Thirty years after the release of Pestonjee, in which she essayed the role of the unfortunate Jeroo, who goes from being a happy girl to one caught in a disastrous marriage, veteran actor Shabana Azmi plays a Parsi woman in a forthcoming short film released on August 29, 2018 on YouTube, Auntyji.
Director Adeeb Rais told Parsiana in an email on August 27, 2018 that having a Parsi as the central character "was a joint decision between Shabana Ma’am and me... We had a long brain storming session over how we could make Auntyji more interesting to watch...We stumbled upon the idea of having her as a Bawi…We Googled her look in Pestonjee and she expressed how lovely it will be both for her and the audiences to see her in a Parsi avatar. I thought it would give me scope to add a lot of pretty visual flavor besides giving the story an edge… a Parsi protagonist (is) not something you commonly come across in Indian content.”
The Hindustan Times (HT) of August 18, 2018 noted that the story of Auntyji revolves around a day in an old Parsi woman’s life. "It is a sweet, gentle story” about the relationship between a 60-year-old widow and the survivor of an acid attack, Azmi was quoted in the report.
Shot over four days in July this year, the pre-production took a month and the post production an additional one month, Rais told Parsiana. "The plan was initially to release it around Navroz, but unfortunately post production took more time than we expected, but ultimately I’m glad that we did not rush and compromise on the quality of the film over a release date.”
Why YouTube? "The medium of release is always determined by the story you’re trying to tell. Auntyji is a simple story... considering it is a short film… not longer than 20 minutes... what better platform…We want maximum number of people to watch it.”
Explaining the why of the Parsi milieu, Rais said "I am a Bombay boy and while I live in Bandra, I have visited Dadar umpteen times as my father runs his business (Citypoint Hotel) next to the Dadar Parsi Colony… I have many Parsi friends and colleagues… My family members call me Bawa as I have a lot of Parsi traits and people always mistake me for being a Bawa over my looks.” The director looked around Parsi Colony for locations, sourced "vintage wooden furniture and embroidered and lace textured upholstery for the set... to bring out the next Parsi essence.” They "incorporated little Parsi details like dar ni pori (tea time snack) in the script.” The dialogs were worked on to make them less typically Hindi, and "mix in English and Gujarati to make it sound more Parsi.”
About his lead actor Azmi, Rais says. "She is a very special person. I don’t know what exactly clicked for her to say yes to this project. I’m still trying to figure. I did have to be patient over it. She has multiple professional commitments... so, more than convincing I had to just wait it out for things to materialize. I think she is very intuitive and follows her gut instinct and that’s what she did when it came to doing this little film of ours.”
Rais acknowledges the role of mother-son duo of Hutoxi and Parvez Dupetawala in the filming. Hutoxi helped Azmi with her diction while Parvez did the voice over of the character of Azmi’s son.
Azmi has experimented earlier with different movie genres and formats in her 42-year career, including art films and Hollywood movies. About the trend of many filmmakers creating content for the digital medium, Azmi noted in the HT report that "It’s a terrific opportunity that must be grabbed with both hands.” The veteran actor has starred in Dus Kahaniyan, a 2007-made anthology of 10 short films, in which she starred with Naseeruddin Shah (who played the quiet, thoughtful, indecisive Piroj Pithawala in Pestonjee).