When Rajya Sabha TV approached Tigmanshu Dhulia to direct a film on the historic Indian National Army trials, he didn’t anticipate the magnitude of the production it would involve. “I come from a family of judges and lawyers. Since I couldn’t become a lawyer, I decided to make a film which involved a courtroom drama,” he smiles and continues, “I agreed to direct the film for the love of the subject because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make it in the regular commercial scenario of Hindi cinema as nobody would fund such a subject.”
Dhulia’s Raag Desh is the story of the famous Red Fort Trial of the three Indian National Army (INA) officers Colonel Prem Sehgal, Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Major General Shah Nawaz Khan. It also focuses on the activities of INA founder Subhash Chandra Bose. Dhulia will also be expanding on the subject for a six-part television series for Rajya Sabha TV. Since books, documentaries and photographs were easily available with additional material sourced from Netaji’s relatives and a few members of INA who are still alive, the director didn’t have to “look for a needle in a haystack” like he had to while making Paan Singh Tomar (2012). “Each scene of this film is documented and backed by research, and with so much drama in it with several turning points, I haven’t had any opportunity to take cinematic liberty in this film,” he adds.
Production woes
While material and information were found easily, the gruelling outdoor schedule was one of the most challenging Dhulia has worked on. In November 2016, the unit embarked on an outdoor schedule to Dehradun where the war sequences and the formation of INA were to be filmed. But the crew soon faced a roadblock when demonetisation was declared and many units shooting in different parts of the country had to pack up and return, incurring loses. “I was on the verge of doing the same but my crew held on and each member pitched in with their credit cards. In a place like Dehradun where shoots are rarely happen, working on credit was not an option. You need to pay cash at least to daily workers and junior artists,” he recalls.
It was also during this time that a military confrontation between India and Pakistan began as India conducted ‘surgical strikes’ against militant launch pads across the Line of Control. As a result, the permissions for shooting in Indian Military Academy in Dehradun and The Bengal Sappers regiment at Roorkee Cantonment were denied. “Since I had shot Paan Singh Tomar in Roorkee, I wanted to shoot there but we had to go ahead without the Army’s help. Thankfully, we had made the costumes of British Indian army and INA from Mumbai and had to work with whatever resources we had,” says Dhulia.
In the pipeline
Raag Desh marks Dhulia’s return after Bullet Raja (2013). Currently, the filmmaker has numerous projects in the pipeline: Yaara that stars Amit Sadh will release at the end of this year, a biopic of Dalit left-arm spinner Palwankar Baloo and the third Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster film which stars Sanjay Dutt as the gangster. While the first installment was made with a modest budget of ₹2 crores, the second which starred Irrfan Khan as the gangster, got a shot in the arm with corporate funding. In the third installment, Dhulia reveals that while the world the franchise is set in will remain the same, Sanjay Dutt will be the central character. “I will stick to my drama — the palace politics and the sensuous aspect of the films. The story changes but plot still revolves around men, women and palace politics,” he says.
Being a history student, another favourite subject of the director’s is the Indian rebellion of 1857. Dhulia had, in fact, started working on a project titled Gulaami in 2005, which was to star Sunny Deol then. The film, however, had to be shelved after the producer backed out. “I would definitely want to revive Gulaami if somebody is ready to back me,” says Dhulia who believes that the challenge lies in telling a story, which is seeped in history, where executing a subject remains a challenge and not the grandeur of it. On whether, producers are excited to green light such projects, Dhulia believes, “You have to con the producers into backing it. You have to tell the producers that you are going to make something like a Baahubali ,” he grins. Another film, which he would have liked to release now is the 2004 box-office flop Charas starring Irrfan Khan and Uday Chopra. “I would change the name, maybe. I feel that the audience has evolved to handle a complicated script like Charas .” Looking back at why the film didn’t work Dhulia feels that he, “tried to outsmart the audience and that is why it didn’t work.”
Multiple roles
The filmmaker who made his debut with Haasil (2003) isn’t particularly optimistic about the future of Hindi cinema, as he sees a dearth of good content. “The problem is that we don’t have the discipline to nurture talent. I am not saying that there’s a shortage of talented people. For the past 20-25 years, we have been concentrating on commerce so much that it has become like selling popcorn,” he notes.
The filmmaker who has earlier donned the greasepaint for Hansal Mehta’s Shahid (2013) and Ketan Mehta’s Maanjhi (2015) and has earned critical acclaim as Ramadhir Singh, the lead villain in Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), considers acting as “a nice break”. He will also be seen in Anand L Rai’s next where he plays Shah Rukh Khan’s father. “I act for different reasons and this time it was for money. Sometimes you do it for friends like in Gangs of Wasseypur, where I knew everyone and there was no pressure to perform. It was a good break for me,” he says.
