'The pigeons in Bazaar tested my directorial capabilities’

After slogging it over the last many months, Suni is now getting ready for the release of his sixth directorial, Bazaar, which hits the screens this Friday.

Not wanting to be branded as a 'class' director, Suni took on Bazaar, a mass film, which he hopes will change the audience’s perception about him. “I want every film of mine to be different. With all my films — Simple Agi Ondh Love Story, Bahuparak, Operation Alamelamma, Chamak, and Bazaar — I have always explored different sides to me. I also thought, with Bazaar, I will get to see a new section of audience,” he says, adding that as a director only fresh concepts excite him. 

Bazaar started with a story on betting, and while doing so, Suni’s co-writer Prasanna told him about pigeon racing. “I started researching on it, and the story became interesting when I read about how Kings in Arabian countries mostly used pigeons to deliver messages, and how the racing actually came into existence. I also took inputs from people who are into pigeon racing,” says Suni, who took six months to just write the script.  

Bazaar stars debutant Dhanveerah, along with one-film-old Aditi Prabhudeva. “With a mass subject, I needed to make it believable. I needed a youngster, who looks like he can hit 10 people, and Dhanveerah felt perfect for the role,” he says. 

Not only was Suni managing his cast and crew, he also had to handle pigeons. “Both the leads were well-prepared for their roles even before we went on floors. However, handling the pigeons was the toughest task. It was like I had to listen to them and go by their directions. There were some situations in which I had to look for alternatives. While we could have completed the shoot in 30 days, it took double the time because we had pigeons too. However, the end result has been satisfying and the product is looking good,” he says.

Apparently, the director and team researched on the films that had pigeons in their stories to make sure there were no similarities in Bazaar. “There were at least four films with pigeons and when  I found that there were some similar scenes in other movies, I deleted those from my film and worked on fresh ones,” says Suni.