The Czarina of costumes 
By Screen Weekly, March 13, 2009 - 10:52 IST
Bhanu Athaiya rewinds to her 54-year-long film career and to the Oscar night 26 years ago when she notched up India's first Oscar trophy for her authentic Gandhi costumes.
Mumbai's posh Peddar Road leads to her studio and residence. No need to look hard for her address, all you do is ask anybody in the neighbourhood where Bhanu Athaiya lives and they promptly point towards Shankar Mahal. "Make it eleven!" she had fixed the hour for our appointment on the previous day. Her Man Friday who likes to calls himself 'tailor' leads you to her studio which is in artistic disarray. The walls are lined with Air India calendars designed by her and her umpteen paintings. The shelves are replete with trophies and numerous sepia-toned photographs. One whole wall is dedicated to posters and pictures of her Oscar-winning project Gandhi. Various costumes on hangers take up the entrance. Every space other than the sofa is choc-a-bloc with her sketches meticulously covered by white sheets. "This is my world," the grand lady declares as she walks in. Dressed in a turquoise blue kurti, black trousers and a beaded cord tied around her neck - she looks every inch the artiste she is.
Bhanutai, as she's fondly referred to, doe not like candid pictures and firmly shoos away the lensman who tries to steal a frame. Letting the cloud of her jet-black tresses loose, checks her lipstick and prepares for the shoot. Her youthful enthusiasm is endearing, "The child in us is alive, so creative folks always look younger than their years," she says. She has shot for 15 television interviews after Rahman and Pookutty won Oscar trophies - 26 years after she did.
When she returned home with her Oscar, the sole photographer to capture the historic event at the airport was from Screen. "From the next day journalists from all over India poured in," she recalls.
Princely culture of Kolhapur
Born and brought up in Kolhapur, she inherited her artistic temperament from her father Annasaheb Rajopadhye who was the royal religious advisor. The princely state of Kolhapur patronised art and culture and the ambience nurtured artistes. Bhanu was the third among a brood of six daughters and a son. But unlike the rest of her siblings, Bhanu followed her father's paintings. She washed her father's brushes and mixed colours for him. "The artiste in me took wing right then," she says. Unfortunately she lost her father at the tender age of 10 though she continued painting much to the delight of her local art teacher. It was on his insistence that Bhanu was sent to the J.J. School of Arts in Mumbai , from where she passed out with a gold medal.
Bollywood beckons
After graduating, young Bhanu joined Eve's Weekly as a fashion illustrator. Her fashion sketches caught on and top heroines like Nargis and Kamini Kaushal approached her for her designs. "I started designing for Nargis and she liked my work so much that she insisted that I meet up with Raj Kapoor," she relates. She debuted with Shree 420 and her gown in Mud mud ke na dekh became a huge rage. Nothing succeeds like success and soon Bhanu was flooded with offers and she became the most wanted designer. Guru Dutt, BR Chopra, Yash Chopra, Ramanand Sagar - she was neck deep with her Hindi film assignment when opportunity came knocking in the form of Gandhi.
Designing with passion
Bhanu was interviewed by Richard Attenborough, a keen Indophile who was initially commissioned by Pandit Nehru to make a film on the Father of the Nation. The project got delayed till Indira Gandhi reinstated it in 1980. Following a 15-minute interview, Bhanu was on board. "I joined the unit on September 1, 1980 in Delhi. I had to cover 50 years of Gandhi's life-span within three months. In addition to the principal cast, supporting actors, I also had to dress up the crowds," she narrates, indicating how challenging the project was. Nothing comes off the racks in India, every yard of cloth and accessory has to be searched and bought from buzzing bazaars, Bhanu points out.
It took her three months, nine assistants and yarns and yarns of cloth to get going. "The biggest challenge was dressing the crowds who had long hair then but had to be given crew cuts before dressing up. We had to ensure that none of them slipped on their watches and bangles," she sighs. She travelled with the unit to Delhi, Udaipur and Patna where the film was shot.
"It was like recreating history," she says and her favourite scene remains the one where Gandhi upon his return from South Africa meets Dr Gokhale dressed in Kathiawadi attire and the veteran leader sighs with relief saying that he could now die in peace, hinting that Gandhi would carry forward his patriotic legacy.
Gandhi premiered in November 1982 at the Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi in the presence of the then President Dr Zail Singh.
Passion for design
The Oscar win changed Bhanu's professional standing. "My feet were firmly on the ground, I didn't change. If anybody felt otherwise, it was their problem, not mine," she shrugs nonchalantly. Bhanu's designs continued to be artistic as well as authentic - she went on to win two National awards for Lekin and Lagaan. But she rues that people still do not understand the difference between a fashion designer and a costume designer. "When I came back after the Oscars, the common man asked me what was so great in the costumes? They look so normal. But that was also a great compliment. Even today, people believe that for Lagaan, the villagers came wearing their own clothes. But I had to dress each of them to look like people from a 100 years ago," she says.
For Lekin, wherein Dimple Kapadia played a lost soul wandering in the desert, Bhanu chose to dress her up in a costume that looked hazy. "I washed the fabric so many times that my assistants thought I had gone batty, but wanted that weathered look," she recalls bemusedly.
Designs on Shah Rukh
Never mind the changing times, Bhanu continues to light up projects with her distinctive designs. After designing costumes for Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan, she also designed for Swades. "Shah Rukh was an affluent NRI from NASA in it, and any other designer in my place would have taken the next flight to New York to source his wardrobe, but I drew my references from books and movies and created a portfolio of designs right here. Ashutosh was impressed," she relates happily. Barring a few tee-shirts that came from the USA, every thread that Shah Rukh wore in the film was assembled right here. "The best compliment I got was when people said this is the first film in which Shah Rukh became the character," she adds with a hint of pride.
Bhanu's only daughter lives in Kolkata, so she single-handedly continues her work, "I have done everything under the sun - calendars, magazines, movies and plays. As for films, I accept projects only if the story excites me," she says. And she insists on handling the entire project, she will dress up each character in the film.
Currently she's busy designing costumes for a Marathi political thriller titled Swaraj starring Dr Shreeram Lagoo, Sulabha Deshpande, Seema Biswas and Milind Soman.
Life, she says, has been a love affair with creativity.
Screen India
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