‘It was a gamble’: ‘Side A Side B’ team on the challenges of making a film within a train journey

Filmmaker Sudhish Kamath and the leads of ‘Side A Side B’, Rahul Rajkhowa and Shivranjani Singh, discuss their recently released musical romance

About seven years ago, Sudhish Kamath’s former assistant director went on a train journey from Chennai to Mumbai with his girlfriend and a cat. The girlfriend was moving to Mumbai and they could not find a flight that allowed cats. Hence, the train.

When Sudhish, a film critic and journalist turned filmmaker, heard this, he was excited. “Man, that’s really cinematic. I think you should definitely write it,” he recalls telling his former assistant, Joel. “When you’re in love, and one of them has to move to a different city, that’s a testing time for a relationship.”

“But he was like, ‘No, bro, I’m in a very happy space in the relationship. I can’t think of all this depressing stuff.’”