Bollywood stars on his canvas

Mumbai: He has been in India for not more than couple of years and has already watched more than 50 Bollywood films. That's quite a bit considering Claudio Maffioletti is a foreigner working with the Indo Italian Chamber of Commerce.

After watching these films he has put up a unique exhibition of pictures which have been directly shot from the television screen and display everybody from Dilip Kumar in Devdas to Nargis in Mother India, Amitabh Bachchan in Sholay to Raj Kapoor in Shree 420.

The theme of his exhibition is about the role of television screen in reinforcing Indian values and making the actors larger than themselves. He has captured some of the best moments from various films that depict the perceptual image of these actors with the Indian masses.

"India is the only country in the world where myths can become larger than reality. Indian culture is so deeply entrenched in Bollywood that I had to watch all these films to understand better the working it. And it was then I discovered how some actors have become larger than life and how much more they mean to the people," he says.

Explaining his point further he says, "I met Hema Malini and quizzed her about her image of being a 'dream girl'. She told me that she considers her performance to be good in so many other movies, but somehow it is this tag has gained much popularity. It surprised me because the 'dream girl' was not her but it was something that has become bigger than the actual Hema Malini."

"Similarly when I met producers to ask them for the rights to exhibit a picture of Amitabh Bachchan from one of his movies, they got worried and told me not to do so with an icon of such a stature. I was taken aback because it was just a simple picture, that too from an old movie. I realised that Amitabh's image has become so much bigger than himself that people treat him more than a god. Just like God cannot be touched, so it is true for Amitabh in this country," he adds.

A screen shot of Amrish Puri in his exhibition, describes the actor as: 'The ogre with that stern demeanour and eye popping fury, he seeks pleasure in all that is evil. He is the megalomaniac villain, violent in thoughts and ruthless in action, ready to destroy the world and never resting until devastation reaches its horrific peak. It's only then that .. Mogambo khush hua.'