Badhaai Ho is about a middle-aged couple getting pregnant, and their grown-up kids can’t live it down! The film’s team tells us how it created a family that’s ‘just like us’, and why that makes for the best laughs
Aarushi Nigam (BOMBAY TIMES; October 3, 2018)

The trailers call the Kaushik family a circus. When you try to create something so chaotic, how much of that is scripted and how much is spontaneous?
Sanya Malhotra: The script is actually very well written. And Shantanu (Srivastava) and Akshat (Ghildial) have done a brilliant job with the dialogues and with each scene. So it was a lot of fun.
Ayushmann Khurrana: It’s mix of both. Of course the script is amazing, one of the best I’ve ever read. I had this intuition when I heard it – I’m not very impulsive – but I was like, I’m doing this. But it’s also the kind of milieu you’re born in – like we’re inherently acquainted with middle-class, north Indian culture. So of course we get our own nuances to it. And talking about the circus, our society is like that. We are very funny. It comes from hypocrisy too, because we’re not open about things. If parents are pregnant, we won’t directly face them. We’ll get irritated, but we won’t talk about it. Kudte rahenge, sadte rahenge, that’s where the humour emanates from.

You’re showing this middle-class family, where the parents get pregnant but can’t say it directly (‘chhota mehmaan aane wala hai’). In real life too, people watch stuff like this with family as long as it’s within a certain confine. How does one work that balance, that people should laugh, maybe cringe a bit, but not get uncomfortable?
Amit Sharma: When you see the film, you won’t feel that you need to leave the room or you can’t watch it with your parents. For me, the most important thing was that the audience gets so engrossed that they become a part of the family. The language, the situation – you will laugh, you won’t feel like cringing. Agar yeh kisi ke ghar mein actually ho jayega, toh usska reaction kya hoga? Agar 25 saal ka ladka hai, ek baarahvi class mein hai, unka reaction kya hoga? That is the milieu of the film. After the trailer was out, I got so many calls, ki yeh toh meri kahaani hai.
Gajraj Rao: Issme jokes hain, moments hain, aur cheapness ki kahin zaroorat nahi hai.
Neena Gupta: Mujhe lagta hai jab actor scene karte hue embarrass hota hai ya ussko ajeeb lagta hai, toh audience bhi hogi. Many years ago, there was a little sexy scene we were doing, and the director was very shy, actors were shy, so one veteran actress said, ‘ek shy sa director, shy se actor, scene karenge toh audience bhi yoon (drags her chin down) ho jayegi’. If we had fun, dekhne waalon ko bhi maza aayega.
Amit: Jab yeh one-line idea maine suna – 51-year-old mother getting pregnant – I said yeh toh bahut kamaal ka premise hai. Then I realised it happened in my family too. When my grandmother was pregnant, her mother was also pregnant.

Yes, we react with shock today, but this wasn’t an aberration 50 years ago...
Amit: Exactly. It wasn’t taboo then. But it happens today too. Aur likhte samay, we kept it ki reality mein reaction kya hoga logon ka, mohalle ka, bachchon ka, mother ka. It happened in Akshat’s family also, so when you see things happening around you, that’s what is written. And we kept it as, not vulgar at all. You can come with your kids and have fun.

If this was so common, ab kyun log itna shock hote hain?
Gajraj: Urban society mein. Chhote shehar mein, gaon mein, abhi bhi nahi honge. Yeh bade sheheron ka problem hai. Wahan pe oddness ko lekar problem hai – har cheez jo routine mein chal rahi hai, waisa hi hona chahiye.
Ayushmann: Society has changed so much, like we live in an age when people are not getting married. If they get married, they don’t want kids. And it’s an aberration now if you have a third child or a child in your forties. It used to be normal earlier. That’s why... Taboo subjects used to be taboo because nobody talked about them. Yeh ulta hai, pehle karte thay, ab toh bilkul nahi karte. It’s a rarity in urban society.

