Exclusive: Maa Behen writer Pooja Tolani on feminist gaze, Triptii Dimri, deleted scenes, and alternate climax

Until a day before the release of Maa Behen the Madhuri Dixit Triptii Dimri and Dharna Durgastarrer dark comedy director Suresh Triveni joked that if writer Pooja Tolani had her way she would still be writing and making changes to the script to perfect it Looking at how well the Netflix film has been received by the audience the writers itch is finally at restEven as she continues to receive messages and mentions for the films feminism and cackling humour midday gets on a call with her to talk about the fiveyearlong journey she undertook to write Maa Behen what makes Rekha Jaya and Sushma special and why the concept of women writing women is a cop outQ Before the film released Suresh Triveni mentioned to us that he had hit a writerrsquos block with Maa Behen and itrsquos when you came on board the film started to take shape So when he met you with the story what scope did you see in it for the filmThe first thing that I look for when something new comes to me is whatrsquos exciting as well as scaring me about it Suresh sent me a halfwritten document What really jumped out at me was the potential of exploring women who grow up with the lack of a male presence in their lives That absence can either make you lose your inhibitions or you can go into a shell That wasnrsquot what the film was about when Suresh sent me the document but there were some things in it that made me feel that this is the direction that we should take which was different from what he was trying to doQ What was Suresh trying to doI think he was also not very sure probably why the film was stuck I am not sure but what I do know is that he definitely wanted to go into a space where the women are not perfect and lovely It was more like a response to Tumhari Sulu 2017 as Sulu Vidya Balan was this sweet woman So he wanted to write about women who are flawed That was something he was always clear about It was also called something else initially When he sent to me it was Maa Behen And honestly I joke about it a lot but itrsquos only half a joke The moment I read the title Maa Behen I thought to myself lsquoI am doing this filmrsquoFor me the three characters became special because they are carrying a chip on their shoulder because therersquos a lack of man So this complex that they grew up with evolved Rekha Dixit as this lonely woman Itrsquos not in the script anymore but I had written that she was obsessed with the idea of dying alone Jaya Dimri was obsessed not consciously though with the idea of lsquoI am a good woman She has seen how her mother has been judged throughout and her response to that has been that she will get married have a conventional family and have a child and be the perfect bahu Sushma Durga is struggling for identity She doesnrsquot know who her father is and she has obviously heard things about it growing up So she is constantly looking for a father figure or for some kind of validation for identity Hence the evolution into being a social media influencer For attention she is doing things that she may not necessarily wanting to doQ Was the filmrsquos humour there in the document that Suresh sent you Or was it brought in laterYes it was funny Of course the kind of jokes and the humour was very different because the intention of that story was different But it was always meant to be funny Even though I didnrsquot keep any of those jokes and he was very salty about it laughs when I was reading it I was laughing Itrsquos just that storywise there was no space for them But it was always meant to be a tongueincheek kind of comedy with a dark element to itQ The humour for the longest duration of the film is stemmed in how the society views these women Itrsquos only later in the story that we are shown how they actually are What made you take this route for the screenplayThe TV anchor treatment was there in Sureshrsquos document but in a different way At that point this TV anchor would become part of a scene I had really liked that We hadnrsquot decided from the first day that we would use this device to give us the societyrsquos perspective In the beginning we used the TV anchor in the flashback Along the way we decided that letrsquos give the information of the past but letrsquos do it from the audiencersquos perspective After twothree drafts we cracked the end And then we came back and redid the whole thing for the flip to come because if it is to come in the end we need to feed in the societyrsquos perspective In the first couple of drafts we had societyrsquos perspective as Mrs Gupta Geetanjali Kulkarni talking to a neighbour about these women But when we did it using the sensational TV anchor everything fit because we also show Rekha obsessed with this TV show Khalbali So it made sense that the societyrsquos view of her is as sensational as KhalbaliQ One of the things highlighted about Rekha in the film is the way she dresses especially the sleeveless blouse which even today raises eyebrows when a woman wears it How clear were you that this is how she will dressThe idea for the sleeveless blouse first came from Suresh because he was talking about women whom he may have known during his childhood and they were talk of the colony because they wore sleeveless blouses So he mentioned this to me and we thought why not make Rekha wear it When we were discussing it he said Therersquos a certain kind of sexuality that women tend to use and I said No I have always