Author Dhruv Bhatt's Gujarati novel, Timirpanthi (Pilgrims in the Dark), is being jointly adapted for film by two firms from Singapore, Aurora Media and Darpan Global. Aurora Media also produced the Irrfan Khan-starrer The Song Of Scorpions (2017). The news was first reported by Variety.com.
Timirpanthi's screenplay has been written by Jay Bhatt, while playwright and director Dakxin Bajrange will be helming the project. He made his directorial debut with Sameer (2017) starring Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. The cast for the film has not bee finalized yet and the shoot is due to begin in the third quarter of 2019.
Bajrange told Variety.com, "The film is based around Sati, the female protagonist and her struggle to set up a school in her community, which leads us to her unseen world where thieving is their livelihood and an art. This will be an interesting yet entertaining realistic fiction film discussing an important untouched issue of colonial impact on the lives of certain tribes, the police brutality that they face, and their struggle to bring the change within."
The 71-year-old Dhruv Bhatt, a Sahitya Academy-winner, travelled to rural Gujarat and Rajasthan to write about the local tribes on the verge of extinction.