Dog bite, actor in hospital, dead bodies every 2 minutes: Barah by Barah director on making film about Varanasi’s last ‘death photographer’

“When I met him, I realised he was a funny, captivating man. I spent a day with him, where he told me his regret. It was fascinating. It was when the film’s philosophy started forming. He was a paan-chewing family man, who told me, ‘Now everyone has a cell phone, so no one needs me. I burn myself in the sun, I don’t even get paid.’

“He was planning to go to Roorkee to work in his brother-in-law’s factory. That’s where he is now. I thought, isse pehle is character ka naam aur nishaan mit jaye, he should be documented,” Gaurav told Indianexpress.com about the origins of Barah by Barah, which had its World premiere at IFFK, Kerala and International premiere at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

A still from Barah by Barah. (Photo: PR Handout)

Once at Manikarnika ghat, Gaurav, who hails from Haryana, wrote the film in 15 days. He thought financing the film would be a challenge, but that wasn’t the case. “I know many indie filmmakers who have sold their houses to make films, borrowed money. I didn’t want to do that at all. But people were getting excited over the idea of making a film on the last remaining death photographer in Varanasi. It turned out to be enough for us to raise finance.”

But what indeed was challenging, was shooting the film in Varanasi. Gaurav said it is a city that is “crowded, noisy, there are people, cattle, temples, aartis” and is almost never silent. “Even the silences are spiritual which you find in the cacophony.” Because the film had a lot of external shots, it meant dealing with a frame intruder of a different kind: dead body.

“It was a challenge to shoot because every two and half minutes, there was a dead body coming! The aarti would come with a procession, and full baraat (procession), because they don’t associate negativity with death. People celebrate it. So, we followed a documentary approach for our exterior scenes. We placed our main actors in the crowd and got our scenes. We had done extensive recce and blocked our scene amidst the crowd.”

With a crew of 35, Gaurav shot the film for 22 days. The director claimed they are perhaps the only film crew who got to shoot at Manikarnika ghats for eight days.

“Even in Masaan, they created Manikarnika ghat at Gaay ghat, which is detached from the hustle bustle, and some were shot in guerrilla style. We shot our scenes at Manikarnika ghat, so all the pyre scenes are real, the only VFX is the fire. Manikarnika is a character in the film, my death photographer works there. It is a permission hassle, but my line producer got it because he was influential. It is not easy to shoot there. My character in the film would reach home and brush off the ash– because it is in the air. The place is full of ash, so even we would do that once we returned from the shoot,” he added.

Gaurav and his crew shot amidst pyre, brushed off ash day in day out and kept at it even when the director got bit by a dog, got himself a quick injection, and resumed shoot. For an indie film, time was money.

“Which is why the biggest setback was when half our crew suffered from food poisoning. It turned serious when our lead actor Gyan had to be hospitalised. He was in hospital for two days so we couldn’t shoot, there was hardly any scene without him. He was on saline, and we thought even if he resumes, he won’t have the energy to shoot because his body was very weak. But he pulled it off.”

What Gaurav also managed to do through the course of making Barah by Barah, was overcoming the disgust he attached with death. “It was initially unnerving to be there at Manikarnika. There is a Holi scene in my film, where people are taking a dead body to the ghat, while others continue to play with colours around it. It is a mundane thing for them, and when I witnessed that, I thought this is how death should be viewed. That is part of our life.”

As the film gears up for a theatrical release next week, Gaurav said he is aware some “parallels” could be drawn between his film and Neeraj Ghaywan’s acclaimed Varanasi-set film Masaan, which has stamped itself in pop culture with actors like Richa Chadha, Vicky Kaushal, Sanjay Mishra and Pankaj Tripathi bringing the memorable characters to life on screen.

“But our film’s communication is very simple, that come and experience Varanasi through the eyes of a man, who doesn’t exist anymore, whose profession is dead itself. This is the Varanasi you don’t see anymore those lanes are long gone,” he added.