Arati Kadav’s first feature film Cargo that started its festival journey at the Mumbai Film Festival in 2019, has now found a home on Netflix. Slated to stream from September 9, the science fiction film takes place sometime in the future. The film revolves around Prahastha (Vikrant Massey), a celebrated demon, who has been on Pushpak 634A, one of the spaceships in the Pushpak series – assigned for post-death transition services, for decades. An anthropomorphised demon and a beneficiary of a “Demon-Sapien Peace Treaty”, the still-youthful looking Prahastha, has handled millions of reincarnations single-handedly. But change is on the cards. A newly appointed assistant, Yuvishka (Shweta Tripathi), joins him and starts questioning the traditions followed on the spaceship for years. Guiding them from the ground is Nirtigya sir (Nandu Madhav), who appears on a tiny screen and often breaks the monotony of the spaceship.
Earlier this year, Kadav, who has forever been fascinated with fantasy stories, spoke to THE WEEK about the film, her journey into filmmaking and more.
What was the starting point to make the film?
The starting point was much earlier. I had a lot of interest in mythology and after-life mythology of every culture. I would read mythologies of Africa, Greece and other places. I would try and make sense of the purpose of life by examining these mythologies – why you are born, where do you go when you die. Kind of try and find the purpose and relevance of one’s existence. A close friend once told me that all the mythologies are anyway stories that someone has written. That idea somehow stuck to me. Then, when I started writing, I wanted to delve into it and explore the meaning of mythology from a contemporary perspective; that’s also a little fun. I wanted to make it irreverent. I have been making short films and stuff for a while, with the learning from that I also really wanted to contain the locations to have a good quality in a low budget.
Throughout the film, the long-held notion about life after death is questioned, the major one being that there’s no life after death at all or there’s no existence of heaven or hell. What was the thought process behind that?
There is this certain philosophy that there is nowhere you go to after you die. I also wanted to talk about how even if there is no reward at the end of the life, one can still choose it to be good. I really believe that you don’t want to be good just because there’s going to be heaven at the end, you want to be good because it makes more sense to you as a person. And, if you see life with that context, it doesn’t seem unfair because the rewards are instant and not faraway or in the afterlife. I really wanted to bring in the discussion because everything is so assigned to the afterlife, but in reality it is right here, right now.
The film is intense with conversations around life and death. And then, there are moments of humour – like a guy messaging his to-be-bride and questioning her how she can get married to someone else. It taps into the world of human emotions…
It was very important for me to do that. In India, there is no context of spaceships before our film. If I just show people in uniform or star troopers going around, the connection would not be there. My idea was to put people and incidents that are relatable. An uncle who is confusing you with someone else, or a mean bride – people who you have seen around you in life are now in the spaceship. It is sort of like immigration – I modelled the whole culture of the spaceship with Nirtigya sir [as the ground control officer] like a SBI bank culture, where an elderly person is managing crores of funds for the bank but in his life, he is still riding a scooter. It may be a science fiction film, but I wanted the element from our day-to-day life in it. I also wanted it to be rooted in Indian society.
Was it difficult to make a science fiction film being a woman?
It took me seven to eight years to finally find three-four people who completely trust my vision. Before that, I struggled a lot. Before Cargo, I was trying to make another film. While pitching that, I would know from the facial expressions of a person that they had rejected the notion of me being able to pull off a sci-fi concept in general. As soon as I sat on the chair, I would think ‘how do I turn around his energy?’ But it didn’t happen. Nobody wanted to take that first leap of faith. That is always there. The only way to work it out is to be at it. I have had my share of ups and downs and extremely long periods of rejections, but my resolve over a period of time has become stronger. I had written seven scripts before this – all sci-fi. So, there were a couple of challenges. First, I was a woman. Then, I had scripts of science fiction films that are at a nascent stage in India. And third, I was from outside the industry with limited access to people. The only thing I could work on was self-growth by writing a lot, watching a lot of films and then making my short films or doing a few ads or making small music videos. That gradually built up and I had a strong team I could reach out to when I decided to make my film.
You studied at IIT-Kanpur and then worked as an engineer in Seattle. You mentioned in one of your earlier interviews that it was away from home in the US that you got drawn to films. Could you talk about that time?
Growing up, I used to write a lot of stories and I had an artistic bent of mind. I used to sketch a lot too. I belonged to a middle-class family and was good at studies. I had limited career choices – either engineer or doctor. I took up engineering. But after moving to the US, I had a lot of time to myself. I bought a video camera and used to shoot things in and around, also because it was an expensive camera and I thought it should be put to use (laughs). But in the process, I started understanding the language of cinema. I am an introverted person, but during making the videos I could articulate much better. I made a short film and by the time I was making the second one, I thought that ‘this is it, how could I be doing anything else.’ It was fulfilling. It was an obsession and thankfully it has lasted for the last 10 years.
Is it because you studied science as a student that your interest in science fiction grew stronger?
I keep wondering about it too. When I was at IIT, my courses included machine learning and we would research things that would come in future. I read a lot about the potential of science. At that point, a lot of things were still speculative, which was exciting for me. There was also a lot of focus on the designing system. I have had an attraction for fantasy since childhood. But studying science, I acquired a basic skill set of designing a system. Also, once I started reading science fiction books, I realised a lot more could be said about reality in fun ways through fantasy than fiction based in reality. You can have a sense of humour, you can completely change biases and question prejudices. I felt that this inclination towards science fiction is the most powerful tool to have.
And then you chose to go ahead with a spaceship in Cargo that is very retro.
Yes. Personally, I love retro sci-fi. I love science fiction that is nostalgic, which reminds you of the gadgets you saw in your childhood. I love that contrast – you are seeing something new but you sort of have familiar memory buttons because of which you feel more involved in it and warm towards that story. Also, in the story we have had Prahastha in the spaceship for a very long time, so I wanted the machinery to also be a little clunky, wobbly, with a gear system in it. I wanted the machine to be a metallic organism in itself. I am also a big fan of filmmakers like Michel Gondry, Terry Gilliam and the likes. These people are not precise in their production design. They are mostly very quirky. I love bringing that quirky element. For these people, the instruments also have a personality. I was influenced by that thought.
