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Gulaab Gang, screenwriter Soumik Sen’s directorial debut, defies many established norms of mainstream filmmaking
Screenwriter Soumik Sen’s directorial debut, Gulaab Gang, is a calculated leap away from his comfort zone. Sen has scripted several city-centric films since he debuted in 2006 with Anthony Kaun Hai. Gulaab Gang, produced by Anubhav Sinha’s Benaras Mediaworks, is unlike anything that he has conjured up before. It is about a group of feisty women engaged in a bitter fight against social injustice in the rural hinterland. "Gulaab Gang is not set in a specific geographical location," says Sen. "I was looking for a central Indian setting where a certain kind of Hindi is spoken." He also denies that his film is about the life of Sampat Pal Devi, the Bundelkhand social activist who heads the ‘gulaabi gang’ of women (thus named because of their pink saris) who battle patriarchy and gender inequity in a part of the country, where the odds are loaded against the fairer sex. "I am aware of Sampat Pal’s story, but Gulaab Gang isn’t about her. My film narrates a general tale that revolves around the issues of women’s education and empowerment," says Sen. The first-time director is also conscious of the fact that he is venturing into risky new narrative terrain. "When you start out in the industry, you tend to write what the market wants," says the Delhi School of Economics alumnus. He adds: "I wrote screenplays about the urban environment that I was familiar with. It is only later that you start doing the kind of work that really interests you." The writer of films like Ru-ba-ru, Meerabai Not Out and Hum Tum Aur Ghost, neither of which was a runaway commercial success, was clearly in need of a change of pace and setting. Gulaab Gang provides just that. Gulaab Gang, starring Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla in a women-dominated cast, has generated the kind of media buzz that has thus far eluded Sen’s career, who grew up in Kolkata and went to the city’s St Xavier’s College. Sen, driven by a belief that the visual potential of urban films is on the wane, decided to locate his women’s empowerment drama in a rustic landscape. "Gulaab Gang is a classic story of confrontation between good and evil," he says. "It is the closest contextualisation of the western genre in which the unspoiled beauty of nature and the sweep of wide open spaces provide the backdrop for a dark, violent drama."
Madhuri Dixit has earned critical applause for her nuanced performance as a Nawab’s shayari-loving widow in the recently released Dedh Ishqiya. And now with another author-backed role in Gulaab Gang, will she be able to open up an unprecedented space in Hindi cinema for actresses who are on the wrong side of 40? Sen is hopeful that she will. "In Bollywood, substantial roles are rarely, if ever, written for mature actresses. It would be great if that changes," he says. In a male-dominated movie industry, a film like Gulaab Gang, which has no prominent masculine characters, is a definite oddity. The pivotal conflict in the film is between one woman and another. Says Sen: "Madhuri Dixit is the hero of the film and Juhi Chawla is the villain. The latter has been cast completely against type. She is pure evil" Madhuri, too, plays a character that is at variance with her screen persona of the 1990s. "She came on board after hearing the screenplay," says the writer-director. "The script was written with strong woman in mind and she fitted the bill perfectly." In Gulaab Gang, Madhuri plays Rajjo, who runs an ashram where women weave their own cloth and take on forces that are inimical to their well being. Sen points out that "there will be a bit of the old Madhuri in the character for she sings and dances as well" but the essential core of Rajjo is that of an aggressive street fighter. "In Gulaab Gang, I do say things that I want to but the audience will be entertained. The film has the full complement of thrills," says the director. The film is scheduled for release on March 7, a day ahead of International Women’s Day. The music was launched in Varanasi on January 24, National Girl Child Day. The cast of Gulaab Gang includes Tannishtha Chatterjee, Priyanka Bose and Divya Jagdale. The music of the film has been scored by Sen himself. He is a trained classical musician. "That is the only thing that I am trained in," quips the economics graduate, who strayed into screenwriting and filmmaking because that is what his heart was always set on.
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Sen
reveals that one of his all-time favourite films is Quentin Tarantino’s
Inglourious Basterds. "Gulaab Gang is certainly not
as violent as Tarantino’s film, or else it wouldn’t have got past
the censors, but the influence cannot be negated," he says.