One of the beautiful sets created by Chanda in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Guwahati, Aug. 12: He created the stark sets of The Legend of Bhagat Singh, which fetched him a national award, and the grandiose backdrop of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, which supposedly inspired both the reel and real-life romance of Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai.

Born in Assam and made in Mumbai, art director Prosenjit Chanda is now planning a foray back home to create the most expensive set ever conceived for an Assamese film or television production. The sets will be for a television serial by veteran Kulada Kumar Bhattacharyya.

Chanda, who hails from Guwahati, said from Mumbai that he was thrilled to be able to give back something to his state. ?I am quite excited about working in my hometown. I visited Guwahati in December last and did some homework for the project.?

Assam?s busiest set designers, Nuruddin Ahmed and Phatik Barua, charge between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh for each project, but Chanda will get Rs 6 lakh in keeping with his reputation. His brief is to create a working women?s hostel with every detail clearly etched.

Bhattacharjee, who has dabbled in theatre, films and teleserials, will depict Guwahati as the melting pot of ethnicity in his latest venture. The woman-oriented plot of the 13-part serial, titled Gateway, has characters from all the states of the region.

The director said the serial would be in ?Hinglish?, considering the fact that it is the link language of choice of the region?s urban population.

On whether mounting an expensive set is the only way to make his television series click, Bhattacharjee said: ?I cannot ignore the demands of my script. To make the story authentic on screen, I have decided to spend the required amount. Budgetary constraints will always be there, but somebody has to introduce positive trends for the growth and development of our industry.?

Ahmed lauded Bhattacharjee for selecting Chanda as his set designer despite the high expenditure. ?We have to work on a limited budget and Bollywood opulence is hard to create. But once someone like Chanda steps in and does something, other directors will have to come up with new ideas. It will open up the field for others, too.?

A graduate from the J.J. School of Arts, Chanda was an assistant to art director Nitin Desai during the making of Badshah. He is at present working on an Anglo-Indian project, Kuch Din Kuch Pal and several films, including Chand Ke Us Par and Parjaaniya.

Chanda and his eight-member team will start work at Jyoti Chitraban in Guwahati on August 22. Shooting will commence on September 3.