Kunal Ramraj Dahiya
The largest mural in the country had to be for the man whose stature cannot be expressed in words - Amitabh Bachchan! Celebrating the actor’s 75th birthday, BAP(Bollywood Art Project) with its proposition Woh Zamana Kare Deewana, commissioned a larger-than-life mural on a building in Bandra, Mumbai near Sea link.The building was singled out for the project because of its height. The total surface area of the painting is 8,000 square feet(230 feet high and 30 feet wide). Before we began work on October 6, Artist Ranjit Dahiya spent considerable time zeroing in on the image that they would recreate for the city at large, to see. The Bachchan buffs finally chose the pose from the Yash Chopra-directed movie as they felt no other film did justice to his 'Angry Young Man' image as the drama did.
Two remote controlled trolleys connected with metal wires suspended from the top, which were going up and down. While shooting all this I wondered how we can draw on such a large level because the size of one single eye was equal to one floor of an apartment. Then Artist Ranjit Dahiya told me that, you just need to command your eyes to go away from the building and feel the painting and you will get to know about the mistake.
There are so many people which are living nearby this building and everyone is excited about the mural work. One lady from the same building was excited because she has to take an auto to return back home from the job. She can tell the auto driver to take her to Amitabh Bachchan building. During a conversation with a school kid, he told me that my vacations are going on when my school van will be here all my friends will be surprised to see my apartment. There were so many more stories and emotions which I felt for Public Art, during this project.