Describing this two and half hour film, to be released both in Hindi and Marathi ``as authentic as a documentary and as dramatic as a feature film'' the Palekars with their film unit are packing their bags now to complete the shooting in Mumbai, where Karve spent the prime part of his life.

It was in Mumbai that Karve taught mathematics and simultaneously editing the bold weekly Samajswasthya in the 1920s, which contained articles on sex education and family planning which shocked orthodox Maharashtrians. In fact, he, along with his wife, Malati (enacted by Bandit Queen heroine, Seema Biswas in the film), had started a family planning clinic in Mumbai, much to theshock of the conservative society.

Scheduled to be ready by the end of 1999, this one and a half crore government-funded project is seen as ``a great challenge'' by Amol Palekar. Addressing a jam-packed press conference on Wednesday afternoon he explained that ``R D Karve, the son of the eminent social reformer Dr D K Karve who was the pioneer of women's emancipation, went a step ahead of his illustrious father, in those orthodox times to become the pioneer to propagate birth control in a scientific manner. He spearheaded this movement which later came to be known as `family planning' and which is currently called `family welfare.''

Palekar believes that ``despite his magnanimous contribution to the society he is not at all well-known. He should have been known and remembered for his fiery mission till today since family planning and women's freedom are two issues which are relevant even today.'' And it is precisely to recall the great missionary and visionary that he was, that inspired Palekar along witha former and senior films division producer, Vijay Chandra to approach the Central and State Governments to make a full-length film, about two years back.

Palekar states happily, ``This is the first-ever film funded by the government on a person who is not a political figure and most importantly both the governments immediately cleared the proposal.''

In Pune, to shoot the early life of Karve, it was the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute that witnessed the wedding scenario of Dr D K Karve's second marriage to a widow, which had taken the city by storm. At that time young R D Karve was about 10 years old, which is enacted by Pune lad Nimish Katale. Other locales were the ashram at Hingne, outskirts of Kivel village, located off the Westerly Bypass, about eight kilometres from Balewadi and the Ranadewada at Kivle. Palekar informed that ``Karve's early years were spent in Pune and therefore we devoted a full 10 days for the shooting out of the scheduled 45 days in all.''

Theatre and television artistAshok Kadam plays Karve while Sanjay Pawar enacts the role of Karve senior. Palekar informed that ``the shooting of the Hindi and Marathi film is going on simultaneously with the relevant actors and actresses delivering dialogues in Hindi and then in Marathi. No dubbing - both are original.''

Palekar was all praise for Seema Biswas' Marathi diction. ``She has a very sweet Marathi accent which had cameraman Deboo Deodhar, who normally is not bothered about dialogues, while his eye is behind the camera, appreciating her diction.''

Script and dialogue has been written by Chitra Palekar who seems to be enjoying this experience the most. She states that ``The main research has been done through the Samajswasthya weekly which R D Karve edited for 27 long years and which give an insight into his vision and personality.'' Y D Phadke's book also helped and ``we spoke at length to R D Karve's younger brother's children and grandchildren and some other relatives living in Pune.''