New Delhi: Before making Satluj, director Honey Trehan and writer Niren Bhatt spent a month travelling across various districts of Punjab to develop the script, and along the way, every single meal they ate was at a gurudwara.
“After the first few meals we had at restaurants, I just mentioned to Trehan that I wanted to have authentic Punjabi food. And he was like, you’ll find it in a gurudwara only. And so, every meal we had was in a gurudwara; I am not kidding,” Bhatt told ThePrint.
“Trehan knew where the gurdwaras were. It was the basic dal, roti, chawal; sometimes we would even get sabji. But it was a satisfying experience,” said Bhatt, recalling the memories of the month-long trip.
Bhatt is one of three credited writers on Satluj, formerly titled Punjab ’95, alongside Trehan and Utsav Maitra. The makers spent years fighting for censor approval. When the film was finally released on ZEE5 on 3 July, it couldn’t withstand the scrutiny and was pulled from the platform within two days.
Satluj narrates the story of Punjab’s darkest chapters from the 1990s through the lens of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. The film traces Khalra’s decades-long pursuit of justice for more than 25,000 people who disappeared during Punjab’s insurgency-era crackdowns, many of them cremated without their families ever being informed.
Bhatt first crossed paths with Trehan in 2019, collaborating with his production house, MacGuffin Pictures, on the short film Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa. He describes the filmmaker as a “jovial” person who would keep things entertaining no matter what.
“For a long time, we spoke about doing a project together. But nothing worked until one day when I was in Arunachal Pradesh. He called me and told me about the project and shared some documents for Satluj. And I was instantly on board. That’s how our journey started,” he said.
The two spent a year developing the script through 2020, with the film going on the floors in 2021.
“I feel privileged that he took me to Punjab and those places and towns that made it to the film (like Tatley village and Harike Pattan) to make me familiar with the culture and history. Honestly, it comes from a part of his life. He has lived that time,” Bhatt said, adding that Trehan’s passion for the project was evident throughout.
During the trip, the two also bonded over their shared love for poetry, a connection that ended up woven into the film itself. Poetry runs through much of Satluj‘s more chilling dialogue, and Trehan even credited the late Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi in the film’s closing credits. The opening sequence draws directly from his work, featuring a line from his famous poem ‘Ghamaan Di Raat Lammi Hai (The Night of Sorrows Is Long).’
In fact, Trehan is currently developing a biopic on Batalvi. He has often spoken about the poet’s deep spiritual sensibility and his enduring body of work, including ‘Ek Kudi,’ a song from Batalvi’s catalogue that has found mainstream fame.
Though Bhatt refuses to comment on the film’s ongoing battle with censorship, he sums up Satluj as “shared trauma.”
“We have been battling for the film’s release for the last few years. Let’s see what happens now,” he added.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)