Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory, and so realistic was his creation that he fell in love with it. He prayed to goddess Aphrodite for a bride who would be “the living likeness of my ivory girl” and the wish that he did not dare express-to bring his statue to life-was granted by the goddess. Galatea was brought to life.

Using this legend, George Bernard Shaw wrote his most popular play Pygmalion in 1912, which in turn was turned into an even more successful Broadway musical My Fair Lady (1956), which was turned into a film in 1964. Even before Shaw’s play, there was WS Gilbert’s Pygmalion and Galatea, that opened in 1871. So many years later, the appeal of the story just refuses to dim. And a version of the play is running in some part of the world. In Mumbai, there has been a great production Ti Phulrani, with Pula Deshpande doing the adaptation, and the Gujarati Santu Rangili by Madhu Rye. The number of films inspired by Pygmalion are too numerous to list.