'Ankahi Kahaniya' directors on love, acceptance and separation in the film

Actor Abhishek Banerjee in 'Ankahi Kahaniya'. In the story of Pradeep and Pari, Banerjee “had to act for an object and for himself while also telling the audience what is happening around him and to him”, says director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari.

Streaming services love anthologies – from Modern Love to Unpaused, Lust Stories and Navarasa. The latest is a set of three short love stories packaged under the title Ankahi Kahaniya (Netflix). Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Abhishek Chaubey and Saket Chaudhary, the three films packaged into this anthology tackle love and relationships in unexpected ways.

Starring Abhishek Banerjee, a mannequin named Pari, Rinku Rajguru, Delzad Hiwale, Kunal Kapoor, Zoya Hussain, Nikhil Dwivedi and Palomi, the stories unfold in a clothing store, a movie theatre and in the imagination of a man and a woman coming to terms with infidelity. They explore loneliness, love in its various forms and complex human emotions.

The three directors share insights into the making of their respective short films:

While the broad theme was love, all the stories touch on acceptance and parting. Was that a coincidence?

Abhishek Chaubey: The brief was love stories. It was a happy accident that all our stories were set in Mumbai. But yes, ideas of acceptance and parting came to all three of us separately. It goes to show what our view is on love. The title of the series came after all three films had been watched. All our stories are also quieter, untold aspects of relationships and love, which are organic.

Saket Chaudhary: Once you watch all the films you will realise that there are so many things we hide about ourselves when we are in love. So many things we don't tell the other person. Those things became very defined themes through the stories. The strangest thing is that the person who was most honest in love was the person in love with a mannequin. Whereas the real people in love with each other were hiding so much and not expressing it all.

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari: We wrote our story during the pandemic. I feel the emotions and human behaviour of that time dominated what kind of stories one was going to write. The story we wrote had to have something to do with the psychological aspect experienced by a human being during the pandemic, which is what came out in our story.

Ashwiny, what was the idea behind your story of a lonely man, in a routine life, expressing love to a mannequin?

Ashwiny: It was a one-line idea that came from co-writer Piyush Gupta (along with Shreyas Jain and Nitesh Tiwari) - about this lonely guy and this thing happens. We wanted to stay pure to the idea of the journey of this character called Pradeep played by Abhishek Banerjee. It was a challenge because on paper it looked like we didn’t really know where it was going because a lot of interpretation happens through visual storytelling. Also the actor had to perform more of a one-act play where he had to act for an object and for himself while also telling the audience what is happening around him and to him.

Abhishek, your film is based on the Kannada Story 'Madhyantara' by Jayant Kaikini. It explores the relationship between these two young people through the world of movies. Is that what attracted you to the story?

Abhishek: My wife Chetana read the story and mentioned it to me. Then I read it and said I would like to make it. Then it was a question of writing and interpreting the story into a script. A fictional story in literature gives you the freedom to write a stream of consciousness about what is going on inside somebody's head as well as what’s going on outside. This gets trickier in movies because a voiceover about what one person is thinking cannot be running throughout. That’s too convenient. It was not an easy film to write; writer Hussain Haidry and I interpreted the story to arrive at the structure of two lives intercutting and meeting in a movie theatre and how what is happening on screen is, in a way, reflecting what’s happening in life. The next challenge was rewriting it on the edit table because, in a certain way, it was almost like a montage film with some scenes in the middle to make it cohesive. This was my first short film and it was quite a learning experience.

So how did you interpret love?

Ashwiny: We are all attached to something — memory or object — that will always be a part of us. Beyond mannequins there are so many more layers to the story.

Saket: Here two people whose spouses are having an affair and they are reconstructing the affair which is totally out of their imagination and perception of what their partners would be doing. So you don't even know if the story, which they are telling each other, with all the details, really happened at all and that is an interesting idea to explore—How we think our partners are behaving when they are not with us.

Abhishek: Love stories are primarily about being together and spending the rest of your life together, and then we know it's all downhill after that. But it’s wonderful that love can perform other functions in your life, as a catalyst to get you where you want to be. I really liked that aspect of the story. What was harder for me was to bring that idea into film with the actors using subtle expressions to convey the meaning.

The casting is so crucial – a man and a mannequin, two teenagers, two thirty-something couples on a collision course. How did you pick the actors?

Abhishek: Rinku was 19 when I was shooting with her and these are complex ideas that require a degree of life experience to understand them. While I explained as best as I could I also said don't get caught up in the meaning of things. Just look at yourselves as Nandu and Manjiri, two young people who are stumbling their way through and trying to figure out what all this means. I was clear about Rinku from the beginning. She’s a cracker of an actor and having seen her in Sairat, I thought this film was like a counterpoint in a strange way, because it's also about running away, but doing something entirely different with it. I was familiar with Delzad from Chittagong and Hindi Medium, but credit to my casting director for the idea. Delzad clicked instantly. He has beautiful eyes, which communicate loss and something deep in there.

Rinku Rajguru and Delzad Hiwale in 'Ankahi Kahaniya'.

Saket: Our characters are in their mid to late 30s. And Kunal's character is someone who is carrying defeat. His whole struggle is to accept his failure. When Kunal’s name came up, our first reaction was he is a very good looking man - which wife would cheat on him? But he carried the idea of defeat and failure so sensitively. Zoya’s first reaction was that this woman is nothing like me and therefore she wanted to play her.

Ashwiny: I feel a good actor is a chameleon and can make any role his or her own. Abhishek Banerjee had to explore a very different aspect as an actor, which was very exciting for him. While filming this character he realised that there were a lot of unexplored sides to him. He was acting for himself and for Pari and for the environment. Hats off to him for pulling it off.

Casting directors helped with the humans, but Ashwiny how did you find Pari?

Ashwiny: Finding Pari was very important. At first we didn't get the right girl. It was just after the pandemic so it was not easy to source mannequins. Then I got her picture but I didn't like her hair and eyes. Then my make-up designer completely changed her and gave her those eyes. At the end of the shoot, when Abhishek hugged her, before she was going to be packed, the whole team clapped for her. The diktat on set was to treat her well, not like an object.

Also read: Review | 'Ankahi Kahaniyan' is a reminder of why the 'Modern Love' hangover must end