Terrorist have attacked Mumbai and it was general. I mean attack Mumbai you didn’t think
they attacked Taj. CST has been attacked, airport has been attacked
Navy has been attacked, you were just what is happening
There were too many rumours
There are families who are camped outside the hospital, there are you know IV’s which are
set up, what is it called? The saline thing which is set up in the corridors. They are people
sleeping on the floor. Its very bad and you don’t need 26/11 to see how bad it is actually.
So, we just used 26/11 to draw attention to what actually like what Mohit said his first scene
is that he is doing a tracheostomy, he cuts the person’s neck because he needs the person to
start breathing and he looks at the nurse and he says give me the tracheostomy tubes
and they said we have ordered but it hasn’t arrived yet
No. no. no I am not a female lead of Kuttey at all. I mean I am part of that project, it’s really
more of a cameo more than anything else and just want to really support
Aasmaan Bhardwaj, Vishal Bhardwaj who is making the film
Ritesh has to wake him up to starting writing it. He is sleeping
Hi guys this is Himesh and welcome to Pinkvilla. Today we have with us director
Nikkhil Advani and the cast of his upcoming web series
Mumbai Diaries, Konkana Sen Sharma and Mohit Raina
Welcome to Pinkvilla guys, it’s a pleasure having you here.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
So, you know my first question is you know for three of you, 26/11 is actually one of the
most dreadful incidents in Indian history in terms of terror attacks.
What memories, what were you up to when this incident took place in 2008?
What happened to me? I actually try to put it into the show but then I didn’t put up finally.
We were watching Rohan Sippy, Rohan Sippy is a great friend of mine watching his film like
its preview, The President is Coming, Konkana is in the film. And we were all watching it
and suddenly one phone went and everybody said
as usual because there were friends all watching and then
another phone went, another phone went and then suddenly everybody’s
phone went and we realised that why is everybody’s phone going off simultaneously.
Rohan came, lights came on and he just basically said this is what is happened. We had no news at
that time. This was around 10-10:15 in the night and I think the first attack happened at
Leopold at 9:30 or something and it was just terrorists, terrorists have attacked Mumbai and it
was general. I mean attack Mumbai you didn’t think they attacked Taj. CST has been
attacked, airport has been attacked, Navy has been attacked, you were just what is happening
There were too many rumours
So quickly the show was off, quickly get in cars, who is going to Bandra, 20 cars going
together you know all that was happening. What an adventure
And for Konkana?
I actually wasn’t in town. We had driven outside of Bombay but there was the, the key thing I
remember is the sense of disbelief, sense of shock that how can this happen? How can this
happen to us? Here, in Bombay you know and I think that when we came back, Bombay felt
different. That there was Bal bubble in the air, it felt kind of heavy and different and you
know everybody was a little more cautious and you know and everybody was reacting
accordingly so that feeling I remember very well. But yeah, this kind of a thing one hears about
happening in ither places you never imagine it’s going to
happen to you, in your city and in Bombay
And Mohit for you?
Yeah, I completely agree what she is saying. I will just add by saying that it was disbelief that
financial hub of the country has been taken under seize and that to not for one day or two
days, it was for a long period of time for three days you know so that silence nobody
expected that to happen in Mumbai you know. So, I remember I was at the outskirts of the
city limits, I was near Vashi. So, we for the first day and a half we were not allowed to come
into because there were security checks and everything so I stayed at my friends place to be
safe but that silence after those three days was very scary. It was very scary.
And Konkana ma’am if you look at, this is your OTT debut in terms of a web series. You
have had directed digital films but conventionally this is your OTT debut. What made you
choose Mumbai Diaries as your debut for the digital world?
You know I actually didn’t look at it like that. I didn’t think of it, oh now I am going to do a
web series then therefore I should be a particular kind of thing. I had no pre conceived
notions. I didn’t have any plans that I am going to do this, I am going to do that. What am I
going to act, you know anything? So, I got this offer, I knew Nikkhil, I knew his sensibilities
so I had a basic faith and trust but I was going to read the script and see that you know what it
is like, what my character is like but what happened while I was reading the script is more
than my character, I became very involved in the world of this hospital and all the other
worlds which it intersects with and it really was a page turner. The script was a page turner
which is saying something because it’s not just like just 150 pages was a movie, it came so
fat because its eight episodes you know so it’s a lot I remember you saying should I send it to
you separately or just put it all together because it’s a really fat document and I just read it
like almost like it was so easy to read and I was so involved and engaged with the material
that I understood that there is something in this which there is this thing that you know one
wants to see, one wants to know, it’s very immediate, it’s very tense, it has qualities of a
thriller. I mean you know the outcome anyway but it’s also the inner world, the inner lives
of the doctors who were supposed to be these heroes or the frontline workers, how they are
interacting, what they are own personal journeys are, with the backdrop of 26/11 of course so
I got very invested in that. I never thought of it as a web series or my debut or anything. I just
thought this seems to be story which I am at least interested in knowing
what’s happening next so hopefully the audience will be as well.
