Over 20 years of collection of handmade posters of Hindi films by SMM Ausaja has now put them together in a book that will be revealed at the IIFA awards in Macau today by Amitabh Bachchan.

SSM Ausaja, 38-year-old columnist, cinema historian and collector said that, “I was an Amitabh fan and grew up watching his films in the ’970s and ’80s”. The beginning was in Lucknow where he started collecting posters of Bachchan’s films in his student days. In the later stage he added the classics from the previous decade. He said with great pride that, “I have a poster of Guide autographed by Dev Anand”.

A poster of the 1943 classic Ram Rajya, a film praised by Mahatma Gandhi is also included in the Bollywood in Posters (Rs 2,500). Shobhana Samarth, Kajol’s grandmother, is featured as Sita in this.

Each poster is accompanied by a paragraph on the film and a summary of its credits. Ausaja said, “It can easily be used as a reference book”. The foreword is mentioned by Amitabh Bachchan, the Big B.

It was not an easy task to gather 5000 posters as “now people know their value and don’t want to part with them”. He studied poster art to tell the originals from the fakes. 

In addition, the collection of Ausaja also includes cinema lobby cards, old LP records and film magazines right from the 1930s. Scientifically preserving so many posters without any financial support is difficult moreover, they do take up a lot of space in his home. But Ausaja had not laminated them and will not do in future, as “that will take away from the feel”. Instead, he had kept them rolled up in paper and checks them regularly.

He said, “I wanted to hold a poster exhibition globally, but that sponsorship hasn’t worked out yet”. Even if the reader is once removed from the real thing, this book will keep the poster art alive. 

SSM Ausaja is currently working on another book, The Bachchans, on the five Bachchans — Harivansh Rai, Amitabh, Jaya, Abhishek and Aishwarya. This book will be released in Octomber.

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Posted by Amrith K.A on 13 June, 2009 10:44:43 AM IST #