Marking his full-fledged acting debut with M Gani’s Matto Ki Saikil, Prakash Jha plays the leading role of a daily-wage labourer who loves his rusty bicycle. In a bid to slip into the skin of the character, Jha spent several days in Mathura and also interacted with daily wagers to actually get a job. Jha tells mid-day, “M Gani has lived in Mathura and understands these characters. Coming from a small town, I have also known these characters. I was surprised and happy to get the chance to play this part.”

Having attended acting workshops across the globe, Jha says he is aware of the importance of learning the nuances of the craft. “Matto was not an easy character to nab. It’s not difficult for an actor to physically look the part, but I had to change my persona too. I am known to play characters that are tough, and strict, but to become a subservient, meek man like Matto, needed work.” 

Jha spent several days with daily wagers, observing how they wore clothes, and smoking bidis with them. “Just before we would roll, I would go to their spots, watch them for hours, and wait for somebody to pick me up [for employment]. I got picked up twice, and did the job for a couple of hours. I didn’t use soap for two months as I wanted the dust to settle on my body. I stopped using the air conditioner too.”

Juggling both worlds of acting and film-making, Jha establishes that few can understand the pulse of a film as well as a director. After putting in the effort to conduct workshops, and understand the nitty-gritties of the role, he says he ought to follow his director’s vision. “If I am directing, and some great actor comes in and tells me how to take a shot, I will put him in his place. So, I must give the same liberty to my director, because it is his vision.”

Matto Ki Saikil features both, professional actors from local theatres of Agra and Mathura, as well as non-professional artistes. “Before M Gani made this into a film, he used to stage it as a play in Mathura with these actors,” he says, elated that this crucial project on his resume will enjoy a theatrical release. “It’s a pure story about that part of India where people toil throughout their lives. They build our homes, roads, flyovers, and atomic plants, but we don’t know how they live. It takes a pandemic for us to realise that there are crores of people who are working like that.”

Filmmaker-actor Prakash Jha is happy that his film, Matto Ki Saikil, in which he plays the title role, was screened at the 25th Busan International Film Festival on October 23. The movie was seen by the audience in a theatre, apart from patrons who joined the screening virtually. However, the director admits that he is disappointed that he couldn’t be present to interact with the audience there. “I am heartbroken that I couldn’t attend the festival, but I’m delighted that my film premiered at the Busan International Film Festival and was seen by people in a theatre. The fact that it opened in a theatre makes me really happy,” he says.

Matto Ki Saikil revolves around a daily-wage labourer and his cycle. “Without this cycle, his family might have to skip a meal as he relies on it to make it to work. The film explores the lives of those people in our country, who despite so much progress, have to negotiate their way through life for their basic needs. Documentary filmmaker M Gani from Mathura had approached me with this story and I was taken aback when he told me that he wants me to play a mazdoor, who sits on the mazdoor chowk every day to find work,” says Jha.

He further adds, “I also loved the story because it reminded me of my early films like Damul (1985) and Parinati (1989). The character is completely opposite of my personality, and it was difficult for me to find him within me.”

The film was shot a year ago when we weren’t living either in the time of a pandemic or a migrant labour crisis. Talking about the coincidence that Matto Ki Saikil delves into their lives, Jha says, “Today, it finds more resonance because we have seen the plight of migrants up close. When the migrant labour crisis was raging in the country, I could understand their pain and feeling of homelessness. It’s difficult even to imagine that someone had to walk 1,500 kms to reach their village. When I was travelling to Patna during the Coronavirus pandemic to see my father, I saw some migrant workers walking from Thane towards Patna. It shook me to my core.”