Behl assisted director Dibakar Banerjee on "Oye Lucky Lucky Oye" and co-wrote "Love Sex Aur Dhokha (LSD)" before making his feature debut. Now, Dibakar has turned producer for Behl's "Titli" with Yash Raj Films.
Behl says he was writing another film before "Titli" but he abandoned it midway.
"I was writing another film for a year but I could not make it. I realised that it was a dishonest attempt. A lot was going wrong in my personal life and in panic, I was trying to make just any film. This led to a reassessment and I realised that whatever I write next has to be personal and come from my own experience," Behl told PTI in an interview.
Behl says they kept asking questions, raising doubts and adding details that came from his own experiences to the movie.
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"But a completely different thing opened up and we realised that what we thought was a film about oppression, is about family rhythm, patriarchy and circularity of same images and themes."
Set in a Delhi slum, the movie is about Titli, the youngest member of a violent car-jacking family and his desperate attempt to escape the family business. The detail about carjackers comes from a news item that Behl read. It helped him create a back-story that would explain the reason behind the anger.
"There was some sort of anger that was travelling from the outside into the house and then from the house to the outside world. Vikram, the elder brother, works as a security guard in a mall for 16 hours. He sees people coming and buying stuff. He sees this world of haves whereas there is no money in his house. How does that person feel?