IAmA documentary filmmaker who spent 2 years undercover as a student in India's toughest med school. All I had was a handheld camcorder. My film PLACEBO is now on Netflix globally. AMA!

How did you get on the campus? Did your friends know about what you were doing? If not, what is their reaction now? How were your grades?

I was not studying there. I just started living on campus. Pretending to be a student. Only the four characters in my film knew i was making a film. Actually even i wasn't sure i was making a film. the camera was more a documenting agent. Thats why i just went in with a small camcorder. Only after when patterns began to emerge and events became more sinister did the film appear

How did you even get away with that?

I think once you see the film you will realise that just the fact that i got away with it is symptomatic of the problem i'm discussing in the film- isolation

Hi. What were you looking to document and why is it called Placebo? ... Is there a trailer for it? I guess I'm struggling to understand the focal point of the doc, why's in it for me and why should i watch it.

Agreed. I'm sure it is a wonderful film and it sounds like a lot of work went into it, but I just watched the teaser trailer link below and it is honestly still a little unclear to me what it's about.

I think teasers should hide what the real film is about and you should be surprised watching the film. Its not a popular worldview but still, if it intrigues you, you should give it a shot

Personally, I think that's a good way to approach teasers. Giving away too much can ruin the movie. It should really just tell you enough to get you interested and want to see more, I think.

Yeah. Did it intrigue you enough though?

Yeah, I think so. I'll probably check it out today.

Lovely :)

Here is the teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrdLPrZzjh8

The film documents the other side of the academic dream as sold to us by the society. You will understand why is it called 'Placebo' once you watch it.

I'm not trying to offend, just offer some constructive criticism but that teaser is just awful. It makes me not want to see the film at all. I have zero understanding of what the film is about from it. I know more about the film from your description than from the teaser. You should really look into cutting a full trailer that will entice people to see your film rather than just leaving them confused.

I really agree with this guy. The documentary is pretty good. The teaser is absolute shit.

yeah agree the teaser is absolute shit

I need to sign up on teaser cutting classes totally

Constructive criticism duly received. I've heard that a lot. I guess we kept postponing cutting a trailer till the film actually just came out

I grew up in AIIMS (faculty kid) and was moved by your documentary. Are you a doctor as well? What is your brother doing now? Any update on K?

I'm not a doctor. I was already making films before i made this one. My brother is a diplomat now. K is fine. Though i don't know where he is. You should show the film to your parent/s. It would be very interesting to know their take

Will do. Incidentally, here's a photo of my brother and me with our grandparents from a very long time ago. The AIIMS academic building can be seen far in the background on the left.

Beautiful. I met another faculty kid at a screening in NID recently. That place always evokes a physical reaction out of me :) (AIIMS i mean)

I'm just about to watch your documentary, but I understand the level of pressure and weight of expectation placed on students is severe - leading to abuse, depression and in the worst cases suicide.

Do you see any signs that the situation may be improving? Is there a desire for change from certain sectors or do you think that such stress is an inevitable by-product of entering such a prestige, demanding and competitive school environment?

Pressure will always increase. The question to be asked is, are we giving young minds the tools to deal with that pressure? Or are we just assuming they'll be fine? Our inability to simply talk about uncomfortable things is now showing these cracks. 65% of India's population is below the age of 35. India has the highest suicide rate in the world in the age group 15-29. It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together

Pressure will always increase?

When it comes to numbers vis-a-vis resources available

So what's wrong with this institution and why was your brother injured?

The film is not institution specific. It just happens to take place there because my brother studied there. What is wrong with the institute is exactly the same thing which is wrong with our society- being satisfied with placebos. the reason for my brother's injury is in the film.

Heh, I'll just have to see the film to find out then.

You should :) Just the fact that this film got made and is out there is a strange thing

After the 2009 no-ragging court ruling, it appears that AIIMS's solution is to prohibit upperclassmen from speaking to freshmen. Is that correct? For how long does that rule remain in effect? It seems like a ridiculously draconian approach to the hazing problem.

The thing is, ragging should be banned. No doubt about it. But when you take out an existing form of interaction (however flawed) but do not replace it with another, and expect things to sort out on their own, that is not going to happen. And the results are for everyone to see. I think we need more proactive approach towards tackling the problem of isolation and dealing with pressure

Holy hell! Our son goes to Duke University. Here's how his move in went. The kids with the same-colored T-shirts are upperclassmen.

So much joy :)

some people have expressed hatred towards the documentary on social media. What would you say is the biggest failure of the film?

I could respond to that if i have access to that hatred. For some reason the criticism hasn't reached me

You must really enjoy your little bubble where no one gives criticism. Ive seen some even in this thread that you seem to ignore the point and simply regurgitate your own opinion.

