An actor’s take

Bollywood celebs lend a blend of emotions & mood for a children’s calendar

It’s still fresh,and the month is still January,which justifies yet another calendar on your desk,especially when this one’s for a cause. “Because we wanted to something for the society,” without wasting any time,Rajesh Ramakrishnan,EVP Marketing with Frito Lay,a division of Pepsico,combined his photography skills with advertising and design professional Aloke Bose’s passion for art,and together,produced a calendar for the CSI-Child Survival India. It’s organisation that strives to improve the quality of life of people in villages and slum clusters with its interventions in the fields of HIV/AIDS prevention and care,Maternal and child health,Women Empowerment and Adolescent/Child education. “The calendar will help to raise funds for an AIDS affected children’s shelter that is being built in North Delhi,” says Rajesh,as he flips the pages of this unique experiment. “The key idea was to have 26 pictures each depicting an emotion corresponding to each of the alphabets. We first thought we would shoot children but then decided to have well known achievers in the creative field to showcase the emotions. Children are honest and open about their feelings. We often lose this spontaneity as adults and I wanted to recapture some of that natural expression of moods and emotions with adults,” instead of going in for elaborate studio shots,Rajesh and Aloke decided to shoot simple black and white pictures in natural light with minimal props and the focus on the face of the person.

It was a daunting task,from contacting the celebrities,arranging for the shoots,and finishing it in a record time of 5 weeks! They managed to rope in an impressive star cast including Juhi Chawla,Kay Kay Menon,Konkona Sen,Shreyas Talpade,Chitrangada Singh,Sivamani,Pradeep Sarkar,Usha Uthup,Divya Dutta,Simone Singh,Nandana Sen,Sona Mohapatra,Balki,Prahlad Kakkar and Ashwin Mushran.

“The shoots were eventful adventures,” Rajesh adds how the stars were generous with their time and suggestions. While Kay Kay himself suggested the shot used for ‘Calm’ with a smiling figurine that was in his house,a jalebi picked up from Udipi Hotel on the way to the shoot featured with Konkona showcasing ‘Guilt’. Juhi brilliantly picked up Aloke’s idea of using the hair as a mustache and the result was a delightful picture of ‘Mischief’. Simone came up with the idea of closing her eyes and painting a third one that was used for ‘Om’. Usha Uthup was singing throughout the shoot since her emotions flowed freely with music. “It’s rare that art gets an opportunity to tangibly serve life,and this is one,” says Kay Kay,while Juhi adds,”Do your best for the world and the best will come back to you.” FYI: Rajesh’s wife Nirupama Subramanian,writer and author of ‘Keep the Change’,came up with the emotions. The calendar is available for Rs 300.