By Subhash K Jha

Never before has any film from any part of the world been converted from its original colour scheme to a black-and-white format merely because the latter seems more suited to the mood and theme.

But that's precisely what director Bhavna Talwar is doing at this very moment with Happi, her homage to Charlie Chaplin with Pankaj Kapoor in his first acting role in 5 years, playing a desi Chaplin.

It is quite simply the most unthinkable tribute from one artiste to another. Filmmaker Bhavna Talwar shot and completed a film Happi with Pankaj Kapoor playing a neo-Chaplin going through a series of almost-silent Chapliesque adventures in Mumbai.

The film was to be released on Chaplin's birth anniversary on 16 April, has now been postponed, with very good reason.

Chamelon-like actor that he is, Pankaj Kapoor will now be seen in a fully black-and-white film.

Happi is at this very moment being converted from its original colour to a black-and-whie format...We've had recent films in Hindi like Mughal-e-Azam, Naya Daur and Hum Dono that were converted from the original black-and-white to colour. But no feature film in any part of the world has ever been changed frame-to-frame from colour to black-and-white.

Says Talwar, "It seemed like a mad and expensive thing to do. But it also seemed right for the theme. If we're doing a homage to Charlie Chaplin we need to take it to highest threshold that a homage could go.

When we saw the finished product and how profoundly sincere a tribute Pankajji had paid to Chaplin we couldn't resist turning it into black-and-white because that was the colour complexion of Chaplin's cinematic world. "

Bhavna admits it's been an arduous journey. "We've gone from frame to frame with our colour revision. We also got a new film editor Sreekar Prasad to re-edit the black-and-white material. Now in the non-colour version Pankaj-ji will be seen paying the ultimate tribute to Chaplin. "