The First Indo Mauritius Film Co -production..Part 2

"...revive the project" !
The year was 1988.  Jaya Bachchan was now heading CFSI . As mentioned in my earlier post she was a Chairperson in a hurry. When I presented the Indo-Mauritius  project  to her, the first reaction was "Mukesh , take the first flight to Mauritius along with A K Bir ( National Awardee Camera man) and Madan Bawaria (the late director of the Jaya Bhaduri's  FTII diploma film "Suman") and revive the project".

A K Bir

Crew Members

 .....dream was taking shape:
After 4 years my idea, my dream was taking shape. As advised by Mrs Bachchan I was back  in Mauritius (and now with a bang), along with A K Bir and Madan Bawaria. We  finalised the locales for shooting. Local talent was also tapped and all preproduction arrangements were taken care of.

...........entire unit along with ...boarded the Air Mauritius flight:
 The entire unit along with Artiste viz. Paintal, M K Raina, Savita Bajaj, technical crew with Director Madan Bavaria, Cinematographer A K Bir,  Sound Recordist  Arunodaya Sharma, all equipment, raw stock boarded the Air Mauritius flight  in April 1989.  The Mauritians could not believe that an idea of co production from their Art and and Culture minister Mr Parsuramen  is finally taking shape.

 A. Parsuramen Director UNESCO India

( Incidentally Mr Parsuramen, who is now heading the UNESCO in the Indian Sub continent, read the blog and got reconnected with me. I am reproducing his comments" Mukesh....Once again many thanks for reconnecting. I visited the Blog with my wife and we were so happy and impressed to see our photo lighting of lamp in 1984! You did a great job! I look forward to meeting you in the near future. Let us keep in touch.....Parsuramen )

Pink Pigeon

......never felt that we were away from home:

 Coming back to Mauritius, we stayed on the island for nearly 50 days. The  hospitality of the Mauritian people was world class. We never felt that we were away from home. In fact Paintal invited his entire family to show them the beauty -that Mauritius was.  For M K Raina ( from National School of Drama) it was a memorable trip. He played the role of a scientist who came from India  and helped the locals to breed the Pink Pigeon in captivity with the help of African dove. Incidentally the pink pigeon is one of the rarest and once one of the most threatened birds in the world.

A K Bir, Arunodaya Sharma & M K Raina

Later on Sharang Dev also joined the unit. He came to Mauritius to  understand more about the local folk music. He was the Music director of the film .

Sharang Dev & Arunodaya Sharma

............the shooting was over:
Finally the shooting was over and the crew returned to India to start the post  production work.
The film was titled "Ankur Maina aur Kabootar".

  ...........won the  National award:
It was censored in the year 1989  and won the  National Award for the Best children's film. The award was received by Mr Bijoy Madhou (co producer Mauritius)  and myself (co producer India)  from late President of India Dr Venkatraman.

    MY IDEA .... passed through three periods:-                                                      
  Today when I look back, I realize that MY IDEA to do a  co production with the Govt of  Mauritius  passed through three periods:
1.It cant be done!
2. It probably can be done, but its not worth doing.!!
3. I knew it was a good idea all along!!!

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Moral of the story: An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exits only as an idea...