Costume designer and stylist Deepa Chander has set high standards for herself right from the time she began her career. It is this quality that has driven her to excel in her work and she has extended that to her relationships as well. She has always done things flawlessly with a child-like enthusiasm and retains that incredible trait even after she is fifty plus. A single mother to two beautiful daughters, she has taken a sabbatical from cinema and in a chat with Klapboardpost.com, says she might just come back. “I feel my work has to be perfect and if I feel I am not doing justice then I don’t want to do it. Some of the stylists right now in Telugu cinema are extremely brilliant and I can’t stop admiring their work. I still get offers for costume designing but I don’t want to do stuff that will not make me proud of myself. If I am not able to remember the name of the film I did, I will not do it but if I get a film that I am going to be proud of, I will do it. I set a benchmark for myself, I am critical of my work,” says Deepa who doesn’t like feeling burnt out, anxious and depressed.
Deepa Chander came to Hyderabad in 1986 and ever since has made this city her home. She got married here and has worked in over 100 films and this repertoire extends to 200 films that includes advertisements, short films, docu dramas etc. Basically a character stylist and costume designer, she has also worked as an art director and for her last film Yevade Subramanyam, she was an executive producer. Creativity is in her DNA and she can’t agree more, “I think it is inborn, I have been creative since childhood, I could pick up odds and ends and paint well, make artwork out of pressed flowers and organise variety shows. My father and mother let us develop like normal human beings. I became an interior designer after my children were born.” Why didn’t she do a proper designing course to which she laughs, “I wanted to be an architect but within a week my father found out about my Nigerian boyfriend..he sent me to India. My dad was a brilliant artist and my sisters were artistic too. We Rajasthanis are creative people.” Did she regret not doing architecture? “Everyday. My passion was architecture and I wanted to be an interior designer. I learnt terminology from my labour and anyone whom I bumped into with an architectural background I wouldn’t open my mouth though I was better than them. I do a lot of knitting, crochet and handwork. I am writing a book, a positive memoir on my life which is a roller coaster.”
Deepa did a MA in Psychology and a PG diploma in computer software. She stresses that she likes challenging herself and when something is not working out for her, she moves away from it. She adds, “I am a perfectionist, once I master a particular subject or craft, and there is nothing new for me to learn anymore I move to another area. I have been blessed and born into a family which taught me that whatever my responsibilities were, I should fulfill it and do what I wanted next. In this process I turned into a multi-tasker. When I got married and would enter the kitchen ( I was married into a huge Hyderabadi family and my Late father-in-law was the founder of Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital), I didn’t know how to boil water. I would burn the water and no one pushed anything on me. Since I was a creative person, I could repair a Maruti car, do carpentry, gardrening, run the hospital, handle the accounts and help my children in the fancy dress competition. I would make pineapple, cauliflower costumes and it won so many awards. The more I had to do the better I felt. If I didn’t have anything to do, I would read a book. To make my daughters get interested in going to school, I would wrap the books in metallic, colourful paper. I would take a week to organise stuff for birthday parties – to prepare props, authentic return gifts etc.”
When did Deepa actually want to get into cinema? She quips, “I pitched for a film for art direction. Earlier I would do Christmas decorations in hotels, did the launch of Ocean Park with 100 character costumes and people thought I could be a costume designer. I did a movie, the first one was Rockford and got appreciated. That was followed by an offer from Shyam Prasad Reddy for Arundathi. I was doing a Hindi film as an associate producer and costume designer and that was when I got a call from Shyam’s office. I went with the sketches and they asked me if I could design some clothes and give it to them. They wanted to test me and I refused. I actually had done enough sketches and I had people taking my work gladly and not hiring me. Shyam’s team said they can’t give me the work and as I was returning, I was called back and given a cassette. It contained the description of the five main characters. They said that after listening to the character description and I still didn’t feel like giving the sketches they are fine with it. Within 15 minutes of listening to the cassette, I had made up my mind to work for this film. I gave them the sketches and took pictures of some unique pieces of jewellery I had designed. They enquired the number of days I would be taking to create a costume. They told me the set was ready, so I went to see the set to get the vibe and I gave the costumes in a day. I took ten thousand rupees to purchase the fabric and the next day I dressed up Anushka. As Anushka was walking down the stairs, Shyam decided I would be the costume designer. They had reportedly hired quite a few people, paid them and they weren’t happy with the outcome.”
Deepa continues, “I then dressed the Aghori. The brief given to me was that the villain should look glamorous. I would work on a male model every day and give them what they wanted. Shyam liked the outfits and the team was speechless. My heart was thumping so loud that every one could hear it. He saw Anushka and Aghori and said let’s roll the camera. Later when the film released and it became a huge hit, Shyam said if the costume was not right, the film would have fallen and gave me compliments. I had by then done bigger projects in other languages. I had worked in around forty films before Arundathi. When I got the Nandi Award for costumes, it was my swan song and I thought I should move out as there was nothing more challenging. I love what I do and I do it 100 percent or I don’t touch it. Cooking was a challenge, I mastered it and I could whip up any dish. Now my interest is to learn a form of painting ..we don’t get it in India, there are no online classes and I am trying to figure out something.”
Deepa has been indulging in this art and craft form since she was eleven years old. She has been creating something or the other and everything that she is learning is taking her to something big..perhaps a bigger purpose. She is not the kind to work 24×7 but she constantly works out on the solution to a problem that she is stuck at. She once along with her friends opened a shop where they broke down furniture and recycled them. Deepa’s daughters are creative too and why won’t they be? However the mother downplays all that and says whatever the girls do, they should be a good soul and how you treat people is most important which is what defines you. One of them is a lawyer and the other is an actor. Right now Deepa did something that she is proud of..she made a Ganesh (crochet) for her girls that they can travel with and do puja too. Baby Krishna is her latest creation.
There is so much one can learn from Deepa and one of it is to be a content, happy person. She shares that her children have named their house “Happiness”. Whatever Deepa does, she does it quietly and it is obvious she is not running a race. She is at peace with herself and there is no pressure on her to do anything. She says, “I believe everything happens for a reason. There is no bad person, everyone has a different interpretation of the same situation. If I and you were to draw a leaf, there is a limited chance of both of us drawing the same leaf. The same holds good for people and situations. No one is bad and no one’s Karma is interlinked with another’s. We are all accountable to what we had done in the past, also I believe money comes and goes. Lakshmi doesn’t belong to anyone but Saraswathi stays for life. You have to learn till the last and the day you stop learning, you are burying yourself alive. Never hold grudges, don’t let any negativity affect you; Once you forgive a person, you will not even remember the trauma you went through with the person.” Deepa is an energy reader too, she signs off on a simple note, “There is nothing that is constant and what is constant is you. I believe that this too shall pass. I still have so much to learn. if I turn pompous, the purpose of learning is lost. When I wake up, the only thing on my mind is coffee. I check for a pending list and if there is none, I do what I should do”…Y.Sunita Chowdhary
