Measure For Measure

Film-maker Devashish Makhija’s unsettling revenge drama confronts an uncomfortable reality.

- Vatsala Chhibber

Devashish Makhija didn’t set out to make a rape-revenge drama, though he easily accepts this “broad-strokes classification” of his sophomore feature, Ajji. “It’s actually a response to a lot of things; to a deep-seated misogyny, to a brand of right-wing politics, to a fundamentalist thinking. There was a lot of anger simmering inside me,” says Makhija, 40. With his “dark take on Red Riding Hood”, he hopes to enrage the audience with an odious view of patriarchy and its own complicity. “By the end of the film, I wanted viewers to hate themselves a little, and I think I’ve managed that. Whether they like the film or not, everyone who watches it is unsettled by it. There are times when people feel so uncomfortable they don’t want to look at the screen. I really wanted that.”