Where pickpockets and chess meet

Looks like Bollywood is not done with exposing the underbelly of Mumbai just yet.

Directed by Ankush Bhatt and starring Kay Kay Menon, Prashant Narayan, Piyush Mishra, Pawan Malhotra, Shilpa Shukla, Deepti Naval, Shwetabh Varma, Vedita gautam and Caterina Lopez, the movie has already made it to the international film circuit including this year's Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival.

No wonder Ankush Gandhi is one very excited man as he explains what the film is about. "Bhindi Baazaar Inc is about how in the game of chess, a mere pawn uses strategy and cunning to survive and reach the other end of the board, thus becoming a Wazir."

Ankush was fascinated with the concept of pick pocketing and thus decided to do a film on the subject. "The film is interestingly set with the backdrop of pick pocketing as a profession. Pick pocketing to me is more heroic than gangster killings. I find it very fascinating that a person is able to flick a purse in the midst of hundreds of people."

He further added, "Once the backdrop was decided, we needed an environment for the characters to reside in. That's how Bhindi Baazaar Inc came about."

The movie uses chess as a medium to explain the characters. Ankush explains, "The thought of using chess as the medium of moving the screenplay ahead excited me and the writer a lot but we came to a standstill when we realised that all characters in the film were in one group. And that never happens in chess. You can't have white piece killing the white. So we had to rework the entire script to make the white pawn manipulate the black to kill its own teammate. It's twisted."

Black Friday's Pawan Malhotra plays Mamu, the chief of the local goons. "It is an interesting film which was shot at real locations," says Pawan. 

Veteran actor Deepti Naval plays Bano, Mamu's wife. Deepti says of her role, "My character has grey shades and I enjoyed doing it for a change. My character has seen a lot of hardships and I am the eldest of 14 siblings who had to go through cutthroat competition even to eat a meal."

Shooting the movie in Bhindi Bazaar was an interesting experience for Deepti. "We stayed there for a few days and observed the whole environment around us. It was like were living the character."