Two years after the release of Fitoor , a film that tanked at the box office, director Abhishek Kapoor is back with another love story. While a red-haired Katrina Kaif and muscular Aditya Roy Kapoor starred in the picturesque rendition of Charles Dickens’ classic novel Great Expectations , Kedarnath, on the other hand, will features newcomer Sara Ali Khan and Sushant Singh Rajput in a tale of forbidden love between a wealthy Hindu pilgrim and a Muslim porter against the backdrop of the catastrophic Uttarakhand floods of 2013.
The filmmaker shares that the upcoming film was conceived while he was unwinding after the release and reception of Fitoor . “I needed to get out of the city,” he says, “If you hang around too long in Bombay, then you start meeting the same people and the same stories rotate. And this country and its people are very different from where we live.” Visiting Kedarnath and realising the magnitude of the 2013 calamity is what shook the director.
Power of faith
In June of that year, a flash flood caused by the Chorabari Lake bursting claimed thousands of lives. “It was the poorest of the poor,” says Kapoor, “and it [the tragedy] is something the world should also experience, and in some way contribute [to] the healing of the people who are affected by it.” Kapoor is a believer himself, as evidenced by a shot in the film’s trailer where Rajput grabs on to the horns of a statue of Nandi as water tears past him. The director was both struck by the fact that the Kedarnath temple was relatively unscathed after the calamity, as also by the spirit of the pilgrims which envelopes the place. “People from all over the country [travel to Kedarnath], and so much faith has been poured over there — when you are there, you will feel it,” he says. He explains that what inspired the film was that Kedarnath attests to the innate humanity that people possess, “There are people who carry the old up everyday — kilometres up and down a mountain. Some of them are Muslims. It was amazing to watch that we have so much harmony amongst us.”
Perceived notions
Was it surprising then to face assertions that the film promoted ‘love jihad’? “We put out only a teaser and a trailer, and people have their own interpretations to that material. Maybe they come from a place of fear that someone must have disrespected their ideologies,” says the director. “But I think we all deserve a fair chance to say what we have to say. The attempt is to make a movie and bring some healing.”
Kedarnath marks the third film, of the five he has directed, in which Kapoor will launch the Bollywood career of an actor. With Rock On!! (2008), Kapoor introduced the debuting actor Farhan Akhtar, and in Kai Po Che (2013) he worked with newcomer Sushant Singh Rajput. “I’ve been very fortunate that I can,” says Kapoor about working with new actors. “It’s not easy — it’s far more difficult because you have to teach them everything. Provided you open them up well and use them well, [a new actor brings] a freshness that cannot be replicated. [When] they become superstars, sometimes they become caricatures of themselves,” he remarks.
With the film’s release fast approaching, what does the director hope audiences will carry with them? “A better understanding of ourselves as a country,” he concludes.