Bhed, Bakri, Bhoot: Shivam Shankar reveals why he set the film in a restroom

A still from the short film. Pics/By Special Arrangement

Sometimes limitations can take you to wilder imagination, out of the box ideas, and even to a restroom. That's exactly what happened when debutant director Shivam Shankar was struggling for resources to mount his short film Bhed, Bakri, Bhoot.

"We were struggling for basic resources, so I knew I had to set it in a closed space. I wrote something set in a flat, then in a restaurant, but I wasn't kicked about them. That's when we came to the idea of setting the entire film in a washroom. I read in a book that more revolutions have happened on the walls of a toilet than the parliament," said Shankar.

Shivam Shankar

Currently streaming on Anurag Kashyap's YouTube channel Oh Short Flips, the satire begins with a heartbroken musician writing a bitter message about his lover on the wall of a public restroom. Soon, passers-by begin adding their own grievances on to the tiles, leading to the restroom's deterioration.

To Shankar, it's a privilege to have filmmakers Abhishek Chaubey and Navdeep Singh present Bhed, Bakri, Bhoot. "It's a beautiful feeling that these two makers, whose work I admire, have attached their names to our film. Navdeep sir's NH10 [2015] was against what was being made then, and Abhishek sir's Sonchiriya [2019] always fascinated me," he smiled.