Malayalam director-writer Ajayan Venugopalan on featuring expatriate life in his debut film ‘Shiv Shastri Balboa ’

Writer-director Ajayan Venugopalan’s debut feature film Shiv Shastri Balboa has Anupam Kher and Neena Gupta in the lead

Writer-director Ajayan Venugopalan is a keen chronicler of expatriate life. Beginning with Akkarakazhchakal, Malayalam’s first YouTube sitcom in the late 2000s, to Metro Park, an equally hilarious Hindi web series that is currently streaming online, time and time again Ajayan has given movie-goers insightful glimpses into real expat life which, in his own words, “is far beyond the glitz and glamour of big cities, flashy cars and Times Square.” 

Now, Ajayan, who previously wrote the screenplays for Malayalam films Ivide and English: An Autumn in London, is set to make his debut as a feature film director with the Hindi film Shiv Shastri Balboa, which will be released in theatres today (February 10). Starring veteran actors Anupam Kher and Neena Gupta in the lead, this slice-of-life comedy revolves around two elderly Indians and their unexpected escapades across rural America.  

Why does he keep coming back to expat stories in his works? “As a diaspora, we Indians started from scratch but we have now built an empire. There’s a lot of joy in that but it also comes with pain, struggle and sacrifice. As an immigrant myself, I understand the nuances and want to document this remarkable feat of theirs,” says Ajayan.  

Shiv Shastri Balboa, which Ajayan also wrote, is actually inspired by his own experience of having his parents, Venugopalan, a retired professor and Ambika, a retired banker, from Palakkad, come for an extended visit to New Jersey, where he is based.

“After the initial excitement of being in a new place, they quickly got bored. One month into their visit, I caught my dad trying to cross the highway on foot! He had ‘nowhere else to explore,’ it seems! I knew then that it was time for them to return to Kerala,” says Ajayan, with a laugh. 

“It’s the case with most parents who come to visit their NRI kids. They come to America at the insistence of their children but quickly find themselves alienated. From living in a very social country like India where they interact with many people on a daily basis, in suburban America, they are mostly stuck indoors, often alone while their children go to work. They are also sometimes unable to really connect with their grandchildren because of the language barrier. They often find themselves in a large cage — a golden cage — but a cage, nonetheless. That got me thinking about retirement and about the hurdles senior citizens have to face,” says Ajayan.  

This new film tells the story of Shiv Shankar Shastri (Anupam), a retiree, newly-arrived in the US, who is a patron of a boxing club back in India and a huge fan of boxer Rocky Balboa — Sly Stallone’s seminal character from the Rocky movie series. It’s also the story of Elsa Zachariah (Neena),  a maid from Hyderabad, who has been cooped up in a home in suburban America, for the past eight years. As Shiv Shastri and Elsa embark on a road trip together across the American heartland, the film touches on many issues such as resilience and reinventing oneself, apart from featuring issues such as unemployment, immigration, undocumented workers, rural poverty, racism and so on.  All this is told in Ajayan’s signature light-hearted style. Ultimately, “it’s a story about a man’s passion for cinema that helps him overcome all these challenges.” And it’s all told in Ajayan’s signature light-hearted style, that’s poignant and funny at the same time.