Wanted to show love as an equaliser with 'Sir': director Rohena Gera

Director Rohena Gera says she wanted to explore the story of class divide with "Sir" through love as she believes that when two people fall for each other, everything else, including the societal divide, blurs.

The Mumbai-set film probes the relationship between the scion of a real-estate family and a live-in maid who cooks and cleans for him.

Calling herself a "big believer of love stories", Gera recalled growing up with a "built in injustice" that Indian homes have towards domestic help.

When she thought of addressing this segregation of "two worlds within one home" in the form of a script, she gravitated towards a love story.

"When you're talking about a class story, it can follow the cliches of being preachy, telling people what to think or somehow being holier than thou. I didn't want to do that because I don't have the answers. Of course, there's power dynamics, huge injustice, but I didn't want to talk about it in that way," the director told PTI in an interview.

"In a true love story, people are equal, because no matter how rich you are, if the person you love doesn't love you back, you have nothing. So I thought love was a great equaliser and we break out of the victim-oppressor thing... Through love, you can see the world differently."
"She'd tiptoe around, feel I didn't eat properly because maybe I had a bad mood. I always thought about this intimacy, this kind of closeness that you share but always maintain a decorum. Her reality is so different from mine but we have this closeness, there's a real bond."
"I thought that's an interesting thing to take on and talk about this intimacy, and (wonder) why it is so impossible in our minds. When I thought about it even I went 'Oh but that would be impossible?' and then felt, 'but why?'. We have talked about everything else: same-sex stories, caste, inter-religion stories, so why is this subject taboo?"
"She has got nothing in her bank account but she has dreams. The film plays with the idea of what happiness and true privilege mean."