This year, Raashid Rangrez, the national award winner for best art director, and Shabana Khanam have recreated Delhi’s Swaminarayan Akshardham temple.
For the last two years, a Muslim couple, who work as art directors in Bollywood, has been designing the Ganpati pandal for Sahyadri Krida Mandal at Tilak Nagar, Chembur.
This year, Raashid Rangrez, the national award winner for best art director, and Shabana Khanam have recreated Delhi’s Swaminarayan Akshardham temple at an estimated cost of Rs60 lakh.
Last year, they had built a replica of Hampi’s Vithal temple. “Last year was the first time we created a Ganesha pandal. The mandal was keen that professional set designers create the pandal,” said Rangrez. “We used a lot of material such as wood planks from last year, else the cost would have been much higher.”
After the theme for this year’s pandal was decided, the couple visited Akshardham and spent two days sketching details of the temple complex’s sandstone carvings. “Photography is not allowed there but the swami at the temple helped us with DVDs of the design,” said Rangrez.
The pandal which is 160ft long, 80ft wide and 27ft high encloses a community hall in Tilak Nagar. It took 12,000 sacks, each containing 50 kg of plaster, to create replicas of the sculptures. To protect the structure from rain, a coat of transparent waterproof varnish was applied on the ochre coloured plaster.
“Akshardham is spread over several acres and we could not have recreated anything like that since space is constrained, so we took features like Mayur and Bhakti gates and recreated it here,” Rangrez added.
“Getting workers in Mumbai during the festival season is tough, so we get labourers from places like Banaras,” said Shabana.
After 40 days of planning and assembling the pandal, the two will return to creating elaborate film sets. “Though I have been designing sets for more than 20 years, this is only the second time where I have created a Ganesh pandal,” said Rangrez, who has won the national award for the sets created for the Punjabi film Waris Shah-Ishq Da Waris.
The couple have also built a replica of Tirupati’s Balaji temple for the Samta Blood Bank Ganeshotsav in Nashik.
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