It was the inaugural Miss India pageant in 1947, and a gorgeous model named “Esther Victoria Abraham” made history by winning the first-ever title. The crown and trophy were handed over by the then Chief Minister of Bombay, Morarji Desai, at Liberty Cinema. What makes it even more interesting is that she was 31 years old and expecting her fifth child.
In a fascinating turn of events, exactly twenty years later, in 1967, her daughter Naqi Jahan claimed the Eve’s Weekly Miss India crown. They remain the first and only mother-daughter duo in the history of the Miss India pageant to achieve this milestone.
Early Life
Esther Victoria Abraham, widely known as Pramila, was a model, actress, and one of the early female film producers in the Hindi film industry.She was born on December 30, 1916, into a Baghdadi Jewish family in Calcutta. Her father, Reuben Abraham, was a businessman, and her mother, Matilda Isaac, was from Karachi. Pramila had three older half-siblings from her father’s first marriage and six siblings from her parents’ marriage. She attended Calcutta Girls High School and later St. James School due to its affordable fee structure. Pramila worked as a kindergarten teacher at the Talmud Torah Boys School before entering the entertainment industry.
Esther Victoria Abraham Became Pramila
At the age of 17, she left her home in Kolkata with aspirations of achieving fame in the glamorous world of entertainment and joined a Parsi travelling theatre company in Mumbai as an entertainer. Her job was to keep the audiences quiet by her dance performance during those 15 minutes when the reel projector had to be changed.
Reportedly she made her film debut in 1931 with Toofani Taruni Directed by Bhagwati Prasad Mishra. The same year she acted in R.G. Torney’s Dilawar. She play a westernised vamp in Kolhapur Cinetone’s Bhikaran (1935) starring Rattan Bai and Master Vinayak. The film became a big hit, and Esther’s Anglicised Hindi became a hot rage.
She was given a screen name, Pramila, by Baburao Pendharkar, a reputed actor and director of early cinema. RS Chowdhari cast her in Hamari Betiyan, which released in 1936. She went on to star in about 30 films as a vamp and a fearless stunt star. Some of her most memorable films include Achhut Kanya (1936), Janmabhoomi (1936), Jeevan Naiya (1936), Mother India (1938), Jungle King (1939), Bijli (1939), Kanchan (1941), Ulti Ganga (1942), Basant (1942), and many more.
Some of her other films include Shalimar (1946), Saalgirah (1946), Doosri Shadi (1947), Beqasoor (1950), Hamari Beti (1950), “Jungle King” (1959), Murad (1964), and Noor Mahal (1964), among others.
Pramila first married Maniklal Dangi, a Marwadi gentleman, at the age of seventeen. The couple had a son, but the marriage lasted only a year. In 1939, she married Syed Hasan Ali Zaidi, an actor known by his stage name, Kumar. Kumar famously portrayed the role of Sangtraash in “Mughal-e-Azam.” Pramila and Kumar went on to have had four children together.
Esther Victoria Abraham The Filmmaker
Esther eventually became one of India’s first female film producers, with many films under her Silver Productions banner, which she started with her husband Kumar and veteran actor Chandramohan. Some of her films as a producer are Bare Nawab Saheb (1944), Naseeb (1946), Aap Beeti (1948), Dhoon (1953), Bahana (1960), and many more. She also started Shama Films and Kumar Productions with her husband, but many of her films bombed at the box office. Her film Aap Beeti (1948), about relations between India and Pakistan, was banned from the screen and never presented to the public.
As a filmmaker, she passionately promoted her movies in Pakistan, making frequent trips to the neighbouring country. Sadly, a turning point arrived when Morarji Desai, who once crowned her Miss India, had her arrested on suspicions of espionage. Eventually proven innocent, it was clarified that her visits to Pakistan were solely for film promotion.
Personal Life and Challenges
Life took a challenging turn when her husband decided to migrate in 1963. A resilient spirit, Esther chose not to move to Pakistan and stayed in India, raising her five children.
Their family building was mortgaged, and parts of it were requisitioned by the government. Esther, setting aside her past stardom and glory, chose to face the adversity head-on. Utilising her film finances and savings, she successfully thwarted auctions twice and overcame a civic injunction. Preferring a life away from the spotlight, Esther raised her four sons and a daughter. Eventually, she emerged victorious in the monumental struggle to reclaim her property in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park area from creditors and authorities.
Her daughter Naqi Jahan acted in movies like Ek Khilari Bawan Pattey (1972), Aakhri Khat (1966), and Samaj Ko Badal Dalo (1970). Naqi Jehan became Nandini Kamdar after marrying businessman Vikram Kamdar. Her son Haider Ali is an actor and screenwriter who played Raja in Nukkad. He cowrote the screenplay of Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Jodha Akbar and also featured in the song “Khwaja Mere Khwaja.”
Esther passed away on August 6, 2006, in Mumbai, just five months shy of her ninetieth birthday.
Esther Victoria Abraham on IMDB
