Anubhav Sinha made his debut as a film director a little less than two decades ago with the sleeper hit Tum Bin. But it’s only in the last few years that he seems to have found his voice as a storyteller. Having delivered compelling films like Mulk and Article 15, the 54-year-old filmmaker is back in theatres with another social drama, Thappad. Starring Taapsee Pannu, Thappad opened last Friday to rave reviews, and deals with domestic violence. The Telegraph caught up with the filmmaker to know more about his decision to co-write Thappad with a woman, why this is his “toughest film yet” and if he will ever go back to making masala films and romantic comedies.

What prompted this film?

It’s not one incident, it’s not one person. It got conjured up inside me over the years. It was prompted by the one-line idea... when a good husband hits his wife for the first time and she can’t deal with it.

I believe you consciously wanted to work with a female writer on this film. Why was it important to you?

It’s not that I wouldn’t have worked with a male writer, but I chose not to. After the #MeToo campaign, I decided I’d hire as many women as possible. More importantly, no matter how much I might have observed, no matter how many conversations I might have had, no matter how much I’ve read, a woman’s perspective can only come from a woman. This is a film that was about a man-woman relationship, it was important to have a woman’s perspective. My script consultant, Anjum Rajabali is also a man, so I thought it would help to have Mrunmayee (Lagoo Waikul), and it did.

What did Mrunmayee’s perspective bring to the film that you couldn’t have had?

A lot of things. Like how a girl feels as a child. Mrunmayee once said in a conversation that when a girl is asked what she wants to be when she grows up, she does say something. Nobody ever says she wants to be a housewife. This is something I might know, but it wouldn’t be as important to me as a man or I wouldn’t be intelligent or sensitive enough to understand it. So, it was a lot of things like these that came up in conversations. And we were dealing with all kinds of women. About older women, I thought I knew a little more. About younger women, she knew a little more. So it helped.

You’ve called this your toughest film to write and shoot. Why?

This film is about nothing, no? Like Mulk is about a good Muslim going to jail. Article 15 is about three missing girls. This film is about nothing... it’s about a husband slapping his wife. It’s such a normalised thing. You can’t make a film about your neighbour smoking... your reaction would be, ‘Okay your neighbour smokes. And...?’ It’s almost like that. It was tough to write for that reason. It was tough to shoot because it’s not clear what you’re capturing. In Article 15, you’re capturing loneliness, the mystery about the place, the swamps and things like those. In Mulk, you’re capturing drama, emotions, lies and deceit. In this, you’re just dealing with everyday life. And you’re dealing with a lot of internal emotions that are playing inside your heart. How do you capture all of that? How do you translate it visually? How do you convey it? That makes it a very difficult film to shoot. It’s shot inside homes, so you can’t make it visually interesting. It’s also difficult to pass on that emotion to the audience.

Did you have people asking you while writing or making the film ‘it’s just one slap — why is Taapsee’s character making such a big deal out of it’?

Yeah, that was the idea. The whole design of the writing is such that I want people to feel that she’s overdoing it. But no, she isn’t. And even when we wrote the first few drafts, there was a struggle going on. I was very keen and very sure that I wanted this to look overdone, because it’s so normalised that even women, my co-writer Mrunmayee at some point said, ‘The husband’s such a nice guy, let him off’. And I said, ‘No, that’s not possible. You cannot’. And that’s the point. That was a very thin line that Mrunmayee and I were walking.

There’s this moment where he (Vikram, played by Pavail Gulati) messes up on something and he’s walking away, but he still goes back and touches his father-in-law’s feet. So, I’m constantly playing that game with the audience in the film... you don’t know whether to like him or to hate him. You hate him for what he did but then you also think he’s not a bad guy, he made a mistake. I did not want this guy to be bad, that’s not a movie for me. If he’s a bad man, you should not have married him in the first place. He’s a good man, he checks all the boxes but he’s made a mistake and a fatal one at that. That’s the movie.

Thappad is unlike anything Taapsee has done before. It’s such an anti-cast in that way. What made her perfect for this role?

I realise in hindsight that I don’t cast actors into parts because they fit in so well. I think I end up casting people I’m very fond of and am very confident of. I also cast people who would interpret the parts differently. Look at Manoj Pahwa’s casting as a bad guy or Kumud Mishra who plays a lower-caste cop (both in Article 15) but he’s a tall, fair man. In our psyche, lower-caste people aren’t fair. I only realise this now when I look back.

Directors like Zoya (Akhtar) and Sujoy (Ghosh) are very clear about the faces that they want, but I’m not. I write the film and then I let the process of casting take its course. I think Taapsee’s casting comes in that order. I’m very fond of her, I’m very confident she’ll deliver. Yes, she has a brand which is against what the character is, but I was confident we would pull it off with a new interpretation and I’m hoping we did.

The thread that binds your last three films is that they deal with inequality, be it religion, caste or gender. Has that happened consciously?

I just realised it myself a few days ago. While we were working on Article 15, my editor Yasha (Ramchandani) said I’m someone who likes to stay in five-star hotel suites and likes big cars and all of that but I am very vocal about inequality. She didn’t know how to label me. I explained to her that I want a palace and I want 15 cars and this and that, but if my driver has the same palace right next to me, I don’t mind. He should have that. That’s when she called me a ‘Bourgeois Marxist’ (laughs). So, I like equality in all spheres of life but I still like big cars.

You’ve also finished shooting for Abhi Toh Party Shuru Hui Hai. You’ll have four films releasing in three years…

No, I plan to release two more this year but I can’t talk about the last one yet.

What’s the hurry?

(Laughs) People keep saying, ‘Anubhav is in great form’. And I get very worried because form doesn’t last for too long. So make hay while the sun shines. Also, I am an impatient man, I like to work hard and round the clock. I have too many stories happening to me.

I have to ask you about the big shift in the kind of director you are and the kind of movies that you make…

(Laughs) I’m going to write a book about it some day. Everyone asks me about this. Since it’s happened, by god’s grace, so many good things have been happening. And I’ve been so busy that I’ve not had the time to sit back and figure out what changed. But I must, because there is something that has definitely happened. I’ve reconnected with old friends... I’ve started reading again for the past three years and I’ve become socially and politically more expressive. These are a few changes, and I have a feeling somewhere in all of this is the answer.

Do you not see yourself going back to making masala entertainers?

Yesterday I was offered a big action movie, which I turned down. But I don’t know, don’t take me too seriously. Like they say, it’s just form.