And Mohit you know you play the character of a doctor and in the trailer, there is one
dialogue that we doctors don’t look at their religion, we look at their character, how is it to
get that psyche right because it is such a conflicting scenario when you are in it and that
particular scene actually stands out in the trailer when that. So, could you tell us something
about getting the psyche of a doctor right in this film and Nikkhil sir after that maybe you can
say how you came up and conceptualised the psyche?
Like it’s that the oath that they take that we for us the most important and the integral part is
just to save the patient irrespective of his cast, creed, religion, where he is coming from. As a
doctor, your oath is to save the patient, do your best, whatever knowledge you have and
whatever experience you have. So, I think the psyche was to for, especially for Dr. Kaushik
Oberoi that he was so passionate towards his work that it didn’t matter who the person was,
where he came from. He was only answerable to his own soul at the end of the day, that was I
able to save this person? I was. Did I do my best? Yes, you did your best. Or maybe the third
scenario that you didn’t do your best. You could have done better. So that was the main
psyche behind Dr. Kaushik Oberoi, I would think.
And Nikkhil sir how did you know conceptualise this entire
character when it is dealing with such conflicts?
Well actually I am lucky that I like to read a lot and real life actually keeps throwing
examples to me from where I can pick up stuff or whatever. I mean you go to an ER or a
causality room in any hospital in the world I would suggest thinking that they don’t ask you
what is your religion, what is your caste, what is your
community. They ask you what is your blood group
What is your blood group? Tell me about the allergies
They will never ask you these things. They will ask what are your allergies, what is blood group,
And in the case of Oberoi, Dr. Kaushik Oberoi, Mohit Raina’s character he
actually is breaking every single rule that is there.
That is there available to him primarily because he wants to save the person but he doesn’t
have the resources. So, when we did our research Himesh, we went to this hospital I mean the
number one government hospital of this country, city and there are this beautiful packed
crate, huge crate packed in the ER it had and they told us this is the state-of-the-art machine.
State of the art machine that has come from Germany and it has come two weeks ago and I
said and what they had done is in that crate, they put a mattress above it and were using it as a bed
For patients
And I said why is a crate not opened? They asked its battery hasn’t arrived yet.
So, the batteries had not come with the machine which is a state-of-the-art machine and they
said after which somebody has to come and explain to them how to use it so basically that is
the system of, unfortunately that is the system that the doctors of this country working with
full passion in government hospital have to deal with. They want to save everybody, the
infrastructure facility there is a problem which we have seen during Covid. We have seen it.
We experienced it during Covid. The thing with Mumbai Diaries is that this what we tried to
say has happened prior to Covid. So now today people will watch it and say exactly the way
we saw in the video it’s the same. The way they have created the ambience. We have not
created it, its not because of what we have seen we had already done it because that’s the
reality of what is happening on ground in government hospitals of this country.
You know I will just add my thought in this. I remember we did a lot of work shops and
readings so I was in the mindset prepared that okay I have to go this way. So, I remember we
were supposed to shoot the first sequence in the hospital so we just went on the set two days
prior to the rehearsal or something. So, I was walking and that was the first we had been on
the set and so I could see there was a bamboo and there were you know water dripping from
the top and I said no way this is going, they are going to start shoot two days after. This is
going to take a while. I remember I went to Nikkhil and said, sir it doesn’t look like the
construction is complete. I think its going to take some time. He said, complete? This is your
hospital. You have to do all of it here, the water will be dripping and the bamboo will be here.
So that was the world he
The vibe that he saw
I told the production designer Priya Suhas I told her that when you enter a government hospital you
get the sweet smell of body odour and you get urine, it smells of urine. I want people when
they enter my set to get that feeling. I want them to feel as where have I come?
