Sardar Ka Grandson director Kaashvie Nair: Neena Gupta completely imbibed Sardar into her

Arjun Kapoor and Rakul Preet Singh’s Sardar Ka Grandson is the tale of a man who embarks on a strange journey in order to fulfill his grandmother’s last wish. Directed by Kaashvie Nair, this romcom was recently released on Netflix. Nair’s filmography may be compact, but that does not speak for her ability of bringing emotions to life on screen through her direction.

With Sardar Ka Grandson being her first big Bollywood release, Nair has achieved the feat of combining elements of comedy with the heartwarming story of a grandmother who is yearning to return to her roots. OTTPlay got into a conversation with Nair about her latest release and here the excerpts.

How did the idea for Sardar Ka Grandson come about?

The idea came about because Monisha Adwani read an article about a house being moved from Kerala to Manesar. We looked at the article and saw videos of the process and that stuck with us. Monisha, Nikhil and Madhu, producers at Emmay, are actually grandchildren of partitioners - they grew up listening to stories about the partition and a house that evokes the emotions in our history.

Taking that into context, we wove the story together. We knew we wanted to keep it emotional and fun but also a little quirky in a way. That is the kind of world we were trying to build and that’s how the film came about.

The plot of the film heavily relies on the concept of structural relocation. How feasible is structural relocation in India?

In India, temples are moved around and so are houses in Orissa. The way we pull it off in Sardar Ka Grandson is definitely slightly different than how they do it in the west. Simply because, like we depicted in the film, you won’t find overhanging electrical wires dangling in the West. But it is definitely feasible and we should definitely start practicing it, especially when we have “controversial” moments happening in this country.

How do you feel about Sardar Ka Grandson being an OTT release?

As creators, there is nothing bigger than knowing that you can have a theatre, an OTT platform and the internet. If we did not have OTT platforms in the last two years, what would we be doing? We’d be lost. Also, OTT platforms give you the liberty to explore - on one end, you’re not working for a box office number but on the other, there are films that deserve to be working for a box office number. So I think that plays off very nicely and each film has its journey and this one had a journey where you can watch it on the television with your family around you.

How was the experience of working with Neena Gupta?

She completely imbibed Sardar into her. She put herself into Sardar and got so many characteristics in there. It’s not easy to get ready in prosthetics and coming out and shooting (and like everyone ends up complaining, taking 70 shots in a day), but she did it without even batting an eyelid. She has a bundle of energy and she comes on set with it. She’s constantly on set - she’s always giving you something or the other and you ultimately put it all in a room together and let it perform for you. That’s where the magic is created.

What made you think of John Abraham and Aditi Rao Hydari while casting?

I think they lend themselves in terms of physicality also in the film. I don’t think we have ever seen John in that avatar and that interested me a lot. When we were narrating to him and we just kept watching - at the end of it I was hoping he would say I know what you want and let’s go for it and he did that. I think that really worked in our favour. Nikhil was the one who thought of Aditi who suggested the idea and it was bang on. Again, the script worked in our favour. Putting Sardar together, whether it was the old Sardar or the young Sardar, was one of the most exciting journeys we had on set.