Ahead of the release of 'Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo', Homi Adajania, in an interview with Outlook spoke at length about his upcoming show, his creative process and a lot more.
Filmmaker Homi Adajania is making his OTT debut with 'Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo'. The trailer is out and the web series is all set to premiere on Disney+Hotstar on May 5. It is a women lead series with an ensemble cast including Dimple Kapadia, Radhika Madan, Angira Dhar, Isha Talwar, Deepak Dobriyal, Monica Dogra, and Naseeruddin Shah. 'Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo's trailer shows four fearless women running a drug cartel.
It wouldn't be wrong to say that this is something we haven't seen in OTT platforms or in any Indian movie before especially women getting into such profession. They are fierce, feisty, independent and living their lives on their own terms. Ahead of its release, in an interview with Outlook, Homi spoke at length about how the idea of giving a new twist to 'saas bahu' dramas came to his mind, his creative process, directing action scenes for the female actors, and a lot more. Excerpts from the candid chat.
The trailer of 'Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo' is wild, and quirky. Glad that four women actors are leading the show. You have given a new twist to the 'saas, bahu' thing by showing the progressive dynamics between them. How did the idea originate?
I wanted to make a story about a family with many skeletons in the closet, which is fictional, dystopian, lawless and even the members of the family don't know what's going on in the family. That idea fascinated me. Saying that why women? I didn't do that very intentionally. For me, I am someone who has grown up with absolutely zero gender bias in a very equal environment till I was in my mid-teens. Then I realised that people at large are definitely not equal which is the start of it. I didn't subscribe to that at all and I feel somewhere in that emotion, very organically the story pops up.
What made you take only women actors as lead characters and not men? Was it because you want to serve something fresh to the audience?
No, for me it was the normal thing to do. So, it came very organically and instinctively to me that it will be about women. It was not an intentional thing for me like hey, I want to make a statement here. For me, it's absolutely normal and I enjoy women characters much more. I find them extremely layered, and very interesting to sort of play with those nuances. And also the fact that when we say household chores, it's not a joke. Running a house is taken for granted in a certain way. But it is a full-fledged job. It's life. It's much more than that. At the end of the day, women propagate the species. For me, it's the most normal thing that the fiery and feisty, the true warriors will be the women.
You have shown women are shown as fierce and feisty, strong and independent running a drug cartel. It could have been some other profession also to show them empowered. Why did you choose this profession?
Let's not confuse the two. I don't think that they are empowered because of what they are doing in terms of running something that is illegitimate or not correct thing. What empowers them is that they are living life on their own terms. It's fiction in a fictional place and they don't belong to any specific community. We created a dialect by taking strands of various dialects. Their costumes are again influences of various different people. So, you can't say these guys are from this place. They are fictional in that sense. But what is interesting is that they don't have to answer to anyone whether it's a man or a woman. That is what empowers these characters.
Empowerment to me is living life on your own terms with the responsibility of saying that I will deal with the consequences regardless. If you can take that responsibility, live life, and don't harm people, I mean I am talking in general in real life..live life that way, spread love and positivity, and be who you are regardless of what your gender is. I think that empowers a human being.
In terms of this fictitious story, they are running a drug cartel and living in a lawless place because I wanted it to be a very dystopian world where it's convoluted, there are twists and turns, and that is what adds to the entertainment of it. There are threats around the corner, there are skeletons in the closet. For me, it became a very intriguing story to tell. It's not like trying to make a social statement anyway.
In 'Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo', we see lots of action and I am sure there will be more in the show. So, how did you go ahead with it? Was it difficult to direct or make them perform action scenes?
Not at all. They all are fit and strong as hell. When you are doing action, it's like you are following a choreography of something. But what was more important to me was that they are like fearless warriors. So for them emoting while doing the action and not showing fear but showing strength and aggression..they don't defend themselves, they attack. So for me, that was very important that they get into the skin of their characters and do that and all these actors are extremely strong, independent people whether it's Dimple Kapadia, Radhika Madan, Isha Talwar, or Angira Dhar. They easily slipped into the skin of the characters they had to inhibit.
Tell us about your creative process in 'Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo'
My creative process was I wrote this story a long time ago as a concept. Then the three writers who wrote the final script, episodes brought in brilliant cliffhangers and very interestingly sort of developed the characters. After that what I do is that I take the characters and I make them my own and sit with the actors. I have a very collaborative way of working. It's very important for me that the characters know what they will never do rather than what they will do. Once that is all removed from the spectrum then you know there is certain consistency but you to keep them unpredictable. All these characters are hiding some secret or the other and that sort of stumbling out as the series progresses. And when you do a long format you have the luxury of doing that and then you can get way more complex, you can get under the skin of the characters, start forming relationships with other characters and you know exactly where you stand. It's a very interesting creative process actually.