New Delhi, “Daayra” director Meghna Gulzar says the outrage she feels over questions of crime and justice has fuelled some of her work but she believes cinema must also keep hope alive and encourage conversations that could eventually lead to change.
Meghna, whose upcoming film deals with the aftermath of a rape and murder and the functioning of the justice system, said she does not want to lose optimism though there are issues that trouble her.
“There is outrage in me, I will not deny it and there has been for many years but one can’t lose hope, one cannot stop being optimistic. Therefore, all I can do is create cinema that helps to keep that hope alive, or ask the question, or maybe enforce change,” the director of critically-acclaimed movies such as “Talvar”, “Raazi”, “Chhapaak” and “Sam”, told PTI during a media interaction in the national capital on Wednesday evening.
Meghna said she saw a form of redemption in the developments that followed the release of her earlier films “Talvar” and “Chhapaak”, which also engaged with questions of crime, justice and social change.
“Talvar”, released in 2015, was based on the 2008 Noida double murder case of a teenager and the domestic help.
“Chhapaak”, released in 2020, was based on the life of acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal and examined the aftermath of such attacks and the fight for tighter regulation of acid sales.
“When I made ‘Talvar’, there was no sight of any kind of closure to that story. It was after the film was released and many years later that a high court judgment came, and it exonerated the Talwar family. So for me that is redemption,” she said.
“With ‘Chhapaak’, there was a re-look at the regulation of the sale of acid, for me that is redemption. I am hoping that with ‘Daayra’, these questions also lead to some kind of improvements, or at least beginning to think of ways to improve our law enforcement and our judicial system. That is the only hope that we can’t lose sight of. We can’t stop hoping,” she added.
Starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran in the lead roles, “Daayra” is set in the aftermath of a gruesome gangrape and murder case that sparks widespread outrage and sets a series of events and two investigations in motion.
As the search for answers deepens, two senior police officers DCP Ajooni Kohli and DCP Raman Kumar Prithviraj Sukumaran, find themselves on opposing sides of a case, navigating the same system with contrasting approaches to duty and justice, according to the official synopsis.
While many people have found similarities between the film’s narrative and the 2019 Hyderabad rape-murder case, Meghna said it is not based any one particular incident.
The filmmaker acknowledged that “Daayra” explores themes of crime, punishment and justice similar to those in “Talvar” and “Chhapaak”, but said there was no deliberate plan to create a trilogy.
“It’s purely a coincidence. It’s not by design. And I think the attraction comes from the story… The overarching arcs of law and justice, and crime and punishment, are coincidentally similar in the films. But for me, the most crucial part of a story that attracts me is the human quotient,” she said.
For “Daayra”, Meghna said she chose Kareena to play DCP Ajooni as she wanted to break the conventional image of female cops in Hindi cinema.
“So I wanted to interpret a journey of a female police officer a little differently from the way we have seen female police officers in our films. And because Kaveena had such an opposite perception, that this is the kind of person she is Bubbly, energetic and always comic and hyperactive,” she said.
“I really thought that it would be a refreshing take to have her perform a character as centered and as unreadable as Ajooni is,” she added.
The filmmaker said she chose Prithviraj Sukumaran as DCP Raman because she did not want the film to be tied to a particular region or language.
“Daayra” is set in a fictional state in India rather than a specific city or state, she said, as the incidents explored in the film could happen anywhere in the country.
“I did not want to have a regional or a geographic identity to the film because these are incidents which happen everywhere across the country. So I wanted an actor who is not from Hindi cinema and from one of the South Indian industries,” she said.
“And the first name that came to my mind was Prithviraj because I admired him as an actor and I really wanted to work with him. And again, it is my good fortune that I went to him and he loved the story, he loved the film and he agreed to do the part,” she added.
Produced by Junglee Pictures and Pen Studios, “Daayra” is scheduled to release in theatres on Friday.
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