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Kesari Chpater 2 director Karan Singh Tyagi says he was moved with Sardar Udham’s depiction of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and that he’s very fond of Shoojit Sircar.
Kesari Chapter 2 has crossed Rs 40 crore at the box office.
Kesari Chapter 2 has already crossed Rs 40 crore and continues to hold well at the box office. The depiction of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in the film has given way to a dialogue on the treatment the British meted out to the Sikhs. It has also given an impetus to the conversation Caroline Dyer, the great-granddaughter of the then Viceroy of India General Dyer, was seen having in a video with a relative of one of the massacre’s victims, wherein she referred to Indians as ‘looters’. Kesari Chapter 2, in fact, opens with a sequence of the tragedy that took place on April 13, 1919.
In 2021, Shoojit Sircar’s heart-wrenching portrayal of the massacre in Sardar Udham, a biopic of Udham Singh who assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, gained a lot of attention. Vicky Kaushal, who played the title character, had revealed that the recreation of the incident in the film left him emotionally numb. Now, speaking exclusively to News18 Showsha, Kesari Chapter 2 director Karan Singh Tyagi, says that Sardar Udham was indeed a reference point for him.
He tells us, “I’ve loved Sardar Udham. In fact, I’ve watched all the movies that depicted the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. I’ve studied all of them. Before Sardar Udham, it was Gandhi, which depicted the tragedy in painstaking detail and in a gut-wrenching manner. The last 20-minutes of Sardar Udham is one of the best pieces of art that I’ve watched in life. It was a guiding light for me. I love Shoojit Sircar and his work.”
And interestingly, Vicky has received a special thanks for his contribution to Kesari Chapter 2 as he took on the role of the narrator of the film. However, that decision didn’t stem from his association with Sardar Udham. “Vicky has a voiceover in the beginning and sets the stage for the story. We didn’t rope him in because of his connection with Sardar Udham. I’m a huge admirer of his work and of the gravitas that his voice holds. The connection just helped. We wanted him because he’s such a fantastic actor. He lent so much gravity and seriousness to the proceedings,” says Karan.
Talking about the depiction of the massacre in his own film, Karan explains, “Pretty early on, we had decided that we wanted to showcase the episode from a boy’s point of view and how his family was blown up right in front of his eyes. We didn’t want to show you the scale of the tragedy. We wanted the audience to feel what it would be like had they been there and had their sister been killed in front of their eyes. We wanted them to have a very visceral experience.”
He further adds, “Around the second time of the depiction, we wanted to show the contrast between Shankar Nair and the boy’s lives. We juxtaposed Shankar Nair receiving knighthood – his crowning moment of glory – with the boy losing it all. These are the two powerful forces that were going to collide in the film and portraying that was key.”