As word of veteran Bollywood art director Nitin Desai’s death got around, several personalities paid homage to his creative spirit. Television producer Siddhartha Basu, who collaborated with him on several shows, including the iconic Kaun Banega Crorepati (2000), tweeted that Desai conjured “world class installations on an industrial scale.”

Apart from films and TV shows, Desai was much sought after for organising state fun ctions for Maharashtra such as the Republic Day tableaus. He was to set up Mumbai’s popular Lalbaugcha Raja Ganpati installation this year.

Actor and BJP MP Hema Malini remembered the art director as “a warm human being.” Actor Riteish Deshmukh described him as “soft spoken, humble, ambitious & a visionary” who had contributed “immensely to the growth of Indian cinema.”

As an art director first—and later in the more expansive capacity of a production designer—Desai elevated the projects he was associated with, especially those of film directors Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Gowariker.

There’s a harmony and continuity of palette in the way most scenes are crafted in Bhansali’s Hum Dil Chuke Sanam (1999). “A French production company called me up to find out where the location in the film was. I had to tell them the whole thing was a set built at Film City,” Desai said in a 2003 interview.

Bhansali’s Devdas was a visual custard of colours and opulence, and offered a contrast to the earlier film versions of Saratchandra’s novel portrayal of 19 century Bengal. Desai’s artwork turned colours into a language and helped Bhansali communicate his alternative vision. Just a year earlier, the art director had displayed his versatility in Gowariker’s anti-colonial cricket drama, Lagaan.

The terrain was totally different: the desert of Kutch where a famine looms. Desai’s production design of the village and surroundings is delightfully restrained, much in tune with the movie’s needs and mood. Just as he is pompish in the medieval tales of romance and valour, Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar and Panipat (2019). In his own way, Desai revolutionized art direction in Hindi cinema.

A student of photography at JJ School of Arts in Mumbai, he shifted to the world of moving images in the 1980s. Desai started out as a fourth assistant to the renowned art director Nitish Roy in Govind Nihalani’s telefilm, Tamas (1988), a searing tale on the horrors of Partition. He also assisted Roy in Shyam Benegal’s Bharat Ek Khoj and worked independently in the DD serial, Chanakya.

But he caught attention and found appreciation with Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1942: A Love Story (1994), which underlined his eye for details and flair for the eye-catching. The film earned him the first of his three Filmfare Awards: Khamoshi: The Musical (1997), Devdas being the other two. He also bagged four national awards for production design: Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar’ (1998), Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Lagaan and Devdas.

In 2005, Desai set up N D Studios, a sprawling facility for filmmaking and television work, spread over 52 acres. It was his dream venture where many big projects such as mega reality tv show, Bigg Boss, were lensed. Sadly, this is also where the dream died.

(With inputs from Mohammed Wajihuddin in Mumbai)

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Navi Mumbai: Nitin Desai provided 10 tents to house victims and rescue workers at the landslide-hit Irshalwadi hamlet in Khalapur taluka. The tents were kept at two different locations to help victims and government staff involved in rescue and relief. Desai also provided a night's accommodation and dinner to 56 personnel of the National Disaster Response Force 5th battalion-Pune which carried out the rescue work. Desai’s aid came when the administration was struggling with the logistics at a remote location in the immediate aftermath of the incident.