Peek Delhi Khirki Village Migrant Story

A young Malayali couple moves to Delhi to be in a live-in relationship. They rent a small room in Khirki Village — a neighbourhood quite different from the postcard images of the Capital. As narrow lanes, crowded houses, the sounds from one house permeating into the other populate their world, they attempt to lead their new life under the watchful eyes of their north Indian landlords. This is the premise of Sanju Surendran’s Malayalam feature film, Khidki Gaav (also known as If on a Winter’s Night), backed by filmmaker Payal Kapadia of All We Imagine as Light, as the executive producer.

Equally fascinating, for Surendran, was the name Khirki, meaning window in Hindi. When he visited the neighbourhood, he found himself drawn to its character. “I found the maze-like lanes and the life that unfolded within them interesting. It has a couple of cultural institutions within it. There’s Khoj Studios and a public library. You can see a lot of young people there,” says the director, who has previously worked on documentaries such as Gundert The Man, The Language (2012) and Kapila (2014).

As he developed the story, Surendran knew he wanted to present the outsider’s perspective. He drew from conversations with dialogue writer Rahul Pratap Singh, who also introduced him to the 1957 Ritwik Ghatak film, Musafir, which revolved around a rented house and the different lives that passed through it. Then came screenwriter Rekha Raj, who “took a fictional approach and wrote a beautiful script.”

The lead pair, Sarah and Abhi — played by Bhanu Priyamvada and Roshan Abdul Rahoof respectively – arrive in Delhi dreaming of a freer life. Instead, they find themselves facing financial struggles, language barriers and the scrutiny of an intrusive landlady, played by Delhi-based theatre actor Shobana Sharma. As their relationship grapples with external pressures, the brutal cold of Delhi winter becomes reflective of the growing distance between them. The film, which was recently screened at the Habitat Film festival, also features Jitheesh Rechal Samuel and Arathy KB in pivotal roles.

Cinematographer Manesh Madhavan used guerrilla-style filmmaking to navigate the restricted outdoors and restricted indoors, and make appropriate use of light. “We had to figure out new ways of looking at the space each time,” says the director. During the six-month long editing process, Surendran removed several scenes, including a more conventional ending, choosing to leave the narrative open-ended – an attempt to mirror the uncertainty that pervades the lives of migrants navigating an unfamiliar city. “A lot of people from Kerala and the Northeast told me they had the same experience when they came to Delhi,” Surendran says, adding that that was his ultimate goal with the film.