A tryst with reality
When my friend watched Pink, he was like, ‘Oh, this is the same incident and looks absolutely the same. SHOOJIT SIRCAR, FILM-MAKER
Apart from being back-toback box office successes, film-maker Shoojit Sircar’s movies have another common thread — a tryst with real-world elements. That was true for his directorial debut, Yahaan (2005) and held true for his latest National Awardwinning production, Pink (2016), as well. “When I was part of the theatre group, Act One, in Delhi, every boy [in the group] had the daily task of dropping the girls [in the group] to their homes once the rehearsals ended after 8 in the evening. And it was done especially for girls, who lived far off,” says Shoojit.
The Piku (2015) director goes on to explain: “One day, my [male] friend, a girl and I were on our way to drop her off when we saw something similar to whatever you watched in Pink happen in another car. I am talking about around the mid-90s. We went to the police station and tried to file a complaint,” he says.
When it came to putting a similar incident together for Pink, Shoojit says he “tried to present the same milieu” and whatever he saw at that moment. “When my friend watched Pink, he was like, ‘oh, this is the same incident and looks absolutely the same,’” he says.
Shoojit points out that while Piku showed “a very different and funny side of Delhi”, Vicky Donor (2012) has the flavour of places such as Daryaganj and Lajpat Nagar. “But in Pink, I have captured the dark side of the city, which is also a reality,” he says. “That’s why one could feel the eerie atmosphere. That’s why the three girls [in Pink], and the people watching the film would feel scared whenever the bell rang [in the film].”
Shoojit tries to put across whatever he has “seen and experienced” personally, through his films. “I use those experiences as reference points. I have lived in Delhi for so long. I have seen, lived and moved around in places such as Malviya Nagar and Chittaranjan Park, the shots of which you see in my films. That’s why I can capture the essence of that milieu so minutely,” he says.