The awkwardness is also coming from, ‘this is the time to be thinking of your kids’ future, you’re not supposed to have a future’. Else you’re self-centred. Rural India is not obsessed with such priorities, ki mera beta IIT karega...
Ayushmann: Normally, ‘values, culture, preservation, awkwardness’ – it happens in the middle class by default. Because they think they’re the flag-bearers of society, of culture, everything. The lower class and higher strata, they don’t give a damn. Middle class is the one that will always be, humein bach ke chalna hai, we are the most vulnerable and the most ambitious at the same time. So the humour comes from there. Jitna awkward woh feel karenge na, utna maza aayega unko dekhne mein!
Gajraj: Yeh expect kiya jata hai na ki ek baar aap 40-50 ke ho gaye, toh aapko bahut ‘achha’ ban ke rehna hai. Romance nahi karna hai, bhale woh shaadi ke andar ka romance ho. Aapse ummeed ki jati hai ki...
Ayushmann: Woh bachchon ki ummeed hoti hai, ki maa-baap sex nahi kar sakte. Hum kaise paida hue?!
Gajraj: Baat hi aise karte hain – ‘itni umar ho gayi, dekho kaise kar raha hai’.
Amit: Correct. ‘Uncle toh abhi bhi lage hue hain’, ‘shakal se toh bade shareef lagte hain’. Arre, apni biwi ke saath hi hain! But chaar ladke khade ho jayenge, woh aapas mein kuch hansi-thattha toh laga hi denge, mazak uda denge. Toh woh sab cheezein embarrassment ko, it increases. You feel, humko yeh face nahi karna. Why do we say, hum log bade ho gaye, humaare maa baap sex nahi kar sakte. Kyun nahi? But we’re not talking about that. We’re just saying this is something which is very natural between a husband and wife who are still in love.
Gajraj: Forty ke baad romantic hona paap hai, lagta hai.

In the trailer too, the mother treats the middle-aged couple like a pair of guilty teenagers, when they have nothing to be guilty about.
Neena: When I was in school, sex was a ‘dirty’ thing. Mujhe yaad hai, pata chala humaari teacher ka boyfriend hai. It was such a ‘haw-haw’ thing, kyunki humaare liye teacher is one of those jiska ‘aisa kuch nahi ho sakta’. It’s the same – ‘mummy kaise kar sakti hai? Mummy toh bahut shuddh hai. Yeh apavitra hai’. This is how we’ve been brought up.
Gajraj: Main toh sex tak jaa hi nahi raha, main toh romance ki baat kar raha hoon! Wohi nahi karne dete.
Amit: In Mr and Mrs Kaushik, I saw the relationship of my parents. They were very strong with each other. We’re not saying having a kid at 50 is fine. We’re saying being in love with your wife is fine.

The message is about love, then?
Ayushmann: This is the most audience friendly film of all my ‘content-driven’ films. It’s not Vicky Donor, it’s not erectile dysfunction, it’s not phallic issues! It’s dealing with parental pregnancy in a very clean way. It is ‘U’. It’s not even ‘U/A’!
Amit: Even if it were ‘U/A’, it wouldn’t matter. The cuteness is there in the whole thing.
Gajraj: Natkhat hai. Ussme sharaarat hai, maza hai.

How much has the Indian family changed?
Amit: It has changed. How we raise kids has changed.
Ayushmann: The Kaushik family, even though they’re a nuclear family and the rest of the family is away in Meerut – the family dynamics will not change because politics toh wohi hogi, kuch bhi ho jaye.
Neena: Yeah, for example, me and my mother-in-law, we are typical middle-class saas bahu. She gives me gaalis, I also give her gaalis, but when the time comes, we help each other. That’s what happens in families, gaali dete hain daba ke, aur pyar bhi utna hi hota hai. So that is the most beautiful part of the film, the relationships.
Amit: My grandmother and my mother had this kind of relationship. Unki ladayi bhi hogi lekin shaam ki 5 baje ki chai dono ko saath mein peeni hai. Meri maa shaam ko do baar chai peeti thi – with my father, and then with daadi. So all this has come from somewhere or the other, kisi ki family se, kisi ke ghar se, koi aisa character, that makes the film real.