Tannishtha wanted to disconnect with daughter during Yellow Bus shoot | Bollywood

Tannishtha Chatterjee is synonymous with critically-acclaimed films like Parched and Angry Indian Goddesses though she would love to do a commercial entertainer. The actor is now back with a gripping family drama Yellow Bus, in which she plays a mother who loses her daughter in a freak accident. Being a mom to her daughter who is of around the same age, Tannishtha reveals in an interview with Hindustan Times why she chose not to take her daughter along for the shoot in Abu Dhabi. She said she wanted to disconnect with her because of the trauma she had to deal with in front of the camera. Also read: Amit Sial on working with an all-women team during Yellow Bus shoot: It felt good watching them make such in-depth film

Tannishtha also opened up about the Yellow Bus shoot in Abu which was a multi-cultural experience for her, co-star Amit Sial and co-producer Guneet Monga. The film was screened at the Mami Film Festival 2023. Excerpts from her interview:

Many films have come in quick succession about the mother fighting for justice for her daughter. How is this different?

She is not fighting with anyone but herself. It is not a fight against the judicial system, there is a part of it which is what really happened, why wasn’t the school responsible. Her main fight is with herself, with her own guilt, her own sense of who to blame it on, whether it’s the school’s negligence, or the fact that the older daughter was in the bus and she didn’t see, the mother pushed her to go to school that morning, or the father who was like watching a film late night, and that girl was sleeping, it’s really these little things. It is just nobody’s fault, that’s why it’s a more difficult film. It’s a more philosophical film because oftentimes, that’s what happens in life with us that we try to put the blame on others because you have to find the reason and that is our redemption.

You also have a daughter. It must be emotionally straining to play a mother losing a child?

It was really tough. And that’s why Guneet and my main Jordanian producer Nadia, they had offered me support so that my daughter could travel and stay with me. And I decided against it. I didn’t want to disrupt her from her routine and school. But the main reason was I didn’t want to come back to her every day after going through trauma as seeing her would devastate me even more. So I used to talk to her only on weekends and on the video call. I wanted to disconnect.

So didn’t she have complaints?

She actually loves my parents a lot. She gets to see more cartoons and have better food, definitely more like street food, which my mother makes and the variety. My dad also pampers her a lot, they go to shopping malls together and if she wants something, she’ll get it. She enjoys herself there.

So what was the biggest challenge in shooting for the film?

I think the emotional graph. Every time I saw the child who was playing that part, I just couldn’t…On the one hand, I didn’t have to do anything because my emotion was there. Because it always reminded me of my own daughter who is of the same age. On the other hand, it was quite traumatic. After every scene, I would come and go hug her. I don’t know how her mother reacted.

Where has the film been shot?

It was shot in Abu Dhabi. My director Wendy Bednarz had lived there for many years and that’s why she wrote a story of an Indian immigrant family. It’s based on a real incident that happened. Something very special about the film is the multi -cultural unit of the film, it’s a co -production. Nadia is from Jordan, the production house is from the UAE, our director is American, Amit and I are the main actors along with Kinda Alloush, who’s a very famous Syrian actress. There were also cultural clashes and misunderstandings but also the beauty of them coming to an understanding.

It’s also a lot of women and a lot of mothers. Kinda has two children, Nadia has two kids. They all used to come on set and we used to take turns in babysitting. Wendy is a mother of two and her nanny was giving her trouble in the middle of the shoot. Her son was 5, he used to come on set and wouldn’t let us shoot because he was very naughty. We took turns to play with him.

I hope the trauma which is there in the film was balanced by what was going behind the camera.

Yes, by all this and by being together as mothers as well. Our work spaces have to be conducive to working mothers. It is not done that once you become a mother, you can’t work for some years because you have to give your time. Of course we have to give time to update, but our atmosphere should be conducive so that we can do both. And this film definitely did that.

Which is the best memory you have taken from the film

It’s the multicultural collaboration of working with women from different parts of the world and a lot of Arab women. A lot of myths are there about how we think Arab women are.

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