anusha rizvi the director of peepli live enjoyed her two day stay in lucknow having become a jaithani recently anusha is enjoying the perks of being the badi bhabhi my husband mahmood farooquis younger brother and his wife are posted in the city as custom officers so i went to my sisterinlaws office and jamaod all the roab of a badi bhabhi demanding tea and snacks and ordering her people around it was fun said she while she was in the city for a film festival dressed in a simple cotton suit anusha looks anything but a bollywood film director but i am not not in the conventional sense in fact a lot of people say aap toh film director lagti hi nahi hain but thats more gender related than anything else because people cant still digest the idea of having a woman film director although there are 78 of them in india now having been a delhiite a st stephens graduate anusha did move to mumbai for a few years with husband mahmood but that didnt appeal to her very much i am basically a very delhi person bombay is a totally different place not that it hasnt treated me well but i feel more comfortable in delhi but then if you see most of our directors are from delhi or around as long as i get to make my films bombay ho ya delhi doesnt matter after peepli live anusha and her husband mahmood had announced another film opium based on the novel sea of poppies by amitav ghosh quiz her about the progress and anusha says dont even ask about it the script is ready and we are looking for financers for it see unlike peeplithis has a huge canvas the story is about how in the 19th century indian farmers around barabanki and bihar were forced to grow opium by the britishers which was then pushed into china the film is the story of four people who meet on a ship and their journey from there so the film is huge in terms of cast money locales because we plan to shoot it in kolkata lucknow and bihar and sets etc so all that is taking time she says talking of the cast rizvi says she has no one particular in mind the characters are such that i cant say soandso actor can play this part like peeplithis film will also require careful thinking about the actors who will play the parts because this is set partly in the urban areas and partly rural and the time that it is set in is very different from now we will have to be very careful because the people talked in a very different way then their walk was very different in the 19th century as they didnt wear shoes and mostly wore pyjamas or dhotis also their lifestyle was completely different so we would ideally want someone raw who can mould himself or herself in the character