On November 30, 1982, Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi was unveiled in India, and even after 38 years, Ben Kingsley’s Oscar-winning performance in the titular role and Rohini Hattangadi’s BAFTA-feted Kasturba looms large in our memory. On her way home from a long day’s shoot, Rohini ji recalls meeting Attenborough at the Mumbai airport, and being singled out for an audition even in a crowd.

“I had to fly to the UK for a screen test. Having been given a bound script, I already knew my lines, and carried along a saree, bangles, mangalsutra, and even dried kumkum. Richard escorted me to Ben’s room once I was done with my makeup. He was still doing his, and after introducing us, our producer-director left. Back in India, I had the habit of reading my scene with my co-star before we faced the camera and was wondering if I should suggest it, when Ben himself piped up, ‘Rohini, should we read our lines first.’ His words instantly put me at ease as I realised, to my relief, that actors all over the world were the same,” she smiles, remembering how following the test with two other couples, she landed the role after losing eight kgs in a month. “I did it without taking any weight-loss pills as they affected my voice and put me to sleep which I couldn’t afford since I was doing plays at the time.”

Training with a couple on how to spin the charkha, further cemented the camaraderie of the lead pair. Rohini ji recalls how, during those 15-20 days, when the four of them were spinning together for an hour or two, they’d discuss a lot of things, exchanging notes on what she’d read about the Mahatma and his wife in a Hindi or Marathi book, her co-actor pooling in with information from his homework in English.

“Soon I was so comfortable with Ben that I’d start talking to him in Hindi on the sets before stopping short and apologizing,” she recounts, adding that what made it easier was that being an actor himself, Attenborough gave them a lot of creative freedom instead of rattling off instructions.

Interestingly, though they share a birthday, April 11, there was little physical resemblance between Kasturba and Rohini ji who is taller, with a more oval face. “The only similarity was our broad foreheads, but I didn’t use prosthetics to look like Kasturba. I simply imbibed the strength and spirit of her character,” she points out, impressed with the way this simple Indian lady, on her husband’s insistence, learnt to dress up, use the knife and fork and dine at the table during their early days in South Africa, then, gave away everything on their return to India, easily slipping into an austere life, taking part in nonviolent protest marches and even going to jail. “I came to respect Kasturba because she never lagged behind, and always walked with Gandhi ji. Thanks to her, I’ve learnt to give people second, even third chances.”

The film received 11 nods at the 55th Academy Awards, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. Rohini ji wasn’t nominated and didn’t attend the ceremony, but she was delighted Bhanu Athaiya became the first Indian to bring the Oscar home for Best Costume Designer. She points out that there’s a very thin line separating decades so the costumes had to look really authentic and that made Bhanu ji’s job more challenging.

Rohini ji was the first Indian to win a BAFTA in the Best Actress in a Supporting Role category. She went to the ceremony draped in a saree, with a two-three line speech she’d prepared at Attenborough’s behest. “The other awards at the time announced the winners in advance, but BAFTA only named nominees, keeping the suspense alive till the end. I remember handheld cameras thrust in our faces as names were announced. I can’t recall what I said, but I concluded my short speech saying I was proud to be an Indian,” she shares, adding that the film put our country on the world map, dispelling misconceptions that it is a land of snake charmers and prowling tigers.

She bumped into Kingsley when he was down in India but she didn’t meet Attenborough after Gandhi’s release, couldn’t even make it to the 25-year reunion. “But every year, without fail, I’d get a Christmas and New Year card from Richard till he passed away,” she concludes.

Bhanu Rajopadhye Athaiya, a colossus of costume design, who became India’s first Oscar winner for her work in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982), and whose chic couture in blockbusters such as Waqt (1965) blazed fashion trends, passed away in Mumbai on Thursday. She was 91.

Her daughter Radhika Gupta told TOI on phone that Athaiya died in her sleep. “In 2012, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She had been bedridden since 2016 when her right side got paralysed,” she said.

Athaiya was cremated at Chandanwadi.

