Filmmaker Anurag Basu feels a personal responsibility to tell stories around autism to create awareness about the disorder. In fact, he feels he could not do justice to it through his film Barfi! (2012), starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas as an autistic young girl, Jhilmil. This World Autism Awareness Day, Basu pledges to delve deeper into the subject.

He tells us, “When it comes to the story of Barfi!, it came up when I started working closely with some NGOs. Through my association with them, I started meeting autistic people and doing events with kids. It was during that period when I started understanding it (autism).”

The director continues, “The way they see the world, I tried to see the world through their eyes. It is difficult to see that world, but it is the most beautiful and pure. That is what prompted me to write the story. Today, Barfi! is known as a love story and liked by everybody. But, we couldn’t go deep into the subject. There was a huge spectrum that could have been covered, but couldn’t because of the commercial angle and other reasons. We tried our best, but other people have done better.”

Basu will thus explore the subject of autism on screen again. “I will do it in the next couple of years. And this time, I will delve deep into it. There is a project I want to work on. I will talk about it once [we are] closer to the time when I am starting work on it,” he adds.

In light of World Autism Awareness Day, the filmmaker hopes for more understanding of the condition.

“I don’t like it when people look at autistic people as bechara. They are not different. We need to understand it. We can do a lot more. For instance, there are not enough trained teachers for them. They need the same amount of attention from us and the government. We need to understand that every autistic kid is different, so that will be the way to learn. They go for visual learning,” he asserts, adding that he is committed to spreading the word as he has a lot of autistic friends and has seen their journey.

“I have formed a personal bond with the subject over the years. There is no single reason or single person for it,” says the director, 52.