Similarly the trailer (which is garbage) and your "explanations" of the film here are clickbait if nothing else so i wont be bothered not wasting my time watching your film

Hi. To be fair all the criticism about the teaser started coming in when i had left the AMA (hella different timezones). They are duly noted.

'You will not be bothered not wasting your time'. Does that mean you will actually watch it :)

He did make an error by using a double negative, but it was just that - an error. You knew what he meant. By being a smartass in the comment section is how you get people not to watch your documentary. Just a constructive criticism.

Well i guess if redditors can give it to person doing the AMA they can take some back too. It's all in good faith. I'm not here to please everyone. If you're turned off, so be it good sir

I'm a lady :)

Good madame then :)

I'm about to watch this now. Congrats! Do you plan on pursuing a medical or film career?

I can already deliver a baby and have played at major film festivals till now. So i'm thinking something else. Maybe a tiramisu chef.

Pfff, babies deliver themselves. /s

Truer words were never spoken. Only babies and dandruff deliever themselves

Did anyone ask why you were taking videos so frequently?

Like i siad, most of my filming was with the characters. even when i was in public, i was shooting very casually. After a point i was a ghost

What were your thoughts when you cut together the documentary ?

Well since the project was a really long one (i shot 1000 hours of footage) the central thought was to finish it. The level to what we wanted to take it, is another story though. I had always wanted to make a documentary which bridges the gap between how we consume documentary and fiction cinema

How did you choose through 1000 hours of footage down to an hour and a half long doc?

Well that is what they would call editing. It took an year to wade through again and again and again to sculpt out a honest, coherent narrative

so did you attend lectures? is this going on YouTube anytime soon?

No lectures. You'd be surprised by the number of kids who pass medicine without attending lectures. a lot of it has to be memorised by rote from books. Well its exclusively on netflix for now and itunes globally in a month. It should eventually find its way to youtube. However, now is not the time

Was there anything that you encountered during your time there that genuinely scared you?

Absolutely. Life is terrifyingly fragile- even inside the corridors of excellence. To see a 20 year old killing himself and to feel that void is never a good thing. I wonder how these young kids internalise this and carry on

How did you get lodging in the hostel? Whose bed did you sleep on, and so on? How often would you leave campus?

Easy. I was in my brother's room. But i didn't stay there all the time. I took up a place close by. shooting hours were chaotic as there was no shooting agenda. It was 'anything goes'.

I watched the movie during the screening at BITS Goa. I wanted to know how did you get the audio so right, given that it was recorded on a camcorder?

We worked a lot on it. It helped that i was working with one of Europe's finest sound designers. We couldn't clean the audio much since we did not have much bandwidth to work with. So we started adding layers of noise to trick your ears into thinking it's not there

That's brilliant, care to delve into that a little more? Like background noise duplication+inversion?

I'm literally just starting the documentary as I type this.

Well to be fair i wouldn't know the technicalities of it since the sound designer was handling that. I was giving my inputs on whether it works or not. The sound was worked upon in protools though

Did K really came up from Singapore to BITS Goa after the screening during TEDx?

I think he was already in India by then. But yes he was there

Did AIIMS take any steps that you know of to prevent outsiders from getting in like you did?

I hope not ;)

Placebo 2?

If there is justice in the universe, hopefully not :)

Sorry if this has been asked, but did you sell the doc to Netflix after it was finished? Or did you offer the idea to Netflix, and then have them pick it up and then finish it.

They picked it up after the film was finished

What is K smoking throughout the documentary?

Oregano

• Which documentary films and filmmakers do u look up to?

• Do you agree that you sometimes put your film above your family/friends need as your brother claims at one point? And if so is that something u regret? Is it possible to balance or do u feel one must always be at the service of art? Why did you choose to keep it in? Was there anything you kept out for personal reasons?

I haven't actually seen a lot of documentaries. However i can share with you the film which inspired me to make Placebo. 'Bombay Beach' by Alma Harel. Her work is groundbreaking.

And i agree with your second point. artists can often have tunnel vision vis-a-vis their art/creation which can make them oblivious to very obvious things. I have no regrets with regards to how i conducted myself. There was absolutely no question about not keeping it. I think it's one of the most honest moments of the film. And telling of what the film is actually trying to communicate. The only stuff that was kept out was which would not serve the narrative of the film. In this film, nothing was too personal.

Any idea why this doesn't work in Brazil? I guess it's not launched globally?

Its launched globally but things never release in 'all' countries. E.g even germany, spain and netherlands are missing right now. It will come however, its a gradual rollout

what hollywood celebrity do you find the hottest? (present or past)?

There are multiple at different times. Do i just have to choose one? I'd say i love Jessica chastain, or cate winslet, or emmy rossum or... I think i've entered quantum space now so im overlapping times

not bad choices at all. me? I'm a classic guy. Michelle Pheifer in her Scarface days.

Those cheekbones could kill a person