Small town India continues to inspire Bollywood tales. The latest hot spot is Bareilly where director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari has set her latest romantic comedy, Bareilly Ki Barfi. Inspired by a line from the French novel Ingredients of Love, Ashwiny asked her spouse, writer-director Nitesh Tiwari, to develop the screenplay. Though a Mumbai girl, Ashwiny says she understands Hindi heartland. “When I was in advertising, I travelled across the country; I know the pulse of our country. Because of my advertising background, research comes naturally to me. I study the characters, the place, the clothes and the behavioural pattern. Tomorrow, if I shoot a film in Mumbai, I will do the same thing because growing up in Mumbai doesn’t necessarily mean that I know everything about Mumbai,” says Ashwiny, who spent couple of months in Bareilly to get the nuances right. The fact that her first fillm Nil Battey Sannata was also shot in Uttar Pradesh helped.
Reflecting on the plot, Ashwiny says, it is about Bitti, whose father has a sweet shop. “Like any other girl of the country today, she wants to live life on her own terms but her parents feel that she should get married. However, she has certain quirks which come in the way of her getting the right guy. At one level, it explores her relationship with her parents.” And at another it is a love triangle. The trailer gives us a feel of Tanu Weds Manu. Ashwiny denies any direction inspiration. “I don’t think so, it is very slice of life kind of film and is a very individualistic take. The mother-daughter nok-jhonk has come from the relationship that I share with my mother.”
Ashwiny adds that the film’s individuality also reflects in casting where she has placed actors against their type. “Ayushmann Khurrana is always seen as a simple guy from small town. Here he is a clever, smart boy, whose moral centre can shift — but is not bad-hearted.” Similarly, she has cast Kriti Sanon as Bitti against her urbane image. “People haven’t seen this side of hers. She is very expressive and her eyes can speak volumes.” But the most “challenging part” is that of Rajkumar Rao, who gets to play multiple shades as a closet writer. Then there are seasoned players like Pankaj Tripathi and Seema Pahwa whom Ashwiny doesn’t like to call supporting actors. They are “building blocks” who generate the mood before the youngsters take over.
Delving into the reasons of Hindi film industry’s growing fascination for love stories set in small towns, Ashwiny says these places provide her wider landscape for her characters to perform. “ Most of the people who come to work in big cities are from smaller towns. Youngsters who come to study in metros tend to stay back but their core still remains the same.” Ultimately, they become multiplex audience and want to look back at their journey? “Exactly! They still carry the quintessential small town soul. For instance, they are not used to space constraint in Mumbai. They are the audience who come to watch this space.”
Shrinking attention span
It seems we are collectively seeking a wave of nostalgia. “India is changing but one thing that has not changed is our culture. Even today, it is extremely fashionable to wear a salwar kameez during a Diwali function. As storytellers, our duty is to tell something new all the time. And the fresh take can come from many things, including nostalgia. The bottomline is that the attention span has come down to the click of a button. So you can’t afford to bore them,” reflects Ashwiny.
It seems a bit paradoxical that this generation with a low attention span wants to watch an imaginary space where there is lot of time to pass, where silences still have a role to play.
“It is because materialism has seeped too much into our lives. Everything is available at the click of a button. There is an excess of choice. If there are channels, there are 100 to choose from. If you go to buy a toothpaste, you have ten varieties to choose from. I don’t think we have time for savouring something. We are not enjoying the whole process of cooking and sitting quietly without any noise. With so many tools of communication around us, we have forgotten how to live a simple life,” analyses Ashwiny.
“When I was child,” she rewinds, “we had open doors. In the sense that when I used to return from school, my neighbourhood aunty would know that I had come back. If food was prepared in their house, it would invariably come into our home. When my mother fell ill, I could easily eat in the neighbour’s house. These days we don’t know our neighbours. It is the security guard who keeps track of who is living where. I don’t know how many kids go to the park to play as there are so much into gadgets. Now we want to go back, and such films provide a window.”
It shows that the aspirations of the generation has changed. “There is no preconceived aspiration per se. There was a time when travelling abroad was a big thing, buying foreign brands was aspirational — not any more. Now the aspiration is like I want to write; I want to grow some vegetables, if I could. It may be because of better financial security, this generation doesn’t think too much about the future. People want to slow down. For them, it is okay not to be busy. Students taking break from studies to do a course in ceramics or do social service was inconceivable in our times. This fearlessness of this generation is reflecting in cinema.”
Talking of nostalgia, the film’s crux where Bitti falls in love with the writing of a novelist, whom she has not seen, reminds of the 90s as these days authors are almost as visible as film stars.
Ashwiny says it could still be true in Hindi literature where many authors write under a pen name. And then films do take some leap of faith. “But we are very objective about the world we create,” avers Ashwiny. Of course, in fact Nitesh is a master of it. The way he made Bhootnath Returns plausible is an example of how intrinsic logic could be maintained in a larger than life Hindi film. Ashwiny insists that there is no formula in the way they collaborate. “It is like any two creative people working together. We are thorough professionals and we both believe in working according to a structure. We build the basic structure together and then ensure that our roles don’t overlap.”
Missing rough edges?
The growing number of advertising professionals in film industry have brought realism back in business but in their own colour and symmetry. More often than not the rough edges, the ugly truths get covered in pastel shades and matte finishes.
Ashwiny doesn’t agree. “I think it all comes from research and real life only. It also depends on how you are pitching the story and the look. You can make dirty looking things look beautiful. Woody Allen also made many mundane things look beautiful.” For Nil Battey..., Ashwiny says the colour scheme emerged from research.
After a pause, she adds, “Every storytelling has to be aspirational at the end of the day. It was a story about struggle but if you don’t show it in positive light, audience will not feel good about it. You can’t tell a positive story in a morose way. This generation also wants to be cheerful....”