Born on 17 August 1889 in
Calcutta,
West Bengal, Niranjan Pal was born in an illustrious
Bengali Kayastha family, his father was the noted freedom fighter,
Bipin Chandra Pal, and Niranjan himself as a teenager was briefly involved in the Indian freedom struggle during an association with
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and
Madanlal Dhingra in
London. By the late 1910s, he started writing and eventually wrote
The Light of Asia and
Shiraz, both of which were performed on stage in London. Both were commercially successful and attracted the attention of German filmmaker
Franz Osten, who made screen versions in India.
Himanshu Rai, then a lawyer, also acted in one of Niranjan Pal's plays
Goddess also performed in
London, though some sources suggest that it was
Devika Rani who first met him, through their common
Brahmo Samaj connections, which paved way for his eventual stake in the creation of
Bombay Talkies. Following the successes of
The Light of Asia and
Shiraz 1928, Pal moved back to India with his English wife, Lily, and son
Colin Pal, and embarked on a career as the screenplay writer for
Bombay Talkies. He also started directing films, and made among others ''Needle's Eye
(1931), Pardesia
(1932), and Chitthi'' (1941). His career as a director was however far less successful than his work as a screenwriter, in which role he wrote some of India's earliest blockbusters
Achhut Kanya (1936),
Janmabhoomi (1936),
Jeevan Naiya (1936) and
Jawani Ki Hawa (1935). Of these Achhut Kanya was the most popular, and continues to be a landmark film as it dealt with the subject of untouchability. He also collaborated with noted dancer,
Uday Shankar to write a libretto for first Indian ballets, performed by
Anna Pavlova and Uday Shankar himself. ==Family==