Gods in a New Avatar

Admitting that at first he was working around star exigencies (‘‘it was Bachchan, so the beard would not go’’), Sajnani says that he later felt that it suited him to make the god more human. ‘‘We wanted an understanding dimension to Indra, so the age helped. Rukmini Krishnan and I worked on a look totally different from theatre — in fact, calendar art is what you see on Raghubir Yadav (in the play within the film),’’ he says.

It is a long way away from the the rich silks and the towering crowns so long synonymous with heavenly creatures for Indian audiences. ‘‘Cinema owed the look, even in Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra, to the stage,’’ explains Rao. ‘‘But stylised calendar art and Tanjore paintings do not translate well to cinema. Agnivarsha, in that way, is more sophisticated, it presents the essence of god.’’

But there are naysayers, particularly among those who have set the benchmark for how the gods ‘should’ look. ‘‘Unless you look at god with bhakti, you cannot dress him up,’’ opines Prem Sagar, son of Ramanand Sagar who re-invented the mythology with his television serial Ramayana. ‘‘When you dress Ram, you must remember who he is. It should not be your interpretation.’’

Tele-Krishna Nitish Bharadwaj, though reluctant to comment on Agnivarsha without having seen the film, seconds Sagar. ‘‘Gods and goddesses are not commoners. You have to look upto God, not see him as a colleague,’’ he says.

Veteran make-up artiste Pandhari Zulkar is more flexible. Earlier, he claims, elaborate sketches were made to dress up divinity. ‘‘But today if the character is (played by) Amitabh, then you use a shawl, a lighter wig, a ready-made dhoti and a small mukund. Make-up has also become much lighter.’’

What is still integral to the conventional mien, though, is ‘popular belief’. ‘‘Go by poster art. Remember, the village will not change the picture of Hanuman,’’ advises Sagar.

But perhaps the village is no longer the only audience that filmmakers seek. Sajnani says they aimed for a contemporary look and ‘‘the release abroad has shown that audiences have cottoned on to what we tried to say’’.

But it’s left to be seen if that is what the audiences really desire from their gods.