Sumeet Patil, a young art director of Marathi films like Por Bazar, Yogi, Bioscope, has come up with a new and unique concept. He is to release a calendar for the year 2015. So what’s new about that? Well, Patil, who specialises in bonding with crows, a strange talent, did not find it difficult to shoot with the birds. He has shot Marathi film celebrities, like actors, directors, singers, writers, poets, besides social and sports personalities with crows for the calendar. 24 people have shot for the calender which will have two personalities featuring in every month of the year. “The theme of the calender is crow which, in the Hindu culture, is a symbol of salvation. On researching, I found that a man and a crow have a lot of resemblances. They are even associated with cleanliness, according a BBC report. They are thought of as carriers of information,” says Patil who was responsible for bringing the theme of 100 years of Indian cinema alive as the backdrop of Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda festival in 2012. Lata Mangeshkar, Sai Tamhankar, Manva Naik, Chinmayee Sumeet, Pandharinath Kambli, Prathamesh Parab, Kushal Badrike, Ravi Jadhav, Spurha Joshi and Vidya Patwardhan are some of the film personalities associated with the project. “Every picture has a three-line caption explaining its relevance with the crow,” said Patil who has been working on the calender for the last six months and is waiting for a sponsor. “But I shall release the calender on my own, if I do not manage to get a sponsor before the year end,” said the art director-turned-photographer.
