Of missing elephants and a passion for dance
  
As red carpet events go, this one is extraordinary.
  
And no, we're not talking plunging necklines. We're talking about Vanaja, a little known Indian language film that got a special red carpet welcome in New York City on August 22 in the form of an elephant!
  
The film with no stars has travelled to more than 30 countries worldwide and shown at some 70 film festivals winning, besides winning the best debut feature film award at the Berlin International Film Festival.
  
The distributor of Emerging Pictures had hired an elephant to welcome writer and director Rajnesh Domalpalli and the luminous Mamatha Bhukya, who plays the title role.
  
The premiere took place at an elegant venue on August 22 at one of the Lincoln Center theatres. The film, which revolves around a young woman (Mamatha), daughter of a fisherman, whose passion for dance takes her into the corridors of the rich and powerful, changing her destiny forever, is being released in New York on August 31.
  
It is expected to travel to at least 15 cities in America and Canada.
  
Text: Arthur J Pais | Photographs: Jay Mandal
  

Of missing elephants and a passion for dance
  
The sight of the elephant reminded director Domalpalli, who gave up a career as an engineer to pursue a filmmaking degree at Columbia University, of his frustrations over getting an elephant while shooting the Telugu language film in the interiors of Andhra Pradesh.
  
"We wanted to find an elephant locally to save it a long truck ride," he reminisces.
  
"An agent in Mumbai promised to get us a temple elephant close to the coastal city of Vizag. So we sent a crew, parking ourselves in a hotel and waiting until he arrived there and secured the elephant. We called him on his cellphone where he assured us that he was minutes away and held up in traffic. Hours later, there was still no sign of him."
  
"Repeated calls over that day and the next brought the explanations that he had to run here and there to locate the elephant. Each phone call ended with assurances that we were almost there. A few days later, on a hunch, we called him from another telephone, pretending to be someone else. Our suspicions were confirmed. We found out that he hadn't even left Mumbai. We had to look for another agent who had to fetch the elephant from a longer distance."
  

Of missing elephants and a passion for dance
  
For Mamatha, who was 14 when shooting began three years ago, this is the first visit to America. She had travelled with Domalpalli to the Berlin International Film Festival.
  
She can offer a list of things she loves in New York including its parks and gardens but cannot understand why the food is not spicy.
  
More than 250 invitees who packed the auditorium on Wednesday found it difficult to believe that the debut-making writer and director had assembled a cast of non-professionals.
  
They seemed to have a greater problem believing that Mamatha was an absolute newcomer who began learning Kuchpudi dance only after she was signed for the film, and that she had mastered the basic rudiments in just about a year.
  
Mamatha, who was repeatedly cheered at the end of the brief Q and A, said that it took her a day or two to get comfortable before the camera. Just before she joined the film's production team for a 22-hour long journey to the shooting location from Hyderabad, her mother spent a few minutes warding off nazar (black eye), she said chuckling.
  
"My mother took some black chilies and salt in her fist, and wave them around my head," she said. "She then took the broomstick and moved it from my toes to my head."
  
Did it help?
  
"Haven't you see me in the film?" she replies.