The 25-year-old who embraced death

Film tells the story of the Kumar family which is forced to embrace the death of the head of the family Dayanand portrayed by Lalit BehlWhat if you woke up one day and had this unusual feeling about your end being near In the recently released Hindi drama Mukti Bhawan thats what happens with Dayanand Kumar played by veteran actor Lalit Behl On the dinner table Kumar tells son Rajeev Adil Hussain and the family about a recurring dream that makes him believe that he is done in for Hed rather spend his last days in Varanasi within the chambers of Mukti Bhawan Hotel Salvation he conveys to the familyThe premise of the story seems strange but for many believers of the Hindu way of life achieving moksha salvation has closely been associated with the holy city that sits along the Ganges Whats stranger though is the existence of hotels that claim to be gateways to this redemptionShubhashish BhutianiFor Mumbaibased writerfilmmaker Shubhashish Bhutiani who is riding high on the success of his debut feature after it received two special mentions Hussain for his performance and Bhutiani for the film at the 64th National Awards last week a chance encounter at a salvation hotel back in 2013 led him to write this story A film is usually a culmination of things that happen around you Back in 2013 my grandparents werent going through the best time I could see my family juggle responsibilities to take care of them There was struggle Around the same time I went travelling to Varanasi and happened to come across one such hotel and was fascinated When I began talking to the aged who resided there I realised that they could be members of my own family recalls 25yearold BhutianiSomehow these two stories came together and begged for attention The young filmmaker who at the time had just released a short titled Kush which revolved around 17 children on a field trip during the 1984 riots started researching his new project I only pursue ideas that nag at me for more than a month this was one of those days he recallsBut Bhutianis intention wasnt to make a film It could have been a short story that I ended up writing and never looked back at I have a whole bank of those I just wanted to enjoy the process of telling the storyDespite zero direction Bhutiani remembers being committed to the idea making multiple visits to Varanasi I spoke to people who sold wood for the funeral pyre those who ran the hotels and even the ordinary chaiwallah The idea was very focusedhellipI wanted to capture the ethos of the place and how death is significant to this otherwise colourful cityThe film captures this culture of death with unexpected vibrancy Rajeev is forced to take a long break from his job at an insurance company to accompany his father here In this case the squalid hotel Mukti Bhuwan where they take residence gives Dayanand only 15 days If he fails to die before the deadline the hotel manager a selfproclaimed clairvoyant pandit takes the final call on whether he stays or leaves As bizarre as it sounds a hotel like this one exists in VaranasiI took elements from various institutions and said Id become the manager of the hotel that I would create The tabelas akhadas and wedding banquet that surrounds the hotel in my film exist in real life We embraced these differences to portray the varied hues of the city rather than reject or design something newThen there is also the stellar team of Hussain and Behl who bring alive the subtleties of the fatherson relationship with so much honesty that its hard to tell that this story isnt for real Geetanjali Kulkarni and Palomi Ghosh who play Hussains wife and daughter respectively also lend naturally to the tale of a family struggling to embrace death That Bhutiani managed to amass a powerful cast for his first film isnt lost to him When I started putting this film together I had heard that a couple of people didnt want to work with me because I was too young And I was fine with that In fact I am selective about who I work with because I wanted to be around people I respect and who made me comfortable especially when it came to making important decisions or asking questions I wanted an environment free of hierarchy he saysWorking on the concept of death detachment and salvation wasnt an easy one insists the young filmmakerYou tend to make a film when you are looking for answers to certain questions You hope that by the end of it you get closer to understanding it the subject Thats probably why I did this