Rajkumar Hirani on 'Dunki,' Audience Response, and Filmmaking Philosophy

The director Rajkumar Hirani addresses the urgent problem of human trafficking in his most recent major motion picture, Dunki. In addition to Taapsee Pannu, Boman Irani, and Hirani—who is making her first film collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan—the film is doing very well at the box office. Vicky Kaushal also makes a brief appearance.

Hirani, 61, has been one of the most significant directors in Hindi cinema since his debut feature Munna Bhai MBBS (2003). He has skillfully combined comedy, education, and message in all of his films, including Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), 3 Idiots (2009), PK (2014), Sanju (2018), and Dunki.

A week following the movie's premiere, Hirani had a casual conversation with t2.

A week has passed since Dunki's release. Which aspect of the response and interaction from the audience has piqued your interest?

Many comments have been received, both positive and negative. The fact that a few people said, "Thank you for creating a different story," made me feel good. You have the guts to go against the grain and choose a different route, always attempting to create something you truly believe in. I am thrilled to have been referred to as brave! (laughs)

I have always made an effort to locate stories about India that are distinct from one another. If not, it's a trap, and you can either keep creating what you believe to be in style or stick to what you've always done and decide to try the same thing again after seeing how well it works with the audience. However, you must try various things; some will be more successful than others.

I tried something completely different with Dunki. Although it's a humorous movie, the human story it tells is weighty. I was unsure of how it would be received by others. However, it is receiving a lot of love, and I am glad that it is succeeding. I've never participated in the game of numbers. If the box office for my current movie does well enough to fund my next project, I'll be happy. That's sufficient.

It has always been your strongest suit to make each movie unique from the last one.

I'm not conducting business. If not, I would have been putting out one movie a year. Making a film takes me three, four, or five years. It is really hard for me to keep searching for new stories. With a century of Indian cinema under our belts, the majority of stories have already been told. Discovering a story that originates from within is the difficult part.

If everyone else decides to make Animal after a successful film like Animal, you won't be able to. This is because Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the director, is the one behind the movie. He is the source of it. That's what he thinks. It is different whether it is good or bad, but it comes from him, which is why people are connecting with it.

You have to tell the stories you want to tell because I will fail if I try to be someone I'm not. I will fail miserably because it is not me, even if I say to myself today, "Action is working, let me try and do it." That way, I'm attempting to determine what other people desire. How do you make judgments? Because of how big and diverse our country is, it is not possible. Making the movie you want to see is therefore challenging. There are situations when it will be accepted by everyone, and situations when it won't, but some people will find it appealing. And let's rejoice over that.

Despite your claim that you are not in the numbers game, each of your films has become a box office success. What is the equation?

There is no way to have a formula. You watch my debut movie, Munna Bhai MBBS. It centers on a 40-year-old gangster who aspires to be a doctor and is portrayed by Sanjay Dutt. You'll think, "Oh, obviously it was going to be successful," when you look at it now. However, many people at the time did not feel that way. Upon learning that I was making a film on Gandhi, every distributor I approached for Lage Raho Munna Bhai would call me, frightened, and ask, "Are you sure people will want to see Gandhi in today's times?" I was told, "Oh God, it's about religion and aliens," when I was working on PK. Who is going to want to watch? They even said, "He (Sanjay Dutt) is a tainted guy, who will want to watch?" when I made Sanju. At the time, everything seemed really frightening.

I really don't think the numbers game exists. While I'm thrilled that Dunki is performing so well, I'm not advocating that my movie should make a billion or two billion dollars. Sometimes a film will be favored by a larger audience than others, and vice versa. That is what is going to occur.

Despite Sanju's success, many people continued to say, "You made it for Sanju (Sanjay Dutt)." "No, I never made it for Sanju," I replied. Because I enjoy the story, I made it. A father and son are at a crossroads in their household, and I liked what happened to them. I felt that I should be making that movie, so I made it. I was informed that I had solely displayed his happy life. However, I had demonstrated his gun ownership, drug use, and number of women he had slept with. I had demonstrated everything.

You and Shah Rukh Khan had been attempting to collaborate for years prior to Dunki. Was working with him on set everything you had imagined it would be?

To put it simply, Shah Rukh is "pure love." Making a film is the journey that matters. You work together virtually nonstop for a year or longer when making a movie. It's an adventure. It's a "dunki" in and of itself, hehe. You have to relish the journey as you become family. Don't worry about me; instead, speak with Abhijat (Joshi), who co-wrote Dunki with me. He talks about Shah Rukh all the time because he is so enthralled with him. Additionally, he will say, "I am coming too," if I tell him, "Okay, I am going to see Shah Rukh."

We are very grateful for Shah Rukh's love. And I'm not even talking about how much work and how many rehearsals he put into a movie like this. Playing Hardy was a difficult role for him. Taapsee (Pannu), a girl from Punjab, is a good fit for the part. The actors who portrayed Anil Grover's Balli, Vikram Kochhar's Buggu, and even Vicky Kaushal's are devout Punjabis from that region. Shah Rukh continued to say, "That is the most challenging thing for me," as a result. You're forcing me, an urban guy, to play a country boy who doesn't even speak English. "It is very difficult to make the world believe that I do not know English," he said to me. He worked very hard to accomplish that, and it was great to see someone making that kind of effort as a director. He has shown me pure love throughout this movie, as I have stated.

Among other things, Dunki is a love story—one that you had never made before, but also one that is heartwarming and ultimately tragic. How was that experience, and did you ever consider a different, happy-ever-after conclusion in which they stroll into the sunset together?

