Watching the Republic Day parade always fills me with great pride.
It also reminded me of something funny that happened years ago. That year the Maharashtra government decided to get some outsiders to conceptualize and design the Republic Day float of Maharashtra. The ministry of culture called me and said they hsve chosen two people, alec padumsee and me and two themes for the float. Cricket and films. And they had given the first choice to alec to choose, and he had chosen cricket so I was given films.
I didnt know where to get information on the history of films but luckily I was on a committee to help the national association for the blind and dilip kumar was on the same committee and I used to meet him. He suggested that I get all the info from the archives of v. Shantarams rajkamal studios.
Now the float has two parts. The jeep or the cabin and the trailer. I conceptualised a design wherein the front cabin had a huge cut out of a lavani dancer in a classical pose of holding the pallu with both hands above her head and as it turned it showed a smita patilish figure matching that form with a modern maharashtrian girl holding a computer printout.
And the main trailer had a giant film reel with each frame having a live tableaux of films through the ages actually acted out by performers. And like a normal film reel on a table , it would move on two fixed axis.
We made a design, made a model as per the central government requirements and sent it to Delhi for the approval of the Committee. I think sheila dixit, manishankar iyer etc were on the committee.
They approved the design with two changes. 1- make the film reel a double decker. So more tableauxs can be added and make the film reel move in a figure of 8.
I thought both were ridiculous suggestions. A film print doesnt come in a double decker version and it's physically not possible for a film to move in a figure of 8.
So I refused and made the final model exactly the way I had conceptualized it. Thinking they won't have the time for more discussions or more designs and will have to accept it. And sent it.
I was wrong.
Everyones egos must have got hurt so they rejected it since it didn't follow their suggestions.
I didn't have the heart to follow it through and see what they had done for the Maharashtra float or if they didn't even have one from Maharashtra that year.
Strange but true.
