HaiderBased on Hamlet and set during the height of terrorism in Kashmir in 1995, it tells the story of a family against the backdrop of politics. There is talk of filming it in Kashmir. Vishal Bhardwaj Says, “At that time, the average Kashmiri youth felt that Bollywood had betrayed them, always portraying them as terrorists in pherans with AK-47s. Therefore, they were not very cooperative. But later, when he saw the film, he called me.” On completion of 10 years of the film… Huge It feels like it was destined to happen. He says, “Now, when I look back, I feel very lucky that I was able to document my time with Haider.”
We spoke to co-writer, director, music composer and producer Vishal as the film completes 10 years Bhardwaj About the creation of Haider, which has inspired many dissertations and research papers.
Haider
How did Haider come into existence?
Vishal says, “I was planning a Shakespeare trilogy and working on Hamlet. Earlier, I had a different setting in mind for Hamlet. It was based on a detective background. But when Gulzar saab read it , then he mentioned that it felt like just another CIA film with the tragedy of Hamlet. Then, also, I got to read Rekha’s (Bhardwaj’s) book (Basharat Peer’s Curfew Night) and her reaction. Remembered the book and realized that, for a long time, I also wanted to make a film about Kashmir, all these things came together, we knew our characters, and sure enough, there it was. It didn’t take long because we had a lot of clarity in our ideas and what we wanted to create.”
Vishal Bhardwaj with Shahid Kapoor on the sets of Haider
Vishal Bhardwaj says that there are many such scenes in the film which are memorable not only of the film but of his entire career. “And I’m not just talking,” he says. Shahid‘s monologue, which is very clear.
This was written for the gallery. But there are also 2-3 scenes between Tabu and Shahid, where they are in Chinar Bagh before the interval, when they encounter each other. Then there comes a moment in the film when Shahid finally finds his father’s grave and starts crying. That scene was actually… I had prepared Shahid, and we wanted to shoot with a telephoto lens, so the camera was really far away. I told Shahid, “Don’t feel insecure because it’s not a close-up. It’s actually a huge close-up, and creatively, we wanted to shoot it with a tele-lens from very far away.” That scene was played so beautifully he started crying and we had two cameras capturing it
The way he was crying, I didn’t have the courage to shout cut. The camera was 400 meters away, and in the snow, I went to him, let him cry, and then hugged him and said, “It’s cut, Shahid. It’s done.”
Recalling another moment, he says, “We were shooting in the basement of a bungalow. So, -5°C felt like -15°C. As we were about to take the shot, Irfan came to me and said, “These lines are very short. Earlier there used to be only 1-2 lines. I feel like saying something else. I wish a poem had been written here. I said, “Okay, give me an hour, and I will write a poem. Everyone waited, and I wrote the poem right there. And then Irrfan presented it. Oh my God, the way he presented it! When Shahid While leaving, and he repeats Faiz’s line, – Gulshan mein rang bhare, baad-e-naubahar chale, chale bhi aao ke gulshan ka karobaar chale. The way he says it – such a beautiful romantic couplet – and the way He does it like a coded message in a spy movie. I miss Irrfan every day in some way or the other.
‘I told Tabu that such parts are rarely written and if she does not play this character, I will be in pain for the rest of my life.’
As for casting, Vishal says, Tabu and Irrfan were in the minds of both him and Basharat when they were writing those parts. He says, “But it took a lot of time to include Tabu in it. She was very reluctant to play the role of a mother. She rejected it twice saying, ‘No, I will not play this character.’ Why do you keep coming back “for me?” When I wrote the first draft and we started casting, after the rest of the cast was finalized, I went to her again, and she said, ‘No, I’m not.
I am playing the role of a mother.
The third time I went to him, I said, I am coming to you because you are my friend; Otherwise, I would have taken it on my ego. But you are my friend, and I want you to know that you are being blinded by the fact that you are playing the role of a mother. Why don’t you see it as Gertrude? Think of it as the role of Gertrude, not Hamlet’s mother. I think it hit him hard. When he realized this, I told him that such parts are rarely written and if he did not play this role I would be in pain all my life. And then she agreed to do it.”
As far as Irfan is concerned, he says, “There was no answer to that.” When he read the script he said, ‘This is a very important film.’
