'Nehru And Patel Were Like Jai And Veeru'

'Gandhi was Thakur and Gabbar was Jinnah.'

Filmmaker Nikkhil Advani's recent series retells Freedom At Midnight, the best-selling book by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins that captured the turbulent months leading to Independence and Partition.

Advani first read the book in school when he picked it from his father's bookshelf. His father's family migrated from Sindh before Partition; his mother was Maharashtrian.

Though far removed from the horrors of Partition, he grew up listening to his grandmother's memories as a teenager in Karachi.

"As a community, Sindhis lost everything. Punjab and Bengal were divided between India and Pakistan, but the entire Sindh went into Pakistan. Therefore, we value hard work," says Advani, an avid reader with a deep interest in history.

In a conversation with Rediff's Archana Masih, Advani discusses the pragmatism of Patel, the vision of Nehru, their willingness to agree to disagree and the difficult road they traversed in making a new India.

There are so many books on the Partition of India. What made you pick up Freedom at Midnight?

My father has to be credited for making my sister and myself voracious readers. In our time, there was no social media or OTT. We got a television only in 1982 when we hired one to watch Paolo Rossi score in the football World Cup.

[Rossi scored 6 goals and was the top scorer in the 1982 World Cup which Italy won.]

We read Enid Blyton, Amar Chitra Katha and the Classics.

I was a big reader of Leon Uris, Eric Segal, the classics -- Shakespeare etc.

My father pointed me towards Freedom at Midnight early on. So, I've grown up being an avid reader of history. I discuss history whenever I could get a chance.

However, for the series, the book was given to me by (Sony Liv executives) Danish Khan and Saugata Mukherjee who I discovered were bigger fans of Freedom at Midnight.

I don't think Freedom at Midnight would have been made without Sony Liv, Danish Khan and Saugata Mukherjee. I don't think it can be made ever again.

What locations did you shoot in?

The Baradari Palace in Patiala. We used Captain Amarinder Singh's suite which they don't usually give out to anybody as Gandhi's Birla House in the show.

While filming the scene of Gandhiji's death, I remember the arthi was kept in the middle of the room and Chirag Vohra who played Gandhi just came and lay down on it.

I think for four hours, nobody spoke. We felt Gandhi was in the room.

Everybody was almost using sign language to communicate on the set. It was a phenomenal experience.

We got permission to shoot in Umaid Bhavan Jodhpur because of my founding partner Madhu Bhojwani's relationship with the Taj group.

They told us we can't have more than 100 people and that we would have to shoot it in May during the lean guest period.

Yes, because the steps of Umaid Bhavan look like the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The public walkthrough of Rashtrapati Bhavan which happens every day is phenomenal.

Umaid Bhavan is massive. It has some 500 rooms, but really, it is one fourth the size of Rashtrapati Bhavan!

The first viceroy to move in was Lord Irwin in 1930 - so from 1930-1947, only two people, the viceroy and vicerine, stayed in this massive house.

[Five British viceroys lived in Viceroy's House till 1947.]

Later on, I found out that Dr Rajendra Prasad and Dr S Radhakrishnan, the first and second Presidents, both Gandhians, never stayed inside Rashtrapati Bhavan.

They stayed in the press office because they couldn't believe that they had this massive house!

We were lucky to shoot in Umaid Bhavan, but it does not compare to Rashtrapati Bhavan. I wish I could have shot over there.

Your own family is from Sindh. How did personal family experiences shape your own sensitivity?

It has always shaped me. My grandmother and grandfather came from Karachi and Hyderabad.

My father's family was very lucky because they happened to be more affluent and could travel by air. Although after watching the show, a lot of my father's family told me that they came by train.

My father arrived in 1946 and stayed in a refugee camp in Andheri (north west Mumbai). I am trying to trace what refugee camp it was. Maybe it is Aram Nagar, where I started working with Sudhir Mishra at the address 44 Aram Nagar Part 2!

That would be karmic!

My grandmother's father was a big industrialist in Karachi. So, he could fly his children and grandchildren to Bombay.

But they still gave up everything. Though far removed from the horrors of Partition, all through her life my grandmother always told us stories about her teenage years in Karachi and everything they left behind.

As a community, Sindhis lost everything. In that sense Punjab and Bengal were divided between India and Pakistan, but the entire Sindh went into Pakistan. We lost everything.

We value hard work because we know nothing is going to come easily to us.

Therefore, no matter whatever I do -- working, not working, good or bad -- all the hard work shows.

Did your family ever get a chance to go back and see the house?

My father went back to Karachi for a couple of days. He went to the house where there is a Pizza Hut or Pizza Express now.

He went to the Dawn newspaper to see the list of those who migrated from Pakistan to India.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity as part of a group of six Indian filmmakers and six Pakistani filmmakers making short films. We met on the Wagah border.

I used to tell my grandmother why do you keep reminiscing and remembering something that has gone far behind. But I understood what they left and what they came away with while making Freedom at Midnight.

What appealed to your heart the most about the show?

There were incredible performances. I would like to mention Cordelia Bugeja who played Edwina Mountbatten. She gave an incredible performance, but we had to cut some scenes out.

There's a scene when she goes to the refugee camp for the first time and breaks down. She just wants to get the blood out of her and tells Mountbatten you are responsible.

In season two, he tells her that he did it without spilling a drop of English blood.

And she asks, what about Indian blood?

Rajendra Chawla [who played Vallabhbhai Patel] was fantastic. Every single person was in love with him.

Rajendra Chawla had read books and heard all of Patel's speeches. I said, forget all that -- just play him like every Gujarati uncle, profit-loss, right or wrong. There's no grey for Patel.

The grey had to be Nehru.

Nehru is a guy who's being pulled apart by the ideology of Gandhi and the pragmatism of Patel.

I told Rajendra Chawla that you are playing Patel, the Iron Man, say what you want to say by playing on the front foot.

I wanted Salim-Javed kind of punchy lines.

Nehru and Patel agreed to disagree and we presented that part very well.

They disagreed, but respected each other.

They were all stalwarts -- literate, educated, knowledgeable.

They all were coming from different points of view, including Jinnah. The two would throw Jinnah completely, rip him apart.

A decision that really worked in our favour was to play it like Jai, Veeru, Gabbar and Thakur from Sholay.

Nehru and Patel were Jai and Veeru, Gandhi was Thakur and Gabbar was Jinnah.

Divya Nidhi Sharma was happy when I told him to write it this way because by doing so it was no longer a stodgy period piece.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff