THE PINK AUTO

DIRECTED BY – Rishabh Prakash (RPM)

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 INDEX

• OVERVIEW……………………………… 3
• PRODUCERS’ NOTE…………………… 7
• DIRECTOR’S NOTE…………………….. 8
• CAST…………………………………….. 9
• TECHNICAL TEAM……………………… 10

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 OVERVIEW

• LOGLINE - A grey man’s colourful idea is pink.

SYNOPSIS
Today we are witnessing the ‘lead’ women have begun to take, matching steps with all men in the society. But alas, the
problem of female safety and means of safe transportation for them is still so much prevalent in a lot of small towns in
India, where even a small facility like daily transportation for women is not appropriate. It is not easy and safe for them
to travel alone. Most of the time, these small autos are filled with men who objectify women as sex objects. Also, women
often experience unusual touching by random men while travelling in autos on shared basis.
We are in 2012, in Ranchi, where, for women it was difficult to travel anywhere in rickshaws because of usual incidents of
eve teasing, unsafe experiences and few rape cases.
Initially nobody was bothered about problems like these, but finally someone did start to think about it. It was an
auto….no, not just an auto, but, The Pink Auto, which is going to be a feature film inspired from the life of Sanjay Sahu,
who was a mere criminal who sold marijuana in bulk from his farm in Devdi, Ranchi, Jharkhand.
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It was not as easy as it sounds. It took him years to cross all hurdles that came in his way of running pink autos successfully
on road. In this film, we tell the story of a grey man’s immense determination that led him to do something colourful, like
running pink autos. It was one of its kinds that was started for the first time in Ranchi in 2012 and later on, this idea was
adopted by other cities of India as well.
We begin by establishing our protagonist, supporting characters and the environment
The problem arises in the form of an incident when Sanjay’s ‘Bhabhi’ gets raped in a moving auto rickshaw while coming
back late from election duty. Social shame and embarrassment bring down his elder brother into depression and sadness.
Sanjay gets restless and violent at the point when his ‘Bhabhi’ dies after few months of sickness. In the meanwhile, the
police investigate the case and tries to find out the culprits. But even after two years of investigation, nothing really comes
out, not even a single name. Sanjay’s family is not the same happy family anymore. His brother’s confidence has gone for a
toss and mother, who’s already old, is lost mentally after the trauma of losing her ‘Bahu’. Seeing their pain & condition,
Sanjay is unable to control himself. He keeps drinking, fighting with people for no reason and on most of the days he’s
found on the roads, passed out.
Finally, a ray of hope comes in, in the form of a friend and his ‘Bhabhi’s’ younger sister Pooja, who tries to help the family
after losing her elder sister.
One day, while sitting on a road side, Sanjay encounters some men misbehaving with a young girl. This time he makes sure
that those guys get punished. For this, he starts beating all of them but is soon stopped by Pooja, who comes in and tries to
calm Sanjay down, explaining him that he cannot start a fight every day, everywhere, as this was not the solution to their
problem. Instead, she guides Sanjay to channelize his anger, as it is otherwise impossible for him to erase the root of the
problem by simply beating and fighting with people. Thus, she encourages him to come up with something that can diminish
the cause of the problem.
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So finally they come up with an idea to start something like a pink auto that would be solely for women, by women.
But in a place like Patratu, Ranchi, in 2012, it was a rare sight to see any woman driving a car or a motorcycle. And in such a place, they
were dreaming to have ladies to drive auto rickshaws like professionals, every day, from route to route. Also, driving auto rickshaws
there was considered to be a profession for men, for which they had already been hustling in the market on a very large scale.
The hunt for lady drivers started. They needed women who were willing to learn how to ride a rickshaw and empower themselves.
The women, who they tried to convince, were mostly those who worked as labourers, housemaids or were unemployed.
Most of the women were afraid to join a new line of work in a town where men would not stop staring at them, even if they were
simply walking down the street. But here, they were going to ride rickshaws all day in the town.
Few ladies who would even think of taking this up were denied permission by their husbands. But still few of the needy ones had no
other choice. So finally, six ladies turned up for the training session, each one of whom had their own set of problems and needs. They
joined Sanjay to get trained on how to ride auto rickshaws in the hope of a better future to support their kids’ education & family.
The phase of buying new auto rickshaws and painting them into pink gave them even more motivation to continue with this idea, when
no one believed in them.
The theoretical training started, which looked to be a lot of fun in the beginning with a progressive background score but after the
ladies took auto rickshaws in their hands, they got laughed upon, and creepy comments by bystanders made them feel embarrassed on
the first day of their training on road.
While the ladies were just bothered about people and their comments, on the second day while practicing, one of the rickshaws with
four lady drivers in it crashed into another vehicle.All of them got injured badly and one of the ladies broke her leg.
After this accident all hope was gone. The lady drivers lost all the confidence after reaching home injured and getting embarrassed by
their own families, neighbours, elders and husbands taunting them for trying to become who they could never be.
Sanjay thought that all of his hard work, time and money put on this project was gone and had been wasted. Now, he started believing
in the view of all those people who had opposed his idea of women being able to drive auto rickshaws safely like men, as, according to
them, it could never be possible.
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But pooja drove Sanjay’s attention towards his elder brother who used to be lost and had not been doing anything, and now
had suddenly started fixing the pink auto which got crashed. Now his brother looked determined to fix it and help Sanjay
start it once again.
This filled Sanjay with happiness and motivated him to start all over again. They went to each lady driver one more time to
try to convince them to believe in the fact that they could not lose confidence and shut the whole thing just because of an
accident. He then explained to them that we have only one life to create ourselves and accidents are just a part of it, which
happen even with men but they never stop hustling, so why should the women stop!
After this, all the pink squad was back to force and another strong training session was put into action. All the drivers
understood and learned all the traffic rules and passed their driving tests.
The D day arrived when six pink autos were finally ready to run on the roads for lady passengers for the first time, but
shyness and hesitation led many of the ladies to avoid using them.
Suddenly there were bikes and OB vans that reached the spot and also few women with mics and cameras appeared as
passengers, and soon this entire sight was seen to be covered by media as a ‘historical step’. Seeing this, the other shy and
hesitant women passengers got the confidence to start taking this new mode of transportation in town.
Finally,The Pink Auto took its first ride successfully.With wet eyes, Sanjay saw his dream project become a reality.
The success story of ‘The Pink Auto’ became a news of National and International interest and all the women drivers got
invited to various International conferences on women empowerment in different countries, where Sanjay ended up
narrating his life story and thanking pooja for changing his life.
Other states like Orissa, Haryana and Mumbai adopted Sanjay’s idea of making women transportation safer and easier.
This is the story of Sanjay’s hard work and his pink squad.
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 PRODUCERS’ NOTE

