It was turning out to be a particularly blue Christmas. Having just fallen out with his partner in a printing business, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke was in deep depression. The business itself had collapsed and his familial responsibilities-he had nine children-weighed heavily on him. Then a chance-viewing of a film changed everything. Titled The Life of Christ, it had Phalke spell-bound. As the images of Christ rolled past him on the screen, he began to visualize Krishna, Ram... "Could we, the sons of India, ever be able to see Indian images on the screen?" he asked himself.

Over the years, this oft-told story of Phalke's entry into cinema in 1910 and the emergence of the Indian film industry-the largest in the world today-has gained the proportions of a myth. It was the day when Phalke's social experience, his eclectic talent and fecund imagination had fused. In three years' time, he has exploited everything around him-his wiefe's jewellery, his financial contacts, the swadeshi movement, the new technological order-to script, producer, direct (with his trademark special effects), print and distribute the earliest structured film of Indian cinema.

The rest is history, much written about: Phalke's epochal release of Raja Harishchandra, his swadeshi programme being replicated in Calcutta and Chennai, the runaway success of his Lanka Dahan and the founding of the Hindustan Cinema Film Company. But what transformed the Christmas-eve failure into a New Year success?

Years of inadvertent self-grooming. A student of Mumbai's J.J. School of Art and Kala Bhavan at Baroda, his concepts of art were clear. He was a maniac for perfection, as one of his sons recalls, and a disciplinarian. A man of many interests, he learnt photography, lithography, architecture, amateur dramatics and became adept at even magic and illusionist tricks. He briefly worked as a painter, a theatrical set designer and then served as a photographer in the state Archeology Department.

But what came to have a significant influence on him were the works of Raja Ravi Varma in whose lithography press he worked. He did photo-litho transfers of the artist's series of Hindu gods and showed his pioneering zeal with coloured prints.

Even in his films, the images of his Hindu gods instantly struck a chord with the viewers. And Phalke was fully conscious of the significance of his work: he had arranged for a new "darshan" for them. A new vehicle of worship where they could see and be seen by the icon. They could simultaneously relate to all that was modern and traditional in the emerging nation state.

But for all the initial adulation and his output, he was forgotten in time. The industry had expanded and there were many others who could do what he did. Phalke's depression returned, dogging him till the end. During the silver jubilee celebrations of Indian cinema-which marked the 25th anniversary of Raja Harishchandra-he refused a photo-op with a film magazine with a terse, but melancholic note. "The industry to which I gave birth has forgotten me. You may also do the same."

In 1944, Phalke died a lonely, sick and bitter man. Oblivious to the amends the government tried to make later. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Centenary Committee's commemoration souvenir and the reels and reels of history.

Suresh Chhabria is professor of film appreciation, Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.