Padmini Mirchandani of India Book House lets us in on the project that is still under wraps. “We had been planning this book for a while but could not find an appropriate writer. Then Jerry Pinto agreed to do the text. Since we had worked with Sheena Sippy on Lights, Camera, Masala, we wanted her to be our visual consultant since she knows the industry and is a good judge of aesthetic content,” says Mirchandani about the book that has a photo-album quality to it.

Pinto, who has also done a book on Helen, Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb, says that his fascination with Bollywood posters began at a time when it was not ‘fashionable’. “I tend to collect stuff at the wrong time.

In fact, I threw it all out just when it started become a collector’s item,” he jokes. On a more serious note he points out that “I don’t believe there is a fully developed market yet for poster art and most of the books that have come out on Bollywood posters have either dealt with the poster as a social signifier or an extension of the cinematic medium. I hope the text of this book will combine both these with some aesthetic judgment,” says Pinto.

Publishers like Mirchandani see publications on pop culture growing, and soon people will be able to appreciate a poster for its aesthetic value. Currently, it depends more on nostalgia, like ‘how much it reminds me of my favourite film’, more than aesthetic value.