Mere Mehboob Muslim Palette

'Ganga Jammuna'

The attitude of the now independent producers towards the new craze for colors is best reflected in an incident related by Sudhendu Roy. H.S. Rawail was very keen for Roy to design Mere Mehboob[1963] but was not sure how he would handle color. "Do you know how to design for a color film?" he asked Roy. "Of course," replied Roy,"I have just done the art direction of Ganga Jammuna [1961]". H.S. Rawail was not at all impressed. "This is no color film," he said."It looks like a black and white film. where are the colors?" Out of a perverse desire to score a point, Roy proceeded to design Rawail's film using a palette only of pastel shades. Since then all "Muslim social" have had to follow the same palette.
~ Shama Zaidi in an article 'Design in Indian Cinema'

New colors (2004) of Mughal-e-Azam

Muslim palette from Mere Mehboob