‘It’s intersectional’: Neeraj Ghaywan on caste-class battle in Ajeeb Daastaans

Indian cinema typically fails in capturing the overlapping of social identities, be it caste, class, gender or sexuality, giving characters a single-dimensional therapy, says Masaan director Neeraj Ghaywan, who makes use of his cinema to take ahead the idea of “fused identities”.
“Our identities are intersectional in nature but I don’t know why we see these things in isolation in our movies,” mentioned Ghaywan, who has directed the ‘Geeli Pucchi’ section in Netflix’s upcoming anthology Ajeeb Daastaans.
Intersectionality of identities is on the very centre of his newest work, which stars Konkona Sensharma and Aditi Rao Hydari and revolves round two ladies, one higher caste, newly married and employed to do a desk job, and the opposite a manufacturing facility hand denied the identical job for coming from a decrease caste.

As the one two ladies in a manufacturing facility filled with males, they find yourself being shut however their bond is examined by their environment and the background they arrive from.
“The way we approach movies and things in India is that we always see things in silos, in isolation… Subalterns are also seen as a whole but they are always intersectional in nature. That’s what I wanted to do in this film. Intersectionality is the theme of this film,” Ghaywan advised PTI in a Zoom interview from Mumbai.
The director mentioned he had considered the story as one of many sub-plots for his critically-acclaimed debut Masaan however felt the thought was too radical for the movie at the moment.
Ajeeb Daastaans, a compilation of 4 tales from 4 completely different administrators and produced by Karan Johar’s Dharmatic, appeared like the right platform, he mentioned.

Ghaywan cited Abhishek Chaubey’s dacoit drama Sonchiriya for example his level. It encompasses a dialogue between characters about Phoolan Devi and he mentioned he was stunned to see a dialog about intersectionality, so uncommon for Hindi cinema.
“I have not seen that kind of thing again, how each of your identities kind of rubs into another. What privilege you derive from one identity may be a deterrent for another identity that you live with.”
Ghaywan mentioned he has at all times tried to interrupt away from the notion of excellent and evil in his cinema as he believes everybody has a context and their identities are fused collectively.
“I don’t want to show abject villainy. I want to contextualise each individual’s surroundings and how they end up taking certain decisions and how they go with certain moral conflicts and dilemmas. It is all about your conditioning and surroundings and how you examine and see it in your personal life and how it changes your expression in the world.”

In ‘Geeli Pucchi’, he mentioned, the ladies could come from a unique class and actuality however they’ve one factor that places them on the identical platform and that’s patriarchy.
“Aditi’s character Priya is being told at home about how to behave or who to mingle with, while Konkona’s Bharti has seen all these realities and is hardened. They are not right or wrong. They are victims of their circumstances.” Women assert their company and id via their jobs and profession could be a level of battle in a narrative, he mentioned.
In Ghaywan’s view, the absence of a profession is not only restricted to ladies in Hindi cinema, the place the battle is usually restricted to the love story of the characters. “Women express their aspirations via their careers because it’s one thing that can insulate them from their marginalised background, be it patriarchy or the class or caste conflict. So I always think about it,” he mentioned in a reply to a query.
“We are what we are because of how we see the world and how we see our partner but also how we want to be seen in the world. I don’t know why our career aspirations are ignored in our films. I have always tried to bring that and sometimes, you can also make it the central conflict.”
Another subversion that Ghaywan was eager to discover within the quick film was the thought of the manic pixie lady, a personality that always exists in cinema to ahead the story arc of the male protagonist. She is there within the movie to look fairly, is naive, and filled with hope.
“The idea of Priya’s character (Hydari) is sort of the manic pixie girl which has been explored in many Hindi films which I’m not very happy with. It completely comes from the male gaze… This is a subversion of that. Here we have put a female gaze onto a manic pixie girl… how she still expresses her agency by wanting a job because manic pixie girls are not supposed to have their opinions or thoughts, they are not supposed to have careers so this is a subversion of that,” he mentioned.
The Netflix movie, set for launch on April 16, brings collectively 4 uncommon tales that discover human feelings akin to jealousy, entitlement, prejudices and toxicity, and their results. Ajeeb Dastaans has been directed by Ghaywan, Shashank Khaitan, Raj Mehta and Kayoze Irani.
Besides Sensharma and Hydari, the ensemble forged additionally contains Fatima Sana Shaikh, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Abhishek Banerjee, Inayat Verma, Shefali Shah, Manav Kaul and Tota Roy Chowdhury.