With his aviator reflectors on, director Apoorva Lakhia looks like he has stepped out of one of his own famous action thrillers: remember actor Vivek Oberoi on the posters of the 2007 release, Shootout at Lokhandwala. After Zanjeer (2013), the remake of the 1973 superhit by the same name, Lakhia will bring the biopic Haseena Parkar about the eponymous underworld queen to the big screen today. Much like it is for lead Shraddha Kapoor, this is also Lakhia’s first female-centric film.
It seemed a matter of chance when Lakhia and writer Chintan Gandhi stumbled upon the idea to make the biopic. The duo had been researching notorious gangster Dawood Ibrahim when they interviewed his sister, Parkar, about him. “We had been approached to make a film on Dawood, and I thought it was a done to death subject,” shares the director. On being convinced to look into the gangster’s childhood, they met his sister and family for research. “But [Haseena Parkar] soon started telling me about her life. My writer Chintan Gandhi and I said ‘we’d rather make a story on you’,” says Lakhia.
While the film plots Parkar’s journey towards becoming the aapa or elder sister of Mumbai’s underworld, it will focus on a particular court case. “Haseena was implicated in 88 cases,” explains the director, “but was taken to court only once.” She had arrived at the court along with other taxis carrying burkha-clad women to possibly serve as decoys to prevent rival gangs from attacking her. Lakhia emphasises that the story unfolds by taking both her and her prosecution’s accounts and avoids glorifying Parkar’s tale. To highlight how, Lakhia says, “We had reports her father was a corrupt head constable. But she said ‘you don’t know the father I know. He used to be really upset when my brother was involved in crimes’. So we’ve tried to keep both parts to the story.”
The director conducted extensive research by getting perspectives from her family and lawyer Shyam Keswani, to Meera Borwankar, who was the Commissioner of Mumbai’s Crime Branch when Parkar was interviewed in relation to the 1993 bombings in the city.
An avid viewer of gangster films, Lakhia rattles off a list of his favourites, which include numerous macho classics like the first and second parts of The Godfather (1972 and 1974), Scarface (1983), Donnie Brasco (1997) and Company (2002), among others. Lakhia says he did not look towards other gangster films to model Haseena Parkar’s cinematic treatment, despite being a fan of the genre. “There was no reference [point] because this is a woman gangster. You can’t have a woman act like a man,” he claims. He goes on to say it would not be believable for a woman to do action. “A woman has to show her power how she thinks is best”, he says explaining how he thinks it’s best. “Whether that’s in looks… by talking or posture… I can’t make Haseena pick up swords, hit people and shoot guns.” Parkar who died in 2014 never took up arms herself to become Nagpada’s aapa .
The director has been open about actor Sonakshi Sinha being his first choice to play Parkar. When asked how he finalised on Shraddha Kapoor to play the lead, he says, “Shraddha can play a 17-year-old and a 55-year-old. And I’ve become her fan. She’s just fantastic.”
Typically a director of action thrillers, Lakhia says he is motivated by news events. Whether it was Shootout at Lokhandwala which was based on the 1991 encounter killings, or his debut Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost (2003) which looked at the way television influenced rural India, Lakhia says he enjoys capturing contemporary sentiments in his movies. The director explains that he is also intrigued by the darker side of human nature. “I always wonder what makes certain people want to take a risk against the law of the land, and why certain people choose to live an honest life.” He laughs before adding, “Also, no one comes to me with a comedy. So beggars can’t be choosers.”
