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e also women who’ve also gone to [various] extents to get what they want, and there men who’ve refused these kind of women; folded their hands and said,’ sorry, madam please leave…’ so you can’t just say this is the only thing that’s happening.” — Taj Express is a ride through the ups and downs experienced by those who are entrenched in the industry. “It’s not all happy and fun and glory; it also dabbles with the angst of the creator who has to go to these lengths to make a formulaic success story within the script,” explains Merchant. “So what are the issues and what are the problems that Shankar’s character, who’s [an] aspirant music director, faces? It’s really bizarre you know because he’s having a conversation with a director over his food and he’s being asked to churn out a certain number overnight. And these are all true stories.” The chaos and unpredictability you see on stage is an echo of the craziness in real life. Merchant offers an anecdote to illustrate the point. “Like even Swag Se Swagat [from Tiger Zinda Hai in 2017]... we were holding onto a song which was made six months ago, but exactly three [or] four days before we were leaving for Greece, we suddenly changed the song and Swag Se Swagat came in. [Since then it’s become] a hit, obviously.” When she talks about the #MeToo wave threatening to drown Bollywood by revealing abuse of power, Merchant gets very animated. She wonders why one needs to go industry by industry to focus on the issue. “Forget industry, you are looking at a shadow of society,” she says.
“Every girl in her lifetime, be it a sister, mother, friend, me, you, we’ve all gone through some kind of harassment, whether it’s sexual, whether it’s emotional. It depends on what dose it comes in, whether it’s mild, whether it’s too harsh. But I believe this, that every girl in her lifetime has gone through this. There’ll be very few exceptions,” she adds.
She does, however, have something to say to people who wait to speak up about it. “If you’ve gone through something like this, you must seek your justice or whatever it takes to bring your dignity back to you. You do it right there and then. It can’t be an afterthought. It shouldn’t be an afterthought because it damages you that much further. Like if you’ve waited for 18 years; you’ve waited for eight years; if you’ve waited for even an hour. Don’t wait,” she stresses.
She says she herself hasn’t faced such traumatic events. “If I am uncomfortable at an area, I simply say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t wish to work with you people”.
However, she has a bone to pick with those who won’t speak up. “You can be more powerful than that person who has oppressed you, because you have to understand that the oppressor is the weaker one,” she says.