Little is known about Jahanara Kajjan, a singer-actress who was active in the 1920s and 1930s, on the stages of the Parsi theatre in Calcutta, and in early cinema. What we do know about her makes one lament the limitations of the Indian film archive, particularly lacking in information about the interiority of the women who were crucial to the making of the film industry – not only in Bombay, but in regional centres such as Calcutta and Madras.