Years ago, when Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari was still in advertising and handling brands, she travelled to the hinterland and other metros for research work. She went to Rae Bareli, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Kolkata…to understand consumer behaviour and buying patterns. And there, she people watched. “These trips are a great way to understand people, to know how they live, how they speak, how they think, how they dress…,” says Tiwari, whose Bareilly Ki Barfi releases today.
All that learning goes into peopling her film with characters that speak the language of the area. Be it the delightful Nil Battey Sannata , or this film, where the trailer throws the spotlight on an India that pulsates with emotion and fun, and a healthy dose of reality.
So, what about Uttar Pradesh tempts Tiwari into setting her films there? “Well, it is now familiar terrain, after Nil… and Bareilly …,” she says. “I wanted to shoot NBS there, because the Taj Mahal is a symbol of love, and I wanted the relationship between the mother and daughter to play out against that background. As for BKB, we were pondering about titles that complement Bitti, my heroine, and mithai, because her father runs a sweetmeat stall. That’s when Bareilly Ki Barfi cropped up.”
Tiwari feels this generation is far removed from hers. “The changing economics of our country and its overall mood reflects in the movies we make. This generation seems to prefer stories of us rather than them . If our generation was about earning more money, going abroad, and foreign brands, this generation has been there and done that. They party but also come back home for the family puja. In a sense, they are getting back to their roots.”
Her leads, Rajkummar Rao, Ayushmann Khurrana and Kriti Sanon reflect this new reality. So do character artistes such as Seema Bhargava and Pankaj Tripathi. “The beauty lies in breaking stereotypes. I did that with Pankaj ji , usually cast as villain, by getting him to play the teacher in NBS . I believe the job of a director is to mould actors into characters. Kriti is beautiful and glamorous, but she’s also intelligent. She’s an engineer, her father’s a chartered accountant and her mother is a professor in physics. She’s a regular middle-class girl in real life.”
Is casting against the grain one of Tiwari’s biggest successes? “If an actor starts overpowering a character, I’ve not done my job well. Every other role can be delegated, but it is the director’s job to extract a good performance. I do my homework before casting, and believe actors, the script and the director come together because of destiny. That said, I speak a lot to my actors, understand who they are, what they think…it reflects in their performance. By the time we begin filming, we are close friends.”
Tiwari teams up with her husband Nitesh Tiwari (of Chilar Party, Bhoothnath Returns and Dangal fame) for this film too — he’s co-written the story with Shreyas Jain. “We work well as a team, him writing and I directing. We are clear about our demarcations, and trust each other. Writers write with a certain vision; directors must be true to that world. But, we are very different directors. He’s meticulous, and while I am as prepared, I go with the flow.”
Does Tiwari ever see herself directing a commercial subject? “I don’t think I could do something escapist. I can create a surreal world, but even that will be rooted in what I believe in. A masala film is not something engraved in me. I will be able to do justice, but my heart won’t fully be in it,” she says.
Last year, Tiwari directed the Tamil remake of NBS — Amma Kanakku . Does she see herself returning to her roots? “I could, but I need a chance to do that,” she laughs.
Tiwari says she’s drawn to flawed characters, and that’s what people will get to see in BKB too. “It’s a quirky slice-of-life film, but don’t you agree that, at some level, we are all flawed? But, we live life. That’s what this film is about too — about enjoying the small moments.”
