A setting for a film that recently had a successful run in the theatres was replicated as the pandal in BL Block recently. And what was startling is that the man who built the sets in the film was in charge of the pandal too.

Acclaimed art director Tanmoy Chakraborty brought Durgeshgarh from Ghatshila, where the film Durgeshgarher Guptadhan was shot, to BL Park to the extent possible for the benefit of his neighbours and other visitors. “If the sets of Padmavat or Baahubali can be replicated in pandals, I thought why not that of a Bengali film? And most of my neighbours have never seen a film set before,” said Chakraborty.

In case of both forts, he worked with plaster of Paris and fibre. “In the film, the idol had an inbuilt mechanism whereby its hands needed to be aligned in a specific way for some pillars and a wall to crash and the hidden tunnel to be exposed, leading to the chamber with the treasure. That is why I left some bricks dislodged in the pandal wall.”

What pleased Chakraborty most is how easily visitors identified the pandal as Durgeshgarh. “One hears that people referred to the pandal by this name when seeking directions from local shop-keepers.”

The art director took the decision to replicate the film set about two and half months back. “Neighbours thought I’d bring the set over, not realising that I’d build it here afresh. And when it was ready many knocked on the walls finding it hard to believe that it was not brick and mortar. Because of the rain, the colouring was done in just two days after Mahalaya. The lighting happened even later. For them, it was like magic,” he smiled.

The director of the film Dhrubo Banerjee came for a visit too.