Epic touch to Mughal-e-Azam’s masks, sets & paper horses from Pune sculptor

PUNE: The epic film Mughal-e-Azam, which completes 60 years on Wednesday, has a distinct Pune touch. The lavish sets that added grandeur to the 20-reel movie were designed by noted Pune sculptor B R alias Appasaheb Khedkar, the art director.
Khedkar was famous for making Ganapati idols and statues for pandal decoration. Impressed by his skills director K Asif offered him Mughal-e-Azam. It was his first film as art director. Khedkar had also designed the sets of another epic film Pakeezah, subsequently concentrated on sculpting and was known for his mastery in the statues of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
“My father worked in an era when technology had not progressed much in the film industry. He was the first to introduce a rubber mask in films when he made a one of actress Madhubala which was worn by a male Kathak dancer Laxminarayan while shooting the song ‘Pyar kiya to darna kya’ because the actress could not do the famous pirouettes. The mask was so perfect that when K Asif first saw the mask-wearing Laxminarayan dressed as Anarkali (Madhubala), he could not believe it was not the actress herself,” recalled Khedkar’s daughter Seema Shirke, who is carrying forward his legacy.
For making the mask, Khedkar first made a plaster of paris statue of the actress for which she modelled herself. “He then made a face cast from paper pulp and approached a balloon factory to get a rubber mask done. He had also made a mask of actor Dilip Kumar who has essayed the role of Salim. Once, my father told his assistant to wear that mask and meet K Asif. When Asif saw ‘Dilip Kumar’ in his office he was taken aback and asked him what he was doing there since he had no scenes to shoot that day,” Shirke said.
It was Khedkar who again came to the rescue of Asif while shooting the scene showing a chained Anarkali being dragged into Akbar’s court.
“Madhubala was quite delicate and it was apparent that she could not bear the weight of the iron chains. So my father made them from plaster of paris,” Shirke said, adding that many of the 400-odd horses used in the battle scenes were made of paper by her father as it was not possible to get so many for shooting.
When Mughal-e-Azam was released on August 5, 1960 in 150 theatres including Maratha Mandir in Mumbai, Khedkar made a massive panel measuring 24 ft x 12ft depicting Dilip Kumar and Madhubala which was installed outside Maratha Mandir. “Just the faces measured six feet. Father used clay and plaster of paris to fashion that panel,” Shirke said.
She said her father, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 92, was sculpting till he was 90 years old.
“The last sculpture he did was a one-and-a-half-feet face of Madhubala which is our studio. He did it from memory,” Shirke added.