Race to the finish

Rasika Dugal and Arjun Mathur

Lord Curzon Ki Haveli, starring Arjun Mathur and Rasika Dugal, was slated to go on floors in Kent, UK, in March 2020. After waiting out three waves of the pandemic over the past two years, director Anshuman Jha finally called action on the black comedy in London in early February. Today, he is a relieved man, having wrapped up the project in three weeks. "It feels like a blur because the three weeks have just flown by. I had blinders on," says Jha, who returned to India last week after the shoot.

Where the dip in Covid cases encouraged him to line up the shoot for February, Jha had other issues to resolve. The pandemic-induced slowdown in international travel meant that procuring visas took longer than usual. "Amid Covid worries, visa delays, and a continental storm [Storm Eunice], I focussed on doing my job. Initially, the cast had concerns [about pulling off a foreign shoot]. But if we hadn't done it now, I wouldn't get combination dates of Arjun and Rasika till October. So, it was a leap of faith for me," says the debutant director. The satire is currently under post-production.