I do this ride every day — across Delhi to Noida and back, packed coach, most of my own time going into it. Long enough that I’d stopped seeing any of it: the crush at the door, the paper opened much too wide, the same tired evening light. This is what came out of looking again.
Every film keeps the metro exactly as it is and changes one thing. Something out on the track that has no business being there. A creature in a good kurta waiting for the same train as everyone else. A coach that lifts off the rails in the depot while a man stands underneath it with his arms up.
I kept the base photoreal on purpose. The moment the setting looks stylised the unreal part stops costing anything — it turns into a cartoon, and I’d rather it sit in a real place and be a problem. So the strange thing is usually small, and nothing in the frame points at it.
What I keep noticing across the set is how little anyone reacts. I don’t mean that as a joke at anyone’s expense. It’s what a long commute does — after enough of them you stop registering what’s around you, including the parts worth registering.