How Augusto’s Tamil play became Bollywood film ‘Bansuri’

Directed by Hari Viswanath and starring Anurag Kashyap, the film is about a young boy’s hopes and dreams

The story of upcoming Bollywood flick Bansuri: The Flute did not incubate in the filmi circles of Bombay.

It was born somewhere near a drama stage in Chennai’s Mylapore, where Tamil playwright Augusto was staging a play titled Vanavillin Ambbu.

“I’ve known him (Augusto) since childhood and I heard a few story knots from him,” recalls director Hari Viswanath, who burst to fame in 2015 with the critically-acclaimed Tamil flick Radiopetti, “When I listened to the basic storyline of Vanavillin Ambbu, I had a gut instinct that it would click with an universal audience.”

The one line from that tale that haunted Hari was the image of a young boy asking: ‘What’s in my blood?’

It would inspire him to take the storyline, revolving around an eight-year-old boy’s hopes and dreams, to a national level: the project subsequently saw the likes of Anurag Kashyap and Rituparna Sengupta being roped in. “She (Rituparna) was the first person to come on board; she speaks a smattering of Bengali in the film as well.”

Hari was clear from the start that the project would be in Hindi, a language he wasn’t actually too comfortable in. “I can read and understand, but I cannot speak fluently. It was an opportunity for me to come out of my comfort zone. Also, OTT players prefer English or Hindi projects over regional subjects,” says Hari, who describes the film as the result of a five-year journey that included multiple trips to Kolkata, where his producers were based in, and Mumbai.

Bansuri: The Flute is unique, for it’s a story translated from the stage to the screen, a trend that was popular in Tamil cinema in the seventies. “The core question of my play, Vanavillin Ambbu, is: is art something that one is born with or can we master it,” says Augusto, who has staged the award-winning play multiple times. The question is put forth by an eight-year-old boy, who suddenly discovers that he can play the flute with elan, and wonders how. “Wherever we have staged it, the response has been overwhelming.” When Bansuri: The Flute releases in the next few months, the strains of the flute would have been heard wide and far.