Vishal Bhardwaj has been tucked up in his Mussoorie home for a while now. He fled Mumbai some months back and has no plans to come back anytime soon. And while his plans for work for 2020, like all our plans, were derailed, he’s come up with something to do from right where he is.

“I had hoped this will be over in two or three months. But then I realised that this is not going to go away so soon. And as a filmmaker, I became very confused as time went by. How will I make the films I had planned to? How do I shoot? How do I shoot a scene in a public place? If I have a crowd in the backdrop, they will all be wearing masks. And in what time period is a film set — if it is post Coronavirus, will all characters be wearing masks? I became very confused,” he narrates the frustration of a locked-in filmmaker.

Denied the option to do what he had planned to do, he explored what he could do, where he was – in the hills, largely locked in.

“My location and my situation gave me an idea – of the sort of movie that can be made in such a situation,” he cheerfully narrates. “For a long time, I have had a love for murder mysteries. I am a big (Alfred) Hitchcock fan. He made films inside a single home – have you seen Rope? He made that film in nine shots! And that meant nine reels – each shot was the maximum length of a reel. That was the mastery of Hitchcock. And then there was Psycho, North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much – I loved those films!”

Then he comes to the other master of these situations, the one he is engrossed with presently.

“And I love Agatha Christie. India has a huge fan base of hers. And people of our generation, those who did not grow up with mobile phones and social media – you know we lived on novels! Summer vacation, libraries... those memories, wishing that the book never ends!”

But those with mobiles and social media – have they been able to escape her influence altogether?

“No, perhaps they haven’t. After speaking to my son and a few others, I realised that even the current generation is a fan of hers. Agatha Christie has not faded with time. Now, it so happened that about a couple of years back, there was an outreach, they wanted to bring their franchise to India. But I was busy, things did not really move ahead. But now, as we were all locked indoors in Coronavirus, I realise that there is only one type of film that can be made without too much trouble in this situation – the Agatha Christie murder mystery type. I love Hercule Poirot, I love Miss Marple. So I got in touch with them again...”

Er, who exactly is they and them?

“Agatha Christie Limited is a big estate and Agatha’s great grandson, James Prichard, is the Chairman. Did you know that after Shakespeare, she is the second largest selling author in the world? And I felt very honoured, very fortunate, that I have worked with Shakespeare’s works and now I will have a chance to work on an Agatha Christie project... So many movies have been made on Agatha’s stories all over the world. And many of her stories are already taken. Recently, the British director Kenneth Branagh, the one who made Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile – he has acquired the rights for all Hercule Poirot stories, for instance.”

“Anyway, in this lockdown, I contacted the estate. We started discussing if we could make a movie in India. We clicked well, but it was a very long process. They offered me many novels, out of which I picked the first one (he attempts to keep the title a secret, for now).”

And this first film will introduce a young heroine thrown into solving a murder, who teams up with an unlikely companion to unravel the case. Future films will follow the duo as they continue investigating multiple murder mysteries.

“I proposed to the estate that I want to take two characters from the story, a boy and a girl who are not professional detectives, and make a franchise out of them – and they loved the idea! I’m going to place the story in Auli since the whole plot is rooted in mountains, and the mountains are a character in the story (fans, here’s your hint).”

Does he look at her works differently now than he did in the school summer vacations?

“When I first read her novels, I am not sure I fully appreciated her skill. Today, when I read her again, I marvel at the characters she created – you look at it differently when you are also a writer. The dysfunctionalities, the motivation – I realised that she wrote such great human dramas. Even if you take away the murder mysteries from her stories, the relationships are so deep and layered that you can still make a film on them.”

He pauses, then exclaims: “I am so excited because this gives me an opportunity to explore Agatha Christie in our context – like I have been doing with Shakespeare with Haider and Maqbool and Omkara. Place them in our social, political backdrop.”

A Hindi film based on an Agatha story?

“Bilkul! Iss mein gaane bhi honge!”

Why not a bilingual, perhaps? To sell Agatha back to an English audience, globally?

“But now the language barrier has been broken, hasn’t it? Narcos, Fauda and so many shows on digital platforms – they have broken the language barrier. It doesn’t really stop you anymore.”

Point. Has the casting been done?

“We are still in that process.”

I cannot resist a question here. Will they be genuine new talent, or will they be an extension of – well – nepotism?

Vishal breaks into boisterous laughter that pauses the conversation for a couple of minutes.

“I have a different take on nepotism. I came from outside, so I cannot be a supporter of it, right? But I don’t agree with the branding of our industry. Nobody says anything to the biggest industrialists in the country if one generation takes on the work of the earlier one. In our space, it is a very fair deal actually – your break does not make you a star. It is such a cut-throat business. Why does everyone only count the names of those who have survived and grown? Count the list of names who are from within the industry and who have failed. Woh list barabar ki hai – actually uss se zyada hi milegi aap ko. Aap nahi bana sakte kisi ko star! And if someone has talent – maine aaj tak kisi ko rukte hue nahi dekha. In our country, we enjoy commenting on cricket and cinema. And our cricketers, they don’t say anything political, anything controversial. They stay apolitical and so they largely stay out of trouble. We filmmakers speak out on things and so hamara yeh hashra kiya jaata hai.”

As a filmmaker, and as an outspoken one at that sometimes, what does he find troublesome? Online trolling?

“I don’t care for trolls. I don’t read the comments after I write something. And if (spouse) Rekha or (son) Aasman see anything about me, I have told them, if it’s something good, let me know, else don’t bother. In fact, I want to make a film on the troll army.”

That’s a smart comment, or a straight one?

“No, genuinely. I really want to make a film on them. I want to acknowledge the sincerity of their efforts, the great job they are doing, every single day. The organisation, the dedication, the commitment – hats off to them! They should be given due credit.”