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Shoojit Sircar, Vicky Kaushal Dissect The Defining Scene In ‘Sardar Udham’

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Indian filmmaker Shoojit Sircar is best known for making films that show a glimpse of human emotions - movies that are a slice of life. His latest offering, however, is a rather dark one - a biopic on an Indian freedom fighter whose life has not been documented enough. Sardar Udham releases online October 15 on Amazon Prime Video and features Vicky Kaushal (of Masaan and Uri The Surgical Strike fame ) in the titular role.

Sardar Udham is the story of a man who was devastated by the cruel bloodbath in Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919 and shot Sir Michael Francis O'Dwyer 20 years later in London. He believed O’Dwyer to be responsible for the massacre.

However, Sardar Udham is not the usual Bollywood film about a revolutionary. Shoojit takes the revolutionary film and makes it his own - he does not idolise the hero. Instead, he brings Udham Singh to a “normal” level and exposes his human side refusing to show him as a superhero.

In a brilliantly written and executed sequence, Udham Singh is seen drinking alcohol as he roams around the streets of London late at night. With absolutely no airs of a typical hero about him, Udham Singh goes on talking about all that he holds dear in the scene and appears to be lost in his own thoughts.

Talking about the sequence, Sircar says, “That was Udham Singh. Initially, the scene was not there in our script. When we went for the shoot, me and my writers - Ritesh Shah and Shubhendu Bhattacharya - we discussed that we needed something to add the spark. We needed a day when Udham Singh is out of control and we get to know who a revolutionary should be. The day you are completely lost.”

He adds, “My idea was that the assassination of O’Dwyer was not some act of revenge. It was not something Udham had been carrying in his heart for all those years. Perhaps, possibly he did not know what to do at the moment. Maybe, he did what he did (shot O’Dwyer) in the heat of the moment. When you are drunk you speak the truth.”

Actor Vicky Kaushal also weighs in on the scene. He says, “For me, in that scene, he (Udham) is not talking like a krantikari (revolutionary) because he was a normal guy at that point of time. In that era, he was just a simple and young man who felt strongly about certain things. And, it was limited to India, but it was about mankind and the entire world.”

He adds, “In that sequence, he remembers his mother and his toys. He also talks about the spirit of Bhagat Singh. It is just about the things that he has been carrying with himself all those years. That scene is like him opening the box where he kept all his feelings for all that was close to his heart. That speech was written with the mindset that it has to be disjointed, to show what he is carrying and when it rips open, you find everything he feels. It was all very disjointed, but it was about that boy, the teenager and the young guy that Udham Singh was.”

(The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

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