What powers him to do that is a validity coming from an age old tradition that he is a part of. Aamir Bashir — what an inspired choice. Which means, it’s a new construct. They have been associated with the project from the start… The score is a result of a close collaboration.Edited excerpts from the interviewQ.I always wanted him to play Bhupi because I knew he would bring a silent intensity to the part. With Aamir I feel an unconditional support and encouragement to raise the bar as high as it can go. It can have a voice of its own — a unique new voice that generates a wholesome promise and delivers it. Bhupi, played by Aamir Bashir is the witness to the crime.Q. Their truths.Gurgaon’s story is about a family that has new money. It had to have an internal logic without necessarily an elaborate back story.Perhaps, as a new city Gurgaon needn’t suffer from the narrative of older traditions and social constructs. Do you think the sort of casual crime, as you’ve shown in your film, is in Gurgaon’s DNA? What’s its genesis?A. I was interested in ultimately empathising with them regardless of what they have done. Either way, I am as interested in the question of its genesis as you are. 

True as in what is agreed to be conclusive and permanent.Then there’s the maali, the bai, the driver, guard, cook who enter high-rise, plush apartments or offices — all carefully manicured and steadfastly secured from any intrusion — with their photo-identity cards, but return to live in crowded one-room homes that are at a walking distance but are infested with rats, reeking of poor drainage and disease. The background score you have used in the film could well be used for a horror film. As the saying goes, what goes around comes around. True, as in what’s heard and reported. In its own land, it is now foreign, peculiar.Only Aurangzeb comes to my mind. Your film is apparently based on real life. He also brings his own sense of politics and understanding of the world which is vital for me. And acknowledgement… (But) modernity seems to be feeding and feeding off the fear of alienation. Disposed of land and identity, but moneyed, it is relegated to living on the margins of posh, gated colonies. Could you elaborate on that?A. He wants to stop him but can’t.There’s new Gurgaon, which has intruded upon the old and native, taken over their land, habitat, brought in their own culture, courtesies and cultivated hauteur. Was that deliberate? Why?

A. I was not interested in seeing the characters as good or evil. True as in general consensus and unshakeable personal judgement. He is deeply conflicted, folded in and suffering. We spoke more about the characters, their intentions — what they are hiding, what they want, but are afraid to ask. Q. Someone who for no fault of his is sucked into this world of Gurgaon. So in that sense, how can the relationship of people with the city be transformative if the city seems to be feeding their fear for its own survival. It has lost its bearings and is trying to assert itself, often in the only way it knows in this land of the great dharma yudh.Gurgaon releases in theatres on Friday. Its a familiar way to see things. It’s one way to see the events in the film. It’s hard to see him as black and white even though he makes extreme choices. True as in what people believe to be true. There’s a lot of violence in your film — violence that’s often ignored by the police, violence whose victims are family members. They are designed to serve specific needs. What did they have in mind? What was the promise? 

Will it be a place of equal opportunity? Will it be a safe place? Will it be sustainable? Will there be accountability? To deliver this promise it’s clear that older narratives will be challenged. It’s a result of an acute inability to express oneself. Either way he suffers the burden and seeks redemption. We are not born that way. Your film ends on a note that shows the end of the circle of violence. In that sense I feel the score in the film is a character that you don’t see, but feel its presence constantly.There have been films about honour killings, female infanticide, about random violence, city’s seething rage and anger — NH 10, Highway, and most recently, G Kutta Se — but few films have explored its duality, showcased a city that’s constantly under construction and destruction. It’s intended to lead you into the heart of the matter. The course of events in the film offer him a chance at redemption. Certain crime at times seem casual. How come you thought of casting him?A.Nikki Singh, played by Akshay Oberoi, is a force of nature. My fascination with Gurgaon is that it’s a new city. Q. 

But at its core it’s just one way to justify and explain. Born out of the world of the story, they have meaning. "People have their own impression of Gurgaon.. What, in your opinion, is the relationship of its people to the city — people to whom Gurgaon once belonged, but who are now, as shown in your film, either engaged in real estate business or setting up gyms?A. And now writer-director Shanker Raman’s Gurgaon. It’s not meant to encourage or titillate.Add to this neurotic mix an educated back-end workforce which speaks all day in an American accent, or caters to a foreign clientele but retires to in dingy PG accommodation owned often by the natives of Haryana. What’s your fascination with Gurgaon? Why Gurgaon, and not, say, Bangalore, Noida?A. His eldest son feels short-changed, emasculated, and wants to regain power.Of course, there’s never a clean binary. 

That’s the power of the cinematic medium — to suspend one’s own judgement and create a narrative that alters a hardened view of certain types.Q. It doesn’t really transform China wheel bearing repair kits Manufacturers the way we look at things. Which allows them a chance for redemption, as a right. Do you think it ends?A. There is violence in the film, but it comes from somewhere.A.Is it any wonder that Gurgaon is perennially in news for the wrong reasons? It’s a city that teeters on the cusp of a nervous breakdown, finding release only with a spine-chilling episode. Which is why I would say, watch the film. Its people, housing colonies, street spirit and psyche are split into two distinct, contrary worlds. Gurgaon is often called the millennium city. We rarely discussed instrumentation and beats. 

So the question is, was there a promise?Q.. Preet, played by Ragini Khanna is someone who is burdened by the notion that she is grateful for what she has received in life.I am, as any other person, stuck to my own belief system and sense of what is fair game. Aamir and I go back a long way. The music score is done by the gifted Benedict Taylor & Naren Chandavarkar. And yet, he makes choices that are uncommon even if they are born out of greed and desire. Tell me a little bit about the research that went into creating the film’s characters. Entitlement is its byproduct