Mumbai: Filmmaker Shoojit Sircar's film including Vicky Donor, Piku, October, or the upcoming Gulabo Sitabo, portrays his inclination towards everyday life. The director finds diversity of the ordinary in India fascinating.
"I am really influenced by normal, simple, everyday life and people, like the Biji and Dolly in Vicky Donor, who used to drink and say whatever they felt like. These characters were so lively. I have seen these people around me. I feel I am like them, even in my social media posts. I observe them, pick up notes and moments to make a film out of it," the director told PTI.
Amitabh Bachchana and Ayushmann Khurrana starrer Gulabo Sitabo, whose story is about a landlord and tenant in old Lucknow, follows the characters, living a hand-to-mouth existence while trying to outfox each other.
"I call it an ensemble cast or the world of Gulabo Sitabo which is about the lifestyle of my characters. I just go and sit there in a corner and observe these characters through my camera. That's how I shot the film. These actors feel like people picked up from real life," he said.
The main story of Mirza (Amitabh) and Baankey (Ayushmann) whose conflict has no religious angle though they come from different faiths as, according to the filmmaker, most of the people in India coexist peacefully.
"I remember I used to play football in my childhood and my team had people from different faiths and backgrounds. It had the son of the person who would take us to the school on his rickshaw or the guy who came to pick up our garbage but I never knew this. When I grew up, I was told by society, you have to become something else and he has to become something else and that divide was put in my head. My childhood didn't have that divide. We were just eight years old and would meet in the evening to play. This has had a lot of influence in my life and films," he said.
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Stating Lucknow as an old cosmopolitan city where the film was shot, Sircar said that the aim was to capture its soul by focusing on old areas like the Chowk and Hazratganj and Bachchan's get-up helped them dodge the crowds, at least initially.
"The advantage we had with this one is that in some shots they could not recognise Mr Bachchan. We would get the shot ready and then he would come. There were onlookers but they initially did not figure out who this man was. Slowly the word got around that it's Amitabh Bachchan and then the crowd came. We shot the film in bits and pieces like that," Sircar said.
Talking about Amitabh's major physical transformation, Sircar said it was to the credit of the megastar to accept characters that are challenging.
"I was not sure whether he will accept Mirza’s character this time or we will be able to pull through it because there are chances that it can go into gimmicky or unreal but we have tried our best to make him look like Mirza," he said.
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There is also a thought to present Bachchan in newer avatars through his cinema. "Because of his aura, there is always this thought to make him normal, a new character, like the ones found in old Delhi or Hazratganj," he added.
Gulabo Sitabo is slated to stream on Amazon Prime Video on June 12, becoming the first major Bollywood movie to have a direct release on a streaming platform as theatres remain shut due to novel coronavirus pandemic.
