"Why didn’t I think of you?” film director Abhishek Kapoor asked sculptor Arzan Khambatta, clapping his forehead, when they met casually at a showing of Lorenzo Quinn’s sculptures at a mid-town gallery back in April 2015. Khambatta revealed this in a phone call to Parsiana in response to questions about his involvement in the movie Fitoor directed by Kapoor which released on February 12. "I will now have to re-shoot some of my shots,” Kapoor told Khambatta, roping him in as consultant to the movie where the lead actor Aditya Roy Kapur plays a sculptor.
Arzan Khambatta (ext left) with Aditya Roy Kapur (2nd from left) at his Sewri studio
Khambatta trained Roy Kapur over two days at his studio in Sewri, Bombay. Showing the actor how to "bend and twist the metal,” he was appreciative of the latter’s involvement: "He jumped into it totally, did not mind dirtying his hands and picked up the basics of welding and gas cutting at once.” They kept on having tea throughout, "no nakhras (airs) about him,” Khambatta states. "Director Kapoor and his crew were present throughout and took random frames of the interaction,” Khambatta revealed.
Though no final takes were shot in Khambatta’s studio, he did however loan for use in the movie five of his sculptures that were in the making. He intends to show these in Bombay’s Jehangir Art Gallery in October this year. "I gave them my Reaching Out, which depicts the skeleton of a man reaching out,” he says excitedly. Also loaned were a copper ball in the making, titled Orb, as also a big, yet unnamed urn.
This is not Khambatta’s first brush with Bollywood. He has provided a sculpture for Farhan Akhtar’s 2008 movie Rock On!! and designed a futuristic gun for Shahrukh Khan’s character to use in the 2006 movie Don. "Sooni Taraporevala roped me in to play myself in Little Zizou,” he informs us.
Khambatta signs off calling the film interlude "very satisfying … in fact I love to try out new things which involve my creativity in any way.”