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Head to this Charlie Chaplin exhibition at Kala Ghoda Cafe, Fort
Updated On: 24 March, 2024 08:49 AM IST | Mumbai | Aastha Atray Banan
A Gujarat ved, Dr Ashok Aswani, impersonated Charlie Chaplin, even started an annual parade. On the icon’s 135th birthday, Hemant Chaturvedi exhibits his photographs of Aswani at work
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Nearly every year, Ashok would organise a parade in Adipur where children would take part, dressed up in Chaplin costumes. PICS/HEMANT CHATURVEDI
Unlike Charlie Chaplin, Dr Aswani was very happy—and funny and loved. Often, if someone came to him and was feeling low, he would prescribe ‘Watch Modern Times twice, or The Gold Rush thrice’ along with medicine,” Hemant Chaturvedi recalls. The photographer and former cinematographer (Company, Kurbaan) is speaking of the late Dr Ashok Aswani, a well-known Chaplin impersonator in Adipur, a few hours away from Bhuj.
“In 2006, I had free time between movies, and I’d heard of Dr Aswani,” says Chaturvedi. “I booked a flight, landed in Bhuj, and then took a car to Adipur, in the hopes of finding him. When I asked around at my hotel reception, they exclaimed, ‘Charlie doctor!’ and a 10-year-old dropped me to his house on a cycle. When he knocked on the door, a blue-eyed, handsome man greeted him. The photographer went on to document him in costume around Kutch—on the salt pans and cracked earth.
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