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Spotlight
on Taj Mahal's marble cancer at IFFI
Thursday November 25, 2010 03:34:09 PM,
IANS
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Panaji:
Jay Bajaj's short environmental film "The man who saved the Taj
Mahal" is being screened at the ongoing 41st International Film
festival of India. The movie focuses on lawyer-activist M.C.
Mehta's solo battle to save the Taj Mahal, plagued by ‘marble
cancer'.
"Marble cancer is a common word with eco-people. It's used by the
scientists all the time," says Bajaj, a Canada-based filmmaker,
who doubles his time between the cold north American country and
sunny Goa.
"Mehta has spent all his life fighting for the cause. If he would
have been in America, he would have been world's richest lawyer of
Class Action suites. Here he fights all this from his own pocket.
He is a true crusader," Bajaj says, adding that one lecture by
Mehta at a environment-related conference in New York caught his
complete attention.
The film is being screened in the Short Film centre (SFC) section
at IIFI.
Born in Dhangri, near Jammu, Mehta moved to Delhi in 1983 and it
was on his public interest litigation that the Supreme Court
directed that the polluting industries and traffic in and around
the 17th century heritage site located in Agra, be moved away.
That saved the once pristine tomb from ‘marble cancer', which is a
slow degradation process of the white stone over a period of
years.
After the Taj litigation, Mehta's subsequent PILs dealt with
dumping of effluents in the Ganga and banning public transport in
Delhi from using gasoline and diesel fuel.
"It's a shame that on one hand we say ‘India is Shining' and then
we are destroying the icons of our cultural heritage," Bajaj said
referring to the Taj Mahal. "I have used a short clip of Bill
Clinton outside Taj Mahal, at the end of the film," added Bajaj,
saying this could lend it a very powerful appeal internationally.
Asked about expectations from his film being screened at the IFFI,
he said: "Hope people will become more aware of the eco threats
around us and perhaps a broadcaster will buy for India
distribution so that more people can be reached through other
mediums."
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