Band Bajaa Bitiya ad with Gajraj Rao: Meet the people who turned a wedding baraat into protest

Raipur-based Sandeep Goel, a Director of Goel TMT, who has been doing campaigns with Radhakrishnan for the last 20 years, had been toying with the idea of a film with a social message. “A lot has been done on women’s empowerment and financial independence with a messianic zeal. But not much was done on what enables that independence, the parental home. Every daughter must know that her parents have her back at all times,” he says.

The Band Baaja Bitiya advertisement was written by Sneh Nihalani and OR Radhakrishnan. (Source: Special Arrangement)

As Radhakrishnan got down to sketch the storyboard, it was wife Sneh who had the lightbulb moment based on her research from a media report in 2023 about a father who got his daughter back from her marital home with a wedding band, saving her from domestic violence. “This was somewhere around Kanpur in UP. What a statement to make in heartland India, not in a big city mind you, to challenge societal custom, bias and stigma and continue to live there without the fear of ostracization. He could have just got back his daughter, but with the band bajaa, he demolished the idea of a girl’s victimhood, the bechariyat wali language with which she is always described,” says Radhakrishnan.

Nihalani, who was scouring for ideas to redefine strength — usually depicted by macho men and celebrities — shifted the lens from the muscularity of strength to it being a support. The TMT bar’s strength is because it supports superstructures. And a woman’s strength lay in family support. “If she knew she could come back and rebuild her life, she wouldn’t suffer abuse in silence or have self-doubt. In fact, she would have the strength to walk out. That’s how the story of support came up as an emotional spine, from visible strength to invisible support,” says Radhakrishnan.

The Band Baaja Bitiya ad is directed by Prosit Roy and produced by Avishek Ghosh under Unicorn Films, in association with Wisteria Media. (Source: Special Arrangement)

In the narrative, the father becomes the metaphorical TMT bar, a pillar of support standing firm amid social tremors. “We didn’t have external voices in the film. The only voices the father hears are of family members who advise him to not act on the daughter’s complaint and instead advise her to adjust. ‘Daan kar diya hai…Chhoti ki bhi shaadi hai…dhakka-mukki toh hoti rehti hai (We have given her away to another family, we have to get her sister married, spousal fights are routine). The world is hardly bothered. Only family members normalise domestic abuse, their latent patriarchy and biased economics hiding behind concern and social reputation,” says Radhakrishnan.

When the script reached director Prosit Roy, it immediately struck a chord because the subject was personal as much as political. “Growing up in Kolkata, I have seen violence in neighbouring homes. Women being beaten. And we retreated, thinking we should not interfere with what is happening in paasher baari (the house next door). So, it was important to talk about this,” he says.

On zeroing in on Gajraj Rao, Roy says he deliberately chose to portray the father not as a heroic crusader but an ordinary man. “It’s about a father standing up against archaic values and challenging his own conditioning. Even the women in his family have normalised the abuse. I kept thinking, what would my father, uncle do if this happened to my sister? That’s when Gajraj sir’s face floated up,” he says.

He chose a non-linear script because he wanted the character to think about the voices in his head, of his daughter and family members and then show the sudden snap. “If you see, he is wearing the same shirt he wore to work. He sees the band on his way back from work, decides then and there and crowds out the noise,” says Roy.

Producer Avisek Ghosh of Unicorn films also edited the film and selected Lucknow as the locale. “Each crew member believed in it because suppression happens in the best of families,” he says.

All three are surprised by the feedback. “We just did it with honesty, and some magic happened,” says Roy. Goel, in fact, says he had anticipated a backlash as the issue is sensitive. “This is a pain point that isn’t spoken about. I thought as a father and hoped others would like the story like I did,” he adds.

In an industry where 30 seconds is often considered long, the team took a risk with a three-minute-23-second film, releasing it on digital rather than television. But Radhakrishnan was confident. “At the first screening, a tissue box was being passed around. If a story is endearing, people will watch. And here it is not about forcing your weight but standing your ground.”

Ghosh believes that a good story always amplifies the client’s brand value and helps it win the battle of perception. “Hollywood must be making 20,000 films on baseball and they all do well. This story has touched so many fathers. Imagine how each human story in India could go ahead,” he says while planning to enter the film in global ad awards.