New Delhi: Released globally across 240 countries and territories, Prime Video and Excel Entertainment’s ‘Bambai Meri Jaan’ has been lauded for its gripping narrative, stellar performances and top notch storytelling.
But what really stood out for the audiences was its distinct world-building, which brought to life Mumbai from the post-independence era. While, the show has an eclectic mix of talent such as Kay Kay Menon, Avinash Tiwary, Kritika Kamra, Nivedita Bhattacharya, Aditya Rawal, Vivan, Saurabh Sachdeva playing some of the key characters in the series, the actual protagonist, as mentioned by Shujaat in one of the interviews, was the city of Mumbai.
The city was an integral part of the storytelling and the narrative, drawing parallels between the lead characters' life and rise and the city’s. It therefore became important to ensure that the city was rightly projected on-screen. To do so, the makers revisited some of the old Hindi classics in addition to the research they’d done for world-building.
As Shujaat spoke about the series, “There was an immense amount of detailing and research that went on because it's a world that can be easily referenced. We wanted everything to look extremely real and people to be immersed in that world, to be transported into that world. Every department for that had to come together- the palettes, the colours of the time, the texture of the lighting, even the kind of lights that had to be used. There was nothing that was done in isolation to make it believable because at the end of the day, that’s the most exciting part for a filmmaker- the world creation.”
The creators believed that the world of ‘Bambai Meri Jaan’ needed to be believable for it to be convincing to the audiences. They therefore constructed the set three dimensional, with all possible detailing, alley-way, lanes and everything else. Aditya Rawal, who plays the character of Chotta, said, “The Set was so real, I remember the scene when we shot at Dara's family home… I think there were some 5 scenes at that place and it was a day or two before the set had to be torn down. And, these scenes were such where I didn't feel at set. It was like a family home with people dwelling there .”
The makers also went all out with their costume designs, and referenced many films in the process of doing this. In addition to this a dialect training was done for all the actors to be able to adapt to each of the character nuances.