Once again P. Sarath Chandran has picked up the brush to design the poster of 'Gandhi’, yes, the same epic biographical film directed by legendary filmmaker Richard Attenborough in 1982!
What inspired him to recreate the static images of that masterpiece after 34 years was the repeated queries from the ‘Gandhi’ fans about the original poster of the movie. Egged on by them, he wielded his brush and warm memories of a bygone era started sweeping over the canvas.
Surprisingly, the Kozhikode-based artist Sarath Chandran, an expert in designing cigarette covers, has done posters for only one movie in his entire career as a designer.
The hand-painted posters of Gandhi, along with his other paintings, were kept inside the cramped garret of his house. Unfortunately, the vagaries of nature claimed all of them. The rainwater that seeped through damp patches on the ceiling eroded the precious remains of the life-story of the apostle of non-violence. The main poster and three small posters designed by Sarath Chandran were damaged beyond repair.
Only later he realised that what he lost was an invaluable piece of history. Several posters of the Gandhi movie can be found on online sites selling vintage cinema posters. But none of them are original or created for the movie. All of them were designed by some unknown artists later, recognising their tremendous market value.
It was through an advertising agency that Sarath Chandran got the opportunity to design posters for Gandhi. The producers of the movie had entered a promotional contract with Source Marketing Agency owned by his friend Santhakumar. After obtaining permission from R. K. Sethi, the general manager of Golden Tobacco, where he was working, Sarath Chandran designed some rough posters for Gandhi.
The agency wanted him to create vivid posters similar to that of Sholay, but he was given only black and white images of the film’s key scenes. He had no other option than watching the preview to understand the colour scheme of the movie. “In that pre-computer era, I had to use spray paint to combine elements from different images and blend them in the background,” recollects Sarath Chandran.
The very next day Santhakumar flew to America to show the rough designs to the director. Attenborough, who was totally dissatisfied with the posters designed by the artists abroad for his ‘Indian’ movie, was delighted by the work done by Sarath Chandran.
The 10x20ft poster which carried the picture of a boy sobbing sitting next to his dead mother at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre site was used across the country for the film’s publicity campaign. The posters, that depcited the film’s main characters in an elegant and fetching manner, were originally done in 1x2 feet size, but was later resized to make a print of 10x20 feet.
The ad agency had also been commissioned to design press ads for the movie. The heart-wrenching scene of the Jallianwala Bagh incident was instrumental in grabbing the viewers’ attention as ‘Gandhi’ drew huge crowd to cinema halls across the country. The movie went on become a classic and bagged two Academy awards.
The poster was done and Sarath Chandran received the payment for his freelance job. He returned to Mumbai where he continued to design cigarette packets at the Golden Tobacco’s office located in Vile Parle.
After 18 years, he quit his job and launched ‘Orbit’, a designing agency with his friends. Later, he started to work as a freelance designer.
Ask him why did he choose to focus on designing cigarette covers, and pat comes the reply. “Will anybody cast a villain as hero?
Sarath Chandran now leads a quiet life with his family at Eranhipalam in Kozhikode. Vimala, who was the personal secretary of ‘Metro Man’ E. Sreedharan, is his wife. The couple has a son, Adithya Panicker.
After returning to Kerala, he conducted around 10 exhibitions of his works. His paintings stand out for their elegance, muted colours and attention to detail that could put to shame even the most skilled photographers. The effort taken by him, consciously or sub-consciously, to make his artistic creations life-like is evident in the posters he designed for Gandhi.