Moving the Goalposts

This slice-of-life feature is milling with characters, who, in some ways, offer an endearing look at various aspects of Mumbai and its quirkiness. According to the director, however, the size of the cast was not a big deal for him. “Once you have a good script, and if you can do justice to it, then everything falls in place. We wanted to be honest in the casting of the film. We had a great time making this film. Each and every member of the cast has given more than their 100 per cent to the film,” he says.

However, finalising the cast for Tu Hai Mera Sunday, which features Barun Sobti, Shahana Goswami, Manvi Gagroo, Rasika Dugal, Vishal Malhotra, Avinash Tiwary, Jay Upadhyay, Shivkumar Subramaniam and Nakul Bhalla, took a while. “I have a particular approach to casting and am obsessive about certain things. In an ensemble cast, there are always a lot of permutations and combinations involved. Finding the perfect balance of characters takes a lot of time,” says Dhaimade. As for the setting of the film — Mumbai — Dhaimade wanted people to see the city though his eyes. “Mumbai is such a wonderful mix of people and yet we never see that on the surface. I wanted people to get a taste of Mumbai’s language, its distinct homogeneous feel, the way we speak Hindi and English. Yet, each of us has a mother tongue when we go home. Very few people realise how vastly diverse Mumbai is,” says the Mumbai-based filmmaker.

Still from Tu Hai Mera Sunday.

Interestingly, the movie is shot at some of the crowded pockets across the city, apart from Goa. Dhaimade has been shooting television commercials for a while now, so he does have experience of handling shoots in Mumbai. “We got permissions for most outdoor locations, but getting it for key areas such as Juhu beach and others was nearly impossible. So, we made the actors play every morning like regular people. Once they became integral to the scenery, so to speak, my DOP (Director of Photography), Harendra Singh and I shot them with a hidden camera. We’ve realised that if you remove the trappings of a ‘film shoot’ and film with just a camera and actors, most people in Mumbai leave you alone. But you need a very confident DOP for that,” says the director, who has also written the film’s lyrics.

With Tu Hai Mera Sunday, Dhaimade has fulfilled a long-cherished ambition of turning a filmmaker. After dabbling with theatre during college in Mumbai, Dhaimade opted for advertising in the ’90s as a “safer career” option. In 2010, after a successful career as an ad filmmaker, he along with his wife, Rajul, formed their company, Love and Faith. In 2013, he completed the final draft of Tu Hai Mera Sunday. “After meeting several people in the industry, we realised that the best way to make a good film would be to do it on our own. So, we put in all our money and raised the balance funds through friends and relatives,” he says.

Dhaimade has several projects that he’s been writing for a while, including a web-series. “A lot of my work veers around urban life and the psychosis of urban living. I have not come across enough stories of ‘everyday people’ in urban areas and that topic fascinates me. It’s too early to say whether that’s the future direction of my work. I plan to go for character-based stories than purely plot-based ones,” he says.