As a writer, I am still not satisfied: Maragarita With A Straw director Shonali Bose

As she strongly believes that life is all about exploring and loving yourself, director Shonali Bose feels that ‘Margarita With a Straw’ happened at the best time.

As she strongly believes that life is all about exploring and loving yourself, director Shonali Bose feels that ‘Margarita With a Straw‘ happened at the best time and her motive was to motivate people to pass the prejudice and start looking people as human with no discrimination.

In conversation with Indianexpress.com, the internationally acclaimed director talked about her thought process, commercial crunch and much more.

Ques: Sexuality and disability, what made you to work on two diversified topic in a single project?

Shonali: The inspiration was my cousin Malini, who is a year younger to me. In the childhood days when we were exploring life and were trying to understand life, I was very particular of as a teenager growing up with her. We did everything together. I was aware about her yearning to have a boyfriend and therefore I didn’t date anybody. And gradually I forgot about it or rather I would say pressed it down because I couldn’t do something about it. But one day it happened and she said to me when she was 39 and then I realized and it moved me to come up with ‘Margarita with A Straw.’

Ques: When you started, did you have doubts regarding the acceptance of the film in particular with Indian audiences?

Shonali: I have always believed in the stories I work on. For me as filmmaker it was never in my mind that how the audience, particularly in India would accept such a topic. This is not the first time that I have worked on something like this. Even my first film was something ‘unconventional’. I have my own beliefs and I work on that line, and I know, there is a section of audiences who will treat my angel seriously, and it’s actually happening.

Ques: What was the major agenda behind the film?

Shonali: People should understand that love and acceptance is very important. It is a story of every single individual. We need to understand that love and affection is not something that can be served only by others. There is something called self acceptance and self-love. Deeper philosophy of the film is about understanding the relation with yourself and nourishing it. While at the other level the film talks about discrimination that is deeply rooted not just in India but even in abroad. The film explores the discrimination, needs and aspirations of differently abled in people in sexual, physical and emotional terms. The major problem is that we are always at the front to discriminate people when it comes to sexuality. If someone is gay, we tend to discriminate them but we never look into ourselves. The film deeply talks about passing the prejudice and making a parallel line for equality. Let’s move ahead, and look at people as humans.

Ques: Why Kalki, and not any other actress? How easy or difficult was it to go with her?

Shonali: The casting director Neelesh, was the one who suggested Kalki’s name. He believed that Kalki’s smile captured the emotion and energy of my cousin Malini. Moreover her looks and hard work was something that made us go with her as the first choice. Talking about Kalki’s reaction to it was something surprising for me. The moment she read the script, she called me after two hours and said, ‘I am excited to do this film but at the same time I am nervous.’ And my reaction to this was, even I am scared and worried but we need to figure it out. She agreed for 4 months full-fledged involvement in the film and she was not supposed to do any other appearances during that period. She agreed and here it is.

Ques: Your art of writing is different. How difficult it was to write such a complex script?

Shonali: To be truthful to the art of film making, it was extremely painful and shaky for me to write the script. But my writings are always painful because I go deep down into myself and I wrote for almost a year. For me satisfaction as a writer is very important, until and unless I feel satisfied I keep stirring and with this script it happened too. After one year, when I was done with the writing, the Sundance-Mahindra Global Filmmaking award happened to me and I was so thrilled that as I returned from the Sundance lab, I tore it all, and I started from the scratch again. Today people have accepted the film and I can hear all the appreciation. But I am still not satisfied, I keep going further and this is just the beginning for me.

Ques: The film is ‘unconventional’. Was it easy to flow money or you had a hard time?

Shonali: It was a mixed bag for me when it came to have funds for the film. As in the very beginning Viacom 18 agreed to put half of money into the film. So, at that stage I was confident, as I had half the money, but gradually it became difficult. The film had two strong yet controversial pillars of ‘gay’ and ‘disability’. For producers, the film was not commercially viable. So, getting funds was really tough and it became difficult for me to continue, but I was determined and that made the difference.

Ques: How was the film treated on censor board table? Were you satisfied?

Shonali: I was amazed and felt happy to see the maturity level of the censor board. They understood the soul of the film and not even a single frame was cut. It made me realise that Indian Censor Board is not just an institution for existence but has that maturity to deal with the subjects like sexuality and disability.

Source:: Indian Express