thought of Rekha as someone who negotiates Agar ek smile zyada dene se mujhe sabun ki tikki mil rahi hai toh mujhe toh chahiye na bachhoen ke liye So thatrsquos fine But she will obviously not compromise herself because she needs somethingFor me Rekha didnrsquot wear sleeveless blouses because she believed she would attract attention She just genuinely feels hot There was a teacher in my school who used to always wear sleeveless outfits and she would constantly fan herself and say Itrsquos so hot I would think Marsquoam ko kitni garmi lagti hai So while the idea and the perception of the blouse Suresh brought out from his childhood memory for me Rekha used to wear it because use garmi lagti haiThe most fun we had with this idea was when I cracked that the blouse is what she would use to tie Mr Guptarsquos Ravi Kishen mouth The blouse is the evidenceI grew up in a slightly conservative family So growing up I never wore sleeveless Itrsquos not that it wasnrsquot allowed but it was discouraged So it came a full circle when at the screening of Maa Behen my mother came wearing a sleeveless blouse because she wanted to be RekhaQ One of the most impactful scenes in the film is when a large group of men attack Rekharsquos house Itrsquos disturbing and heartwrenching Could you talk about the choice of dressing them up in allblack raincoats Was that written in the script itselfIt wasnrsquot written in the script That was Sureshrsquos idea and I think itrsquos fabulous because it gives the mob one face All this while we were looking at the societyrsquos perspective with Khalbali as the storyteller but Suresh describes the vandalisation scene as a nightmare When you remember a traumatic experience you sometimes donrsquot recall the exact details You remember the feeling you had at the time This is why Rekha has blurred the details because you tend to block it out Anuj Dhawan the cinematographer on Maa Behen has done a fabulous jobQ Where did you get the idea of Rekha Jaya and Sushma playing Snakes and Ladder after locking themselves up in the room fromWhen the back is against the wall Rekha has this tendency I feel of making happiness out of nothing The three of them grew up with no means and much fear But her nature is not to mop around When someone tried to shame her and the daughters by writing nasty things on their wall she made a game out of it She told them Jao pen leke aao Hum dhote hain iseThere was a scene which we later cut out where there was a wedding in the colony and these three werenrsquot invited But they got ready like they were going for a wedding She made them dress up took them to the nearby stall where they ate Chinese and enjoyed themselves So Rekharsquos response is to fight survive and block out the unpleasant while focusing on creating a happy moment In the vandalisation scene Suresh and I were thinking what she should do Should she play a game or sing a song I canrsquot remember how we came up on Snakes and Ladder but once we did we were setQ Did at that any point while writing the screenplay did you think that the revenge against Mr Gupta would be to kill him or were you always certain of the climaxWe were very clear that we didnrsquot want them to kill him I know we played fast and loose with realism in the film but killing him would have felt unconvincing Secondly I feel what we were trying to say through the film wouldnrsquot have been achieved by killing him We did have one draft where we had him dying in an accident while he is on his way to extract revenge from them But it felt a little halkaSo we built in the whole massage bit Rekha also tells her daughters Tumhare papa zidd karake chhat pe massage karwate the Itrsquos a tiny detail so people might miss it but whole idea was to show that Sukumar Jatin Sarna was so proud of having a goodlooking wife that he wanted to show her off to the colony So the massage thing became a big thing in the imagination of the colony men I would imagine that if there were a WhatsApp group of the men from Adarsh Colony there would be a lot of chatter around her massageThe minute these women freed themselves from what people will say they realised they had so much power Thatrsquos what we were trying to achieve I think killing him would have been simplistic In fact I love the fact that he will now be living in front of their house with them having an upper hand as they have the video of him receiving a massage from them So I liked the idea of Gupta ji living in shameQ What also felt real was how Mrs Gupta believes these women when she sees everything and even feels bad for them but she doesnt do anything about it Its the reality of so many women in societyAnother writer friend of mine said the same thing Anyones first thought would be that now Mrs Gupta will reprimand her husband I have based Mrs Gupta roughly on women I know who have a critical way of talking Unhe pyar se baat karna aata hi nahi hai And they also fight a lot with their husbands but patriarchy is so deepseated that once the husbands raise their voice and the women feel it could disturb the peace at home they will be the first to step back and wont cross the boundaries of patriarchyOf course the yearslong frustration results in shouting but you know your place She is the victim of the same thing I dont think theres any love in such a relationship I know in most couples of that age women hate their husbands So Mrs Gupta hates her husband anyway and its not that she is doubting Rekha and her daughters She knows her husband is capable