Mira Nair to direct 109-strong cast in A Suitable Boy adaption

by AMIT ROY

IT IS a project that has been a quarter of a century in the making, but Indian American filmmaker Mira Nair is finally about to start shooting BBC TV’s $20m adaptation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy on location in India.

The novel, which was published in 1993, is one of the longest in the English language, with 1,349 pages and 591,552 words. With more than a hundred characters, many of whom are related to each other, the novel is set in early 1950s India, with the country approaching its first general election in 1951-52.

There are four families involved in the saga: the Mehras, Kapoors, Chatterjis and Khans. But at its heart there is a simple and universal story: Mrs Rupa Mehra is trying to find a suitable match for her nineteen-year-old daughter, Lata, who is discovering she has a mind of her own.

It is all summed up in the opening line: “‘You too will marry a boy I choose,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter.”

The BBC has decided that modern Britain is ready for a six-part drama in which there are no European characters – a tale in which everyone is Indian. And not even British Indian,

but Indians from India.

Nair has an excellent track record as a director with films such as Mississippi Masala, Kama

Sutra: A Tale of Love, The Namesake, Salaam Bombay! and her most successful movie,

Monsoon Wedding.

Asked about the size of the cast for A Suitable Boy, she said: “Last tally is 109 actors – it might go down or go up. 80-90 per cent have been cast. But I can’t disclose the names until all deals are done.”

However, it is known Naseeruddin Shah, who starred in Monsoon Wedding, is likely to

be included, along with Tabu, who was in The Namesake, an adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s

book. Nair is also keen on the Bengali actress, Paoli Dam.

“I have one Asian actor from the UK – he is just brilliant, and he has no English accent,” she said.

“He has got an Indian accent, but it would not be a problem with accent. Actors in the UK are also very proficient and they could lose the accent, I am sure. There was actually no need to go beyond the incredible fertility of India with actors.”

She seems to have settled on who will play Lata.

“We are just about to finalise her this week. And until I do that, I won’t mention her. But she is just beautiful, she just imbues the spirit of a girl on the edge of finding out who she is.”

Nair admitted that she had wanted to make A Suitable Boy from the moment it was published. “I have loved the book like a piece of my heart, really from the very moment it was written and I read it. But I also knew Vikram while he was writing it, so I definitely saw it cooking.

“But I was so beautifully unprepared for the depth and the expanse of it and the feeling when I finished that I had lost the company of my best friend in that book. So, I read

it again – I was really in love with that book because it spoke of our lives and also of

the lives our parents had lived.

“I wanted to make A Suitable Boy from the moment it was written. I didn’t get the rights.

So we wrote a microcosmic response to A Suitable Boy in making Monsoon Wedding.

“I feel very much that I have returned to the maa-baap seriously in making A Suitable Boy.

And I am just so happy it’s finally going to be shot because it has been a long effort to get here.”

She explained why she considered the project to be radical. “It’s really quite radical even in the western sense and the world of television because it’s the ‘crown and brown’ – it is how I sell it. And it really is that. It has that magnificence and sweep except it is about us.”

She will be based for the next six months in Delhi. Where will she shoot? “A lot in Lucknow, in and around Lucknow and Kanpur and in Maheshwar in Madhya Pradesh.

“We are building no sets. It is entirely on location in different homes and places. I want it to feel extremely real and not like visiting a little TV series. That’s the joy of it – that (1950s) India can still exist although it has been difficult because it has changed so terribly.”

She appears delighted with the screenplay written by Andrew Davies, whose credits include everything from Bridget Jones’s Diary to War & Peace and Les Miserables.

“I think it is very skilful - Vikram and I had a lot to do with it. So it is not just something that’s handed down; it’s something that has come together collaboratively. But Andrew is the master of the craft which is so necessary in distilling such a novel into six hours. I am totally excited by the distillation.”

Seth is involved. “Definitely. I just spent a few days with him in Salisbury and he is a friend and an absolute dear.”

Nair realises that A Suitable Boy represents a landmark project in many ways – “I am happy to be the messenger of good news.”