Mumbai: For the last two decades, every time politicians in Maharashtra wanted to make a splash with their events, they knew who to turn to — Nitin Chandrakant Desai, celebrated art director and founder of ND Studio.
Desai, known for creating sets of Bollywood blockbusters Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Munnabhai M.B.B.S., Slumdog Millionaire, and Lagaan, among others, reportedly died by suicide Wednesday at the ND Studio, located in Karjat, in Mumbai’s neighbouring Raigad district. He was 57.
The art director, a four-time Filmfare awards recipient and four-time National Film Awards winner, was under “immense financial stress”, Mahesh Baldi, independent MLA from Uran in the Raigad district, told reporters. Baldi said he met Desai less than two months ago.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had last week initiated insolvency proceedings against ND’s Art World Private Limited, of which ND Studio is a part, after it defaulted on loans worth Rs 252.48 crore. The company was incorporated in 2002.
Having worked with all major directors across the Hindi and Marathi film industry, Nitin Desai also became the go-to person for political parties and the state government for putting up grand daises at public events — often at short notice.
Speaking to reporters in Mumbai Wednesday, Maharashtra Cultural Affairs Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said about Desai, “Maharashtra has lost a great artist. I don’t know the reasons why he died by suicide, but when a person whose name is counted among the top five in his stream of work, news of such a person dying by suicide is extremely shocking.”
Modi’s ‘friend Nitin Desai’
Nitin Desai was born in Dapoli in Maharashtra’s Konkan region and started working in the film industry in 1987 as an assistant art director on Tamas, a television miniseries directed by Govind Nihalani depicting the Partition.
Over the years, he worked closely with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the undivided Shiv Sena on events across Maharashtra.
In 2003, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Mumbai for the first time after taking over as chief minister of Gujarat, the BJP appointed Desai to plan the stage setup, party leaders told ThePrint. The layout designed by Desai had Modi being lifted onto the dais by a hydraulically-operated lotus, which is the BJP’s election symbol. Once the lotus was on par with the stage, its petals opened and then Gujarat CM Modi emerged from inside.
Speaking to Marathi television channel ABP Majha in 2021 about the event, Desai said Modi had an expression of surprise on his face when he emerged from the lotus in front of a crowd of 2.5 lakh people.
Recalling the speech Modi made at that event, Desai had told the channel, “He (Modi) said of the 2.5 lakh people who have come here, of them one lakh have come to see Narendra Modi and 1.5 lakh have come to see the stage created by my friend Nitin Desai.”
Desai was thereafter given charge of designing the stage for many of Modi’s rallies in Maharashtra. In 2009, he designed a giant lotus-sized stage with seven white petals for Modi’s rally near Deccan Gymkhana in Pune. In December 2013, months before Modi became PM, Desai designed the stage for a mega rally of the National Democratic Alliance in Mumbai.
BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde, who worked closely with Desai on the 2003 event, said in a tweet Wednesday, “Friend, you suddenly destroyed the extremely beautiful and monumental set of life (that you) created.”
जीवनाचा अत्यंत सुंदर भव्य उभा केलेला ‘सेट’ अचानक उध्वस्त केलास मित्रा! pic.twitter.com/XPglciNmQC
— Vinod Tawde (@TawdeVinod) August 2, 2023
When the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government came to power in Maharashtra in 2014, the party engaged Nitin Desai as the art director for the swearing-in ceremony. For the event, Desai brought the Raigad Fort alive at Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium. The Raigad Fort was where 17th-Century Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji was crowned.
‘Shiv Shahi’-themed oath-taking for Thackeray
In 2019, when the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) comprising the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress came to power in Maharashtra, Desai was once again seen as the man of the hour.
The new ruling dispensation turned to him for the set design for the swearing-in ceremony at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, where Bal Thackeray had addressed his first rally as Shiv Sena chief. To mark the occasion of the first member of the Shiv Sena’s Thackeray family assuming the office of chief minister, Desai’s team created a large Chhatrapati Shivaji mural and decked up the venue on the theme of the Maratha king’s empire.
Like with the BJP, Nitin Desai was also involved in Shiv Sena-related events, from designing stages for ‘Dahi Handi‘ functions organised by party leaders to sampling the humble ‘vada pav’ at Shiv Sena’s launch of the ‘Shiv Vada Pav’ concept as a celebrity guest in 2008.
“He had worked as art director for many Marathi-Hindi historical films and serials and had captured the attention of the audience … .his passing is unbelievable,” Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray said in a tweet Wednesday.
सुप्रसिध्द कलादिग्दर्शक नितीन चंद्रकांत देसाई ह्यांच्या आत्महत्येची बातमी धक्कादायक आहे. अनेक मराठी-हिंदी इतिहासकालीन चित्रपट आणि मालिकांसाठी त्यांनी कलादिग्दर्शनाचं काम करुन, प्रेक्षकांचे लक्ष वेधले होते. त्यांची कामातील प्रचंड प्रतिभा अनेक नव्या प्रकल्पांना घडवत होती. त्यांचं…
— Office of Uddhav Thackeray (@OfficeofUT) August 2, 2023
The same political parties that sought Desai’s artwork for their events also hired him for government functions when in power.
In February 2016, Desai designed the Maharashtra pavilion for the ‘Make in India’ Week in Mumbai in addition to a stage he designed for a grand cultural event at Girgaum chowpatty for the delegates.
The same year, Desai’s team was hired for the bhoomi pujan ceremony of the proposed Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial on an islet in the Arabian Sea. PM Modi had travelled to the islet in a boat to perform the ceremony.
According to an Instagram post on Desai’s account, speaking about his work on the Shivaji memorial bhoomi pujan, BJP leader Chandrakant Patil said, “Everyone was concerned about how we will conduct a bhoomi pujan on a rocky outcrop. At that time, the CM remembered Nitin Desai and called him. For the next eight days, for all hours of the day we worked and you all must have seen on television that it was an excellent event.”
“When everyone was concerned about conducting a bhoomi pujan on water, Nitin Desai procured the trolley used for the Lalbaugcha Raja (landmark Ganesh idol) and erected a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on it, placing it on the islet, so that while performing a puja it will feel like we are performing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s puja,” Patil added.
Desai also designed Maharashtra’s floats for the Republic Day parade under different governments and the stage for the unveiling of the ‘Statue of Unity’ — a gigantic monument dedicated to Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat’s Kevadia.
If you are feeling suicidal or depressed, please call a helpline number in your state.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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