Award-winning Marathi director Jayant Gilatar talks about choosing a realistic theme and the thrill of helming a film that stars seasoned Bollywood actors
Letty Mariam Abraham (MID-DAY; January 7, 2016)

What prompted you to make a movie on the poor state of education in the city?
We have all gone to schools and our first teachers have had such a deep impact that we begin to look up to them as mothers. After our parents, it is a teacher who nurtures us. But with time, we tend to forget them and all that they have done for us. Many of us don’t even know where our teacher are or how they are doing. Teaching is one profession which creates every other profession. They are responsible for building us and our careers, but it’s sad and shameful that lakhs of teachers in our country are living in utterly difficult circumstances. Every how teachers are struggling for their rights. It is thus my attempt to put their issues on the canvas through my movie.

How difficult was it to rope in Juhi Chawla and Shabana Azmi for their roles?
It was difficult to rope in both of them for this film. But after hearing the script, both Shabanaji and Juhiji wanted to see my work so I sent them DVDs of my films. Shabanaji saw The White Land, which is based on the plight of the salt workers in India. Javed saab has written the songs for it and she loved it. Juhiji saw We Are Adult and praised it. After that, they came on board.

Is Chalk N Duster inspired by a real life incident?
The film is inspired by some articles my writer Ranjeev and I had read in the papers after which the writers, direction team and I started working on the script. As we were researching and writing, contacting real teachers, meeting them, we got to know several incidents which encouraged us further to make this movie and tell their story to the world. It took us almost 18 months to finish the script and the shoot of this film.

Was conforming to the whims of the actors difficult?
Not at all. Every individual has an opinion but after a few initial kinks, all members of my cast played their part wonderfully and added depth and life to the characters and the cinema.