In the foreword to her autobiography, The Art Of Costume Design (2010), Attenborough described her as “the revered doyenne” of costume designers. “It took me 17 long years to set up Gandhi, my dream film, and just 15 minutes to make up my mind that Bhanu Athaiya was the right person (for the job),” he wrote.

The Kolhapur-born costume designer’s career, spanning 56 years and over 100 films, reads like a catalogue of Bollywood’s best and biggest: Shri 420, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Sangam, Guide, Waqt, Ek Duuje Ke Liye, Nikaah, Lagaan.

“According to Yash ji (filmmaker Yash Chopra), girls in Delhi bought movie tickets for their tailors so that could see the designs and replicate them,” wrote Athaiya, who was married to lyricist Satyendra (Anhonee, Naubahar, Radha Krishna). He passed away in 2004.

It is sad that Athaiya didn’t receive the Padma Shri. “Being a proud Indian, she was very disappointed that her own country didn’t recognize her,” Gupta said.

Athaiya’s work reflects her versatility, her ability to painstakingly authenticate any period or people. For Lagaan, she framed the 19th century colonial India’s look. Always eager to learn and inquisitive, she was dedicated to her work. On Guru Dutt’s advice, she visited Calcutta's old mansions for Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam and travelled to the desert of Rajasthan for Sunil Dutt’s Reshma Aur Shera.

Athaiya’s father was a self-taught artist. Books on Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt and other European painters lay scattered in her home. “They were my comic books,” she told this reporter in an interview in 2010. Her arts teacher noticed her gift for painting. She earned her diploma and a gold medal at JJ School of Arts in 1952. She exhibited her paintings alongside F N Souza, M F Husain and S H Raza.

But slowly she moved away from painting, started working as an illustrator in fashion magazines and then opened her own boutique. That’s where she met heroine Kamini Kaushal and launched into designing outfits for movies beginning 1953 (Shahenshah and Aas).

In 2012, this reporter spoke to her again, this time on the phone. It was about returning the Oscar. The statuette was couriered in a special container to its original owner, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles. “I wanted the trophy to be safe in future and in the right hands.”

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Academy Award-winning costume designer Bhanu Athaiya passed away on October 15, 2020, at the age of 91. She had been diagnosed with benign brain tumour in 2012 and her daughter, Radhika Gupta, had been by her side since then.

Thirty-seven years ago, on April 11, 1983, she made history at the 55th Annual Academy Awards, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, when she won the Best Costume Design Award for Sir Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. Athaiya earned India its first Oscar statuette, sharing the win with her British counterpart, the late John Mollo. She held the distinction for 26 years, until 2009, when A R Rahman won for Best Original Score and Best Song, Resul Pookutty for Best Sound Mixing, and Gulzar for Best Song. However, she continues to be the only Indian woman to win an Oscar.

In April 2013, when Athaiya was celebrating 30 years of her historic win, recalling the victorious moment, she’d said, “On the way to the awards in the limousine, the film’s writer John Briley turned to me and said, ‘The win will be yours.’ I asked him why he thought so and he said, ‘Your canvas was so huge.’ Later, as I sat with the other nominees in my category, some of them turned to me and said the same thing. I did not let any of this affect me. I’d done my work and had decided that now it was for the world to decide whether I deserved to win or not. When they called my name, I was in a daze. I don’t even recall who handed me the award. All I managed to say was ‘Thank you Sir Richard for focusing world attention on India. Thank you Academy.’”

When Athaiya and Mollo received their nominations, Columbia Pictures decided it would be Athaiya who would go up on stage to receive the trophy, were they to win, because it was her work that defined a major portion of the film’s costumes. In December 2012, Athaiya returned her Oscar trophy to the Academy following the brain tumour diagnosis. At the time she had said, “I do not trust anyone in India to keep it. If Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel medal could be stolen from Shantiniketan, what is the guarantee that my trophy would be safe? In India, no one values such things and we lack a tradition to preserve things”.

A true patron of arts, she had great regard for her contemporary, the late costume designer Mani J Rabadi. She admired Vidya Balan’s turn in The Dirty Picture and termed her to be a ‘classic Indian face’. She loved mangoes and would wait all year for summers to relish aamras. Once I visited her with some kheer and sabudana khichdi, which she really appreciated.

