Meghna Gulzar is much more than the great Gulzar and the enigmatic Raakhee Gulzar’s daughter. Meghna Gulzar is an acclaimed Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer known for tackling complex, sensitive themes with exceptional depth and empathy Daayra (2026), her latest release is a highly anticipated cop-versus-cop crime thriller exploring public justice, police encounters, and truth.First of all, I saw your film. Its exploration of the law and justice is scathing, unsparing and very disturbing? How much of research did you actually do? How long did it take?Thank you.  It actually happened in two parts, because I got this from Junglee Pictures in 2020, when Sam Bahadur was going to go into pre-production. So there was some time that went in there along with the writers, Yash Keswani and Sima Agarwal. Then when Sam released, we kind of updated our research and put the final script together somewhere around April of 2014. So off and on, cumulatively, you could say about two, two and a half years.There is a kind of dearth of social consciousness in our cinema today. Is it very difficult for you to stick to your conscience, to make the films that you believe in?My most precious earning as a filmmaker is the faith of actors who come on board, which makes making the stories that I want to tell easier. So it’s a two-way process. I can’t build a reputation unless I make films, and I can’t make films unless actors believe. And then the faith of the producers. And I must say the faith of the audience because they don’t let me down. You know, they may go and consume all kinds of cinema, but they don’t let me down when my film comes outBut Meghna, you are such a recluse. You are hardly exposed to the reality that you’ve shown in this film. How do you manage to make it so authentic?You need to have your radars open to absorb the information of the world around you and what’s going on in society around you. And I will never, ever go into a subject underprepared.Tell me a bit about the casting, apart from the protagonists. Where did you get these people?So most of them are theatre actors. And what we wanted was to not be region-specific. Because this kind of  crime is not something that happens in just one city or state. And it is not the responsibility of one particular police force. It is a malaise which is in our society, in our country as a whole. So I actually wanted actors from all over the country. My casting director, Taran Bajaj, has managed very, very well.In this film, Kareena’s character is bringing in the human angle to an absolutely inhuman act. Did you see that imbalance in your head while making the film?For every good Raman out there, there can be two bad ones as well. So it’s important to propagate that there needs to be a conscience. Even though what Raman is doing may seem gratifying. Where is the social conscience or moral compass? We can’t lose sight of that. And that’s also what Kareena is supposed to do. Remind the institutions that they are underperforming, which is why Raman gets his popularity. The infrastructural collapse is what is really relevant here.So when is Gulzar Saab watching your film?He saw the offline edit actually. Because he needed to write the song. He has not seen the finished product yet. But I don’t think he is going to be up for the hustle and bustle of a theatre viewing. So I guess once it comes on to streaming or something.