• The journey of The Pink Auto started when I and the Director of this project, Rishabh Prakash, came across these
beautiful pink coloured autos that were being driven by women, for women, on the roads of Jharkhand. Even though I
come from Mumbai, and the sight of women driving a vehicle does not surprise me much but watching those women
like that forced us to think about this phenomenal idea. Soon Rishabh told me that he knew Mr. Sanjay Sahu, the
person who was behind this revolutionary start-up, and we wasted no time to fix a meet up with him. Within no time
the idea of The Pink Auto was born.
• Being a film historian, and a cinephile, creating the authentic look and feel will be very easy, since as a filmmaker and
film enthusiast, I have always been exploring films, studios and even single screen cinemas. This draft says it all; the few
actors, directors, producers that I have shared the story with, are all delighted to come aboard and make
contribution, making this one of the most authentic films ever to be created in the Hindi Film Industry.

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 DIRECTOR’S NOTE

• Pink Auto is something very close to my heart as I saw this concept grow from the very beginning in my
hometown, Ranchi. Watching women drive auto rickshaws with that confidence and the determination in
their eyes that speaks for their unstoppable attitude, has always inspired me. Sanjay Sahu, the great man
behind this initiate for women is not an ordinary person. Over the years, he has inspired many people like
us. His story hit me so hard and made me realise that this journey of this beautiful initiative needs to be told
to the public in form of cinema.
• It’s a story of a grey man who created something so colourful- The Pink Auto. His journey has not been as
easy as it may sound. He has had his share of pain, struggle and sleepless nights to make his dream turn into
reality, and this film is all about his never-give-up attitude.

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 PRIMARY CAST- SANJAY SAHU
(SHORTLISTED)

Vineet Singh Sumeet Vyas Shravan Reddy

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 TECHNICAL TEAM- DIRECTOR OF
PHOTOGRAPHY (DOP)

The short listed DOPs of our choice are:

SARAVANAN ELAVARASU

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SURESH BEESAVENI

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