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In her memoir, The Art Of Costume Design, Bhanu Athaiya recalled being the only Indian on the sets of Richard Attenborough's 1982 film, Gandhi. Her job, as costume designer for the film's Indian characters, earned India its first Academy Award (and the only one bagged by an Indian woman).

While most pertinent, it was only one among an array of accolades earned by Athaiya, who passed away yesterday in her sleep at the age of 91. The veteran costume designer had apparently been bedridden for three years, and battling a tumour for eight, only years after she released her memoir, chronicling some of the most fascinating aspects of being part of the industry.

Credited for both, replicating attires (in a bid to authentically depict eras, and the society's castes and class), and redefining them (having invented the 'Mumtaz sari', complete with ready-made pleats), Athaiya is often aptly described as a "genius". "She was magical. I haven't had a better 'look' in any film," says Dimple Kapadia, whose character Reva was brought to life by Athaiya's apparels. "She was flawless. Lekin is set in the desert state of Rajasthan, but it wasn't a typical Rajasthani fabric that she used. It was a gorgeous cotton fabric. The character had to be established by using only one colour and without prints. But she still created the look beautifully, making sketches, and doing a lot of research. Apart from listening to the brief, she always interpreted characters and created costumes accordingly," says the actor of Lekin, which earned Athaiya a National Film Award for Best Costume Design.

The fact that Athaiya was a trendsetter finds credence in the testimony of her contemporary, designer Xerxes Bhathena, who draws our attention to the ubiquitous Amrapali outfit, first made popular by Athaiya in Vyjayanthimala's Amrapali (1966). "After that, it was in every film, including those of Sridevi and Hema ji [Malini].

Nobody knew what Amrapali was until Bhanu defined it. She was such an exquisite perfectionist! Apart from costumes, she would carry jewellery in one bag, and sketches in another. We worked together in Sultanat [1986]. I was designing Sridevi's costumes, and she, for the rest of the cast. She came to me and said, 'Xerxes, thodi toh history ko daad [respect] diya karo.' I said kaun dekhta hai? I have to make the actress look glamorous. But, she was a perfectionist who would research immensely. She has dressed almost all the leading ladies of the 60s, 70s, and 80s," he says, adding that the diamond-studded costume designed by Athaiya for Zeenat Aman in Satyam Shivam Sundaram is preserved at R K Studios. Guru Dutt's CID (1956) was the former fashion illustrator's stepping stone to Bollywood. In a career spanning nearly five decades and over 100 films, she worked with filmmakers like Raj Kapoor, Kamal Amrohi, Yash Chopra, and B R Chopra.

Working as NFDC’s telephone operator, Rajni had become quite blasé about film celebrities ringing up. But that morning she could barely conceal her excitement. “Mr Dharker,” I heard her say, “Sir Richard Attenborough on the line.” This was no hoax: Sir Richard was indeed in town, and he wanted an appointment to see me.

The next morning he was in my office. He eloquently described his 20-year struggle to make a film on the life of Mahatma Gandhi. He had nursed that ambition for many years; the script had gone through several writers and each writer had gone through multiple drafts.

The original cast was now obviously too old so he would look for new people. But now he had the best possible script and it was time to take Mahatma Gandhi’s message of peace and non violence to our troubled world, he said. “What kind of money are you looking for Sir Richard?” I asked. “Five crores,” he said. (This was in early 1980 and a crore was really big money then).

In spite of myself I started to laugh. “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude. Your first number is fine, it’s your zeroes I have a problem with.” I explained that our maximum limit was 5 lakh and he wanted two zeroes more. It was his turn to laugh.

Surprisingly, he was back the next morning. “I will take it, Anil. (Okay if I call you Anil? Everyone calls me Dickie). I thought about it all day yesterday and all night too. I’ve decided — if your offer still stands — that I will take the five lakh rupees.” He must have seen my astonishment, so he explained his logic. If I could give him a letter saying NFDC, a government of India body, was supporting the Gandhi film by part financing it, it would help him raise money abroad. He just had one request, “Please don’t mention the amount.” I gave him the letter, omitting any reference to the five lakh figure.

