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You know those ‘aha’ moments, the ones that sneak up on you and things suddenly fall in place. Well, this week one of these little epiphanies popped up as I looked at a drawing by Federico Fellini in the recently published Book of Dreams.

Floating upwards in a powder blue sky with curly white clouds is a gargantuan woman in a bathing suit: her impossibly bloated breasts make Pamela Anderson look like a boy and her huge thighs make Ruben’s women look anorexic. Up in the skies as well is a basket with the late Italian film director and Pope Paul IV in it. The hot air balloon has obviously gone missing and the Pope, in a state of agitation, is pointing towards the woman who has suddenly materialised.

Fellini used to keep a sketch book by his bed in which he would, most mornings, record his dreams with both droll text and fanciful sketches. Published by Rizzoli, this fat dream diary contains Fellini’s accounts of his nocturnal wanderings in dreamland — many of which were to find their way into his films, particularly La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and La Strada.

Now, for that aha moment — and the woman in the sky. It was a similar image that Fellini conjured up when I interviewed him in his office in Rome some years ago. The maestro talked at length about his interest in Indian spirituality and philosophy.

There was a photograph of the Mother of Pondicherry up on the wall, alongside calendar art images of Radha and Krishna. In fact, my introduction to him had been an Indian astrologer to whom he had once sent a blank cheque.

So, I thought it quite in order to ask him why he had never been to India. I had heard that he was afraid of flying. But Fellini’s surreal answer was unexpected. He said he could no longer react to any external images. “My mind is an image-making machine.

There are so many pictures inside my head that I can’t respond to anything outside… I feel like I am in a hot air balloon that keeps on going up in the sky.Now, if a beautiful woman were to appear she could prick the balloon and I would come down to earth.”

Fellini was locked inside his powerful imagination, unrelentingly fed by images and visions from his dreams and nightmares. His dream diary reveals that the border between his dream world and his films was porous, almost to the point of being non-existent. Clearly, all those over-the-top images in his films were not coming out of a void: his unconscious was always on tap.

And when it was not, the Italian cineaste turned to coincidences or signs to help him make decisions about his films. Fellini told me that he cast British actor Freddie Jones as the gregarious reporter-sutradhar on happenstance in And the Ship Sails on. Fellini had gone to the airport to pick up the actor. On the way home the director began to doubt his casting: “He looked so ordinary”.

But he changed his mind during the car journey. The reflection of an ad on the car window merged with the face of Freddie Jones. I forget which ad, but it was a particularly meaningful one for Fellini. And Freddie Jones it was.

I was lucky to interview the maestro twice: the second time was during the last week of the filming of Ginger and Fred. Traditionally, Fellini and his team go out after wrap-up. That night, well, early morning, we roamed the streets of Rome in search of an open bakery. Finally, Fellini spotted one and the car backed into the small street: it was a one-way street.

The city was still sleeping, although the dark sky had a strange green tinge. The director went into the little bakery and eventually came out with a dozen lemon-filled croissants: he had even helped the baker take them out of the oven.

The maestro placed them on the bonnet of the white Mercedes with great flourish. By the time we finished eating the croissants the sun had begun to rise. And I began to rub my eyes, wondering if this were really a dream sequence out of a Fellini film. Or, was I just dreaming?

Email: jain_madhu@hotmail.com