In this article, I discuss one of the
thematic design spreads on which we spent a lot of time. Some of the
discussions I remember vividly, even after four decades (and withering of the
grey cells of someone in her eighth decade of life!).
Selection of the visuals – photographs as
well as the tantric art images – for each chapter was as creatively challenging
for all the creative professionals concerned; and for me it was a fantastic
learning experience. Each of the three persons involved in the implementation
of the design concept – Yeshwant Choudhary, Mitter Bedi and Vilas Bhende – was
a master of his own art. All of them were years senior to me, professionally as
well as chronologically. The fact that they had so much respect for each other
made the discussions, the arguments, the banter, even their acerbic comments
for each other’s views, so much fun – memories that I treasure to this day.
Each one of them made critical comments and
gave suggestions for the evolution of the thematic spread– sometimes leading to
a complete abandoning of the original plan. But there was no heartburn, no ego
hassles and, most important, no financial disputes about who would bear the
costs of what was scrapped! It was a team that anyone would die to work with!
Wonder why they took a novice like me under their wing. Although they took my
suggestions seriously, sometimes I wondered whether they were just indulging
me! Whatever be their reasons, for me, it was a blessing to cut my teeth into
the world of book design with those masters.
Each composition of the book’s thematic
pages photographs was nothing less than a piece of installation art. The Nanas’
Chowk (Bombay) studio of Vilas became our adda for the eight weeks or so that
we took to complete the 10 theme photographs. The actual photography may have
taken less than 10 days but collecting all the props, getting the models and
setting up the composition took much longer.
For those who use today’s digital tools:
software like Adobe’s Creative Cloud (specifically Photoshop) or the more
recently introduced series of graphic design software developed by Serif (Affinity
Photo) – it would be difficult to even imagine how these spreads were created
without access to such tools. Each bit was manually crafted that required
immense skills of making cut-outs, masking and superimposing, know-how of
photography and dark-room techniques, and eye for detail for faithful
reproduction in print. The entire text was photo-typeset and manual
artworks were created for the entire document. Something that takes just a few
clicks now would require hours or even days of human labour.
One of the chapters in the book was titled “ICICI
and the Planning Era”. A head, or the brain, was the faculty to be depicted.
That was the easy decision; what was challenging was the composition of the
thematic page. We had to get the cast of a head made from plaster of Paris.
Vilas and Yeshwant were perfectionists and rejected at least six or seven casts
before they were satisfied!
I remember Vilas and Yeshwant discussing the hand that
should be shown as working on the circuitry shown inside the head – it had to
be a male hand; of someone in his 30s; the nails had to be unevenly cut – Vilas
went to the extent of having just the right amount of dirt in the nails to
convey that it was genuinely a worker’s hand! And he shot at least a dozen
photos to finally select the one which showed the right amount of pressure of
the finger on the screwdriver!
Today, in times of microchips, the printed
circuit board may appear primitive, as would probably the photograph with women
working on calculators. But THAT was the state of electronics industry in India
in the late-1970s; it was difficult to even get permissions to shoot
photographs of a mainframe computer because only a handful of industries had
them.
For me, the most enjoyable and educative
hours were those when Yeshwant went through great lengths to explain to me why
he had chosen the ‘tantric’ image of the sun for that page and the significance
of the number 28. He told me that 28, in Indian mythology, had a special
significance. It is considered the perfect number and denotes wealth. Also, he
used that number with the image of the sun because the rotation time of the
surface of the sun at its equator as viewed from Earth is about 28 days.
The numerals had to be written in Devnagari
script, of course, because we were writing about an Indian institution. I must
add that, after hours of heated discussions with him, the only change that I
could convince him to make was in the drawing of the Man inside that image of
the sun. He introduced moustache; originally, the drawing had only the lines on
the forehead which could be interpreted as a Brahmanical symbol. My weltanchaung
did not permit me to accept that ‘intellect’ and ‘planning’ were the prerogative of
the Brahmins!
Those who would like to access the entire document, here is the link
