Provisioning for a film set in a new, real city would make it as real as they come

Architects becoming directors and set designers in search of more creative licence is a fairly well-known phenomenon —in Hollywood as well as India. It is rare, however, to find instances of the reverse: film directors being co-opted into actual architectural projects, let alone one to build an entirely new city. So, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu must be commended for taking a leap of faith and enlisting the help of S S Rajamouli, the director of the Telugu blockbuster Baahubali — who conceptualised the fictional city of Mahishmati in Hyderabad's Ramoji Film City — for the buildings of the state's new capital, Amaravati. Hopefully, Rajamouli will be mindful of earthly limitations of structural mechanics and sheer practicalities when visualising the Amaravati edifices, as there will be no magic special-effects wand to bend the laws of physics and architecture.

Not that there are no movie-set-like ' cities' elsewhere: Disneyland is the obvious example. No doubt aesthetic and historic cohesiveness in urban design is important. However, given that the Game-of-Thrones-like celluloid city of Mahishmati was influenced by Roman and Greek precepts besides Ajanta, Ellora and Mahabalipuram according to its production designer, it remains to be seen what authentic historical memes will be brought to bear on modern Amaravati.