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Top Bollywood Art Director Commits Suicide at 57

19:14, 2 August 2023

Sangeeta Yadav

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In a career spanning two decades, Bollywood art director Nitin Desai spread his magic on the big screen by creating larger-than-life sets of several movies such as “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam”, “Devdas”, “Jodha Akbar”, “Lagaan”, and “Bajirao Mastani”, among others.

Sputnik

Bollywood has been rocked by the death of ace art director Nitin Desai, a four-time National Award winner for Best Art Direction. He was found hanging from the ceiling of his ND Studio in Maharashtra state's Karjat city on Wednesday morning.

While the initial investigation suggests that he died by suicide, police are yet to share an official statement on the cause of death.

According to reports, Desai had opened a sprawling studio in the Khalapur taluka village on the outskirts of Mumbai city, where films like "Jodha Akbar" were filmed.

Desai's company, ND's Art World Pvt Ltd, borrowed INR 1.85 billion ($22.40 million) through two loans in 2016 and 2018.

However, since 2020, the art director, who has worked with several veteran filmmakers, including Ashutosh Gowarikar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, had faced trouble with repayment.

Bollywood celebrities, including superstars Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Manoj Bajpayee, Riteish Deshmukh, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, Madhur Bhandarkar, and others, are deeply shocked and heartbroken by the loss of the art director. They expressed that his untimely demise is a significant blow to the Hindi film industry.

Netizens mourn the demise of top Bollywood art director, Nitin Desai, who committed suicide at his ND Studio in Maharashtra's Karjat city.

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