Q. What made you choose this subject?
A. You can’t be an Indian woman and a film director, and not at least think about making a film on this subject. But this particular story about a woman from the village, a city woman and a hangman, came to me from a newspaper article. It was an interview of a village dai (midwife). The questions were longer than the answers and the journalist had a very strong moral judgement weaved into her questions. She asked, ‘Don’t you feel bad killing these girls?’ and the midwife said, ‘Yes’. At the end of the interview, the midwife said something that really stayed with me. She said, ‘I’m just the hangman, these girls were sentenced by someone else.’ It occurred to me then that I wanted to make a film on this inherent hypocrisy in our society.

Q. How was the experience of shooting in Haryana, that forms the backdrop of the film?
A. Contrary to what happens in the film, it was really great for us. We approached the people in the villages with respect and were totally honest about what we were doing. We knew instinctively what scenes could not be shot in Haryana because it would offend the people. So, we shot these in Delhi or parts of Uttar Pradesh. The secondary cast of the film comprises real villagers. I feel that they are sensitive to the problems but are gridlocked in a system that they don’t know how to break, but people are trying.