clutches of the evil minister. Then I crack the whip and say: “From this day forth call me Hunterwali!” At that point the audience went wild. They just didn’t stop whistling and applauding!’
In cinema-loving Bombay, the news spread overnight: a new face had made it into the galaxy of stars, an actress like there had never been before! Nadia didn’t only look completely different from the dark-haired, meek beauties, her behaviour on-screen was also in complete contrast to the submissive, weak, dependent-onmen ladies of the screen. Once again it was proven that the distributors and cinema managers, the most conservative branch in the film business, had nervously underestimated the hunger of the public for a new, surprising, and never-before-seen phenomenon.
Hunterwali rapidly became the most successful film of the season and was shown all over the country for more than twentyfive weeks. And Wadia Movietone no longer had to bother with advertising. Hunterwali fever gripped the whole of India. In every market and bazaar there were whips, masks and miniature ‘Hunterwali’ pictures on sale. The film became a huge success and outstripped the wildest hopes of its makers. Through Hunterwali, Wadia Movietone had gained a clear profile. The experimental phase of the early sound-film days were over for the time being. Nadia’s monthly wage was most generously increased—while many of her acting colleagues of the traditional school were dismissed with a few kind words. It was clear to the Wadia brothers that they had to build a new ensemble around the new star. And thus began a fevered search for bodybuilders with acting talent and trained animal stars.
[And this was how the legend of the Stunt Queen was constructed. Nadia became a star, riding wild horses, swinging from chandeliers, taming lions and beating up men on top of speeding trains.—Ed.]
Extracted from Fearless Nadia: The True Story of Bollywood’s Original Stunt Queen.