National Award winning filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar is back with another female-oriented film. Main, Indu is set during the 21 months of the Emergency, between June 25, 1975 and March 21, '77, when constitutional rights were curbed, many of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press censored. Several other atrocities were also reported, including a forced mass sterilisation campaign spearheaded by Sanjay Gandhi.

This is one of the most controversial periods in independent India's history and several films in the past have focussed on it, including Gulzar's '75 drama Aandhi, with Bengal's diva Suchitra Sen playing a politician bearing a startling resemblance to Mrs Gandhi. Amrit Nahata's Kissa Kursi Ka, a spoof on the Emergency, where Shabana Azmi played Janata, the mute protagonist, while Satyajit Ray's 1980 Hirak Rajar Deshe was a children's political satire. “Indu, in this film has no reference to Indira Gandhi or any real-life character. She's a female poet who stammers and rebels against the system during these trying times,“ says a source close to the development.

Madhur has been researching the film for over six months and was in the capital recently to meet BJP veteran LK Advani as part of his prep. He also interacted with political writers like Tavleen Singh, Coomi Kapoor who penned The Emergency: A Personal History and Kuldeep Nayyar, an Urdu press reporter who was arrested towards the end of the Emergency. He joined a delegation to the United Nations in 1996 and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha a year later. “Madhur also travelled to Kolkata to meet other prominent authors, politicians and journalists who were a part of the Emergency,“ adds the source.

The filmmaker was expected to roll with either the Chandni Bar or Fashion sequels but both these films have been pushed to a later date since the Main, Indu script is complete. “Madhur describes this as his most ambitious project, since, he is completely moving away from the genre he has stuck to for the last decade. The film rolls this August,“ signs off the source.