E X P E R I A - A N ! N U M

Director Ashutosh Gowarikar recently unveiled the first look of his forthcoming movie Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey. The film stars Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone in the lead and is based on the Chittagong Uprising. The director says that working with Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika has been an extremely pleasant experience.

“The combination of Abhishek and Deepika telling the story was a new experience for me. Deepika would be on the sets in time with her lines ready. Her greatest quality is that she is extremely professional, warm and sensitive, and there is the joy of doing every film enthusiastically. She is growing by leaps and bounds and her simplicity comes across in the character she portrays. With Abhishek, since he is a half Bengali the role came very naturally to him,” reveals Gowarikar. The director adds that he has always been fascinated by untold stories in history.

“When I took the script to Abhishek, he too loved the subject and was keen to play the protagonist Surjya Sen or Masterda. Abhishek has that honesty and sincerity in him. I cast Deepika because I felt that she had that zeal in her to portray Kalpana Dutta. It is a strange coincidence that Deepika looks a lot like the real Kalpana Dutta. Much of my research came from the book Do And Die by Manini Chatterjee and Kalpana Dutta was her daughter-in-law.

This will be Gowarikar’s third period venture. But he reveals that this film “is one of my shortest films. Most of my decisions come from my heart but this time my heart followed the mind. My wife made sure she controlled the budgets in time, so the film didn’t stretch beyond three hours,” he concludes.