Ang Lee's 'Life of Pi' emerged the biggest winner of the night with four titles to its name - Best Direction, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects.
The fact that 'Life of Pi' was shot extensively in and around Pondicherry with the help of a healthy Indian contingent is not the only connect that India has to the Oscar winning film.

Ang Lee-directed Life of Pi also boasts of an Indian cast that includes Irrfan Khan, Tabu and newcomer Suraj Sharma. But that's not all, since a number of Indians have made sure that the movie won an Oscar for the Best Visual Effects category.

Rhythm & Hues which also has offices in Mumbai and Hyderabad is the studio responsible for the stunning visual effect in the award winning 'Life of Pi' . Hundreds of Indians from across the country have been a part of the team that have worked on it. A major part of the visual effects have been done in India by Indian artists.

The pioneering VFX studio is responsible for some of the most ground-breaking visual effects work ever done. Bill Westenhofer, VFX supervisor for Rhythm & Hues Studios received the award today and this is the studio's second Oscar award as they won their first in 2008 for 'The Golden Compass'.

Several studios' VFX crews worked to make the visuals of Life of Pi a reality. The visual effects (VFX) part had some of its sequences created by a team of around 100 from the Bangalore studio of MPC ( The Moving Picture Company), one of the additional visual effects agencies that worked with the lead VFX company, Rhythm & Hues. MPC has worked on about 110 shots in native stereo, with the major sequences being the storm that sank and the sinking of the Tsimtsum - the ship in which Pi and his family travel with their horde of animals - and the denouement Storm of God sequence.

The most anticipated one of them for the Indian audiences was that of Best Original Song which would have fetched Bombay Jayashri an Oscar for lending her voice, but sadly that wasn't to be as the award went to the title track of the James Bond film 'Skyfall'.

Director Ang Lee, who won the award for second time after Brokeback Mountain, was clearly overwhelmed with the announcement and in his acceptance speech he made it a point to thank his Indian crew and even managed to sneak in a 'Namaste'.