Subah-e-Banaras Book
A collector's edition coffee table book on the mornings of Banaras, produced by Moonlight Pictures with Jagran Prakashan and written by Late Pt. Dharmsheel Chaturvedi.
The Book
Subah-e-Banaras is a collector's edition coffee table book on the mornings of Banaras, produced by Moonlight Pictures with Jagran Prakashan and written by the litterateur and poet Late Pt. Dharmsheel Chaturvedi.
The book and the Subah-e-Banaras documentary were conceived together as a single cultural project, first envisioned by Vikas Chandra, Vice President of Marketing at Jagran. They were researched, produced and launched as one. In the finished product the book sits in a collection box alongside the 5.1 channel-mixed DVD of the film.
How We Made It
A book sits open on a table and is read at arm's length, so production value drove most of the decisions.
The author. The writing was taken up by Late Pt. Dharmsheel Chaturvedi, a lifelong poet and a Kashi man. The project's research followed his pen rather than preceding it — work on the book and film began in earnest once the initial drafts of his creative text started arriving from his desk.
Research past the landmarks. The narrow lanes of Varanasi, the culture and the people became our life for the several months that followed. Experts and advisors led us to places and practices we would not otherwise have found. Where most books on a city reach for its landmarks, this one went to the daily moments, and the research collaged itself into the expansive pictorial journey the book became.
A single object, book and film together. The DVD art was held in continuity with the book, and the two were built to be received as one thing rather than as a book with a disk attached. In production, the DVD resides in the collection box with the coffee table book in a single package.
Where It Landed
The book was launched with the film at the official ceremony held at Hotel Surya, Varanasi on 3 October 2017, in the presence of the Hon'ble Governor of Uttar Pradesh Shri Ram Naik, Padma Vibhushan Late Smt. Girija Devi and Padma Bhushan Shri Channu Lal Mishra, among others.
The book is held in libraries and private collections. Although the film has been released free to the public on YouTube, Jagran continues to receive orders for the physical disk and the collection box.
