‘We’ve Been Through So Much Raw Emotion, Our Whole Team Feels We Need Some Counselling’

HE’S BEEN making a habit of it: doing things on his terms, walking to the sound of his own drums. In a film industry infamously bound by formula, Aamir Khan, 47, has never been afraid to shift the rules. Now, with Satyamev Jayate, he’s brought that catalytic energy to television. After a staggering response to the first episode, a case has been lodged against a doctor in Allahabad for abetting female foeticide. The Rajasthan government has promised to group and fast track many cases in one court. As his channel partners herald the real world impacts of the show, Aamir speaks to Shoma Chaudhury about what sparked the idea, its long gestation and the challenging process of bringing it to completion.

 In terms of the breadth of research that the team did (Satyamev Jayate), how many personal stories did you actually get? Were there any that particularly touched you?
We got many stories, much more than we could put in. The three stories that are in the episode really touched me, and I found it very difficult to continue with my conversations. What you do not see on TV is the part where I break down. We had to edit that out from the telecast because obviously you can’t have me crying for 10 minutes on screen.
But there was a fourth story that did not make it to the final cut, and that is the one which really made me cry. It was a girl who didn’t want to come on camera. We had shot with her and blurred her face. And she explained what she went through in a very, very raw and emotive way, as opposed to a more cohesive narrative.

‘We think we’re backward because we’re poor, illiterate. The big shock is that education has nothing to do with it. The rich kill too’

What she said is, when her child was aborted, the child was five to six months old. So she had to give birth to it, she had to deliver it after it had been killed. She explained that they put a tashla, like a metal bowl, in which the baby, the foetus, came and fell in. And she said that the sound of my baby falling in, that is something that I just cannot get out of my system. Even now, when I’m in the kitchen, and some pyaaz falls into the pateela which we cook in, I remember that sound and I just break down.
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http://tehelka.com/weve-been-through-so-much-raw-emotion-our-whole-team-feels-we-need-some-counselling/