Bhardwaj modelled 'Lust Stories 3' character on erotica writer Anais Nin

Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj says when he set out to make his short for the anthology "Lust Stories 3", the literary influences of the 19th century became his primary source of inspiration to talk about desire through the perspective of a woman.

"Lust Stories 3" brings together Bhardwaj, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vikramaditya Motwane as directors.

Bhardwaj, known for making desi versions of Williams Shakespeare's tragedies with his films "Maqbool" (Macbeth), "Omkara" (Othello) and "Haider" (Hamlet), has directed a short that features real-life actor-couple Aditi Rao Hydari and Siddharth.

Set against the culturally rich backdrop of 1987 Hyderabad, his segment follows Saira, an Urdu literature professor, who draws on the literary world to express her feelings for her husband, a homeopathic doctor.

"If you bring poetry in lust, it becomes love, that's what poetry does. Sometimes we've lust in sublime and we deceive ourselves saying this is love, but actually this is lust. A lot of times, we have so many moral obligations and pressures that even to garb a relationship, we say this is love, but actually this is lust," Bhardwaj told PTI in an interview.

He referenced the late poet Bashir Badr’s couplet, ‘Tu Mohabbat ki tarah piglegi aur main mar jaunga hawas ki tarah’, to talk about the transient nature of lust.

"Literature somehow seeps into my work because I’m also a student of literature," the filmmaker said.

Bhardwaj said he attempted to crack the story for "Lust Stories" twice but abandoned the scripts after completing them because he wasn’t completely convinced.

The filmmaker said that before the advent of VHS and DVDs, young people were introduced to romance and desire through books such as Mills & Boon, the pulp fiction of Uttar Pradesh-based writer Mastram, and magazines like Debonair.

He also discovered the works of writer Anais Nin, who wrote erotica.

"I was looking to find someone in the literary world because there should be some literary value to the story so that it will become profound. I learnt that she (Nin) was a major poet and literary writer. And because (once) she was short of money, a publisher offered her one dollar per page if she wrote erotica for him. So, that's where this character Saira came from," Bhardwaj said.

"I felt I could model the character on her, where she says you can find literature even in the darkest and cheapest themes," he said.

The filmmaker placed his story in Hyderabad because he was drawn to the city's distinctive dialect and cultural texture and wanted to capture it on film.

Given that Hydari and Siddharth are married in real life, the notion is that intimate scenes would be easier for them. The actors said that's not always the case.

The two worked together first on the 2021 Telugu-language romantic action-drama film, "Maha Samudram".

"Nothing came from us being a real-life couple. Even for a couple in real life, there is a camera on you, we are showing intimacy and we have to make it real. We forgot who we were. We were just Badru and Saira, and their dreams, imaginations, desire, love, innocence, and all this comes through the director," Hydari said.

Having spent over two decades acting opposite female actors, Siddarth said treating Hydari differently simply because she was his wife would amount to a "betrayal" of his profession.

"Cinema is about me leaving my house, a writer writes a character, director tells me how to become that character and between action and cut, I try to be that character. So, nothing is easier or tougher in any shoot.

"If the writer is happy with the way you perform it and the director says cut, ‘We got it,’ it's a happy moment for me because I've done what is expected of me," the actor said while praising Bhardwaj as a poet, a musician, and a "great lover".

Siddharth also heaped praise on Hydari, calling her an amazing actor, and said it was "fun" to play her on-screen husband.

Hydari similarly said their comfort level came from Siddharth's qualities as a co-actor.

"I worked with Siddharth before I even dated him or fell in love with him. He is so present, works really hard, he's always on time, is helpful without being superior, sometimes you can be mansplaining, he never does that, he's very equal, he gives comfort."

On a lighter note, Hydari said that it was refreshing to see traditional gender dynamics flipped, with Siddharth being shown as an object of desire in "Lust Stories 3".

"Vishal sir has objectified the boy, he was enjoying objectifying him. Otherwise, this would be our department, where we’ve to show more waist, etc. I’m, like, this is great," she said.

"Lust Stories 3" is premieres on Netflix on Friday.