Imtiaz Ali told t2 last year that Highway has been on his mind for the last 15 years. When did you first meet him for Highway?

It’s always an emotional journey working on a film with Imtiaz, particularly after Rockstar. Imtiaz came to meet me in December 2012. At that point, he hadn’t even zeroed in on the cast. He gave me a brief narration of the film. He said he would love if I did it and I was like ‘Imtiaz, absolutely, before you can say it, I would say that I want to do it!’

The idea of Highway, the whole journey of looking within and finding freedom, just some keywords, stayed with me and then I started researching in January 2013. We started shooting for the film on March 1 and then we wrapped it up end-June.

The most important thing to take home from the research point of view was that it had to be real, 100 per cent. Veera Tripathi (Alia Bhatt) is a city girl who lives in Delhi and on an unfortunate night gets abducted. We see her in that one costume — a maroon T-shirt and brown track pants and purple jacket with a shawl. Then we see the journey of Veera Tripathi through the various states.

What was very organic in the whole process, like how we did with Rockstar also, is that we shot the movie on a linear format. We began shooting in Delhi and went all the way up to Kashmir. The whole crew drove together. So, it was 27 Innovas… from one to another, pretty much how the characters go through this road trip. While driving, Imtiaz would zero in on a location. There were situations where there was no water, no food!

Take us through the costume journey…

She gets abducted in a particular set of clothes she is wearing and then as the movie travels across different states, things get added to Alia’s wardrobe. The other reason why this movie is so special is that I have styled every single person you see in the frame (a total of 103, Aki’s highest so far). In the process of the journey, she loses a couple of things and as a result, she gets something.

For example, a pair of shoes. We kept it as real as that. Obviously, one of the gang members has given her a pair of floaters to wear and obviously, they haven’t gone shopping for Alia and got Veera Tripathi’s size. Deliberately, it is a size bigger for her. Then there’s a jacket, which, gets added, again one of the boy’s jackets. There is a phulkari chaddar in the Punjab part. There are gudri chaddars from Rajasthan.

For me, as a stylist, the biggest revelation was the kind of handicrafts that India has to offer, which hasn’t been explored. We have actually gone to people’s houses and borrowed clothes… chaddars and shawls, which we have used on Veera Tripathi in the course of the film.

As the journey continues, there is a bag that comes into play. The weather starts changing. So, there is a blue muffler that she starts tying on her head as a turban. Sneakers get added on from a market in Reckong Peo (Himachal Pradesh). The best part of sourcing for these clothes was that they were from places which Veera Tripathi and Mahaveer Bhatti (Randeep Hooda) pass through in villages. So, it was actually village markets, what you call haats. Everything was picked up from the streets because that was the only access point a Veera Tripathi or a Mahaveer Bhatti would have.

For the first 15-20 days of shooting, which is the first three-four days of the film, Alia didn’t wash her clothes or comb her hair. Where would she get a rubber band from? I think we all found a little bit of ourselves in this journey. We were not in Bombay. We were shooting in the toughest of locations possible. The way down from Chandanwadi (Jammu & Kashmir) was to slide through the snow! In that all of us found a certain kind of peace. Personally, I don’t think I have ever been happier than I have been from January 2013 to June 2013.

In terms of fashion, it is a great school of layering. How a Pathani can be paired with track pants, how there is a leheriya dupatta with a windcheater and a banjara skirt with warm leggings and sneakers and payel. We have sourced vintage, worn-out, moth-eaten fabric from an old part of Kashmir from which Alia’s phiran was made. When you go through such landscapes of Haryana, Rajasthan where there was a salt factory, to Punjab where there was the sarson and then snow in Kashmir, as a costume team we actually carried a lot of these, a part of the landscape, in little bags with us!

I am fortunate that with Imtiaz, I can go through these kinds of details and I can very proudly say that it’s my most creatively-satisfying film. Yes, Highway is my best film.

And not Rockstar?

Rockstar had such a large scale… Jordan (Ranbir Kapoor) from his geeky, North Delhi Punjabi boy in ill-fitting sweater, jeans and sneakers and the culmination in Naadaan parindey in that jacket. Here the scale of (dressing) Veera Tripathi is over a short period of time spanning six states of India. Sometimes, when you actually find boundless creativity in ideas, as they say, you find the most unlimited in a limited scenario.

So, there was a sense of freedom from what you do in your everyday life and getting away from it all?

Absolutely! It was falling in love every single day. I think Highway became the new relationship. And it was about discovering that this is also what life is. We were staying at the most basic spaces and eating the most basic food. Yet, we were so happy and there was so much creativity and so much to explore in all these places. Alia says that the people say the best time of their life is when they go to college or when they get that freedom. She never went to college and she says that for her, college was Highway.

What did you make of Alia Bhatt?

She had just come out of Shanaya of Student of the Year, but just the way she embraced the ruggedness, the rustic zone of the film, the raw feeling, she was born for this. I think she is so Veera Tripathi in her head! I remember meeting Alia in January 2013 and I was bowled over by her level of maturity. And then in March 2013, in Rajasthan, she actually celebrated her 20th birthday with us. Her headspace is that of a 28-29-year-old girl. She’s extremely mature and very well read. Her sense of perception is outstanding. I would often tell her, ‘You know Alia, you are old enough to be my daughter and you have given a fresh lease to a 40-year-old man.’ She is very evolved and extremely sharp. She was like a volcano ready to explode.

Tell us a bit about Randeep Hooda’s look…

I chanced upon this second-hand market in Delhi called Raja Garden. It’s on from 5am to 7am. People come to sell their second-hand clothes. All in the range between Rs 50 and 200. There is a particular striped sweater that Randeep wears throughout the film as an inner, which becomes his garam ganjee! The jeans had to be a certain loose kind of jeans. The truck drivers are constantly on the move and they have a certain body posture. It had to have a lot of legroom. We created wardrobes for these boys in small backpacks because that is what they travel with. That’s actually their cupboard. Used sweaters to windcheaters to a maroon waistcoat to polyester T-shirts, there is a lot that one sees in the film.

You keep talking about this inner journey. So, is Aki Narula a better man after Highway?

Aki Narula is definitely more at peace with himself. He is in a very beautiful space. I would definitely say that it is because of Highway.

Every single day of the journey is deeply embedded in my mind. Alia and I keep on talking about how we need to do the same journey at some point. Imtiaz and I keep talking about it. There were so many beautiful places we went to and I think I have left a little bit of soul behind everywhere. I would like to go back. The best journeys are the ones that take you home and for me, Highway was an experience where I went home.