The melodious track with a lovely message in the evergreen classic Maine Pyar Kiya, Kabootar ja ja ja… shows the role of pigeons/doves as messengers through the ages. There have been several movies in the past which have had pigeons in the limelight, but in director Simple Suni’s Bazaar, these feathered creatures play a major role which comprises of at least 50 per cent of the movie! However, filming pigeons as a crucial part of the commercial saga was not an easy task with stringent conditions by the animal welfare board stationed in Haryana, which plays a crucial role in having any living or dead animals as part of the filmmaking process. Even a sequence referring to the animal has to go through the board’s clearance before the movie gets a green signal for release. Bengaluru Chronicle reports.
“The idea of pigeons struck my mind when I read an article about them when I was in an aircraft. Thereafter, I heard about the Tamil film Maari, where the movie starts with pigeons, while the rest of the movie is entirely different. This is when I met Prasanna, who had an interesting subject around betting and pigeons. However, I used it as an inspiration, and made my team work on a story revolving around pigeons. When I finally encountered Jayasimha, who shared a real life incident about a man and the pigeons, we worked on making Bazaar. The story credit goes to both Prasanna and Jayasimha,” says director Suni.
In Bazaar, pigeons comprise a good 50 per cent while the rest is webbed around love and antagonists. The director explains that instead of betting, his subject revolves around pigeon flying competitions, which incidentally, is a major attraction in various parts of the state, including Bengaluru, Mysuru, Tumakuru and other places.
“It is a unique sport that involves highly trained pigeons, wherein the birds are left to fly high and the one which keeps flying for the longest period of time wins. There are more than 100 such places in Bengaluru itself where the sport takes place. In Bazaar, we have used real locations and real pigeons to shoot the sequences for the film with added care, and under the supervision of authorised veterinary doctors, as a condition by the Animal Welfare Board,” he adds.
Filming birds was a tougher challenge than he expected, admits the director. He adds that the actor Dhanveer, who makes his debut in his movie had to spend a lot of time learning about the sport, while also handling the birds professionally.
In fact, the release of the movie had to be pushed to another date due to technical reasons involving the clearance by the animal board. “There is only one such board which governs all such activities involving animals, and it is stationed in Haryana. I had to rush to Haryana to get it cleared after they had some more demands. Everyone has to go to Haryana. Earlier, there was a centre in Chennai but now it is only in Haryana which makes it very difficult”, wraps up Suni. The movie Bazaar releases on February 1 and stars Dhanveer alongside the beautiful Aditi Prabhudeva.
