MUMBAI: Debuting with a film which chronicles stories of grief, loss and forgiveness, director Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal says it was a challenge to not shed tears while making the documentary “Rubaru Roshni”
The film, produced by Aamir Khan, follows the story of three individuals coming to terms with the death of their loved ones and eventually getting healed after forgiving them.
“I couldn’t afford to cry during the shoots but I did cry at times. It was difficult to not cry. It’s not easy.. But Aamir cried a lot. He used to use his t-shirts to wipe his tears,” Svati said in a group interview.
The three stories focuses on assasination of Congress member of parliament Lalit Maken and wife Gitanjali Maken, murder of nun Rani Maria and the killing of two American citizens in the 26/11 attacks.
Svati says while there are other stories too—where the grieving member of a family forgave the perpetrator—these three gave her a good arch.
“There is a limitation in terms of how many stories you can include in a film. Length was a limitation. Also, I was getting a historical arch in these three stories- from 80s to 2000s, I was getting to explore the time frame.
“There are several other stories as well, no doubt. We researched quite a few too. So lets see if we get a chance to showcase those, in some form or the other,” she added.
The director says she didn’t need to “convince” her subjects to appear in the film and the process was organic and built on a relationship.
“There really wasn’t much convincing. I had just met them initially, with a curiosity to know what actually happened. I had told them I want to shoot something but I don’t know how and what exactly will come out of it. A relationship began and things developed slowly.”
The challenge for Svati was to figure out if her voice would remain relevant in the times of edgier content and web series heavy environment.
“This is a modern era of web series, people are doing edgy things, so you do feel if we’ll remain relevant, if, what we want to say, will reach generations. You question yourself a lot. I didn’t know it’ll take this much time too. I had to learn how to be patient, which Aamir taught me.”
The title of the film comes from Rumi’s poem “the wound is where the light enters” and Svati says it was Aamir who instantly came up with “Rubaru Roshni”.
For Aamir, the decision to produce the project was done in a blink as he was consumed by the message of the film.
“When I heard what Svati wants to do, I felt this was a very important concept and felt that in life, as human beings, we have forgotten the power of forgiveness, how healing it can be.
“I knew we had to make this. I didn’t know how we will show it at that time. But I said lets make it first and then we’ll see,” the actor said. (AGENCIES)
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