Arati Kadav has lingered on the margins for a while now. With a slender but striking body of work — two inventive shorts (55 Km/sec, The Astronaut and His Parrot) and a remarkable feature-length debut (Cargo) — she is one of those rare filmmakers who seemed to find her voice with ease. Science fiction appears to be her chosen language, but her craft lies in grounding the fantastical within the social and cultural textures of this country. Yet, as is often the case in Bollywood, an independent woman filmmaker — especially one building entire worlds on shoestring budgets — is not merely sidelined; she is met with indifference. The rules, after all, have always been clear: conform or disappear. And the game is never yours to define. But the past three weeks seem to have marked a turning point for Kadav. The industry, long indifferent to her otherworldly sci-fi visions, suddenly appears to be showing interest. And it’s not just them. The audience, too, has opened its arms, eager to listen to what she has to say. At the heart of this shift is her latest film, Mrs., starring Sanya Malhotra — an official remake of the seminal Malayalam work, The Great Indian Kitchen. The film has rightfully become a cultural flashpoint, trending across social media and beyond. In dining rooms and quiet conversations, men are beginning to confront their reflections — as though the film has unknowingly placed a mirror before them. For Kadav, the most profound response has come from women. There is a sisterhood she now feels tethered to. Messages pour in from women of all ages, not just from strangers but from those she had long lost touch with. And in their words, she finds something rare: A sense of belonging, as if the film has not only spoken for her but, in some way, spoken her into a community she didn’t know was waiting. She was unprepared for this sudden swell of acceptance. But it is a welcome, long-overdue shift in her life. Strangers now recognize her in public spaces — stopping her to offer thanks for the film. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Arati Kadav (@aratikadav) More intimately, she watched Mrs. beside her mother, and together, they wept: Tears that held more than just pride, perhaps a release long withheld. But beyond the personal, Kadav has sent a ripple through the industry. The game may belong to them, as do the rules, and she has played by their conditions. Yet, somewhere along the way, the ground beneath their feet shifted. In a spoiler-laden conversation with SCREEN, Kadav reflects on the narrative choices she made while adapting such a profound film. She reflects on her intent to portray the male characters with nuance, the decision to frame the film as a coming-of-age story, and the importance of questioning Bollywood's celebratory portrayal of Karva Chauth. Edited Excerpts: Your previous work firmly situated you in the sci-fi space. What compelled you to remake The Great Indian Kitchen, a grounded and socially rooted narrative? I felt it was important for me to make this film for several reasons. One of the most personal was that I wanted to be a working director. Until Mrs., I had only produced my own projects and that can become overwhelming. Sometimes, you just want to focus on directing, to exercise those skills without carrying the entire weight of production. Beyond that, the story deeply resonated with me. In many ways, I felt it belonged to my mother, to my aunts, my cousins, to the women whose lives I’ve witnessed up close. There was something intimate and familiar about it, and I believed I could do justice to this kind of rooted storytelling. Bollywood often leans toward hyper-sentimentalizing narratives like these, but I wanted to ground it in realism. Also, Mrs. is a treatment-driven film. It’s not about the plot but how it is told. That approach excited me. So, I found myself bringing my sci-fi sensibilities into the process. While designing the house, for instance, I drew from Amedeo Modigliani’s paintings. I also took inspiration from Iranian cinema for the kitchen’s visual language. I wanted the space to feel like it could hold a sci-fi story too. The intent was always to make it immersive, precise. The color palette reflected that: Yellows and greens filling the frame while the protagonist starts in red, eventually absorbing the world’s hues as her journey unfolds. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Arati Kadav (@aratikadav) And then, there was a simple but powerful piece of advice someone gave me —“To do more work, you have to do more work.” For a while, I turned down many projects because I wanted to focus solely on my original stories. But I realised that taking on Mrs. could open doors to other stories I’ve long wanted to tell. And, luckily, that’s beginning to happen. There’s a sci-fi project I’ve been waiting to make for years, and now, for the first time, there’s real interest in it. What surprised me most, though, was how much my vision evolved through the process of adapting someone else’s work. It reminded me of that timeless artistic exercise of copying a master’s painting to understand their brushstrokes. You inevitably discover new things, not just about the work, but about yourself. The Great Indian Kitchen was replete with rage, while Mrs. leans toward a sense of persistent frustration. For instance, the montage sequences in Mrs. feel more polished and stylized compared to the