The JioHotstar series Hunkkaar, featuring Aneet Padda, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Raghubir Yadav, and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, has garnered much acclaim from audiences and critics alike for its nuanced portrayal of sexual harassment and the banes of blind faith. In an in-depth conversation with Heeraz Marfatia, the series’ head-writer and director of two of its episodes, we spoke about his approach towards developing the show, working with Aneet Padda, the against-the-grain casting of Raghubir Yadav, and how violence against women is not a systemic problem but a cultural problem.
Excerpts:
We have had several films and series like Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai, Bayaan, and Ashram where the plot has stemmed from a self-proclaimed Godman exploiting a minor. Repetitiveness tends to kick in the themes these stories want to get into. What did you want to do differently?
Because the story was particularly bleak, I felt we needed a hopeful angle to it. I wanted to go after this feeling of powerlessness we all feel when we encounter a system that doesn’t work for us. In this series there is a cop, a journalist and a lawyer and nobody knows the girl personally, they are just doing their job truthfully. What is the system if not the office bearers? If everybody does the right thing the system clicks in. It’s that simple. Also, people don't understand this about writing and filmmaking, the subject may have been done before, but it is the point of view that brings it alive
What kind of research went into the project?
We read a lot of testimonies of rape victims and shockingly realised that in most cases they went into such cognitive dissonance when they were being violated that they only remembered atmospherics, like the make of the ceiling fan. We explored that in the show with scenes like a water droplet dripping from a tap. We wanted the audience to inhabit the state that a victim goes through
As a writer, do Godmen become an easier, less sensitive proxy to comment on the banes of religion and blind faith?
No, I don't think so. I think it becomes more difficult. I think there is much more room for things to get misconstrued. First of all, I don't like the term Godman. These people have nothing to do with God. I feel these are just people who prey on those who have very low self-image. The critique is not on religion, it's on a society which actually gives so much power to these people.
Tell me about the experience of working with Aneet Padda. She was just 19 when she shot for this, how was it to handle such a young actor when it comes to a sensitive subject like this?
So Aneet had already worked with Nitya and Karan (Hunkkaar creators Nitya Mehra and Karan Kapadia) on Big Girls Don’t Cry. They asked her to audition for this. After that, we decided to do a three-day workshop. During that she went into the mind space of her character and spoke some words which actually became the basis of her monologue in the final episode. It came from a very Gen Z internal space. That’s when we knew that she had imbibed the character and that this one was a powerhouse.
Raghubir Yadav usually plays these sweet simpletons. Was casting against the grain the chief reason to take him on as the antagonist, Baapji?
Yes! In fact, when he joined the show, he only asked us, in his chaste Hindi, “The role is good, but tell me what made you guys think of me?” He is a great actor who has so far been typecast into such sweet roles and that image made him perfect for Baapji, whose character is that of a master manipulator, an illusionist.
Violence against women in India has become such an everyday crime that people have become immune to it. When we are having this conversation, the biggest headlines are the cases from Delhi and Bihar. Are such crimes more a systemic or a cultural issue?
It's a socio-cultural issue. A law came after the Nirbhaya case, even POCSO was strengthened, but are the cases going down? No. The systemic change didn’t help because the problem is cultural. And that's where shows, media, all this comes in because you need to awaken people, you need to inform them. Storytelling, art, filmmaking, whatever you want to call it, needs to go after the issues that warrant some change. I wish we didn't have to do a show like this but that’s the kind of world we live in. You have to fight the good fight.