The Bollywood Landscapers

Yea catchy title right but i guess it fits right...back in the early 90s when mediocre films were ruling the roost my dad was a struggling little nurseryman in the city of dreams...what happened next would change the direction of the nursery completely...from a nursery that aspired to make and sell plants right in the heart of the city we became what id like to call "Overnight Gardeners"

My dad 1st met some amazing old time art directors ....from the legendary R.Varman to the sublime Sameer Chanda (one of my fav)...he worked with the likes of Nitin Desai Sudendu Roy satish chipkar and the list went on.there were some hilarious movies he worked on from the David Dhavan flicks to mahesh bhatt movies of the 90s I distinctly remembering playing cricket on the sets of Om Jai Jadeesh (hahahha) me and an old friend going to the sets of kano na pyaar hai(we were terrified of this back up dancer with a purple wig and big glasses)so ya basically a large part of my childhood i spent running wild on the sets of 90s bollywood movies.
           Over the years the mantle was passed down to mom who took the industry by storm with her ikebana arrangements....so basically post 1999 almost all the grand weddings you saw in movies...the flowers were arranged my mom...

Ya now don't really look at shah rum and shushmitas expressions look at the flowers all around...back in the day when every movie had 2 have a wedding song and dance mom was right there decorating them sets which some amazing flower arrangements.At times as large 30FT tall cause "Madam ji yeh international shade hai....US of america mien ek dum grand Shadi" yea we get these kinds of references.
       Come to this day most of the art directors of today be it the amazingly sweet Rajat podar(barfee,city lights,etc etc) Narendra Rahuekar(chennai express,singham) Jayant Deshmukh(Ram Leela etc etc) shamishta roy(all your dharma movies) Sabu cyril(ra one,krish,om shanti om) Mustapha dada (yahaan) Sunil babu(english vinglish)Sunil nigvekar(all your RGV movies) washik khan(dabang movies)....once again the list goes on n on n on but what remains constant is their landscape guys...heres some of our latest work

So while we were greening up the large screens we also worked extensively on television...from old school soaps to new reality shows they all took plants from us yes all your "K serials the endless mahabhart remakes from the b.r chopra one to the ekta kapoor one all had our plants...not to mention C.I.D man these guys have been my favourite customers they have been hiring out a fixed 45 plants for 15 days a month for the last 12 years!!!now isn't that some thing :-)

       Whats awesome about these sets is that i get to really test myself i 12 hours to set up huge spaces working round the clock with 50-60 workers to instruct over a microphone...absolutely love it. The nursery gets strange requests at times "sir we need 1 truck of dry leaves" or "sir do u have dead plants  we need to show explosion" or the funniest one i just got "sir i want to show switzland koi english jhaadi hai kia...i was like wtf" as quirky and funny this land of bollywood is its an absolute pleasure to work in you get to meet some amazing people eat some tasty food and travel the length and breath of the country for free!!! 

The Crazy Over Night Gardens of Bollywood !!!!

With a nursery situated in Mumbai crossing paths with Bollywood was inevitable...but we at Vriksha nursery love taking things to the next level...the idea here is to create for them a tough,durable beautiful green space in 2-3days sometimes in a matter of hours the garden should be up and taken out in as short a span as possible....and when an ace art director came to us with an idea of creating a Meadow for an indoor dance number i couldn't refuse ... cant name the movie but iv got some images to show what we did in 1 night in an indoor studio...one of the massively popular leading actor pairwas having issues with some dates so couldn't travel to shoot for this romantic song to nainatal so what we had to do was get the hill slopes to them right here in Mumbai!!! a 3 day shoot a 15,000 sqm ac studio and this is wad we did in 12 hrs...burning the midnight oil and having 20 cups of coffee!!!

My dad was some1 who always was up for something different back in the day when alcohol adds were legal we had another set created in a closed studio in the july at the peak of the rainy season the client wanted to shoot an add with a backdrop of autumn the falling leaves and sepia tone was required ....what happend next was 48 hrs ill never forget 7 trucks of fallen leaves from the farm,arey milk colony,my sites and even the bmc dumpster were collected! a fibre tree was created and each leaf spray painted was stuck by hand and glue 48 hrs no sleep loads of junk food the result was dramatic and what he did was something ill always look to as an inspiration.

Another movie and another clash of dates and as it turned out we needed to create a dance institute in somewhere in the mountains the back drop of film city turned into the hills of the north and the garden that was created on which 4 songs 3 fight sequences and some extrelely hilarious drama scenes panned out(movie i wont name just was one of the worst movies iv ever seen) but the sets we made were pure hard work) the path

,the lawn ,the plants and the trees that we had to create we had to be strong enough to witstand all the lights ,the shooting etc for over 17 days and im very proud to say that the survived and survived well!!!

Big boss 4 was one of the most watched shows in television history ...maybe it was the host salman khan or the antics of dolly bindra that made the headlines but behind the the screeming and screaching there was a garden that sustained itself for the whole duration of the show!

or should i say survived dolly bindra and khallis combined weight!!!
some other sets made in the industry each has a story each was
over the years we have done over 15,000 sets each one has had a story each one has been fun im putting up the images take a look urself and feel free to comment:

..iv been lucky to work with the best art directors in town and trust me when i say this these guys are the most hardworking dedicated and wonderful people iv come across in the line ...from the legendary heres what they have to say about us:-

i have worked with mr lalwani several times and every time hes come up with nice ideas the experience has always been pleasant.in duhla mil gaya he dressed sushmita sens house with tropical flowers and plants as the story was set in the west indies....for the music launch of ravan he created for us the true feeling of a raw Forrest that was appreciated by one and all in short he can diliver gardens acording to my vision without any compromise -Mrs Leela Chanda