Finding humour in family struggles

Director’s

Bakaiti Season 2 director Samar Iqbal opens up about creating the tense and comic family dynamics, challenges and more

Kabir Singh Bhandari : 

Bakaiti Season 2 recently came out on OTT platform ZEE5 and stars Sheeba Chaddha, Rajesh Tailang, Tanya Sharma and Aaditya Shukla. Set in old Ghaziabad, this heartwarming series follows the Kataria family grappling with a financial crunch, with tensions rising when two siblings are forced to share their rooms. In an interaction with The Free Press Journal, director Samar Iqbal tells us about creating the tense and comic family dynamics, challenges and more. Excerpts:

The family chaos in Bakaiti feels extremely real. How did you create that lived-in Kataria family dynamic without making it feel overly scripted?

Honestly, that was the advantage of coming into Season 2. The family was already there. These actors had spent so much time together that they weren’t really ‘acting’ like the Katarias anymore; it was almost second nature. They had their own rhythm. So, my biggest fear was actually, what if I mess with that? What if I come in with all my director ideas and accidentally disturb something already beautiful? And, of course, there was another little fear, like, what if they don’t accept me? So, I didn’t want to walk in and try to reinvent the family. I wanted to understand them first and then create enough space for them to just be the Katarias. 

The show never really feels like a conventional one.

Honestly, there’s nothing extraordinary happening in Bakaiti. And I mean that as a compliment. These are the same problems you’ve seen in your own house: money, kids, parents, ego, expectations, relatives overstaying. What makes it work is that somewhere in this family, you recognise your own. There’s a little bit of your neighbour, a little bit of your bua, a little bit of your husband, your child, and, slightly uncomfortably, a little bit of you. And I think that’s where Bakaiti becomes dangerous because you come in thinking you’re laughing at this family, and somewhere along the way you realise, crap, this is my family. That recognition, for me, is the biggest USP of the show.

What was the biggest creative challenge you faced while making Season 2, and did it change the way you approached the story or characters?

The biggest challenge was wanting to do two opposite things at the same time. I wanted to make Bakaiti bigger, but I also wanted to go deeper. Bigger in terms of the world, the scale, the locations, the conflicts, but when you come back to the character, you have to get really intimate. You have to understand what’s going on inside their head, their emotional mess, insecurities and their relationships. We had to shoot all of this at a breakneck speed, but I think that’s the challenge you give yourself as a director. When you really love a show, you don’t want to choose; you want it all. 

Visit the FPJ website to read the full article