Merchant's dream may soon be fulfilled

VARANASI: Is the dream of (late) Ismail Merchant, celebrated Hollywood filmmaker, going to be realised? Six years ago, Merchant and the Queen of Rock-n-Roll, Tina Turner, had visited Varanasi. Merchant had dreams of seeing the Pop diva in the lead role of his new venture `The Goddess'. Merchant took Turner on a tour to Varanasi and other parts of India in February 2004 to convince and prepare her for the role.
"We have come to know that the project of Ismail Merchant is going to be revived,'' Ashok Kapoor, the local host of the Hollywood celebrity during their trip to Varanasi, told TOI on Friday."It will be great if the dream of Merchant is fulfilled. Tina Turner may or may not be part of the project, but the chances of the movie being made are high,'' said Kapoor, who had a close connection with Merchant. "During their visit to the city, we were very excited to think that the city will be the part of a great venture. But, unfortunately, the project was shelved after the untimely death of Ismail Merchant,'' he said.
The TOI team also had an encounter with the Hollywood celebrity during their visit at that time. It was a fine evening on February 9, 2004, at an aesthetically decorated house that hosted Tina Turner and Ismail Merchant in typical Banarasi style, with local music and cuisine.
Merchant, talking exclusively to TOI at that time, had gone into the memory lane, speaking about Phool Wali and Rang Wali galyian (lanes of flowers and colours) he had encountered during his visit in the '60s to shoot sequences of `Guru' in some parts of this millennia-old city.
Soon after going back, the Merchant Ivory The Economic Timess had announced the film. Beside playing the lead role of the Goddess Shakti, Tina was to sing songs in English, Sanskrit and Latin in the film. But, the dream could not materialise due to the demise of Merchant in 2005.
Now, after a gap of about six years, the producers are reportedly going to fulfil the dream of Merchant, who had produced over 40 films with many Oscar nominations. His creations included `In Custody', `The Mystic Masseur' (based on the Nobel awardee, VS Naipaul's novel), `Howard's End', `Heat and Dust', and `Le Divorce'. He had also authored many books including `The Proprietor', `The Screenplay' and the `Ismail Merchant-My Passage from India'.