Bengaluru filmmaker Munavar Zama on his film 'Chasing Rahul' and its Shah Rukh-inspired city romance

I always wanted to be a film director for a long, long time. In a way, the reason the movie happened is intertwined with this city, too. I moved to Benglauru in late 2022 and it has given me so many things and in more ways than one. In terms of my career, I was able to reinvent myself; I was able to find new, exciting friendships and I always had this artistic side in me, but unfortunately, because of my career and family and other stuff, I was not able to pursue it. Finally, through Bangalore Little Theatre, I was able to do my first play — Arsenic and Old Lace — and I think, that in a way, brought out the artiste that was always there inside me. That play, somehow, gave me the confidence to make a decision that I should make my own art. Therefore, I came to write this film, a very simple story about two people who fall in love as they discover the little beauties of Bengaluru city.

To me, it’s Sama’s story; it’s not Rahul’s story and she is the voice. It is also something I told the actor playing her, Sunaina Ruth. It’s all about a romantic, who was ‘a child of love,’ as I like to call her — someone who grew up seeing the little everyday romances of her parents, who were hardcore Shah Rukh Khan fans! It is about her interacting with the polar difference that she sees in the status quo of present-day dating and I think, all of us have seen exactly that!

I feel there is a new wave wherein the audience has started differentiating movies based on ‘how I want to watch it — what is the movie that I want to watch alone, while commuting, on my TV and what I will watch as a big-screen spectacle in a theatre.’ Unfortunately, the audience has decided that the hypermasculine, macho movies, as we call them, they are big screen spectacles here. I think the reason could be attributed to the fact that the women, young and family audiences have become a bit isolated. Also, a movie is an expensive affair right now. So they are happy watching movies on OTT unless it is something that they really feel that they need to see. Furthermore, cinema is also a projection of the audience and today their dream is for them to be that macho guy who can beat up 10-100 people. The other audience, unfortunately, has stepped back home.

Let us say, if I am in a relationship or when I am dating, the kind of experience that I would love to create for my partner is being a self-acclaimed traveller to discover new places. ‘There is this kick-ass dose joint, come let us go... the underrated spots, underrated dose, underrated biryani,’ I’d tell her all of that. So in a way, every person would try to bring their USP to the relationship. So, I think, intrinsically I have that in me and somehow I interjected that into the lead characters of my movie — Rahul and Sama. Also, you can argue that in our country, Bengaluru is number one in terms of tech adoption. Everybody is on all the dating apps. And never in the history of mankind has it ever been as easy to right-swipe or left-swipe. But, what I felt is that this has left certain people short-changed. Some amazing product managers have found today’s dating and gamified it. Maybe it is functional but it can also be brutal. It favours just a few! But what about long-term romance? So the whole idea was that a person, a romantic like that, finds that old-school love.