It was a special treat for students of Gitanjali High School as they watched the movie ‘5 Rupya’. In the hall packed with ecstatic children and teachers, director Piyush Panjuani stood in a corner observing their response. The noisy kids turned silent as the scenes unfolded. Based on Munshi Premchand’s classic story ‘Idgah’, the movie narrates the heartwarming story of a grandmother Ameena (played by Shabana Azmi) and her grandson Hamid (Yohan Panjuani) in a quaint little village. When the movie ended, the students reciprocated through cheers and thunderous applause.
An ad filmmaker with 15 years in the industry, Piyush runs his own ad film production company, EQUUS. “Once you get into a comfort zone, you go to a bigger format so I was looking out for something else,” recalls Piyush. When a friend of his gave him the photocopies of Premchand’s story ‘Idgah’, the path created a new destiny. “I got my mom to read it and it was like listening to her as I did in my childhood,” he shared with a smile. This stayed with him and he began to scribble things and felt there is a possibility of a film. “Once the adaptation was done, it got selected by the co-production lab in the Film Bazaar, Goa. Only 10 projects got selected out of 300 projects so I felt there is strength in it. At some point it was abandoned too because it was not picking up,” he shared.
Piyush added that it was the story which held him together in this journey. “Story is heart of the film and its beauty is that it doesn’t tell you to do this or that; It has values embedded in itself which grabbed me strongly and my soul was connected to it.”
He shared how the two important actors were selected and said Shabana was not quite sure about the role. “After an interaction of five months, she said ‘lets do it.’” Interestingly, Yohan who plays the Hamid’s role is his nephew. “Initially I said no to Yohan because because we would lose objectivity. The beauty was that even when we prompted, the lines came to him naturally. The most important thing in a children’s film is that acting should appear natural and we found the kid at home.”
Piyush points out that financially it was a draining experience. “It was an extremely draining experience. Such films are made out of lot of turmoil. When I went to people, they said, “ Dadi pote ki kahaani hai achi hai par no one gave money.” Finally Bharatchandra J Thakker, Ajitchandra J Thakker, his wife Vineeta and himself came on board as producers.
While Javed Akhtar wrote the songs, also suggested the title ‘5 Rupya’ He said, ‘You should make the title universal, simpler so that everyone finds a connect to it.’ Piyush pointed out how children accepted the film. “I was totally bowled by their eye for details. Children have a mind of their own and they got all the subtleties. They can’t articulate it beyond a point but they got its gist. After this, I believe director doesn’t choose the story; The story chooses the director.”
The movie is still waiting to be released in theatres. “I wish mainstream stories from the heart of India should be shown across,” he concludes.
