Remembering Vijaya Mulay: The filmmaker behind 'Ek Chidiya, Anek Chidiya'

Vijaya Mulay, a pioneering figure in the world of education and films who died last week at 98, was always keen on making learning fun. So when she helmed a short educational animation film, which was released by the Films Division of India in 1974, she wove in a tale that presented innovative ways of learning numerals and alphabets.

The result was Ek Anek Aur Ekta (One, Many and Unity), a seven-minute-long landmark film produced by the then Centre for Education Technology (CET), that taught generations of young Indians the virtue of teamwork.

“It was an idea sparked off by ‘unity in diversity’, which was a slogan at the time, and that unity gives strength,” says National Award-winning actor and her daughter, Suhasini Mulay.

It was a challenging project at a time when animation in India was rudimentary. Noted animator and filmmaker Bhimsain came on board. The budget was small, but Akka, as Vijaya Mulay was known to everyone, only had to tap into the network of people she knew. She reached out to film music composer Vasant Desai.

Classical musician and vocalist Vinay Chandra Maudgalya, the founder of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, identified a young girl by the name of Sadhana Sargam to sing the song that had the memorable lines, “Hind desh ke niwasi sabhi jan ek hai, rang roop vesh bhasha chahe anek hai (The people of India are one, even if they differ in look, attire and language).” Sargam went on to become a playback singer.

“The script, illustration and how it should be done were completely Akka’s,” says Suhasini Mulay.

Ek Anek Aur Ekta, which won a National Award for best educational film, was a precursor to her involvement with the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), a satellite communications project started in India in 1975. Unicef hired her and she headed the CET to prepare instructional films that were broadcast to over 2,400 villages. She also developed a multimedia package to train over 48,000 primary schoolteachers.

Suhasini Mulay and her elder sisters, Shree and Bharti, hosted a memorial meet in Delhi this week. It was an occasion to celebrate the memory of their mother who, in the words of Shree Mulay, lived a life of “jam-packed action”.

Vijaya Mulay was born in Badlapur in Thane, Maharashtra. She had two younger sisters. When she was eight, their father died. Left with little money after her distant relatives swindled her, their mother, Saraswati Bai Ranade (Maai), raised the girls by doing odd jobs such as cooking at people’s homes and selling vegetables. She wanted to educate her daughters, who turned out to be meritorious students.

Vijaya Mulay

Through her school friend, Ahilya Rangnekar, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and sister of trade union leader B T Ranadive, Vijaya Mulay was initiated into left-wing politics. They would sing anti-British songs on the streets of Thane.

When she turned 17, her mother was pressured to get her married and placed a newspaper advertisement that read: “Looking for a match for a 17-year-old Konkanastha Brahmin girl who looks okay and has completed her matriculation. But no dowry will be given.”

Kashinath Mulay, who worked as a medical representative with pharma company Cipla in Patna, replied to the ad and came to see Vijaya in Pune. She agreed to marry him on two conditions: she would study further; and would choose her own name (her maiden name was Gangu).

Vijaya Mulay’s love for films began when the couple returned to Patna after the wedding. She enrolled in Patna University, rode a bicycle and accompanied her husband to the Bioscopes, the city theatre, to watch a movie every week.

Shree Mulay recounted how she and her sisters were all influenced by three women: their mother, her younger sister Sushila, and Maai. Vijaya Mulay received a state scholarship from Bihar in 1946 to study for a master’s degree in education at the University of Leeds in the UK. During her absence, their father and aunt Sushila, who was proficient in several languages and taught German at Indraprastha College, looked after the two daughters.

Within two months of her return in 1949, Vijaya Mulay was made principal of a girls’ school at Daltonganj in present-day Jharkhand. Later, she was assigned to teach at a teachers’ training college in Patna, where she worked with freedom fighter and politician Lakshmi N Menon. In both places, the desire to innovate learning drove her.

In Patna, she was actively involved in the local film society, and after she moved to Delhi as education officer in 1954 she also opened the Delhi Film Society. Soon afterwards, her husband died. Her daughters, like her, grew up in a household of women. 

Vijaya Mulay had suffered third-degree burns in an accident in England. “She was worried about what would happen to us if she passed away. During school vacations when I was 12, she said, ‘You are going to travel alone by train from Delhi to Mumbai.’ When people questioned her, she said, ‘I need to toughen them up,’” says Suhasini Mulay.

She recalls how their house would be full of guests staying over during film festivals. So much so that once when a friend went to her office to thank her, Vijay Mulay was blissfully unaware that he had been living in their house for three days.

Apart from promoting cinema, Vijaya Mulay also left her impact on documentary filmmaking. “The Indian Documentary Producers Association (IDPA) fell in Akka’s lap,” filmmaker Mike Pandey said at the memorial. “Today, documentary filmmakers have a platform in India to show and sell their films and get some revenue back. Indian films [back then] weren’t respected overseas; now they are making a mark and competing with the best. That seed was sown by Akka.”

Vijaya Mulay became the first woman president of the IDPA over a decade ago. Education was one of her driving forces and she viewed documentaries as the most important tool to carry information to people, Pandey observed. He was with her on several juries, and together they resisted attempts to influence verdicts on films a number of times.

She was willing to take risks and pick up fights, even against the government. In the late 1970s, Vijaya Mulay went to court to oppose the promotion of an IAS officer’s widow over 27 others. She continued her fight even as many backed out. “She had a little poster on the wall of her room, which said that the turtle takes a step forward only when it sticks its neck out. And I think that is what epitomised her,” says Suhasini Mulay. 

The tributes, at the memorial service and on social media posts, celebrated Vijaya Mulay as a person full of life and determination. She also had an impish side. When she was admitted to a critical care unit recently and her birthday was due in a couple of days, she asked a visiting grandson, “Where is the margarita?” When he reminded her that she was in intensive care, she replied, “You have to learn to break some rules.”

In a typically organised manner, she wrote a letter to her second daughter, Bharti, with instructions should they plan a memorial meet for her. In keeping with her wishes, Rabindra Sangeet played. And Hindustani vocalist Madhup Mudgal sang the Kabir doha (couplet), “Thathri chhod chala banjara (The vagabond has left his mortal remains).”