Doesn’t the oddity of religion ever amuse you? There are a gazillion temples and places of worship in our country, each with its own bizarre origin story or strange rituals that, to an outsider, may be hard to digest. This was the starting point for debutant Ritwik Pareek’s film, Dug Dug. The mystical social satire, releasing this Friday, is now backed by Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Nikkhil Advani and Vasan Bala.
The film follows a community that begins to believe God resides in a motorcycle that mysteriously appears every night at the site of a fatal accident. After a long wait, Dug Dug is finally making its way to theatres.
‘Dug Dug is meant to be experienced in a theatre, on the biggest screen possible. We’ve waited a long time for this and finally it’s happening. Not just happening, but happening with Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Nikkhil Advani and Vasan Bala coming on board, filmmakers I have grown up watching and learning from, which makes it very special for me. I feel grateful and eternally thankful for all the support they are giving; it means a lot. I hope the audience finds the film as special as these great filmmakers have.’
Cinema was always an integral part of Ritwik’s life growing up. ‘The first movie that I ever saw in a theatre was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and I was blown away by it. I had seen Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park, among others, on VHS, but watching a film on the big screen was so immersive.’ Art, comics and books coloured his childhood. ‘It sounds like a cliché, but the Gupta Jis and Sharma Jis convinced my parents to make me choose Commerce, which I obviously wasn’t interested in,’ he recalls.
Ritwik tells us more about his journey and the film below.
Dug Dug
My grandmother used to take me to temples in the remotest villages in Rajasthan, a desert state in India. Her faith was strong, and I was more interested in the stories that each one of these temples had to tell. Their bizarre rituals and stories can be hard to fathom for people from the outside or for anyone who doesn’t believe in them. However, the one thing that I observed throughout my trips was the blind and honest faith that people had in their gods. It took me a while to grasp the true nature of this reality in which we exist. The answer was very simple; it is nothing but the manifestation of the power of people’s minds, which led to their prayers being answered.
Conversations with The Editor, Bijith Bala
There are a lot of montages that were all written in the script. We were doing everything via Zoom during the lockdown. We edited the movie for almost a year. Especially, the montages. We had some music for the montages, but not for the whole film. It was a very lengthy process, especially during the lockdown. He was in Kerala and I was in Mumbai. We used to discuss films a lot; what we like and what we don’t like. And also, how the new editing style of recent films is actually killing the cinema. Nothing hits right visually and the predictable patterns. But Bijith did an amazing job with this film.
Music for the Film
The music was the first thing I was worried about before I even started writing the film. We fired two composers because it was not working out with them. But thankfully, I met Ankur Tewari for the opening track. I showed him the opening eight minutes of the film. He really loved it and gave the lyrics and vocals for it.
Then, surprisingly, he got in touch with Salvage Audio Collective. Ankur called me to their studio one day. They had already made something for the film. I really loved it and hired them immediately. Then again, the pandemic hit and we had to work from home. There were a lot of discussions about what kind of music we want for the film. I also told them that it was going to be a back-and-forth process for the montages. The process was slightly unusual because of the lockdown. I had told them that I hate the stereotypical Rajasthani tone that you hear everywhere and anywhere whenever Rajasthan is mentioned. And I am glad that the music is one of the most talked-about things from the film.
Words Hansika Lohani
Date 5.5.2026
