LABOUR OF LOVE

Set in a nation experiencing its first flush of independence in the wake of Partition, Mira Nair chats with us about her maiden television project

- PASHAM ALWANI

It’s 11.37 pm on a Thursday night in October, five days after Mira Nair’s film adaptation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy has aired on Netflix in India and I’m scheduled to have a Zoom interview with the filmmaker, who is currently in lockdown in New York. As usual, I’m wary, awkward, and easily intimidated – but Nair, who greets me with her dark, kohl-lined eyes and disarming smile, immediately puts me at ease and exudes the same warmth, passion, candour, and vibrancy that we’ve grown accustomed to through her films. In a Grazia exclusive, the award-winning director shares anecdotes from filming the show to the process of bringing Seth’s post-Independence, Austenesque expansive novel to life, and also talks about the challenges faced while putting the finishing touches on the series amidst a pandemic.

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