What was once the dream of yesteryear stalwart Dilip Kumar, along with other visionaries Sunil Dutt, Amjad Khan, Asha Parekh, Chandrashekhar, Amrish Puri, Dara Singh and Ram Mohan, has now turned a reality with the towering CINTAA Tower, a building that will be the permanent address of the Cine & TV Artistes’ Association in Mumbai’s plush suburb of Andheri West.

This move will see Cine & TV Artistes’ Association (CINTAA) grow more impactful with the only union to have its own building equipped with a two-story auditorium and will also bring to life the dream of the yesteryears’ stars in the form of a brick-and-mortar state-of-the-art avatar with a welfare center, conference rooms, cafeteria and rooms for workshops, stated a press release issued in New Delhi on behalf of the artistes’ industry body.

“Our stalwarts did not just dream. They acted on their dreams to safeguard the interests of the artistes working in the film fraternity. Their want to give back was as strong as their passion for the craft,” said CINTAA general-secretary Amit Behl, adding those who gave shape to the future have been immortalized in a ‘Wall of Fame’ at the building.

Behl admitted that this was the result of more than four decades of selfless work, “We are fortunate to have artistes who believe in unselfishly helping their fellow actors who need the aid.”

According to him, in 1991, luminaries of Indian cinema like Dilip Kumar, Sunil Dutt, Mithun Chakraborty, Amjad Khan and Asha Parekh came together to establish the Cine Artiste Welfare Trust (CAWT), a sister concern of CINTAA. Their mission was to garner support for the welfare of artists in the industry. The genesis of this story is the construction of a tower, a testament to their dedication.

“These cinematic icons secured a plot of land along the Juhu-Versova Link Road for the construction of a tower to benefit CINTAA members. However, due to coastal regulation zone restrictions, they had to relinquish that land. A new plot was provided. The foundation stone for the tower was laid in 2011 by the late Dilip Kumar (along with) Aamir Khan and Johny Lever among others,” Behl added.

The opening done by actor Asha Parekh had the likes of Subhash Ghai attending as the guest of honour. Others who graced the occasion, according to the press release, included Dr Bharati Lavekar, MLA of the Versova constituency, and actors Raj Babbar, Jackie Shroff, Johny Lever, Ila Arun, Boman Irani, Amol Gupte,  Pankaj Tripathi, Govind Namdev,  Rajit Kapoor, Sham Sunny Kaushal, Ranvir Shorey. Seema Pahwa, Eram Faridi, Gaurav Chanana, Prithvi Soni, Shishir Sharma, Lt Col KK Puri, Nandita Puri, Ishaan Om Puri, Manoj Joshi, Amit Behl, Preeti Sapru, Darshan Jariwalla, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Ayub Khan, Tinaa Ghaai, Jaya Bhattacharya Abhay Bhargava, Deepak Qazir Kejriwal and Ravi Jhankal.