On Lifecasting, Cinema and Memories

Had an interesting experience a few days ago. I had read of lifecasting used by sculptors to achieve accuracy in creating statues and busts in museums and by special effects conjurers in cinema for creating dummies in scenes requiring perilous stunts by the actors. 

Last week, Riteish Deshmukh, my dear friend Vilasrao Deshmukh’s talented son, visited us with his lifecasting expert to get impressions of my hands and Saira’s hands which will be in a museum he proposes to have for cinema lovers. The alginate mixture poured into trays reminded me of the mixture I used to see in a bakery in Poona years ago where I used to drop in to buy my favourite biscuits during my first ever stay away from my family in the early 1940s.

It took only a quarter of an hour for the team to get the mixture ready and get our hands imprinted on the mould which I am told will be imaged on metal for display in the museum. It is Riteish’s brain child and it is his way of telling those of us who spent the best years of our lives entertaining and, hopefully, impacting people’s minds through our films, that our hard work and contributions to the growth of the medium have not been in vain.

I have heard from my family about Riteish’s gift for excelling in comedy. I have known him for some years now as a well bred young man doing his parents proud. I hope to be at his wedding on February 3 and share the Deshmukh family’s  happiness on the occasion.


Video is attached with this.

DK