Kiran Rao: Mumbai is like a puzzle with no final answer

At the Dharamshala International Film Festival, filmmaker Kiran Rao reflected on the making of her debut film Dhobi Ghat: Mumbai Diaries (2011), and how the city became her muse.‘How does one write the story of a city that is so diverse?’Reflecting on how she wrote the film, she said, “When I was writing it, I was trying to say how does one actually write the story of a city that is so diverse and heterogeneous. In Delhi there are vertical divisions between things, while in Mumbai, everything is sort of layered one on top of the other.”The Laapataa Ladies director explained, “In Mumbai, there are these sorts of overlaps and intersections that you can’t avoid, just because of the nature of the city. Being an island, you’re locked off and you’re on top of each other. And there are all these experiences that kind of collide and merge and influence each other.” ‘When I first came to the city, I was a student’The filmmaker recalled her first years in the city. “When I first came to the city, I was a student, and I had no money. And the only entertainment was to take a bus to South Mumbai, walk along on the streets with the booksellers on Sundays, eat a peru and return home,” she sharedIt was during these Sunday walks that she began to absorb Mumbai’s pulse. She said, “In the city, there’s a life of the mind and there’s the life of labour. There’s an air of hope and expectation, and dreams and aspirations. How do you capture that? So, I had to tell the story in four voices. And, I was coming out of film school, so I had to do it with four different visual elements and formats.” ‘In Mumbai, everything is an opportunity’ Kiran’s narrative mirrored Mumbai’s unpredictability. “When I was writing it, I wanted it to be non-linear, which on some level was an impediment when I was editing, because anything could go anywhere. It’s like a puzzle that has no real final answer. But that worked because that is the city for me. It could go any which way. Here, everything is an opportunity, and anything can bring your dreams to crash down. There are so many things that are the possibility and potential and the hard reality and sadness also in that city,” the filmmaker said.