But Taj Mahal was anything but easy, Anna is quick to add. It took over two years of her time. “At the end of it, most of my friends had begun addressing me ‘jahanpanah’,” she quips. With the movie picturing the royalty who lived and ruled about four centuries back, remaining true to the costumes of the time without many reference points at her disposal was tough, explains Anna.

“The material that we needed was not the stuff that was easily available on the Internet,” says Anna. But that’s where “historian in his own right” and the director of the movie, Akbar Khan came to her aid.

“Akbar had some miniature paintings of the time. We did a lot of research on the location. I was back to my history classes,” recounts Anna. “We had to work around the traits of all characters. Since, all the characters had a distinct personality, it gave a lot of scope to work with,” says Anna.

Though there were reference points, especially Bollywood period films of the 1950’s and 60’s like Taj Mahal and Mughal-e-Azam, Anna says the motto followed was to make Akbar Khan’s film unlike an y of those that came earlier.

“The idea was to give the film a fresh look,” she says. So, armed with books on Moghul times, paintings and evolution of Moghul motifs, Anna went on to dress up Shah Jahan, Mumtaz Mahal, Noor Jahan and an entire army belonging to the Moghul era.

“I realised that Noor Jahan was this fantastic princess, a diva who was deeply influenced by the West,” says Anna. So, Pooja Batra who played Noor Jahan, got to wear a lot of velvet cloaks and even gowns that were inspired by the West. “Sonya Jahan was beautiful as Mumtaz. I dressed her predominantly in whites keeping the marbled Taj Mahal in mind,” says Anna.

The costumes for Shah Jahan were challenging too for Anna. If the young and love-lorn Shah Jahan wore “robust and dynamic” clothes, Anna had to keep in mind the “aging factor” when it came to the clothes of the older Shah Jahan, played by Kabir Bedi.

“We had to pay attention to the most minute details to portray the aging process. We divided the aging factor to five different phases,” she elaborates.

“In the movie, we were dealing with serious royalty who wore rich colours and a lot of sapphires, emeralds and topaz. Most of the costumes were woven from Moghul paintings. The idea was to keep away from contemporary fabrics. I even converted an antique Moghul umbrella to a garment,” she recollects the Taj Mahal experience.

“Anna’s talent lay in the perfect colour scheme she brought to the screen,” says director Akbar Khan. “If there were ten characters in a scene, she made sure that the costume of each one complemented the other well,” he adds.

But according to Anna, the toughest part of Taj Mahal was doing the crowns. “The topis were mostly in pure gold or silver, bejewelled with Swarovski crystals, and then the features. Each crown took almost tw o months to finish. That was the toughest cookie to crack,” Anna says.

For now, after two period films in the kitty – Taj Mahal and J.P. Dutta’s Umrao Jaan – Anna is taking a break from period films. She is busy with Ajay Devgan’s directorial venture and Subha sh Ghai’s next movie.

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