After premiering on BBC One, Mira Nair's A Suitable Boy is all set to drop on Netflix on 23 October. A trailer of the show, adapted from Vikram Seth's book of the same name, has been shared on the streaming platform.
The video shows Tanya Maniktala as Lata, a young girl making up her mind about marriage and forced to choose between several suitors put forward by her mother. Ishaan Khatter plays the role of Maan, a politician's son who is smitten by a courtesan Saeeda Bai (portrayed by Tabu).
A Suitable Boy also recounts the aftermath of Partition - riots and politics that change the lives of these three characters.
The series also stars Rasika Dugal, Ram Kapoor and Namit Das among others.
The Quint spoke with Tanya Maniktala, Rasika Dugal and Shahana Goswami about the upcoming series.
Did it come naturally to you to deliver dialogues in English? I understand that some of you did take diction classes but apart from that, now when the series will be available on Netflix, you think there could be a disconnect?
Shahana Goswami: I mean, I would say the ideal option would be to have it as it would have been but that would be various languages and many different kinds of English and different kinds of accents. That would be authentic. But I think there are certain choices that get made because this was originally a BBC program. The choice was to do it in English. But there is an option for people to watch with the Hindi dub, which we all have done. I realised how fast I speak in English. It’s like half the words are eaten up. It kind of made me aware of how I have begun to speak and it was a little bit of a shock I have to say for the first few days.
Tanya, you know your character Lata, she speaks her mind, she does what she wants to. But in some ways, ‘A Suitable Boy’ is the story of forbidden love. Did you feel like it’s for women like Lata who have done that early on when we got independence, stood their ground, that we’re able to live a freer life today?
Tanya Maniktala: You wouldn’t ever say that Lata is a period character because she isn’t. There’s nothing period about her. You tend to draw all these preconceived notions that back in the 1950s you wouldn’t see somebody doing this or behaving in a certain manner. But Lata defies this, and she does this with a sense of respect.
Shahana for your character, can I call her colourful? What was the reference point for you when you were trying to essay the role?
Shahana Goswami: I am also a Bengali; I mean my parents are from Bengal. So, I have a sense of that era and that generation of people and how they were these British speaking Calcutta Bengalis. Meenakshi is Meenakshi. She’s a unique being and I don’t think I know anybody personally like her. I think the way Vikram has made that character in the book and how it’s put into the script, that in terms of the things she does and the dialogues that she says and the kind of humour that she has, she’s an aspirational creature in some sense. You would love to be able to be Meenakshi and it’s not something that everybody can do and be.
One thing that the show also talks about is the post-partition India and the communal harmony that we were trying to arrive at at that point. Do you really think that we progressed in these years because the kind of discourse we are see today is sort of stuck in the 50s, in the sense that we talk about a Hindu nation. Did you get a sense of that when you read the script? Did you connect on that level?
I think the reason why certain books and literature become a classic is because life moves in cycles and there will be a repetition of times, whether it’s fashion, whether it’s politics, whether it’s social norms. There are certain things that progress in a linear way and others that are cyclical. So I think more than being stuck, I think there’s been a journey and then we have come back there. And in that sense that also gives me the hope that hopefully, we will move ahead and have that progression as well. But it is also scary and similar in terms of how we’re back at that same point where back then it made sense because of the circumstances in which the partition happened. And today it feels rather out of context and yet we’re here. Yes, there’s a very uncanny resonance to it.
Video Editor: Ashish Maccune
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