Anurag Basu says his film Metro, inspired by MiD DAY's Dear Diana column, circles around the city and relationships.

ANURAG Basu remembers how it first felt standing helplessly at the Mira Road platform and watching as a sea of men jumping into the Virar local. "I just couldn't get on to the train," he says, seated on a roomy chair at a suburban luxury hotel, "I'd come from small town Bhilai in Chhatisgarh and it was all very strange to me — the ladies cutting vegetables in the train because they just didn't have the time for it otherwise."

It was a moment that stayed with him over the years while he worked in television and gradually went on to direct potboilers — some forgettable, some slick (Kucch To Hai, Murder, Tumsa Nahin Dekha, Gangster). It was while he was writing Gangster that Anurag decided he wanted to create a story with real people, closer to life where the city played "villain, hero and protagonist".

Metro was born out of the strained relationships Anurag read in MiD DAY's agony aunt column Dear Diana. He started seeing how the city loomed over a couple's lives, throwing it out of gear. "It's set in Mumbai, but it could be about surviving in any big city. The long working hours, the stress, the EMI and what happens to it when your wife has to take leave to have a child. Who takes care of that? I got some of the stories through all these years of commuting by locals (Anurag says he still hops onto one when he has to go to Churchgate) and from people around me. My married friends and colleagues are going to recognise pieces of their lives in Metro. I needed to show how hard it is to keep it all together."

Seoul kadi

So ironically, while he sat in an alien city, Basu fleshed out the film. By day he shot Kangana Ranaut and Emraan Hashmi bicycling through the autumn leaves in Seoul for Gangster and by night he returned to the crumbling of a dream in Kay Kay's and Shilpa Shetty's marriage or the weird awkwardness between Konkana Sensharma and Irrfan Khan on their first meeting. "It was all cooking in my mind then. Once we packed up at 6 pm in Korea, there was nothing to do. It's a boring city. So I wrote."

Slowly, the characters came through — one crunching numbers in a call center, one struggling in an extra-marital relationship, one looking for love. Yet all of them lonely. Anurag says that the feeling ran like a strain through the film despite Mumbai's stifling space crunch. "I had this idea in my head of a man sitting all alone with his whiskey in a pub, in spite of all these people in Mumbai. It makes me a little sad to see people sitting by themselves. I think being lonely is part of the package of living in a city."

Emotional ride

The feelings break through Metro's trailor — there's an almost Madhur Bhandarkar-like air to the film as People Like Us go through the grind. Anurag wanted to present the rat race and underline its futility because of his own close shave with death when he was diagnosed with blood cancer a few years ago. Lying on a hospital bed, he realised that he hadn't even taken the time out to go for a honeymoon because he was so busy working. "The rat race doesn't matter in the end. There's a line in the film that says you can spend your whole life searching for something, but time always runs out."

Despite the emotional swirl, Anurag promises that Metro keeps it light; more observant than preachy. "I'm not saying, 'Come see your problems.' Metro is fun — at the end of the day, it leaves you with hope and a smile." Unlike the technical polish of his last film Gangster, the director chose to use his camera sparingly and concentrate on the relationship complexities. His music director Pritam and he struggled with expectations after Gangster's smash score, yet two months later, they decided to just make a break for it with Metro's soundtrack.
Anurag also consciously stepped away from the images of Churchgate, VT and Dharavi, choosing stations in New Bombay, houses in Lokhandwala, call centers in Malad and malls in Lower Parel instead. "To me, the films that really showed Mumbai well were Salaam Bombay and Bombay Boys because they were made by outsiders who saw the city differently," explains Anurag.

Trump card Shilpa

Anurag admits that he's definitely benefited from having Shilpa in his cast after she became an overnight, international celebrity from Big Brother. Yet he points out that she was Metro's sympathy factor long before she became Britain's underdog. "She fights to keep her marriage together in Metro. I have benefited from her win. My films had no overseas market earlier, but now there's interest in Metro as if it's a Yashraj movie!"

Calling card

Life in a call center also crops up through Sharman Joshi, who plays an executive racing up the ladder at work. Intrinsic to any metro, the film shows the sprawling offices that address customer queries halfway across the world. "It's as if America Gurgaon mein ghus gaya. I think there's almost a generation gap in our working styles and that of call center employees. They mortgage their dreams for a night in a disco, a burger, a bike — they live that much in the moment. And money is very important to them," describes Anurag.

And the one character that brings an easy laugh to Anurag is that of Konkana's. He modeled it on a cousin who took up several courses, slogged at her career and suddenly found herself single and 30. Desperate to change her virgin status, she hit shaadi sites and met strange people.

Anurag says they're all vignettes from life, but he's serving Metro just the way he sees Mumbai. Alive, buzzing and always with a smile.

- midday