Aashish's paint problems

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By: Upala KBR, Mid-Day

Aashish Chowdhry has finished shooting for Jayant Gilator's Whiteland, but he still shudders at the memory of his hours covered in paint during the shooting of the film.

For his role as the village boy, he used to have his entire body painted in a darker shade and the paint would take hours to remove everyday.

Melting paint

Says Aashish, "Whiteland is about the plight of the salt workers in Dandi. I play the servant to the village sarpanch, while Gracy Singh plays a blind, educated girl whom the villagers rely on to take their revolution forward.

Since I play a poor, surpressed, village boy I had to have a very rustic look for the film. I grew a beard, wore dhotis and used a darker shade of make-up from head to toe.

Since such thick make-up melts in the hot sun with light oils, I had to try six different types of oil before we settled on castor oil for the base. It was terrible because castor oil is the thickest and smelliest of all the oils."

"I had to get a special scrub from Mumbai to take off the make-up which would take 2 hours every day. But today if anyone pays for me to sit and put on this make-up, I won't do it. It's such a pain. But then I was dying to play such a character. My role is somewhat similar to Mithunda's in Hum Paanch."

Cuts and bruises

That was not the only hardship during the shooting of the film. Ashish recounts, "We shot for 40 days at the Rann of Kutch and we'd constantly get bruises and cuts as the salt fields of Dandi and salt mountains are worse than rock mountains as they melt and their edges gets sharp. But working on this film has been a fantastic experience."

After working on this film Aashish has begun to feel for the plight of the salt workers in Gujarat.

"They are providing the flavour to the nation, but what are we doing for them? How many people know that 90 per cent of the salt workers suffer from hampered vision as they aren't given sunglasses to protect their eyes from the blinding whiteness of the salt mountains.

They get paid a measly seven paise per kilo out of which 6 paise goes to the village sarpanch while salt in the cities is sold at such high prices.

Salt workers are dirt poor. When their bodies are burnt, their knee is the only part that doesn't burn as it gets hard from the continuous heat generated from the salt pans. The reflection of the salt burns the legs."

Aashish hopes that talking about the plight of these workers will help their lives and living conditions. After Aamir Khan for NBA, Lucky Ali for farmers, it's not Chowdhry for salt workers.