‘Darbaan’ director Bipin Nadkarni on dealing with ‘classicist culture’ in film

By Arundhuti Banerjee

Mumbai, Dec 3  National Award-winning Marathi filmmaker Bipin Nadkarni makes his debut in Hindi films with Darbaan, based on the Rabindranath Tagore short story, Khokababur Pratyabartan.

Nadkarni says he has taken a liberal stand on the existing “classist culture” of society in his film, adding that walls between people are based on social status.

“The story is an emotional journey, and written by a legend like Tagore saab. So, the intention was to make an adaptation without tampering its core emotion. I took the story out of Bengal and set in a pan-Indian milieu. When it comes to the social backdrop, I chose the nationalisation of coal in 1971 as the background. As far as the classicism culture goes, in the very first line of the story it shows the bonding between a master and a servant. In a way, that equation is the soul of the story. Personally, I took a liberal stand. Yes, the classist culture exists but it is changing too,” Nadkarni told IANS.

“I think those walls need to be broken, those lines need to be blurred. At the end of the day, it is your mind that creates those walls,” he added.

Darbaan features Sharib Hashmi, Sharad Kelkar, Rasika Dugal and Flora Saini in pivotal roles.

Sharib, who plays the central role of the ‘darbaan’ Raicharan in the film, said: “Things are changing in terms of hierarchy, slowly but surely. If I give a small example, in our office culture, we do not call our seniour as ‘Sir’ but we call them by their first name. It is a small thing, but a step towards change that allows breaking the superiority that otherwise the word ‘sir’ creates.”

Sharad, who plays the master Anukool, added: “The whole thing of ‘status symbol’ has changed for sure. If I just talk about my industry, earlier it used to be like having a luxury car will give you a better role and better pay — you know that image-building exercise. Now, if your films or any project does not work and you have no talent, even if you enter the studio in a BMW, you will not bag the project. If you have talent, you can travel by autorickshaw, the camera will not judge you or reject you based on that.”

“The fake status symbol that you build by taking a car loan to buy a luxury car will not get you anywhere. Your talent, no matter where you come from, speaks for your success,” added Sharad.

Darbaan releases on Zee5 on December 4.

(Arundhuti Banerjee can be contacted at arundhuti.b@ians.in)