Atul Kasbekar, celebrated fashion photographer and avant-garde film producer, has come out with his Kingfisher Calendar 2018. It had a soft online release last week. People associate the calendar with Atul. At one time it was Vijay Mallya and Atul. But with the King of Good Times firmly settled in the UK and unwilling to return to India, it is left to Atul to take the Kingfisher Calendar forward each year. And he’s doing it admirably and quietly. Just like he goes about the business of making films for Bollywood. The only thing missing is the rollicking party that Mallya used to have to launch the calendar each January. It was the first big bash of the year and a much-looked-forward-to event. Atul is not really the arty-party type. I suspect he enjoys the production of his calendar and films more than the grand society splash to release them. But Mallya’s exit has not diminished the popularity of the calendar. That’s because the calendar is a product of Kingfisher Beer. Not the defunct Kingfisher Airlines. And United Breweries, the maker of Kingfisher Beer, has always been an exceptional client and paymaster, said Atul of all his dealings with the company

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This year’s Kingfisher Calendar took Atul to Croatia and it features four fresh faces (and glorious bodies, this is a bikini calendar, don’t forget) – Priyanka Karunakaran, Mitali Rannorey, Priyanka Moodley and Ishika Sharma. The girls have walked the ramp for leading designers at international fashion weeks, they have featured in ad films, and have done photo-shoots for prestigious fashion glossies. But that’s nothing. They have never featured on a calendar before. And the Kingfisher Calendar, I believe, is the most prestigious modeling assignment of all in India. Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone were Kingfisher models before they became Bollywood actresses. Atul himself once told me, “I would describe this as the motherboard of talent spotting, the lifeblood of the showbiz industry, a platform into the limelight for anybody aspiring to be a model, actress, item number girl or whatever. Before 2003 (which is when we launched the calendar), no A-list actress from Bollywood would do a bikini shot. It was always the bad girl trying to seduce the hero in the film who did it. But now, the A-list actresses consider it cool to be seen in a bikini in films or editorially. Being seen in a bikini is not cheap anymore. The calendar did it.”

His is one of the best jobs in the world. It’s has him traveling, Nikon around the neck, to exotic locations in Mauritius, Thailand, South Africa, Australia, the French Riviera, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Boracay in the Philippines, the Andaman Islands, Turkey, Greece and Goa, Ladakh and Udaipur in India, shooting sexy women in next-to-nothing bikinis. This is not his idea of fun. “It’s hard work,” said Mumbai’s ace fashion and lifestyle photographer. “But everybody wants my job and a lot of people envy me.” What Atul enjoys beyond the fun and games of the assignment, and the thrill of shooting the bikini models in picturesquely unrivaled destinations, are the simple pleasures of working with nature, using beach, sun and surf in his pictures, and making each calendar a rejuvenating and rewarding experience. The Croatian coastline this year, he said, was certainly not as wealthy or luxurious as the French and Italian Rivieras. “But it had a spartan and rustic beauty about it. Most of the area is still unspoiled by human construction. The light is stunning in the North West region of Istria, in Croatia, and gave me incredible lighting range and contrast to work with. The beaches as well are mostly rocky and give a different feel from the classic beach calendar shots. The general feedback I got on ​the 2018 Croatian edition is that it is perhaps the best ever.  But the general feedback on the 2017 Mykonos edition was also that it was the best ever. Maybe I am just getting better with age and practice!”

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He told me the story of Katrina who was a Kingfisher bikini model before her debut in the fashion-world-with-underworld-crime film Boom in 2003. “She was nothing like the Katrina of today,” Atul explained. “She was, let’s say, happily rounded and not swimsuit material at all. So I took several shots of her. And the only one I could use was of Katrina hiding her body behind a horse. Cosmically incidents happen that change people’s lives. When the 2003 calendar was launched by Shah Rukh Khan, he posed for media photographers before Katrina’s picture. And everybody asked, ‘Who’s that girl on the horse?’ That’s how Katrina Kaif happened. There was also Yana Gupta that year who subsequently entered Bollywood with an item number in Dum and Shivani Kapoor who actually got the lead role in 2007’s Saawariya but couldn’t accept it for some reason; Deepika Padukone shot for the 2008 Kingfisher calendar before her break in Om Shanti Om in 2007; there was Esha Gupta who made the 2010 calendar and then did Jannat 2 and Raaz 3D in 2012; Bruna Abdullah did the calendar in 2007 then made an entry into Bollywood with an item number in Cash the same year and with roles in Grand Masti and I Hate Luv Storys in 2010; Nargis Fakri did the calendar and starred inRockstar in 2011. I’m saying, when the Kingfisher Calendar spotlight falls on a girl she goes into orbit. Whether she reaches stratosphere or not, depends on her destiny. But this is one assignment that stays on her CV.”