As a young female AD on set, I often had many surreal, out of body experiences that revolved around my gender. For the incredibly limited number of women there are on the set, it was shocking how much women occupied the topics of conversation on the 90 percent male dominated set. Women, their shape, size, depth, skin tone, spontaneity and discussions about their ‘heart’ were perplexing to me. The fact that I was from the same gender made absolutely no difference to these men, I was basically too low down the chain for my feelings to matter.

On any given day, I learnt as much about what men desire as what we were actually shooting. Women ruled the conversation on set; there was no God, no family, no politics, no religion that could unite men on the set as the walking by of a beautiful woman. Never before I had seen desire, in so naked a form. The women in these conversations were like the Geet that we were creating on screen. Fair skinned, talkative, spontaneous, innocent. These four words were to be repeated again and again to describe the ideal heroine for nearly every feature I worked on, including my own ten years later.

Navigating the set as a woman, taught me that this large organism has a lot of extra eyes, and a seedy underbelly. The first AD of the film was also another woman, and she and I didn’t see eye to eye. I’m the first to admit- I was spoilt, maybe even entitled at that point and if I didn’t know anything, I was sure she didn’t either. Anyway the point was I found myself receiving a lot of unwelcome fashion advice for decorum on the set. I still had my London, LSE wardrobe intact and I prided myself on my fashionable clothes that I had worked multiple jobs to buy on Oxford Street. Do women really need to wear loose t-shirts and cargo pants to not draw attention, as advised? My first AD prided herself on behaving and dressing identically to  the men on set but I didn't believe this was necessary. My ignorance had me believe nobody cares about my gender if I work hard.

I didn’t notice it then, but women start to disappear as you go up the seniority chain. The Head of Department's on the sets I assisted were almost never women, except for the cliche costume department. On Love Aaj Kal, there were a lot of women running the show, but by and large the creative teams on set were run by men.

When I was transitioning from an assistant to a director, I looked around for female role models that I could emulate. I started actively researching the women directors who were doing big mainstream work in Indian cinema  to understand how they got to where they are. Sadly I didn't find any women that represented me. Most of them belonged to film-families, and their first few films were all backed by the might of their families and the credibility of their male family members (read husbands, fathers, brothers).  But that's not the entire truth. There are several  talented women directors battling in the indie filmmaking scene, and now, recently making  films on OTT.  Things are getting better but more on this later.

For now let's return to the twenty-two year old oblivious me, who did not like being identified for her clothes or gender. I remember thinking to myself, if  there were more women on the set would they also be as tough nailed, foul mouthed, trash talking as men? Or would the men become more conscious and civilised in the presence of women? What would the men talk about? I would have personally loved to see a kick-ass, no nonsense woman holding her own amongst all the rowdiness. Maybe that woman will be me.