We come up with Part 8 of our series by focusing on this week’s release: Sui Dhaaga – Made in India. Encouraged by the government’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, Sui Dhaaga sheds light on the life and struggles of artisans who make sure their art of needlework doesn’t die.
Sui Dhaaga has a small-town setting. Varun Dhawan and Anushka Sharma have donned stunning avatars sometimes. But in the upcoming film, the two heartthrobs of Bollywood have gone completely opposite. The film also stars Raghubir Yadav.
Primary Glance
Sui Dhaaga takes on hierarchical indignity with strongly drawn characters that radiate a sense of self-value in their state of irrelevance.
Talking about the teaser of the film, it opens with a purposeless Mauji who is happy doing scanty work until his wife Mamta inspires him to gain his self-respect and start his own venture. Mauji picks his sewing machine and begins his journey towards self-employment, as Mamta helps him expand it into a small-scale handloom industry. The catch line of Mauji – ‘sab badhiya hai’ (all is well) is the prominent point of the trailer too as it has been thoughtfully and wisely used in the dialogues.
It is a gratifying homage to the spirit of self-employment wrung out of the blood and sweat of the working class. There are no pretences in doing something noble in the characters. Varun Dhawan’s Mauji seems only motivated by his silently supportive wife.
It is not a glamorous world. But a world we could walk right into wearing our casual chappals, with Varun and Anushka, and come away with emotions that we would find hard to overlook.
Artistic Promotions
First of all, hats off to the lively ideas the makers did to promote the film. From promoting it all around the Indian cities to putting up vibrant pictures of the promotional events to celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi, they did possibly everything. Here are some of the instances:
# In a video shared recently, we saw how the team of the film reached out to several embroiders across India to design the logo of the film in their signature embroidery style. For the first time ever, film’s logo has been made by artisans from across the country. From Kantha work to Phulkaari, artisans sent their creations which were all compiled into the main logo of the film.
The Sui Dhaaga symbol has been done in outstanding, globally popular Indian hand needlework forms of Kashida and Sozni from Kashmir, colourful Phulkari from Punjab, the intricate thread work forms Rabari and Mochi Bharat from Gujarat, Phool Patti from Uttar Pradesh and Zardozi work from Lucknow. It has also be created in Rajasthan’s prominent crafts like Aari, Banjara and Gota Patti, Tamil Nadu’s popular Toda style and Karnataka’s Kasuti design.
Travelling towards the East, the film’s logo has been made in Pipli style from Odisha, Handloom work from Assam, Kantha stitch work from West Bengal.
Amusingly, YRF (Yash Raj Films) also chose to release to the logo on National Handloom Day that celebrates the glory of Indian handloom the world over.
# The film is based on the entrepreneurship; therefore, actors celebrated capitalistic spirit with summits across 10 cities including Ahmedabad, Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata, Pune, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Indore.
# The ‘Sui Dhaaga’ team again came up with a very inventive promotional idea that is flooding all over the Internet, with celebrities trying it and challenging it further.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn0ygZ4DdZt/?hl=en&taken-by=varundvn
This social media challenge had been started by the leading actors of the movie, Varun and Anushka. A video was shared on social media by Anushka of herself threading a needle. All the big stars actively took the challenge and updated on their profile with challenge video. While some succeeded, some failed miserably.
Glam Measure
Starting the promotions of her upcoming movie, Sui Dhaaga, Anushka Sharma seems to be on a sartorial tour these days.
We recently spotted her in a neutral number crop shirt and high-waist flared pants from Chola label.
The tousle sleeves and the ribbon belt added interesting elements to her attire. Stylist Allia Al Rufai gave a sporty touch to the whole look with a pair of white sneakers, and the actor accessorized with a pair of earrings from Amrapali Jewels. She rounded out her look with nude make-up and a wispy hairdo.
For another promotional look, the actor picked an elaborately floral printed maxi dress from Pero. While we like the colourful piece, we wish the Al Rufai had clinched the actor’s waist with a belt to give some definition to the voluminous dress. Sharma accessorized with a pair of silver jhumkas from Amrapali Jewels and matching Fizzy Goblet juttis. She polished her look with nude make-up and her favoured frail hairdo. Overall the Pari actor looked feisty during the promotions.
Learning Process
The makers of ‘Sui Dhaaga – Made In India’ unveiled a distinctive marketing campaign for the promotions of the film. To perfectly depict their roles on screen, Anushka and Varun ensured that they prepared well and got into the skin of their characters. To shoot the film in an authentic manner, they needed to learn new skills including handloom, block printing, weaving with the help of charkha, stitching, sewing on machines, embroidering and dying of clothes to ace their roles.
Speaking about the experience of learning new things, Varun shared, ‘Sui Dhaaga has made me a better artist. I have never learnt so many new things for a film and these skills helped me get into the psyche of my character, his life and struggles. Mauji is a dreamer who wants to make a name for him and win the love and respect of his wife, Mamta, and his family. In order to achieve his simple dreams, Mauji has to learn various aspects of tailoring, weaving and handloom.’ Varun even went on stitching a shirt for his dad, David Dhawan.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm2oUX4jqiH/?hl=en&taken-by=anushkasharma
‘It was an extremely fulfilling experience to learn these new skills while becoming Mamta. As an artist, I look to seek out new experiences and Sui Dhaaga gave me the opportunity to pick up such amazing and different skills that I would have never learnt otherwise. I had to learn the Charkha, which is just used to separate the yarn. I did a crash course in block printing. I learnt to embroider. It was a challenging yet creatively nourishing experience to work in this film, Anushka said.
The producer Maneesh Sharma said that they want to celebrate Young Indians who are brimming with ideas via the marketing campaign of the film. The film is directed by National Award winner Sharat Katariya. Sui Dhaaga is slated to release on September 28.