This would be a common question even during scripting. Things like, "Don't kill her," would be said (referring to Taapsee's character Manu). I continue to receive this response, both now and after the initial screenings. However, a more rational reading of the narrative would reveal that she returned to her hometown because she wanted to pass away there. It would look ridiculous if I got her back and she lived on and recovered.

One other thing I could have done would have been to soften the scene where he pops the question and marries her, followed by a voiceover stating that she lived a happy six months with him before passing away. In other words, I would be lessening the death. I had to decide whether to be more subdued or to wait for people to get shocked that she had passed away. I choose the latter because I thought it was better.

Many others told me how much the death shocked them and that they had not anticipated this, even though there were those who desired a happy ending. Reducing it was not as good as that dramatic shock.

The purpose of the story is to astonish you. This, in my opinion, is the best conclusion. As a filmmaker, you have to make these decisions. I also believe that even if I had given it a happy ending, I would still have been held accountable and told that she should have died; how else could she have survived?

Dunki was the result of around three years of research. Did the movie take its cues from one or more stories?

Searching online or even going through The Telegraph's archives and finding articles from the past six months will show you that not a single month has gone by without news like this. There was news last month about a boat capsize in a dunki that claimed many lives. Before then, a lot of people were shot at a nation's border. A family was apprehended when numerous Punjabi men attempted to cross the Mexican border approximately fifteen days prior. Next, a family got stuck at the Canadian border. Therefore, not a single month has gone by without this news. It's just that the movie has made people aware of it now.

It is regrettable that we are so engrossed in our lives these days that we fail to notice all of these things. There are thousands of YouTube videos of what happens if you look a little deeper. These folks on a dunki now create and publish their own videos because times have changed. It's common to see videos posted online by Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis, the majority of whom use the message, "Don't do this." It was a mistake that we committed to. We are currently confined to this nation.

There are videos of the teachers in those English classes that I have demonstrated, including Boman (Irani, who plays Geetu Gulati). They're very funny! I considered using one particular video in the movie, but in the end I decided against it. The instructor assigns dialogues from Sholay to the class, with the instruction to translate them into English. Thus, when Gabbar says to Kaalia, "Ab goli kha," the students interpret it as, "Now eat medicine," since goli means bullet. These funny videos are hundreds in number. I had a good amount of material for my research.

I visited Punjab on several occasions and attended those classes. I visited those homes and got to know those folks whose children had left. Everything portrayed in the movie is real. It is, of course, about various families and their unique histories. Seeking asylum is the first thing they do after leaving the country. If they are discovered, they are taught to say that. If apprehended, they ought to have no affiliation with India—nor visas, nor identity. Saying that you seek asylum is all that is required. According to the law, you must find out which country this person is from and return him within six months. But the Indian embassy finds it difficult to determine where these guys are from because they come from isolated villages. Identity does not exist. When they are unable to return them in six months, they must grant them asylum there. They are expected to report to the authorities once a week and are given paperwork. They stay there, and after fifteen years in a nation, you are required to be granted residency.

It really is fascinating.

Yes, it is. During the research, a lot of things surfaced. Human rights concerns get in the way of the application and misuse of the law. People keep leaving the country in search of a better life, but because they are so naive, they are unaware that once they arrive, they will be unable to return for at least 15 years. Additionally, they are unable to return if they leave. They work at low-paying jobs. They have difficulty. Not everyone is wealthy. In the US and the UK, I made a lot of new friends. One of the people we were casting mentioned, "My brother is on a dunki right now." He forced me to talk to the man who claimed to have arrived in Mexico. "I've been here for two weeks," he stated. I now have to enter the United States. Yes, I'll go there and do it.

Has the movie always been called Dunki?

After a considerable amount of time without a title, Shah Rukh thought the name Dunki was intriguing. However, the title was already owned by actor-producer-director Akashdeep, who intended to create a web series. When we met him, he was incredibly kind and gave us the title.

Dunki is being compared to one of Shah Rukh's most influential movies, Swades. How do you interpret that?

Since Dunki is about a guy without a visa issue, I believe Swades is a very different story from that movie. He was an extremely intelligent man who had already made his home in the US. When he gets home, he wants to remain.

People who are unable to leave the country are the subject of Dunki, and they make up a sizable portion of the populace. Only 7% of Indians are in possession of a passport. The minimum requirements to enter a first-world country are a specific amount of money in your bank account and a particular degree of education. If not, no first-world nation will accept you unless they hire you. Even then, human struggle persists. I spoke with some restaurant owners in London who would like to hire our talented chefs but are unable to do so because the chefs must pass the IELTS test.

Every nation requires immigrants. I've come to realize that you cannot function without migrants. See what happens if the Mexicans are expelled from the United States. The UK is already suffering from Brexit. Restaurants close at 10 p.m. due to a staffing shortage. Because there are no porters at the airport, there are lines.

Most people don't receive visas. This implies that you are obligated to remain in the nation where you were born. You are not allowed to leave your nation's borders, no matter what. Unless you are wealthy. You will be able to travel to certain countries without a visa at most, which is currently the case. There are a ton of neighboring countries where a visa is not needed. However, there is no chance that your housekeeper or cook will be granted a visa if they ever want to travel to the United States. It will be extremely challenging, even with support and sponsorship.

This problem has no simple answers. We've drawn boundaries. However, after Germany bombarded the remainder of Europe, there are now no borders between them.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.