Like you said in the first question we all experienced the sense of fear when the attacks took
place in 2008 but cut to 2021 you are actually playing a character which was actually stuck in
the midst of the terror attack and the fear that they experience over there is completely
different from you actually did when the attacks took place. How is it to you know play that
part? To you know showcase an emotion which you didn’t feel when the attacks took place
You know I will just start, they thing is that firstly as actors constantly you are playing
emotions which you may not necessarily have felt exactly. See we all feel the same emotions.
In regardless of whatever whether your religion, caste, which country it doesn’t matter
actually we all go through basic emotions of love and loss and fear and things like that.
They could be for different reasons. So, one has felt fear maybe not exactly but one is able to
transpose that emotion to a certain extent. But what I am saying is 26/11 was a three-day
incident. What is far more frightening is that for decades this is the state of public health care,
that is what is truly frightening. And not for us so much actually because we are so elite and
so privileged that we actually have even some doctors who are in our phone book or whatever
contacts we can call. But for most people this is not available to them and actually that is
what we need to really work on, focus on in our country. We don’t need to focus on religion,
we don’t need to focus on caste, we really need to focus
on basic access to health care for everyone. That’s also really frightening
I just want to take out from what Konkana said so yeah what she said, I think that 26/11 and
what is happening in the city of Mumbai on that day is just for them its just another day.
They are dealing with that everyday
There are families who are camped outside the hospital, there are you know IV’s which are
set up, what is it called? The saline thing which is set up in the corridors. They are people
sleeping on the floor. It’s very bad and you don’t need 26/11 to see how bad it is actually.
So, we just used 26/11 to draw attention to what actually like what Mohit said his first scene
is that he is doing a tracheostomy, he cuts the person’s neck because he needs the person to
start breathing and he looks at the nurse and he says give me the tracheostomy tubes and they
said we have ordered but it hasn’t arrived yet. So, the guy’s neck is open and of course I have
treated him I wanted to look as if something that he deals with everyday so his having this
conversation with the head nurse and the nurse and the person is cut up and he is saying
before I cut the bloody head you could have told me. We tried to tell you are not supposed to
be doing this in a surgery over here, you don’t listen to us ever. All this is happening over
there. So, we have tried to create that this is an everyday thing for them and of course things
get heightened when the attack so what happens is yes, attack is happening outside Taj and
Trident and Leopold and CST and all that is happening with
the patients coming in but then suddenly what happens is it comes inside
When the terrorist come inside suddenly becomes very, very, now where there were only
now, they become victims and they have to then become heroes
And you know Nikkhil sir you have made Batla House, D-day, now Mumbai Diaries you
know you gave stepped aside from the kind of films you made in the early days of the rom
com. Is this the space that you want to do now or are you looking to revisit that again?
I want to make a rom com
What rubbish, you don’t want to make
I want to make a rom com but you know the thing is that for
me the rom com will be, sorry not rom com
If I make a film, it will be like Marriage Story which is
I am just saying it will be in that zone, I mean really so
I want to because I feel that there is so much despair in the world anyways why should I
make movies that keep reminding people of all the real
I want to make something that is so I don’t know but yeah this is
I like this zone. I like this zone a lot. It excites me.
And Konkana ma’am just yesterday you are announced as the female lead of Kuttey with
No. no. no I am not a female lead of Kuttey at all. I mean I am part of that project, it’s really
more of a cameo more than anything else and just want to really support
Aasmaan, Vishal’s son who is making the film
Like the whole industry wants to, he is a kid of the industry.
And yeah, last couple of questions, Mohit you have Shiddat up for release, that’s an intense
romantic film. Could you tell us something what’s happening with that? It has been a year
since we have been hearing about the film
Yeah, I just came to know couple of days back the final touches of the VFX that have been
done now so I think it’s, there are just deciding when and how to release about it. That’s the
call that the producers will take and I am really looking forward to that it’s something, a
genre that I have never tried. Its full romance and I am looking forward to that so hopefully
things are better and everybody’s is vaccinated and wherever it goes, whether it goes on OTT
or theatres that’s the call that the producers take. We just want the people to see it as soon as possible
And last question Nikkhil sir, in the last interview we had you gave me a hint about your next
directorial. I think I have cracked it. Can you say something about that?
I don’t want to elaborate on that right now. Because I think I told you too much
You said it’s the sequel to your most loved film
Yeah, its still being written so
Have you casted for it?
You have to wake up Ritesh has to wake him up to starting writing it. He is sleeping
Going to Goa again?
Yes
He is bloody not waking up
Perfect. Perfect. Thank you so much. It was lovely talking to
you and wish you all the best for Mumbai Diaries.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.