A scene from Haider was shot at a location where no film had been shot in 30-35 years
The film was shot by cinematographer Pankaj Kumar, who was also the cinematographer of Ship of Theseus and Tumbbad. Vishal recalls, “At that time, Tumbbad had not released, and I was very impressed with the work on Ship of Theseus. Then I requested Anand Gandhi to show me some parts of Tumbbad, and when I saw it, I knew Well, Pankaj was going to be my cameraman, I decided to shoot on location.”
Haider’s ‘Are we, or are we not’ monologue at Lal Chowk reminded people of Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ and introduced Indian audiences to ‘chutzpah’. Talking about shooting the scene, Vishal says, “At that time Lal Chowk was a separate zone and we were shooting in the Press Club behind Lal Chowk. And we shot it! This was destiny. This film was destined to be made.” Vishal recalls that there were many such places. He says, “We went and shot at Zaina Kadal Bridge, and no one had shot there in the last 30-35 years since terrorism started. And we went there and shot with mainstream stars like Tabu, Shahid and Irrfan.
‘Jhelum Hai or Khul Kabhi, songs like that – that’s the movement of my soul. This is actually my design.
Vishal Bhardwaj says that the music was very close to the script of the film. He says, “Making those kind of deep romantic songs, or making those kind of songs, the kind of songs like Jhelum Hai or Khul Kabhi, songs like that – that’s the movement of my soul. My real self are songs like Khul Kabhi Toh. Paani Paani Re (from Maachis) – songs like that are really my creation.”
Jhelum
“The song Jhelum is a very old composition of mine. It had such a deep connection. The day my father died, I composed the song that morning. I was sitting with him and he passed away in the afternoon. There was something in that song that resonated with me The emotional connection with it was that for 30 years I didn’t have the courage to use that composition, then Haider, being a father-son story, I never told this to anyone. It’s a very special song for me. “
Bismil Bismil
“We have made this song like a mousetrap where Shahid performs a play within a play. I wanted to create my own ek hasina thi, ek deewana tha moment for Hamlet (laughs). Karz mein aisi bhi The situation was where Rishi Kapoor acts in front of Simi Garewal About murder. Sukhwinder is used to singing very openly – he is used to a lot of improvisation – but I told him, “This song will have to be sung on the track, it is like an opera. We are telling a story in it.” Gulzar Sahab has written so beautifully. I gave him the phrase ‘Bismil Bismil’ and he wrote a complete epic with that. He is a master.”
‘Bismil is absolutely non-Bollywood’
choreographed the song Sudesh AdhanaJo is Professor of Contemporary Dance in Norway at the University of Oslo. Vishal Bhardwaj met him when he was directing an opera called The Flowering Tree at the Châtelet Theater in Paris. Vishal says, “In that opera, I used the long, life-sized puppets of Dadi Pudumji, who was a great puppeteer, and she introduced me to Sudesh. I worked with him continuously for two months in Paris and soon after , I started shooting for Haider. All the sensibilities I learned during the opera while working with Dadi Pudumji and Sudesh were very unconventional, non-Bollywood and I am from Bollywood and Sudesh won the National Award for that choreography. Won.”
Vishal explains, “There was a man who was the president of Kashmir University (student union). When we were shooting in the university, a lot of problems happened – there was lathi charge, bottles were thrown, I don’t know what happened.” CRPF had to take us out and protect us. It seemed like the next day we were shooting at another location, and this guy was there showing the court chamber of a stenographer, and he was playing that role, after the shooting, he came up to me and said, ‘I’m in disguise. Wanted to see what you were shooting!’ (laughs) I think we made a mistake.
You’re not making the kind of movie people usually come here to make. When the film released, he somehow got my number and apologized to me for half an hour.
Do you know?
-In July, when Vishal attended a tourism conference in Kashmir, he was told that after the film, the Martand Sun Temple where Bismil was shot became a popular tourist attraction, prompting the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India ) to remove the encroachment. site.
– Gulzar shot the song Koi Shikwa To Nahi from Tere Bina Zindagi; In the same Martand temple where Bismil was shot.
– The song Khul Kabhi from the film was Arijit Singh’s first song with Vishal Bhardwaj.
