"There is a craziness to the existence of people there, where you dont know what is going to happen next. Of course, there is always humour. That is why the script moves the way it does, from one moment to the next. The film doesnt try and build a traditional structure... One never tried for a top-angle view. We tried to get as close as possible to the people, to their stories and their humour and dignity. Of course, you can never get really close because class separates you."
Anamika Haksar in a conversation with Scroll's Nandini Ramnath
"Anamika Haksar, making her feature debut here, draws from the lives and stories of Shahjahanabad residents and casts scores of them as onscreen actors in this highly imaginative panoramic portrait of the community... a thrilling, endlessly mutable tribute to one of the oldest, most vibrant parts of one of the worlds great cities."
- Review on The Hollywood Reporter
"Anamika Haksar dabbles with images, symbolism, and metaphors while consciously abstaining from deducing comprehensive meanings or moral standards."
- Review on Film Companion
"One definite rule is that I am not inventing anymore. So even the fictional characters are based on very real people who we know. And all the dialogue is taken from real people. We have used all this as a way of getting into the reality. But reality is not self-evident. In our epics and our folk tales, we always tell a story from an example, from another story. We are never actually direct. The meaning is hardly on the surface."
- Anamika Haksar, in a conversation with Arvind Rajagopal