Bala director Amar Kaushik on film’s sad but funny climax: ‘Hadn’t shown Ayushmann Khurrana’s look to Yami Gautam…’

With hair, Bala also lost his confidence and faith in his ability to get a job, or even find a girl who would like him for who he is. And because Bala was so shallow, he understood how he might seem like the most unattractive version of himself without any hair. So he got a wig. And that was it, until he met Yami Gautam’s vain but somewhat innocent, Pari. In the climax scene, after their wedding, she discovers the truth about him, and it’s as sad and funny as you would have expected the segment to be.

Speaking about directing Yami as Pari, who basically played a social media influencer in the feature, filmmaker Amar Kaushik told indianexpress.com, “When we were forming the character, she was not like a TikTok star then. But after a few drafts were done and we met Yami, the concept became clearer, that she is from a smaller town and had this ambition of making it big in entertainment. So I looked into TikTok, and I was hooked. I was spending nights watching those videos, and that is when it came to me: ‘why can’t Pari be a TikTok star from Lucknow?’ We came up with someone who was a mix of the girls I had seen on TikTok from those areas. Very dramatic and girly. But it is when she discovers Bala that you get a glimpse of the real person behind that persona.”

Breaking down the bit when Yami’s Pari comes face to face with the truth about Bala’s fake hair, Kaushik said that that climax was shot on the third day of filming Bala, which also happened to be the first day of Yami’s shoot.

“This was our first day, first scene of Yami, and third day of filming Bala. I had never shown Ayushmann’s look for the film to Yami before that. She had no clue. We had rehearsed nearly every sequence with Yami barring that portion. I wanted her to be spontaneous, and I wanted her to discover Bala as Pari. I just said, ‘Yami, aapko Ayushmann ke baal khichne hai (you have to grab his hair), but don’t grab it in a way that some of it comes of.’ I asked her to do one more thing, I did not want her to just laugh. When she did it, she exceeded my expectations, it was like someone had died, that is how she reacted. Jaisa maine socha tha usse 5-10 level upar gaya tha wo scene (It went beyond what I had envisioned). Ayushmann was also shocked by the way she did it,” the Bhediya director recalled with a smile.

Pari is perhaps one of the most fully realised characters Yami Gautam has played in her career of over a decade. She is also one of the best things about the movie. Despite being surrounded by actors such as Ayushmann and Bhumi, who are known for their realistic portrayals of characters, Yami stood her own, and that couldn’t have happened without a well-written part. Even within Pari, there was some balance, of that shallowness and sweetness of personality. I would even go as far as to say that if the entire film had been written with that much conviction, Bala would have been a far superior movie.

Interestingly, Bala was pitched to Kaushik very differently. The director said when Ayushmann came to producer Dinesh Vijan with the script, it was a more serious take on the subject, and was also somehow linked to pollution and the character’s efforts to clean the Ganges. However, Amar had different plans, and safe to say, those turned out well.

Bala is available to stream on Disney Plus Hotstar and YouTube.