“Bandish
Bandits”, a latest series on the OTT platform Amazon Prime Video is fast moving
up the charts, scoring big on its mesmerizing music by the trio Shankar, Ehsaan
and Loy. Even the lead cast, Ritwik Bowmik, who plays Radhe – a young man
passionate about classical music – and Shreya Chaudhry, who plays Tamaana – an
Indian popstar- is receiving a huge applause for portraying characters that
connect well with millennials.

Director Anand
Tiwari is thrilled with the response his series has received from audience of
all age groups. So why did he chose this subject when OTT platforms are flooded
with, thrillers, sci-fi, drama and animation?

“My company Still and Still Media Collective , Amrit
(his partner Amritpal Singh Bindra) and I started five years ago and that’s
about the time when OTT market really started booming. This was the time when
all these great big platforms started coming into India. From the word go, we
have always not followed what the trend is and that time OTT was all about
gigs, it was all about humour and a lot of it was driven by male humour and
they were completely different from all the other stuff that was happening so
there was no way Amrit and I would get driven by what is happening around
us,” he said.

“We don’t foresee everything that is out there, we watch
films, series and everything but at the same time we talk to people and we talk
to youngsters all across India and when we speak to them, we start
understanding what are the stories that they would like to hear, what are the
world they would like to explore,” said Tiwari, who is also a noted Indian film
actor known for his roles in films like “Kites”,  “Udaan” and “Go Goa
Gone”.

Tiwari, who has worked as assistant director for Anurag
Basu’s film “Barfi!” and has also directed “Love Per Square Foot”, says that
the one thing he discovered as a trend is the emergence of small town India and
big city India.

“The one thing that we found as trend is the small
town India and big city India is exponentially rising in its own way but there
are lot of misnorms that one has for another so we thought if we base a love
story on these two worlds and do it through music because that’s the easiest
way to bind people together then that would be a good start. That would
hopefully start a conversation about classical music in this country as the
contemporary form and not just something that is our cultural heritage and at
the same it will start   talking about individual from a small town
seen in a completely different light to what they have been represented by
the content that has been created sitting in Mumbai,” he told Opoyi.

And this ambition of the small town India is what makes
the lead characters of the show so special, as they are able to connect with
millions of aspiring young people. 

“I sometime feel you stick to a stereotype and you never
change that hence Radhe was somebody who was completely away from that
stereotype and Tamaana is not stereotype of that typical Mumbai Delhi girl
of course she is freer than him but her ambitions are no less. Her ambition is
as important as Radhe’s ambition. And that I feel is something which is very
important to represent that the youth of today is not irresponsible, they are
not somebody who is wasting time on the internet. The youth of today is more
ambitious, more aspiration and more hardworking than probably any generation
will and that representation we thought is very important for me,” he told
Opoyi.

“Bandish Bandits” has been produced and created by Amritpal Singh Bindra, best known for web
series “Bang Baaja Baaraat”. The cast has some big names like veteran
Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Sheeba Chaddha, and Rajesh
Tailang in the lead roles.

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy has made their
digital debut with the show and Tiwari is thankful.

“This was the project where the music is also
telling the story as the words, and we needed collaborators. Who better than
Shankar Ehsaan and Loy who come from 20 odd experience? Their experience
came to the fore when we were showing how songs are created, how Riyaz are
done, how jamming session happens so each and every moment came alive because
of them.

“They were so humble, they said don’t
say yes to the music just because we are making it, if you don’t like it, we
will change it. We used to sit with them and see the music they create in front
of your eyes and that is one experience I cannot ever describe to anyone in
words but is something I can flaunt for the rest of my life  that I saw
happening in front of my eyes. It is just the most unique experience ever and I
can’t thank them enough for it,” said Tiwari.