raw, unfiltered horror of the original. What guided your approach to this tonal variation? The idea was always to let the horror creep in gradually, rather than setting it from the outset. It’s similar to what Kubrick did with The Shining. He could have placed it in a dark, foreboding space, but he didn’t, right? That contrast makes the descent into horror more unsettling. I approached Mrs. with a similar thought: The environment didn’t need to feel inherently terrifying — it could be a real, familiar space, weighed down by monotony. Even with the background score, we faced challenges. At one point, we tried a soundscape for the first montage — leaning into horror — but it felt too heavy-handed, almost pretentious. So, we shifted to something softer, more soothing, because it better reflected the surface calm of a seemingly ordinary household. After all, the invisible labor we’re talking about is called invisible for a reason, right? I wanted that tension to build beneath the surface rather than overwhelm it. A crucial distinction from the original lies in how we follow Richa’s perspective. In the first half, she isn’t immediately aware that something is wrong — she’s actually craving validation, believing in the idea of a happy marriage. Unlike Nimisha’s character in the original, who recognizes the oppression early on, Richa doesn’t perceive it as horror — at least, not at first. That’s why the camera remains intimately close to her throughout. We are always with her, feeling the shifts as she does. And the tone simply evolves alongside her arc. There’s an argument to be made that Mrs. functions as a coming-of-age story — both in how it's pitched and performed — whereas the original unfolded like a slow-burn thriller. How do you respond to such a reading? Oh, absolutely. I kept telling Sanya throughout the shoot that this is, at its heart, a coming-of-age narrative. It’s a story about self-identity and self-actualization. For me, the most significant arc lies between the first and last shots. In the opening, we only see Richa’s eyes reflected in a mirror. But at the end, we see herself fully, as a whole, self-assured version of who she is becoming. Richa, like many women I know, spends a large part of the film trying her best to make the marriage work. That’s why Sanya was the perfect choice. There’s a childlike quality to her face that mirrors Richa’s innocence and yearning for validation. For her, marriage wasn’t just a relationship; it was a dream. So, she was constantly seeking approval, bending herself to fit into this new life, because she genuinely wanted it to work. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Arati Kadav (@aratikadav) In many ways, that reflects my personality too: Rage doesn’t come easily to me. It festers as anguish for a long time. And for Richa, that anguish only transforms into anger when her identity is directly threatened. When Diwakar asks her to delete her dance videos from social media. To me, that moment felt deeply personal, like someone asking me to erase my films. It’s a line crossed. A point where the frustration erupts, and the realisation finally hits home. One of the risks of delving into such a narrative is that, beyond a point, the characters can appear one-dimensional. In almost any other film, Richa could have come across as a highly victimized figure, while her husband and father-in-law might seem overly villainous. Was this a concern while writing the film? Absolutely, that was something I was very conscious of while writing and directing. I wanted to ensure that Richa, while craving freedom, also retained a sense of agency in small but significant ways. For instance, her returning to her passion — watching dance videos on loop was a deliberate choice to show that she still holds on to fragments of herself, even within the confines of domestic life. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kanwaljit Singh (@kanwaljit19) Similarly, I was very clear that the male characters shouldn’t come across as villainous. My constant conversation with Kanwaljit ji was that his presence should feel warm and agreeable; someone who believes he’s being kind while unknowingly reinforcing the same oppressive dynamics. With Nishant, I was particular about keeping his tone controlled. I didn’t want him to raise his voice at any point except during the climax. In fact, we shot several variations of that scene where he stays calm, but in the edit, we ultimately chose the version where he does shout as it felt truer to the emotional crescendo, and everyone agreed it landed powerfully. In the original, the father-in-law is a near-silent, smiling yet controlling figure who quietly dictates the household. Here, he is more layered and humanized. What conversations did you have with Kanwaljit Singh to shape this character’s evolution? Oh, he’s such a fine actor and an equally wonderful human being. In fact, he was quite amused, and a little frustrated with me for giving him such an irritable character. He would often joke, “All my career, I’ve played such nice, dignified roles, and now, towards the end of it, you’ve given me this?” My conversation with him was always framed around the idea that his character is also a kind of victim, someone who feels neglected in his post-retirement life. I kept telling him, “You’re not just controlling, you're just wanting to be cared for. These constant demands you make