This Febuary Tanmaya Shekhar is bringing his debut film as an independent filmmaker. Titled ‘Nukkad Naatak,’ the film stars Molshri and Shivang Rajpal in the lead and tells the tale of two worlds that are very close to one another but very different. Bringing the concept of education in the most creative and conversational method of Nukkad Naatak, Tanmaya hopes the audience sees the beauty of this cinematic experience. However, being a first-time filmmaker of an independent film comes with its own challenges. Without the backing of any big banner, Tanmaya and his film are ready to enter Bollywood, and for marketing, the entire team has come together and left no stone unturned. “Marketing, we are doing everything ourselves. It’s kind of self-distribution only,” he said in an exclusive conversation with us, before adding, “We are putting the film in theatres ourselves. And then we knew that we had to find the audience for this film.”

Tanmaya Shekhar on self-marketing of ‘Nukkad Naatak’

“The audience won’t come on their own because, first of all, nobody will know or hear about this film. We hand-painted the caravan. And then we went from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, from Ahmedabad to Baroda, from Baroda to Indore, Bhopal, Kota, Jaipur, Delhi, and other cities,” he explained.

Shedding further light, he told us, “Every day we go to a college, a school, NGO. We meet people every day. We literally meet people in Nukkad. We go to Nukkad and meet people, and we’re telling people about the film. We’re doing a call song. So we’re doing that ourselves because we’re very passionate about this film, and we want it to reach people.”

The genesis of Tanmaya Shekhar’s film ‘Nukkad Naatak’

During our conversation, Tanmaya candidly shared about the genesis of ‘Nukkad Naatak.’ He said, “I’m somebody who grew up on an IIT campus. My dad was a professor at IIT Kanpur. I also studied at an IIT, so I spent the first twenty-two years of my life on the campus. A few years ago, I came home for Diwali, and my mom started teaching in a basti (slum area), which was very close to the IIT campus. So I also accompanied her to the basti, and it was a very shocking moment for me. It’s like one of those moments where you see you have two Indias within one India. On one hand, you had this elite engineering college, and then on the other hand, you had this basti, which is only four kilometers away.”“So I felt, these two worlds are so close to each other, but there’s no interaction. Then, immediately, I wanted to make a film, which is about two students, two college students.So, basically, they share my worldview, and they’re forced to work with kids in the basti,” he continued.

“The fundamental story was like, it’s around two friends in college, they have to work with kids in the basti. The theme is around the education of kids in the basti, the education of kids in rural areas. And then secondly, Shivang, which is about the lives of LGBTQ people in conservative areas, because in a way, we had, quote unquote, two social issues,” he continued.“Also, I felt like the art form of Nukkad Natak, because what I have done in college, I know so many people, like Molshri has done a lot of Nukkad Natak, like I thought it would be something that could tie both the social. After all, I mean, that’s the idea of Nukkad Natak, right? You use it to raise social awareness and social consciousness. So how do we, Nukkad Natak, so that’s the thing about the story, like Nukkad Natak is the art form, is the concept which ties both these social issues together. So I feel like you have one clean narrative arc,” concluded Tanmaya Shekhar.