Badhaai Ho, who is the film that was one of the biggest surprise hits of 2018, made the audience and the Hindi filmmakers sit back and notice that mainstream films could be out of the box, and still work wonders. The film was a big hit at the box office, and even picked a National Film award. Four years later, the producers of Badhaai Ho are back with a “spiritual sequel” titled Badhaai Do. Starring Bhumi Pednekar and Rajkummar Rao, Badhaai Do is directed by Harshvardhan Kulkarni. The film is based on the subject of lavender marriage (where a man and a woman, who are queer, pretend to be straight and get married to each other to avoid social/parental pressure), and like many other films in a similar space, this one too is a comedy.
Harshvardhan shared with us that his way of looking at the subject was “slightly tongue in cheek” and not a requirement that was thrust upon him. “This is how I like cinema to be. It is middle of the road, it is funny, quirky and full of life and obviously, there are a lot of emotions too,” he said. That being said, Harshvardhan added that humour in a film like this does not necessarily need to be slapstick or juvenile; it can be a parody, irony or just go dark. “You are laughing but you are feeling the pain inside, it is very delicately woven into this film. I wouldn’t say it is a funny film or a comedy film. It’s the way you might be moved by it despite you laughing all the way,” he said.In the recent past, films like Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhanand Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga have dealt with queer subjects, and gained audience’s acceptance. But in the case of Badhaai Do, Harshvardhan said, they wanted to do more. He shared that other films expected “tolerance from the audience because it is about the queer community.” With Badhaai Do, he said, “We went one step beyond and we said, we are going to be allies. We are not going to be just accepting, tolerant, empathetic, and all of that. We are actually going to be allies.” This idea of being an ally was woven into the script as Harshvardhan explained that none of the family members of the characters know about their but the audience is privy to that information right from the start. “The audience knows and are a part of their journey. They are going through it all, which need not necessarily be serious all the time,” he said.
But humour, as we know, is subjective. The queer community is still miles away from getting wholly accepted in mainstream cinema but the audience today is quite vocal about calling out insensitive jokes or tearing apart politically incorrect statements. Despite the filmmakers being careful, there have been gaffes in the past. Does this lead to a lot of second-guessing? He shared that to take care of something like this, it is necessary for them to be “not be so adamant” about their decisions and create an inclusive workspace, which includes hiring consultants from the community. “We had a script consultant who is from the queer community and so there was enough give and take. I love to work like that,” he said. Harshvardhan added that not just one person, they shared the script “with a group of people.” He added, “So many things were told to us. Certain things we felt were ‘yaar, it’s okay, we are ready to take that flak’.
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