Then his luck changed: he managed to get the Gandhi script to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. She was said to be a voracious reader, and she always read last thing at night, before going to sleep.

She apparently read the script at one go, picked up the phone first thing in the morning and said to the I & B Minister, “Why aren’t we supporting this film?” My paltry five lakh became five crore overnight, and if I remember right, the final figure was Rs 8 crore of the total budget of Rs 20 crore. Gandhi went on to make very many times that amount, was nominated for eleven Oscars and won eight, including best picture, best director (both for Attenborough), best actor (Ben Kingsley) and one for our very own Bhanu Athaiya for best costume design.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. New-wave filmmakers, incensed that a foreigner was getting five crore when they got only five lakh, started a Movement Against the Making of the Gandhi Film (their even had a letterhead saying that) which received a lot of media support.

Bollywood moguls gave their thumbs down to nervous I & B mandarins. “Yeh darling kya film banayega, or woh bhi Gandhi par!” ‘Darling’ was a reference to Attenborough’s habit of calling everybody darling (including, it is said, the formidable Margaret Thatcher. When the British PM first met Attenborough, she said, “Why have we not met before?” To which Sir Richard replied, “Because you haven’t called me, darling.”) The negativity against the film was garnering so much momentum that there was a real danger the government would change its mind and not give the promised crores through NFDC. Then the tide turned: Doordarshan, the only TV channel of that time, telecast an interview of Attenborough by Gerson da Cunha. When Gerson asked about his long quest to make the film, Attenborough broke down and couldn’t speak; when Gerson asked about the Gandhian values which had inspired him, Attenborough had tears running down his cheeks. “How sincere the man is!” everyone said. “Who else is so passionate about a film on Gandhi?' everyone asked. Attenborough’s television performance, for that’s what it was, may have been part pent-up emotion, part acting, but it worked and the opposition to the film disappeared. I had a personal taste of ‘Dickie's’ acting prowess soon after at a high powered meeting in Delhi. Attenborough and members of his key team were there, and so was the Secretary of I & B and senior officials. I had brought in a detailed plan to reduce the budget by replacing the foreign production personnel with Indian ones who, I said, were equally competent, and would cost much, much less. The more I spoke the more Attenborough went red in the face.

“Mr Secretary, sir,” he finally said, “If I am to be cross-examined like this on every detail on a project I have given my life to, I am leaving.” He picked up his papers and signalled his team to pick up theirs. The I & B Secretary panicked (the spectre of Mrs G’s wrath flashing before his eyes). “No, no, Sir Richard,” he said.
“Please, please sit down and let’s work this out.” I was signalled to keep quiet, and Richard got his way. Right through the long meeting if I ever caught Richard’s eye, he would bow slightly and do a contrite namaste.

How could I grudge him his showy tantrum? He had had the most glittering of careers, as actor (one Oscar, one BAFTA, two Golden Globes, starring roles in films as disparate as Brighton Rock, Jurassic Park and Shatranj ke Khiladi) and as Director (Oh What a Lovely War!, A Bridge Too Far, Cry Freedom, Chaplin), but Gandhi was his lifetime obsession, and he was not going to let anything get in his way. He worked 18 hours a day and delivered the film within budget, and on time - which is remarkable for a shooting schedule which traversed the length and breadth of India and lasted a full year of continuous shooting. Also, this was in the days before CGI, so for a scene like Mahatma Gandhi's funeral, he used 3,00,000 extras and 19 cameras, while the whole film used 11 crews and miles and miles of film. It was a colossal effort about a Mahatma who was out of fashion, portrayed by an actor no one knew, and it affected everyone who saw it, wherever they were.

No one else could have made Gandhi on this scale without Attenborough's single-minded determination, which was apparently so characteristic of him. Like he got Sheila Sim, a fellow student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. They acted opposite each other in an Academy production. The morning after the performance, he asked her to marry him, and continued asking every single morning until she said yes. They married in 1945, and stayed together till the very end.

The writer is a former head of NFDC