Varsha Bharath interview: On ‘Bad Girl’, the talk surrounding the teaser, and working with Vetri Maaran and Anurag Kashyap

In an interview to The Hindu, Varsha Bharath talks about working on ‘Bad Girl’, developing the characters, the talk surrounding its teaser and working with Vetri Maaran and Anurag Kashyap.
| Photo Credit: Thamodharan B

Director Varsha Bharath makes two declarations as she hurriedly walks in for our interview. Pointing to her feet that are currently nestled in a pair of flimsy pink flip-flops, she says, “A friend’s dog chewed through the shoes I was meant to wear.” Afterwards, she states that she is having a bout of nerves. “It is my first interview,” she states.

Over the next 45 minutes though, she settles into her chair with legs folded. Her shoulders drop and clarity takes over. Varsha begins telling the story of Ramya, the protagonist of the film; the director’s trials and tribulations with love on Yahoo messenger; working with directors like Vetri Maaran and Anurag Kashyap; and her stellar cast and crew.

“Bad Girl is a film about a girl who is just trying to be. It is a soft movie. It would be nice if we could all chill a little, no,” she says.

Three weeks since the release of her debut Tamil film Bad Girl’s teaser, Varsha has been subject to a flurry of opinions. Elaborate YouTube videos have been made dissecting, and mostly criticising, the two-minute cut of the protagonist Ramya’s (essayed by Anjali Sivaraman) life. Conversation online has said that the film promotes underage drinking and bashes the Tamil Brahmin community for being an oppressive caste group.

In an interview to The Hindu, Varsha Bharath talks about working on ‘Bad Girl’, developing the characters, the talk surrounding its teaser and working with Vetri Maaran and Anurag Kashyap.
| Photo Credit:
Thamodharan B

Varsha is new to social media and has yet to understand the dissonance. She is mostly appalled because the chatter online misjudges what is plain and apparent. “When the conversation happened online, I wondered if I had not cut the teaser correctly. Tell me something, can you not see that she is grown up when she drinks? Not that I am glorifying it and saying things like ‘just because a man can drink, I can drink too’. I really love chick flicks and that is what I have made too,” she says.

What is a chick flick though? Has it not been historically used in Hollywood to speak of dumb entertainers about women and their lives? “During the COVID-19 lockdown, I realised that the only things I wanted to watch were stories about women. This was shocking to me because I was a huge Ajith Kumar fan growing up. I was a bro. Over time though, these chick flicks posed many questions about life and had major philosophical depth. It was not just about women who ate cupcakes without gaining weight,” she says.

As we speak, Varsha tends to meditate on her growing up in Chennai. Looking inward has been an important part of her writing process. She claims that she was a bad student who disliked Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. In college, she chose to do a course in Electronic Media as she felt it would be easy. “I had the habit of quitting everything within a month. When I told my friend that I had joined Vetri Maaran’s set as an AD, he said ‘I give it one month’. But it was on the sets when I truly felt alive. I stuck around and didn’t quit. In a film set, I felt like I belonged,” she says. “I don’t know how he picked me to be his assistant based on a now-embarrassing short film I made in college but he claims that he saw potential,” she says, laughing. Subsequently, she went on to work on some important films in Vetri Maaran’s filmography including Visaaranai, Udhayam NH4 and Vada Chennai.

Before she arrived at Bad Girl for the title, Varsha briefly considered Adutha Veetu Penn for her title. She takes no pause and is sure that this story could have only been said by her. Other scripts have been written to completion and shown to director Vetri Maaran whom she assisted for years. But none have been as unique as Bad Girl. Is it autobiographical?

A still from ‘Bad Girl’

“The reason why she is called Ramya is because we know at least 20 other people with the same name. When we are growing up, we sometimes think that we are the only people with weird thoughts. I think I grew up at this odd time when boys and girls would be best friends on Yahoo Messenger but not say hello in class. I draw from these instances but it is not entirely autobiographical. I, like Ramya, wanted a boyfriend in school too but didn’t have one, unfortunately,” she says.

Varsha declares that men and women, including directors like Anurag Kashyap who is presenting the film, have had several flattering words to say about the film. “Anurag sir called the film seminal. I had to google the word to understand that it meant that it could change the course of things,” she says. Men who watched the film at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam where the film won the prestigious NETPAC award, said that they related to Ramya.

But it is the women who have been most excited, she declares. Several women have been part of her cast and crew and a rule had been established to ensure that no assistant director would be disrespected. “All the women who worked on my film including Anjali, my editor Radha, the person who cut my teaser Madhu and my stylist Shruthi are so talented. While it was important to have as many women on set, it also became as important to acknowledge how talented they are,” she says.

In an interview to The Hindu, Varsha Bharath talks about working on ‘Bad Girl’, developing the characters, the talk surrounding its teaser and working with Vetri Maaran and Anurag Kashyap.
| Photo Credit:
Thamodharan B

The film is now making its way to several other festivals and is looking to be released in the theatres soon. While her newly inaugurated Instagram account has received some hate, she has also been overwhelmed by several well-wishers writing about their feelings regarding the film. She hopes that people watch the film and then comment on the subject.

“At some point, when I stopped looking at the film with an AD’s lens, I realised that we had, in fact, made a sweet film. It is pretty chill and doesn’t take itself as seriously,” she says.

As we wrap up our conversation, I realise that Varsha’s reflections about the film could be applied to herself too. By this time, her nervousness has dissipated as she poses for pictures. The pink flip-flops do not matter as much anymore.