Director Anu Menon hasn’t been really fond of biopics. And yet, her next is one of the most anticipated biopics of the year. Based on the life of mathematician Shakuntala Devi, the film of the same name that releases on Amazon Prime Video, looks at the journey of the woman through the prism of a mother-daughter relationship. “All I knew was I wanted to make a film about a woman and maths,” says Menon, an engineering graduate who went on to work in the advertising industry and finally studied films at the London Film School.
“I listen to people and I am ready to accept good ideas. I just think in my journey I have realised that I have to be true to what I take up. I have to be true to the film and what I make, just to concentrate on the truth of the film I have decided to make,” she says.
Having made a debut with London, Paris, New York (2012) and switching to the indie film Waiting (2015) and then directing episodes of the season one of Four More Shorts Please!, Menon’s choices have been disparate. It often makes people curious. But she has learnt over the years that people often want to box you into a category. “Therefore, I wonder if I am too indie, or too mainstream, or this or that. But I think I am all of that.” She loves French cinema as much as the Bollywood films. “All of that is there in my films—some more in some, and a bit less in others. I have started enjoying my journey now with a bit of a body of work. I have also, on the way, learnt a lot from the people I work with. Like Vidya is someone who would take up something, give everything her 100 per cent and move on. There is no looking back. That’s what we learnt from Shakuntala Devi as well,” says Menon, who is thoroughly enjoying herself much more as a director.
Working from London helps her be objective and circumvent the regular chatter in Bollywood. “In the earlier days, it was a bit more angsty and a bit more uncertain. Now, I think I don’t have to prove myself to anybody.”
She talks to THE WEEK about the process that went into making Shakuntala Devi and why she wants everyone to call their mothers after watching the film.
Q/Vidya Balan said that this is the longest span of time she has covered as a character. For you, as a writer and director, how easy was it to get into a journey so long?
Yeah. From the time she was 20 to 60-something. We spent so much time with Anupama Banerji (Shakuntala Devi’s daughter) that we got an intimate peep into everything. Of course, we also did all the factual research—the milestones, the interviews etc. We matched that with what Anupama provided us because she had the wealth of photographs, all her memories, the anecdotes over the years. We had so much information that we had to figure what actually is going into the film. You get a sense that it was a life well lived. What an amazing journey to have—performing since the age of five and go on till 83—and live life to the fullest. It doesn’t go entirely from her birth, but it covers the key stages of her life.
Q/You have been an engineering student. Do you have recollections of your first introduction with Shakuntala Devi, maybe through one of her books?
I have never read her books. But I can’t even remember when I…(trails off). I just know it. It is like one of those old Hindi songs, which you wonder about how you know it. I don’t remember following her work, or an incident that may have introduced me to her. But a lot of people of my generation I know have met her. She went to schools in the 80s. She hadn’t come to mine and I hadn’t met her. But when I wanted to make a film about a woman in maths, the first thing that came to mind was Shakuntala Devi. I think it was destiny. Then I met Anupama Banerji and things just came together. But one thing I remember is the advertisement of her astrology with her short hair. I may not remember anything more of noticing her, but I have obviously more than made up (laughs).
Q/What was the draw to make a film on a woman into mathematics?
As you mentioned, I have a science background. That was one. But my daughter, when she was eight or so, said, ‘girls love English, boys love maths’. I was like I can’t believe it, one entire generation [has passed] and kids are still saying that. It’s because people don’t see enough positive role models on screen, women doing science, it is always like a masculine field. I thought about it a lot. I also wanted to make it aspirational because we expect maths to be boring, and the most important thing about Shakuntala Devi was to make maths fun. The story, in turn, became about a woman who has enjoyed maths and had such an amazing life. It is way more inspiring than showing a man getting a Nobel prize. She made maths relatable, fun, and joyful. To me, all of that is very important. I don’t really know why we are scared of maths. I wanted to capture all of that. When I started out, I didn’t know that she was so gregarious, flamboyant and so much fun. But now I can put things together. I also keep telling my daughter that TikTok is not going to save you, but you need maths in life. I think we need to demystify maths and science. And I feel very strongly about it.
Q/You speak of gender biases that come into play when one is choosing the subject of his/her studies. Did you look at the subject of the film from any sort of gender lens?
I didn’t. When I want to make a film, women are just women for me. I don’t want to look at it from a patriarchal lens. Actually, I feel that does more disservice. We should tell women’s stories as just stories. By saying or qualifying it as a woman’s story, it feels as if it was not worthy enough if she wasn’t a woman. This woman’s story is still amazing even if she wasn’t a woman. The choices she made, made her the Shakuntala Devi we know. She would still have been a mathematician. However, because she had that inherent equality that she strived for is a great lesson for women today. We are constantly questioning ourselves if ‘as a woman should I do this or that’. She didn’t have any of the limitations. In being true to her story, I think the film becomes a feminist film.
Q/And then you also had a women-led team (cinematographer: Keiko Nakahara, editor: Antara Lahiri, screenplay: Menon and Nayanika Mahtani, dialogues: Ishika Moitra). Did it just happen or was it intentional?
