Production designer Vanita Omung Kumar, who worked on Omung Kumar’s Sarbjit, talks about her work on the film.
What was it like to collaborate with your director husband Omung Kumar on Sarbjit?
I have done the production design of all the films he has directed; and I think it is cool to work with him. Omung and I have grown up together since we were 16. We are both suckers for detail and passionate perfectionists in our creativity. He is very good at his work and I handle my work well. We bounce ideas off each other. Whenever we take up a project, I am given a dedicated job and I see to it it’s done to the fullest. I think when you enjoy something, there’s no place for arguments.
What was it like to design the Sarbjit sets to look like a home in Punjab?
It was challenging to keep it real. In a biopic, you have to convince the audience that they have actually entered the lives of the characters.
How did you do your research?
For Sarbjit, I met his family and they became my family. We are in touch and they send me pictures. If I ask them ‘What did you wear that day?’ They would say, ‘If I have a picture of that day I will send it to you.’ They provided me with a lot of material — how their house looked like 23 years ago. Those houses do not exist now; their hometown Bhikhiwind has become a cosmopolitan city. I could not find a house like Sarbjit’s. Their own house is now two-storeyed. So it was pointless to shoot there especially when we needed certain dimensions and it had to be surrounded by fields.
So you chose to shoot on sets and not on real locations?
For Mary Kom (2014) we could not go to Manipur, so I created Manipur in Manali. We thought of shooting Sarbjit in Aarey as it’s the only green patch in Mumbai. In Mumbai’s Aarey Colony, I searched for a patch that looked like Punjab. They also grow fodder for animals there. I recreated Sarbjit’s room, his bed, the aangan of his house, its open kitchen, the clothes-drying area. Their house was blue from within, had household vessels on the shelves and many pictures of Gods on the walls. I got the Aarey colony villagers to do the flooring. My focus was that it should not look artificial. Most of the information was from Sarbjit’s letters from Pakistan.
How did you make the Pakistani jail?
We even got information from his letters... There was no sunlight in the cell, the walls were damp. Everything used to change inside the cell according to the season. To live in a confined place for so many years ... The heat, the sweat! I had to make it in a way that the audience should smell death. The jails in Pakistan also do not look like jails here. The jail that housed Sarbjit was like a fort. We found a fort in Palghar and shot the jail sequences there. The wall was exactly like the one in the jail.
What is the best compliment you have got for the film?
The best compliment will come from the audience if they say ‘This is not a set.’
Would you also like to try your hand at direction?
Yes, I love musicals and theatre. So if I make a movie, it will be on these lines.