Partnerships gone south, the lockdown, OTT and strained ties: How Nitin Desai fell into a debt trap

Outside the studio, seven life-size elephants stand guard at the royal entrance. For many, the (white) elephants were symbolic of Desai’s “royal vision” and the huge expenses he incurred to set up the studio in the hopes that it would make its mark globally. In the process, Desai only ended up accruing loans worth crores, which many believe eventually cost him his life. Desai was found hanging on one of the stages of ND Studio on August 2, just days before his 58th birthday.

The entrance to ND Studio and ND’s Film World features a filmy deewar — posters and graffiti inspired by Bollywood — and entrances called “Box Office”. (Express photo/Mohamed Thaver)

Repeated attempts by The Indian Express to contact his wife Neha did not yield any response. Although Raigad police had on August 4 registered a case of abetment to suicide against Rashesh Shah, the MD of Edelweiss, and four others, based on Neha’s statement, no arrests have been made so far. The police have, however, been opposing the plea by the accused seeking quashing of the FIR in Bombay High Court. The court has not yet granted them any protection from arrest.

Those close to Desai say his financial crisis was an open secret in the industry. Sukant Panigrahy, art director, and president of the Association Of Cine & Television Art Directors & Costume Designers (ACTADCD), said, “I remember visiting the studio and seeing the elephants there. I joked with him (Desai), ‘Dada, aapne bhot haathi paal liye hai. Inko sambhalenge kaise? (Brother, how will you take care of all these elephants).’ He replied, ‘Abhi paal liye hain, toh jhel lenge kaise bhi karke (Now that I’ve got these elephants, I’ll manage somehow)’.”

Panigrahy added, “Not every artist has a business mind. Desai was trying to balance both — the creative and the business sides. All he wanted to do was create a landmark. He had the best props and would organise them in a way that they could be recycled or repurposed, just the way it is done in Hollywood. He had vision but I don’t think he had the right partnerships on the finance side to guide him.”

Partnerships and strained relations

According to the police, Desai and Neha set up the studio in 2004, a year before it became functional, and he took charge of its operations. The couple initially applied for and repaid a loan of Rs 2.5 lakh, Neha had stated in the FIR. She added that they took multiple loans over the years and paid them off routinely.

“Impressed by my husband’s work, in 2016, Rashesh Shah of ECL Finance of Edelweiss Group met my husband and proposed a loan. Through the proposal, he enticed my husband to dream big by promising to invest in the studio and develop new concepts in the studio,” Neha stated in her statement to the police.

People gathered at Bollwood art director Nitin Desai’s funeral at ND Studio in Raigad’s Karjat. (Express Photo by Narendra Vaskar)

She added in her written complaint, based on which the police registered an FIR, “Accordingly, my husband took a loan of Rs 150 crore on November 2, 2016, and paid the instalments regularly. On February 23, 2018, he took an additional loan of Rs 35 crore. Even after paying the instalments without default, the company pressured my husband to pay a six-month instalment in advance in April 2019.…My husband had to sell off his office in Powai and pay the advance from May-October 2019 due to pressure the company put him under.”

On July 29, she said her husband told her that the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT)’s Mumbai Bench had declared ND’s Art World Pvt Ltd “insolvent” on July 25 . Two days later, his appeal was dismissed. Two days later, he was found dead.

However, this was not the first time that Desai had weathered a financial storm. Around 2007, he partnered with Reliance Entertainment. According to news articles from that time, the deal was “sealed by Anil Ambani, who picked up a 50 per cent stake in ND Studio for hundreds of crores. While Reliance was to focus on scaling up the studio, Desai was to manage the operations”. The name of the studio was changed to ‘Big ND Studio’.

“The investment we are looking at is Rs 400-500 crore initially. The stakes will be 50:50 for ND Studio as well as Reliance Entertainment,” Amit Khanna, the then chairperson of Reliance Entertainment, had told a Mumbai-based tabloid.

Another news report stated that “Reliance was planning to expand the studio from a 50-acre plot to 150 acres, adding six shooting floors to the existing three, including a 400 x 200 ft floor, with the capacity to make a set for a football stadium”. It was also reported that “20th Century Fox had a 10-year deal to hire four floors at Big ND Studio” and that “Walt Disney too had signed up to shoot at the studio for 10 weeks” after “Warner Bros Pictures approached the studio for floor space to shoot (Mira Nair’s) Shantaram”. In 2008, Desai replicated for Danny Boyle’s Oscar-award winning film Slumdog Millionaire the sets he had designed for the popular game show, Kaun Banega Crorepati. Though things seemed to be looking up for Desai, this was the time when it all started to go downhill.

The entry fee to the studio has been slashed to Rs 500 a ticket, nearly half of the Rs 999 charged when the theme park was inaugurated in 2018. (Express photo/Mohamed Thaver)

The partnership between Reliance and Desai didn’t work out. Dilip Pithva, one of Desai’s assistants and close aides who worked with him from 1992 to 2004, said, “The partnership was between Reliance and the studio, but Reliance started claiming copyright over Dada’s (Desai’s) personal work… I think he repaid the money Reliance had pumped into the studio, but that’s how the loan started piling.”

However, the terms of parting between the studio and Desai remain unclear. To queries on this by The Indian Express, the marketing team of Reliance Entertainment replied, “We will pass off any comments on this.”

The studio, said those close to Desai, was fast turning into a white elephant for him. Panigrahy claimed Desai wasn’t getting enough work despite making such a grand studio.

BN Tiwari, the president of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), added, “Though Desai made a good studio, he was facing huge losses. He had a staff of about 1,400, including 100 security personnel. The expenses incurred on running the studio were huge.”

