Q&A WITH SUDHIR MISHRA

Is the ‘Common Man’ Bollywood’s new favourite protagonist? Can cinema, which is essentially mass entertainment, survive without its largerthan-life heroes? How difficult has it become for filmmakers to hold a mirror to society today? The Afwaah maker, who has been in the business for 40 years, talks about rumours, hard facts, and everything in between

- Ananya Ghosh

Sudhir Mishra’s 2023 movie, Afwaah, almost seems like an update on his 1996 cult classic Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin. Both movies unfold within the span of a night that changes the lives of all involved. “Everybody used to tell me to remake Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin,” explains Mishra. “Then suddenly during the lockdown, this idea struck me: How about replacing the slap that triggers the chain of events in Iss Raat Ki, with a seemingly harmless and inconsequential rumour or ‘afwaah’. Here the monster chasing you is an afwaah but you can’t hide from it because it always gets there before you, especially in this day and age of technology.”

But apart from being an acerbic social commentary, Afwaah is also a film without a conventional hero. Sudhir Mishra’s Rahab initially reminds you of Swades’ Mohan Bhargava — an NRI who leaves his cushy job in the US and comes back to India to serve his motherland and its people — but soon it turns out that he is hardly the hero that was promised. Almost halfway into the movie, Mishra unceremoniously smudges the halo over Rahab and pricks the bubble of his carefully created backstory. Rahab’s is a curious case of a Shah Rukh Khan-esque hero landing up in a Sudhir Mishra film.

“I wasn’t trying to do a take on Swades. This is how I feel about Rahab and how I found him to be interesting. What he goes through makes him realise that he's not only been lying to the world, but he's also been lying to himself,” says the three-time National Award winner, when we catch up for a quick chat right after the release of the movie. Excerpts: