Award-winning director Ashutosh Gowariker is confident that his new film 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey' on the Chittagong uprising would be an enlightening experience for people in the subcontinent as he himself was shocked to learn he knew nothing about it.
"I was shocked that I did not know anything about it. So when I discovered this I thought I must express, meet and share with viewers that there was a revolution that we don't know anything about," Ashutosh, who made the Oscar-nominated hit 'Lagaan' and epic blockbuster 'Jodhaa Akbar', said.
Though historical cinema does "not necessarily" allow directors to work on a larger canvas, Ashutosh says in his case "the themes have been such which lend themselves to having a scale."
"Be it 'Lagaan' - though it's completely my imagination - about a small village standing up against British rule or 'Jodhaa Akbar' about a Mughal emperor, it automatically lends itself to grandeur."
Similarly, 'Khelein Hum...' about 64 people and five centres of British power naturally lends itself to scale. However, his third period film after 'Lagaan' and 'Jodhaa Akbar' can't be categorised as coincidence, Gowariker said.
"Because when I look back it's the themes which have interested me. I think each theme required some kind of different era to tell that story. That's why each of these had these settings."
Khelein Hum...' takes its name from a revolutionary song featured prominently in Amitabh Bachchan's film 'Main Azaad Hoon' because 56 of the 64 revolutionaries were teenagers, just 13-14-year-old.
"I was quite fascinated to know that at such a young age a kid was thinking about revolution and about the country. I wanted to reflect the spirit of these teenagers playing with their lives. And that aspect would be justified by the title."
Ashutosh said he "discovered the revolution" through Manini Chatterjee's book 'Do And Die' and based the entire film on it as this is the only source about it.
"In fact she is the daughter-in-law of Kalpana Datta, who was one of the key revolutionaries in Surjya Sen's group and so Manini has kind of first hand information about it through Kalpana."
He picked Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone for these decidedly non-glamorous roles because "when I read the book, the image that kept forming in my mind was Abhishek and discovered that the quality of Surjya Sen's character aligned with Abhishek".
"I had a feel for Deepika. And an uncanny part is she resembles the photographic evidence about Kalpana Datta."
