Not making a politically motivated film is the biggest political act, says Abhishek Chaubey

Abhishek Chaubey, flying high with massive critical and commercial success of the controversial Udta Punjab gets chatty about films, politics and their nexus.

Now that Udta Punjab (UP) is finally, out what are your feelings Relief, joy and a sense of achievement.

Do you feel triumphant about your victory with the censor board Triumph is too big a word. I wanted to focus on the film being released on June 17. That was very important for all of us. If we had not met our release date, I’d have felt defeated.

Your last film was Dedh Ishqiya. How did you suddenly jump to a film about the drug menace in Punjab I started writing Udta Punjab even before Dedh Ishqiya — in September 2013. I was really keen to make a film on drug abuse. But initially I didn’t know how to go about doing it.

How did Punjab come into the picture Initially there was no Punjab in my film. I just wanted to do a film on drug abuse because it was a problem that bothered me. I had seen from very close quarters what drugs could do.

Have you ever tried drugs Nothing major. Maybe marijuana. But I’ve seen friends in college fall victim. The drug menace is all around us. But no one was talking about it in our cinema. Apart from whispers at high-society parties, no one really bothered. That bothered me. I read up on the subject. The information I gathered was very incipient. It was after this that we moved our plot to Punjab. Because the problem of drug abuse is acute in Punjab.

How long did your research last in Punjab I was there for some months. My co-writer Sudip Sharma went much before. He met lots of people and later I joined him. We met many health experts, drug victims and others related to the issue.

The data provided by your film states that 70 per cent of the youth in Punjab is addicted to drugs All the data is easily available to anyone who wants to check it on the Internet. When the trailer came out, there were questions on the statistics. But we were very clear on what we were doing. This is the reality. This is what is happening in Punjab. And this is our small contribution to creating an awareness of the situation.

How did you get Shahid Kapoor to convey so much madness as Tommy Singh When I narrated the idea to Shahid, he was immediately excited. Of course the quality of madness was challenging for him. We had to walk a thin line between Tommy Singh being wild and obnoxious. But I’ve to tell you, I was surprised by how eagerly he grabbed the character. He loved the character’s journey from self-indulgence to self-actualization. Tommy realizes he is in some way responsible for youngsters doing drugs. But addiction has made him terribly broken and empty inside.

And Alia Batt. How traumatized was she playing her character of a Bihar migrant who is captured and enslaved Extremely traumatized. So much so that on the day she finished shooting, she ran into her van and let out a whoop of joy and relief (laughs). She became herself again. Alia had to go through a lot in playing the character. We had to be careful about how far we could go in showing her trauma.

You may have been careful. But what we see still comes across as an extremely brutal depiction of a society Our first draft of the script was much more brutal. In the subsequent drafts we toned down the brutality to make it more palatable to a mass audience, though with Alia’s character we couldn’t water down the brutality without lessening the impact. But yes, we were aware that we wanted to make a mainstream film, hence the love story between Shahid and Alia. Even that is not without a sub-text. You see, drug addicts feel unloved and isolated. They tend to drift towards one another.

Apparently all the principal actors took a pay cut Yes, that’s true. We knew this was not a big-budget blockbuster movie, yet we wanted and needed stars .We needed to spend as little as possible. We had to shoot within stipulated number of days. All the actors were willing and they surrendered without hesitation.

What next I don’t know. But we live in very interesting times, in a very creatively active country where diverse films are happening all at once. In a country as politically alive as India, not making a film that is politically motivated is the biggest political act. There are so many genres to explore. Knowing the person that I am, I can’t make any film that’s blind to the reality around.