Abhishek Chaubey: When talking about city, I need to speak its language
Updated On: 13 September, 2021 07:31 AM IST | Uma Ramasubramanian
Describing his segment in Ankahi Kahaniya as an ode to Mumbai, director Abhishek Chaubey says he sought wife’s help to add Marathi flavour to the film
Rinku Rajguru and Delzad Hiwale in the film
Abhishek Chaubey’s stories have taken him from the fields of Punjab to the ravines of Chambal. It struck him as odd that despite calling Mumbai his home, he had never quite found a story here. His pursuit of rooting a tale in the Maximum City led to the birth of his short film in the Netflix anthology, Ankahi Kahaniya. “Mumbai is where I have spent most of my lifetime. So, this was an opportunity to express my profound relationship with the city,” says the director, whose film is set in Bombay of the ’80s. “For the first one-and-a-half years of my stay, I lived in downtown Mumbai. When you walk down the lanes, you will see buildings, characters and restaurants that are frozen in time. I wanted to talk about Bombay [of that era].”
Abhishek Chaubey
His segment, starring Rinku Rajguru and Delzad Hiwale, explores young love in the world of single-screen theatres. Chaubey says he wanted to explore the Marathi flavour that is deeply embedded in the city. “The film has [a generous dose of] Marathi dialogues. If I am talking about the city, I need to speak its primary language. My wife, whose mother tongue is Konkani, graciously helped me write the dialogues in Marathi. I have been here for around 20 years, so I understand the language as well.”
Early on, the director knew that Rajguru would be the perfect fit for his short film. Her performance in the Marathi blockbuster, Sairat (2016), had left an impression on him. “She was a firecracker in Sairat. I felt it would be great to explore the actor in her by putting her in another love story, but in a dramatically different character.”
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