A new documentary series on Amazon Prime, In Transit traces the stories of nine individuals as they talk about exploring their identities and gender. Produced by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti of Tiger Baby, the series is spread across four episodes where the characters open up about discovering themselves, coming out to their families, navigating love, and finding out their own hopes and dreams. I spoke to the director, Ayesha Sood on making In Transit, the labour that went into her love, and sourced a list of books, films, and more that she and her team had come across during the research phase.
Could you talk a bit about the inception, how In Transit came about?
The seed of the idea came from Zoya and Reema. They had been researching on the trans world for one of their characters in Made in Heaven. They had a really good response to that character and the way it was written.
They were intrigued with how little there is out there about the Indian trans experience and what it means to be transgender in India. They approached me, and gave me a very generous and free rein on what I wanted to build, how I wanted to build it, and what I wanted to do with it. And I was immediately fascinated by the world. I’m really happy to have been approached to do it.
Why do you think you were approached? Have there been any past experiences of working with such stories?
I have known Zoya, Reema for over twenty years. And I have since been learning how to make my own films and find my own voice. I had a production house running in Delhi for around fourteen years, where we did a lot of work – socially engaged documentaries – some of it was commissioned as well. It was one for the reel, one for the rent, that kind of thing. And it oiled my wheels and sharpened my sense of the kind of storytelling I wanted to do.
And, having known Reema and Zoya all this time, they’ve been aware of my work. So I’m sure they came across it. But more than that, I think, I’ve explored gender and sexuality in my own life and in my own way, I guess. And I think they know that this is possibly something that I would look at, not just with curiosity, but respect.
Could you talk a bit about the research process?
We had a really long – over a year and a half – of research, where I built my own team. From journalists, to people from the trans community, to researchers. Almost every week, we would interview and talk with all kinds of people – lawyers, historians, mythologists, legal, social, sociocultural – and educate ourselves about the world, the stories, the people. If somebody says, Let’s make a documentary on the trans world, it’s like saying, Let’s make a documentary on people. So, you know, you have to understand who are the people you’re talking about? What are the concerns? What are the interesting, fascinating storylines that you want to talk about? It really was a blank canvas. And we approached it like – let’s learn, let’s understand, let’s really experience and talk to real people in this world.
There are so many stories out there, how did you choose the nine?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Through our research phase, a lot of names came up, obviously. We started to talk to and make a very large list of people that we were engaging with. And through that time, we also started to build the structure of the series. What are we going to tell? What are we going to talk about? And we wanted to talk about concerns and storylines, and narratives that are universally relatable. So the first thing that happens with any transgender person, anybody exploring their sexuality or gender, is the question of identity and understanding who you are. Then, acceptance in your relationships that are closest to you, your family. Then, the search for love. All of these are very universal and understandable themes. So this started to emerge in the structure that we were exploring. And then we started to gravitate towards our characters who had strong narrative points in these areas. And also, you know, not everyone in the trans world, for various reasons like circumstance or relationships or just where they are in their journey, are really able to have that discussion on camera on such a big platform like Amazon Prime. So it was also decided a little bit by who can be in that position to tell us these stories.
The structure that you’re talking about, did you also communicate it to the characters? Were they aware of the structure when they were talking?
No, I don’t think they were aware of the structure, but they knew what in their story we were interested in. Because we had built this relationship with them for more than a year. And it’s only through that kind of conversation and getting to know them that we were like, oh, Aryan has a very interesting story about love or, Madhuri’s story about her marriage is very interesting. And as you build that relationship with the characters, you realize when you get to the screen, that there perhaps is a lot more that they want to share with us. We did not know that Aryan was going to share the violent story in his home. When he did, we realised we would like to use it in the story with family, although we hadn’t planned that beforehand. So, yeah, it’s a bit of both.
You spoke about the one-year relationship that you were building. Could you elaborate on that – the trust building, how they came about to trust you, your team and the camera?
Like most stories that you go out to search, whether it’s journalistic stories or researching a fictional story, it’s always one point of contact to begin with. So through our journalists, activists, through the people on the team – Anindya and Deepthi mainly – we would reach out to a bunch of these characters. They would make the first few calls and have a chat with them, tell them what we’re up to, and check if they are even keen. Then I would get on a call with them and we’d just have a very free-flowing kind of conversation. Then the next round was Deepthi and someone else from my team, who would go with a small audio recorder and just spend a couple of hours with them, talking to them again about their life, stories, where they are today. So it was multiple small conversations, phone calls, one-on-ones. Eventually, when they were prepped and really ready and knew us, then we would get on the floor with the documentary shoot.
Just out of curiosity, when you were shooting, were you also cognisant of the crew size?
Yeah, yeah, we had to take our entire crew through a sensitisation workshop. So, language, protocols around how you touch people or address people, how you’re micing people, etc. And also, when you’re having intimate conversations, can we filter down the crew and make it smaller? I remember very clearly, there was one moment where Madhuri had started to cry, and we eventually had to stop the shoot, actually empty out the room, and let her have a moment. They’re sharing very intimate and raw experiences that they have been through, which we are privileged to hear, and we must allow them the space to tell us in that way. So, yeah, there was a lot of awareness on how many people are around them, and how to make it softer for them.
In the entire scope of the documentary, to tell the stories the way they are and to also not make it a teaching experience for the audience – was it also a conscious choice to not do that because that’s not the job?
It was one of the first things that I was very clear about, and I made it the rule of our world. We are not going to teach anyone. We are going to expect that people come to watch with curiosity and intelligence. And I find it extremely patronizing when I’m being taught. In fact, I feel like that’s the line that somewhere things fall flat, especially in documentary, because it’s so rooted in the real world. And you must be conscious at every stage – not just when you’re talking to people but also in the edit phase, because you have so many people who go through your edits and review them. You have to always find a balance of, are we getting the point across, or are we talking down? And I think we’ve managed a good balance.
While we listened to real stories in In Transit, when it comes to fiction, there’s often a mess up. We see it to date. Do you think a documentary like In Transit might help sensitize fiction writers as well?
I hadn’t thought about that. I hope it does, you know. I don’t know.
I think you can mess up in both. You can mess up in documentary and in fiction. You just need to have good instincts and the right intent, and be honest in the filmmaking process, I think, and then you should be okay.
Click here for a (non-exhaustive) list of books, films, TV shows, and podcasts the In Transit team read and watched during their research phase in the project.