The lockdown didn’t help matters. The pandemic left the whole film industry shaken — shootings were halted and many in the production business were rendered jobless. Once shootings resumed, production houses reportedly started slashing budgets. Theatres were struggling, with the audience resisting returning to theatres.

“Since films weren’t working, many turned to OTT platforms. Those making OTT/web series couldn’t afford to shoot in Karjat since it meant additional expense on lodging the whole team there. While big stars like Salman Khan were shooting in Karjat, others were going to Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh, which were offering subsidies. Business was in trouble and the situation was deteriorating,” said Tiwari.

He added, “It was a world-class studio that was losing its shine and becoming dull. I remember seeing their automatic gate in a damaged condition. Hathi ko palna aasaan nahi hai kyunki ghar badhana padta hai (it’s not easy to maintain a white elephant).”

Desai’s troubles were not limited to business. An art director alleged that Desai, despite being admired for his craft, had fallen out with several people towards the end.

“He was becoming difficult to work with. Many in the industry had cut ties with him long ago and some producers had sworn not to work with him again. Desai would meet directors and producers who had already picked art directors, and try to convince them to give him work instead, saying that he could do a better job and that he had the space to do it,” the art director said.

Police outside ND Studio at Karjat after Nitin Desai was found dead. (Express Photo by Narendra Vaskar)

The art director wondered if Desai’s staggering debt was the reason behind his “desperation” to get work even at the cost of angering his colleagues.

However, according to production designer Shashank Tere, Desai’s downfall lay in his “resting on his past laurels and resistance to change his aesthetic sensibilities with time”.

FWICD’s Tiwari had a different point of view. “Desai was the most sought-after art director till he passed away. In fact, most government projects, when it comes to the CM’s oath or big announcements, would go to him. He also worked on Lalbaugcha Raja every year,” he said.

While several of Desai’s assistants claimed they weren’t aware of his financial crisis, Pithva said everyone was aware that he had a loan of about Rs 180 crore from 2018-19.

Pithva said, “When I met him in Karjat, he looked stressed. I told him that his face had lost its shine…We told him to sell the studio, but he couldn’t bear the thought.”

Tiwari said he had organised a meeting between a financier and Desai in January. “He was looking to mortgage his property for Rs 1,000 crore, but the financier could only help with Rs 100-200 crore. Desai needed the money desperately. He had an immediate liability of Rs 300-400 crore. He hadn’t paid his staff salaries for the past 7-8 months,” said Tiwari.

The financial stress and pressure was mentioned in audio recordings allegedly made by Desai before his death. His wife relied on these recordings in her complaint. A police officer said they are awaiting forensic reports of the 11 audio clips allegedly left by Desai.

In these audio recordings, Desai says, “Rashesh sweet-talked and usurped my studio that I made for the benefit of artists. I have called him hundreds of times, but he never answered… I had two-three investors ready to invest in the studio, but he did not cooperate”.

The audio continues, “I was pressured by putting a burden of double and triple the rate of interest. They pressured me in different ways to achieve their own interests and did not accept what I had to offer them. Smit Shah, chief risk officer, ECL Finance; RK Bansal of Edelweiss ARC and one Keyur Mehta wanted to usurp my studio and hence were working to traumatise me in all ways possible. They made me sell the office, which was so dear to me. They together worked towards pushing me to end my life — that of a Marathi artist. They have forced me to do this even when I did not want to.”

In a filing with the stock exchange earlier, Edelweiss had said that there was never any “undue pressure” put on Desai for the recovery of his loan. “The interest rate charged by ECLFL was as per prevailing market rates. Legal processes for recovery are elaborately established under RBI and IBC guidelines, and were duly followed by EARC. At no time was there any undue pressure being put on the borrower for recovery. We will cooperate fully with the authorities,” Edelweiss had said.

The celebrated artist

Desai, who studied photography at Sir JJ School of Arts in Mumbai, started his career under the tutelage of Nitish Roy. Desai was part of the team that built sets for Shyam Benegal’s historic drama Bharat Ek Khoj (1988) and drama-epic Chanakya (1991).

His work always spoke for itself and his dedication to detail was visible in some of his most well-known works — the perfect replica of Agra Fort for Ashutosh Gowariker’s period romance-drama Jodhaa Akbar, the opulent clone of sheesh mahal in Sooraj Barjatya’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, the palatial house through which a distraught Paro dashes for a last glimpse of her dying lover in Devdas and the replica of Dalhousie in Film City for Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1942: A Love Story since it would have cost a lot to take the whole cast and crew there.

Besides building opulent sets for period dramas like Lagaan (2001) and, most recently, Panipat (2019), Desai was the art director for the 1994 live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book.

Chokkas Bhaardwaj, who assisted him for over 1.5 decades, including in 1942: A Love Story, recalls how Desai left his new bride hours after their reception because an important song was to be shot a day after his wedding.

“When I went to the stage at his reception, he started giving me instructions on pending work on the set. We all worked on the set till 5 am and once everything was ready, I took a nap. An hour later, Desai woke me up. He had wrapped up his reception and told his new bride that he would be back soon,” recalled Chokkas.

“He wanted to do something at par with Universal Studios. He wanted to build infrastructure that would ensure nobody from India was required to travel abroad to shoot,” Chokkas said, adding that perhaps the seed was first planted in Desai’s mind when he saw people from Mumbai travel to Hyderabad’s Ramoji Film City, designed by his guru Roy, to shoot a film.

He added, “All he wanted to do was to create something that would rival international standards.”