of it but she will continue to live with it because log kya kahengeQ She is the most trapped character in the storyWe introduce her with her sleeping very peacefully Many times I have seen that women of this age when their husbands are travelling sleep better So Mrs Gupta is happy not having him sleep by her side She is sleeping in a blissful stance There was a line we had in another scene but we had to cut it because the scene was getting long She is cribbing and saying Ek toh jabse ye gaye hain humko neend itna achha aaraha hai She is trapped in that marriageQ How did you arrive at the last scene where Rekha Jaya and Sushma are dancing on the streetThat was Sureshs idea He wanted to end the film on a high He wanted them to be free birds Initially the whole sequence was longer where they step out dance and have Chinese at the nearby stall But we cut it because the dance turned out to be so beautiful we thought to leave it thereQ Since the film released the internet has been gushing over Triptii especially for that one scene where she runs after her husband with the slipper in her hand Triptii Dimri has redeemed herself with Maa Behen after doing Animal is what many tweets read Do you find this chatter amusingIts not surprising because the internet is capable of surprising us so much more than this At the same time I would say Triptii is secure in her skin I am sure she knows her politics and on which side her feminism falls I wasnt expecting a comparison between this and Animal Is there oneQ Yes in context to Triptiis characters in both the filmsAs an actor I feel she is going to do what feels correct and honest to her at that point and what the story is going to ask from her If she is going to do a certain genre of films she will have to commit to that genre just like a writer would If tomorrow I am going to write a highoctane testosteroneheavy action film I will also commit to the genre and write accordingly I feel she is having fun She is experimenting Something will work for her something wont The internet will always have an opinionTriptii is surefooted and full of grace Thats what I love most about her She is so gracious and kind Theres no sense of I am a star and treat me like it Her eyes are on the ball and thats what mattersQ There has been a discourse over the years about the female gaze Yes male writers can write feminist stories but a female gaze can bring a livedin experience to characters and stories Suresh has mostly written films with wellrounded women in the centre so theres no doubt about his capabilities but I feel you would have brought to Maa Behen a perspective of not just a woman but even how a woman views other women So hypothetically do you think if a man had written Maa Behen it wouldnt have been the screenplay that it is todayThats a tricky question But I feel it would depend on who the man was I would use this phrase very differently than what it means Not All Men laughs Some can I think I brought in a lot of livedin experience I could put myself in the position of being a Rekha or a Jaya or even a Mrs Gupta and feel how they would feel which I feel even the most wellintentioned man couldnt catch But thats how good collaborations work because I bring in what the other person cant and vice versaLike Rekhas outburst in the end where she says Nobody will believe me but I got scared I havent been in the exact same position but I know what that fear feels like which I think a man could imagine but not feel what it would feel like He may or may not be able to bring that line at that very momentBut that doesnt mean that only women can write women and men shouldnt be writing women because if men dont attempt to understand what women would be going through then us making this kind of cinema is pointless I feel we are very quick to say that because this was written by a woman its good and its not good because its written by a man Everybody needs to put themselves in that place and do a little bit of thinking and hard workI must say that I do bring a gaze but there have been a couple of times when I havent thought of something and Suresh has said But wouldnt she be thinking this and I felt I should have said that but I never thought of it More than man and woman what matters is who is willing to apply themselves as writers to feel what the characters are feeling You dont need to be a murderer to write about one Gender responsibility is not only womens Some people are using Women should only write women characters because that excuses men from making the effort to understand So its a cop out Men should write women and do a bloody good job at itWhile women writing women from the perspective of representation is a very different thing because that means women should be having more seats at the table but to say that only women can write women is like throwing baby out of the bathwaterThis happened with me once I was offered to write a show that had four male characters Whatever I was sent was an interesting piece of writing but I wasnt interested in the world because it dealt with the backdrop of a business environment But they were keen to have me on board because they wanted to change one character into a woman I asked them why because those were four very good characters Had they mentioned representation in the writers room I would have still understood but they said There would be more colour on the poster if one of them were a woman I thought if thats how you are trying to sell it to me you are barking at the wrong tree laughs