Watch: Salem jailer does a Manoj Bajpayee in 'Taandav', faces music after wild steps

It’s not unusual for art to imitate life, but when life imitates art, it sure does make us sit up and take notice.

Last week, Taandav , a short film starring Manoj Bajpayee, went viral online. It tells the story of a police constable who gets suspended for dancing on the street while on duty. This week, a jailer in Salem was suspended when a video of him dancing on duty went viral. Makes the movie seem prophetic, doesn’t it?

“What is life-affirming for me, is that the fact that, when we try to tell a story about people and situations from the real world, we research but never really think that it will happen in the world too,” said Devashish Makhija, who directed Taandav. When he wrote the story in January, he “presumed that if a cop does something like this, he would get suspended and we used the words ‘suspension order’ in the film too”.

While he feels bad for the suspended jailer, the incident also has him feeling positive about storytelling, “because when we can inhabit other people’s minds and get things right, it feels good,” he said, adding that he believes the uniform comes with a certain responsibility and anyone who wears it should behave responsibly.

However, actress Malavika Mohanan finds the suspension unfair. “Why suspend a man, who was merely dancing?” she asked.