are really your small attempts at finding comfort and pleasure.” I think these conversations helped shape a more rounded portrayal, one that feels familiar, especially if you’ve spent time around North Indian households. In the original, the protagonist remains an unnamed wife — an almost symbolic figure. Here, Sanya’s character is named Richa. So what were the discussions behind giving her a name? The decision to name her actually came from my co-writer, Anu Singh Chaudhary. From the very beginning, when we started adapting the film, we knew we wanted to make it a deeply personal coming-of-age story: One rooted in the lived experiences of a specific woman. And to tell a story that personal, she couldn’t remain anonymous; she had to have a name, a voice, and an identity of her own. The original is remarkable and it feels like a seminal essay on feminism. But our adaptation was always about crafting an individual journey. Because, Richa isn’t just a passive observer of the household’s dynamics; she’s a woman with her own passions, likes dancing, and a certain zest for life. We wanted her gaze to be the dominant perspective, not a detached or neutral one. Everything you see is filtered through her point of view, be it her desires, her frustrations, or her slow awakening. Naming her was a way of anchoring the story in that intimate, subjective experience. The film is set in a seemingly progressive, urban household — visibly modern but still steeped in tradition. What made you choose this setting? And while it feels like Delhi, it could be almost any other urban city in India. Was that intentional, to give the story a more universal resonance? I wanted to place the story in a city that feels slightly removed from the heart of Delhi, say somewhere like Faridabad? At the same time, I was careful not to name the city because the story isn’t confined to a particular place or social milieu. These dynamics, of invisible labour, quiet erasure, play out in homes across the world. It was important to keep the setting familiar yet unspecified so that anyone watching could feel, this could be our house. That was my biggest concern while making the film. I didn’t want people to dismiss it as something that happens to someone else in some other household. And the most meaningful responses I’ve received reflect that intention. I remember getting a message from someone in Pakistan, sharing how much they related to Richa’s experience. A friend in London told me the same thing. It was reassuring because while I knew people connected with the original, I worried they might not feel the same with my version. So, hearing these kinds of responses across the globe meant a lot. The original slowly became overtly political, rooting much of its critique in religious patriarchy, which you omit. But here, you introduce a subtle yet striking Karva Chauth sequence. What drove the decision to shift focus while still nodding to the religious undercurrents through that ritual? First of all, in today’s climate, making overt religious statements isn’t as easy. What the original did was phenomenal, but it was also deeply tied to the socio-cultural realities of the South. With our adaptation, I wanted to reflect the world I’ve grown up in — and in North India, Karva Chauth felt like the most fitting cultural touchpoint. Interestingly, the Karva Chauth scene was a last-minute addition, just 20 days before the shoot. Because I kept thinking, “How can we make a Hindi film about domestic life without addressing Karva Chauth?” Especially considering how Bollywood has glorified the ritual, turning it into something celebratory and even gender-neutral. That portrayal bothers me. Our films have normalized it to such an extent that it has come to influence entire generations. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Arati Kadav (@aratikadav) Cinema shapes culture, after all. So, what happens to a woman who doesn’t want to fast but feels pressured to do so because it’s been romanticized for decades? I wanted to question that. Not in a loud, confrontational way, but through subtle hints. While the final version in the film is much milder, the script originally had a far more intense take on it. But even in its subtlety, I hope it invites the audience to rethink. The “prime number” motif is fascinating. Both in how it weaves through the narrative and how it bookends the climax. What inspired that choice? Oh, I love bookendings. The idea of the prime number actually came from again our brilliant writer, Anu. She spoke about how prime numbers are unbreakable, just like women. It was a metaphor that immediately resonated with all of us. When she mentioned it, she recalled her own experiences studying mathematics, and it felt like the perfect symbol to anchor Saavi’s character. Saavi, in many ways, represents the imaginary future of young girls. The possibility of a world where they can dream without limits. That’s also why I made her curious about things like space suits. She somewhere embodies potential freedom. Her conversation with Richa about prime numbers early in the film felt like a powerful moment, and I knew we had to bring it back later. Also, because by the time we reach the climax, most people would have forgotten that initial exchange. So, when Saavi repeats those words it reminds Richa of her own strength that she always possessed but somewhere it got lost in this household.
