The Woman Who Edited ‘Raja Harishchandra’ Sold Her Jewellery to Help Bring It to Life

Jul 24, 2026, 10:00 AM

Photo Credit : AI-generated image

In 1913, inside a modest studio in Nashik, Dadasaheb Phalke worked tirelessly, often through the night, to complete Raja Harishchandra, a mythological drama that would soon become India's first full length feature film.

Beside him through every stage stood his wife Saraswatibai, using scissors and glue to physically splice each strip of film, joining hundreds of individual shots by hand into one continuous, coherent story.

Photo Credit : AI-generated image

Her work went far beyond editing. Saraswatibai mixed the chemical solutions needed to develop the exposed film, perforated raw reels by hand so they could run through the camera and projector, and managed costumes and props for the entire shoot.

A costly dream

To help fund the film, Saraswatibai sold her own jewelry, the money allowing Dadasaheb to travel abroad, study emerging filmmaking techniques and return with the camera India did not yet have.

Photo Credit : All images: The Siyasat Daily

Every single day during production, she cooked full meals for a crew of nearly 70 people, then returned to editing reels late into the night, all while raising her own children alone.

Standing her ground

When Dadasaheb once asked her to step in and act in the film, Saraswatibai firmly refused, reminding him that she was already handling editing, chemical processing, costumes, and the crew's meals single-handedly.

In early 1900s India, women were rarely permitted anywhere near a film set, and technical roles like editing, developing footage, or handling equipment were considered entirely unsuitable for them.

Saraswatibai broke that barrier herself, deciding frame by frame which shots stayed in the final cut of Raja Harishchandra, and directly shaping how its story unfolded for audiences on screen.

For years, her contributions went formally uncredited, even as Dadasaheb Phalke became publicly celebrated as the Father of Indian Cinema for the very film she helped edit and complete.

Without Saraswatibai's hours spent cutting, splicing, and developing those very first reels, would Raja Harishchandra have ever reached a projector or an audience at all?