Indian director makes Dido video

Ad film-maker Siddharth Sikand is on a roll. He’s just directed a music video for Brit singer Dido’s Let’s Do The Things We Normally Do, that’s part of her new album Safe Trip Home. This is her third studio album and got released mid November this year.

The idea of the album is to portray 11 emotional stories in different locations around the world, for each of the 11 tracks, through a series of short films. 

Sony approached many directors in India, of which five were short-listed. Dido personally liked the idea given by Siddharth and chose him as the guy to represent India. The brief given was to interpret the concept of ‘home’ in their own way and create something that tells the story of India.

The video stars actor Shahana Goswami, who lives the life of a local cab driver in Mumbai. Everyday she meets various kinds of passengers – happy, sad, fat, irritable.

But it’s a job and she does it with pride. At times, she takes a break in the evening and goes shopping to buy herself some bangles. When the day ends, she parks the cab on a beach and sleeps inside it. 

Since it’s almost impossible to spot a female cabbie in Mumbai, how did Siddharth come up with such an idea? “When I heard the song, the first thing that struck me was the image of a woman. I wanted to show the concept of home through the cabbies who end up sleeping in their cabs at night. But I wanted to show this with a female. There is actually a female cabbie in Mumbai who drives in the Mumbai Central area,” he says.

Dido really liked the video and even e-mailed Siddharth: “The song was written in a sad moment. But the video has actually made it look so happy.” Other videos of the album tell the story of ordinary and extraordinary people around the world, such as a transsexual Thai boxer in Bangkok, a woman making a living from a landfill in Rio, teenagers in London and a fishing community in Portugal.