It was just coincidental. We just chose the best people for the job. And slowly, we realised we are too many women. I think it may also be because women responded more strongly to the material. When you hire HODs, the female HODs came forward with a lot more passion, like Keiko. She came to us with a complete mood board and shared so many more ideas the moment she came. I felt like, ‘oh yeah, you totally get my film’. Our producer, however, is a man—Vikram Malhotra—who made it all happen.
Q/Between you and Nayanika, what was the process of scripting the story?
We used to meet Anupama Banerji and her husband Ajay regularly for over three years. We just kept putting things together. It was like a writer’s room, like multiple writers working together. We put together the things and themes that excited us. We wrote the initial screenplay and then Ishita came onboard. She was, of course, doing the dialogues, but she also had her own ideas. The pool just kept getting bigger and bigger. When Vidya came on board, she also had a lot of inputs. It has so many facets to it that it has a lot of things from a lot of people. When I see the film, I see all these people bringing in their nuggets, even though the basic digging was done by us. Also, Nayanika is an author; she is from IIM-Bangalore and also enjoys maths. A lot of the key maths research and the deep analysis were her speciality and contribution.
Q/You have been saying that had Vidya not come on board, maybe the film would not have been made. Why was she so important for the project?
I really don’t know who else can play Shakuntala Devi. We went to her and she has kind of been on the journey from the beginning. But we would say ‘what if she changes her mind?’ We used to pray that it wouldn't happen. A lot of people used to ask me, ‘if not Vidya, who?’, I didn’t have an answer. We also wanted to make a film for the theatres. So, we wanted an actor who people would come and watch. By the time I had met Vidya and we started on this journey, I knew she was my Shakuntala. Their personalities are so similar—the kind of energy and confidence Vidya has, she is witty and funny, and she can carry it off. That multifacetedness that she has, after a point I used to call her Shakuntala. They became one and the same for me. It is so funny that when I was writing the script, in my imagination, I always saw Vidya and not the real Shakuntala, which is a bit sad (laughs). I think it's how you start it.
Q/At what stage of scripting did you contact Vidya?
I didn’t want to write a script before I spoke to Vidya. I wanted to know what she felt about our take. We were playing it as a mother-daughter story. We were going and telling an actor to play a mother to a 20-something girl. There was that. I met her in the beginning of 2018. By then we had done a lot of research, we had all the information. We knew the story we were going to tell, though we hadn’t written the script. She really liked the take and liked that we were not making some sort of a puff piece. It wasn’t also just an ode to Shakuntala Devi. We were going into darker spaces, ready to make it a bit real. Writing the script in itself was a process—how do you tell the story of a woman who lived the way Shakuntala lived, in two hours. It took us a good eight to nine months to write the script.
Q/What was the initial meeting with Anupama Banerji like?
When we first met her, her mum had passed away three years back. It was all quite raw for her. I think she was still dealing with it. Somehow, she trusted Nayanika and me and we became friends. She kept talking without too many filters. And then I think it became a bit of a catharsis for her to go over this life she had led with this amazing woman and who is now absent in her life. She was very truthful and honest. She said ‘you guys decide which aspect to put on screen and which isn’t worth it’. It is overwhelming, but it is also a big responsibility when somebody has trusted you with the darker aspects of their lives, their little emotions, insecurities and sorrows. It’s about how you use it without being manipulative or sensationalising it while being true to the journey. Every time I had these feelings about not making it too filmy. I had to be truthful. Anyway, there was enough drama and conflict in it. But equally, you don’t want them to come across as awful people. You want to be true to their experiences without passing your judgement. When I showed the film to them last week, I was very nervous. When she told me that we have got the essence of her mother and we have been sensitive in our storytelling, I felt very good.
Q/One of the most complex things in Shakuntala Devi’s story is her tryst with homosexuality when her husband came out as gay. It’s a sensitive topic. How did you, as a storyteller, go about it?
That she wrote a book on homosexuality in itself is very progressive. She wrote it because she felt strongly about it. How it impacted her personally, I would just ask you to wait and watch the film because in the film we have covered what exactly it was.
Q/You also focus a lot on the mother-daughter relationship, especially how Anupama wanted her mother to be just a mother. Women often feel guilty about going beyond social boundaries. How tricky was it for you to cover that part in this story?
We like to put everybody in a box. If one is a genius, she has to behave in a particular way. If you become a maths genius, you have to be a sombre person. If you are a mother, you have to put your children before you, because that’s the norm. But she looked at love in a very different way. We believe that mothers have to be sacrificing, mothers have to consider themselves last, be unselfish, be a goddess who would eat only after she has fed everyone else. That’s what we have seen. We are revered if we are selfless. For Shakuntala, her take on motherhood was totally different. That doesn’t mean her love was any less. And a lot of mothers feel that way because society has created an idea about mothers. That is something she grappled with because that is what society was telling her—when she went to school, or other times. But she always felt she was a great mother. After this, I hope all of us also evaluate our own mothers. That is one of my motives that we all call up our mums after watching the film. That would really make me happy.
