Ulajh is a spy thriller set in the bureaucratic circles of the Indian Foreign Service and boasts an intriguing cast. Centred around Janhvi Kapoor’s Suhana Bhatia, a young IFS officer who gets entangled in a conspiracy, Ulajh that releases in cinemas on August 2, is directed by Siliguri boy and National Award winner Sudhanshu Saria who, starting with indie cinema, has within a brief period made inroads into big Bollywood.
t2 chatted with Sudhanshu to know about his Friday film that stars Gulshan Devaiah, Roshan Mathew, Meiyang Chang, Rajesh Tailang and Adil Hussain, and the road ahead.
With only a few days to release, are the nerves shot or are you more excited than anything else?
I am lucky that we have an amazing, exciting cast from which audiences have come to expect very high quality. Likes, comments and love are coming in from all quarters. The idea with Ulajh has been to make an exciting, nail-biting edge-of-the seat, audience-first thriller... something fresh, different, challenging and new.
After watching the trailer, people are telling us that the film is looking very different from the usual. Ulajh has not been made with the single-minded purpose of making a profit. We have made it to entertain the audience and give people value for their money... making sure we give them a reason to step out of their house on a Friday night and go buy a ticket.
What was the genesis of Ulajh?
Junglee Pictures (producer) reached out to me with this phenomenal script. What was very exciting to me was that this is not a genre I have directed before. I saw in it the potential to make a truly inventive, challenging new film that redefines the genre. I said ‘yes’ and then began the process of pushing the story to its maximum potential.
How did this new genre challenge you and what were your biggest takeaways?
I always come into everything from the point of view of facts. The process of making this film began with me watching a lot of things in this genre. I read up about the politics of this world, what is IFS (Indian Foreign Service) and its duniya, and realised subsequently that nothing has ever been made on it, at least in Hindi commercial cinema.
When one talks about bravery and patriotism, one only tends to think about men and women in uniform. It is always the man with a gun, it is always military.... That is, of course, fantastic and an immeasurable service to the nation. But there is also this whole other invisible army of diplomats who serve the nation and achieve significant victories for us, many of which are about avoiding war in the first place.
The machinations of that world are interesting for me. What you have to do and the way you have to do it to fulfil your agenda, doing the mental math, planning your moves like in a game of chess... most importantly, while making crucial decisions, how does one pick between the lesser of two evils? How do you make those moral quandary-tinged choices when you have to struggle between personal politics and what your country needs at that moment? The deeper I got into this world, the more opportunities began to surface in terms of where we could take the story.
Also, I knew that if we cast right and went after unconventional, unpredictable actors, each of them would inject the film with a new energy. The same applied to the technicians who would be good enough to see this through, whether it was the editor, cinematographer, casting director or music composer... we believed that each of them would make this film more and more inventive. Each of them had to crack a film that could stand shoulder to shoulder with any spy thriller made anywhere in the world.
What does your eclectic bunch of actors bring to their roles that elevated them from what was on paper?
Their contribution is immeasurable. The biggest thing I did was create a democratic environment where each of them felt comfortable, felt like they were part of the film. They could bring their ideas, their identities, their origin stories, their culture, their ethnicity, their food, to their work in this film. That is what makes it so layered and rich.
I am a fan of each of these actors, they were on my bucket list. Whether it is a thespian like Adil Hussain or a remarkably quirky and inventive actor like Jitendra Joshi or whether it is Meiyang Chang, who I believe has never been presented the way he will be seen in this film. Whether it is Roshan (Mathew), who straddles multiple genres and industries so effortlessly or Gulshan (Devaiah) who, honestly, is the most unpredictable actor right now... or Janhvi (Kapoor), who for an actress her age, has crafted one of the most resilient careers already... just look at those choices she has made in the last few years!
I have got lucky with this bunch of actors. You can’t make a spy thriller without creating enough suspects, enough doubt, enough reasons to mistrust someone.... Audiences guess all kinds of things about what a character is going to do based on who you cast in that part.
You said that this film has not been made for profit but ultimately, one needs the numbers to break even and bankroll future projects. How confident are you of Ulajh in a year which has been very unpredictable for Bollywood at the box office?
Honestly, I live in a cave. I have no perspective on anything. I eat, breathe, live, sleep, drink the film I am making at that point of time.
What I can tell you as an audience member, however, is that people are looking for honesty. They want filmmakers to respect their time and to craft a story that is worthy of that time. They respect honesty and good effort. I think the audience can smell it out whether you are trying to manipulate them by ticking off all the obvious boxes to secure their movie ticket or have you gone out of your way to make something unpredictable which makes them go ‘wow’ and makes them want to support you.
I take that time and that trust very, very seriously. But beyond that, I live on a planet of my own. I try to work as hard as I can and with Ulajh, I am excited to find out what people think of it.
It has been a brief but rewarding career so far, which has also included a National Award. How do you look back?
Honestly, all of it seems like one giant rollercoaster ride. I can’t believe how lucky I got. I have directed each film as though there would be none after that. I followed my heart and stayed honest to it. None of these films were made from a place of strategy. Each of the films, when I was making them at that point, felt like risky and potentially career-ending. But each film was rewarded with that same sincerity that I put into it.
Being able to make Ulajh has been a very rewarding experience. Doing this film has led to many more phone calls and opportunities for me. I just hope the audience thinks that watching this film has been worth their time and money.
There is a long way to go but is the young boy from Siliguri living his dream?
Oh my god, yes! At that time, I had no idea about all this. I was the kind of kid who would miss the train because I would be sitting on the platform and poring over a film magazine! Never, in a million years, did I think I would get to be a part of it. But here I am today.
One of the most exciting things, I remember, was being on set one day and looking through the viewfinder, looking at the face in front of me, looking at the eyes in front of me, and realising that I was part of this legacy of filmmaking. It was humbling as well as a feeling of pride.
Right now, I am like a cricketer on the crease. I don’t want to lose my focus. I haven’t been to my hometown in a long time and that is one of the first things I intend on doing once Ulajh releases.