Rajasthan marble dump is a hot film locale now

AJMER: A model stands beside a clear blue pool on a snowbed. It could be a scene from somewhere in the Alps, or Ladakh, but for the scraggy vegetation and the dry hills around. Over the past eight years, this ‘phenomenon’ has become Kishangarh’s biggest draw. Kishangarh, if you haven’t heard of it, is an old town in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district, about 90km from Jaipur on the Delhi-Mumbai highway. It used to be the capital of a 400-year-old kingdom – an offshoot of Jodhpur – and was mainly known for the school of miniature painting its kings nurtured.
And marble, of course, because Kishangarh is the largest supplier of marble in Asia. The famous quarries of Makrana that sent “translucent marble” for the Taj Mahal are just 50km away in neighbouring Nagaur district. For all the finished marble it ships out year after year, Kishangarh has to deal with mountains of marble slurry. In 2008, the state government allotted a large ground to the Kishangarh Marble Association (KMA) to dump the slurry, and for the next few years it was just that – a wasteland. In the rainy season, pits and craters on the white bed filled up with rainwater and became a hazard. For years, nobody saw any value in it.
So when a photographer did a pre-wedding shoot on the ground in 2014, the KMA was surprised. But as the site’s popularity went on growing – along with the height of the dump, which now rises 15-20 metres – the association sensed a business opportunity, and in 2016 it imposed a user fee. The current rates are Rs 50,000 for commercial video shoots, and Rs 5,000 for wedding photography. “We realised these ventures are commercial in nature. The money we collect is spent on developing facilities like toilets, changing rooms, parking, and for security guards and maintenance,” KMA president Sudhir Jain told TOI.
The slurry dump, which is hardly 10km from Kishangarh airport and 100km from Jaipur airport, is now a hot location for films, TV series and music videos, besides weddings. Vanity vans, jimmy jibs, reflectors, tungsten lights and directors’ calls for “lights, camera and action” are part of the landscape. Actors Anil Kapoor and Tiger Shroff, and comedian Kapil Sharma are some of the big names that have shot here.
Padam Bachani, an Ajmer-based wedding photographer, who hopes to finish his 150th shoot at the ground this week, says couples from even distant places like Delhi, Kanpur, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Bhopal and Indore come here. “It is a vast, white ground as far as you can see, and the white backlight gives a perfect shade to the shoot. You would need to visit the Rann of Kutch, Sambhar Lake or Ladakh for this effect, but they are far costlier and have several restrictions,” said Bachani, who started solo but now has a team of six.
Competition has increased, and photographers have to keep abreast of clients’ demands. Local photojournalist Shankar Puri has invested in a drone camera for aerial shots. Yet, the most popular poses for brides and grooms are decades old. Men spread their arms in Shah Rukh Khan’s signature style while women re-enact the dance moves of ‘Suraj Hua Madham’ from the movie “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham”, says Bachani.
The increasing number of shoots has created work for other locals, who are hired as spot boys, cameramen, light men, transporters and technicians. And now hotels have opened another revenue stream.
Jaipur-based movie location scout Piyush Sharma says he takes 7-10 production teams to the ground every month, and half of them choose to shoot there. He’s trying to interest South Indian film production units now, and hopes to see a Hollywood cast and crew at the site some day. But environmentalists are aghast. LK Sharma, associate professor of the department of environment science at the Central University of Rajasthan, told TOI: “The site should be banned for unscientific dumping of the marble slurry on a wetland. It is posing severe health hazards and is polluting the groundwater. ”