In 2018 author Harinder Sikka’s bestselling espionage thriller Calling Sehmat about an Indian spy infiltrating the Pakistani army by marrying a Pakistani officer, was made into a film Raazi starring Alia Bhatt directed by Meghna Gulzar.
The author Sikka is extremely unhappy with the liberties Meghna Gulzar took with his novel, diluting the anti-Pakistan slant of his hardhitting novel, making the Pakistanis look like angels in their fight to finish with Indian Intelligence.
Now after Dhurandhar on a similar theme, Harindar Sikka feels his novel should be re-made , this time without softening the blow.
Netizens support Sikka’s aggrieved demand for a remake of his novel.
They suggest the novel Calling Sehmat should be remade with Yami Gautam in the lead. .
One tweet reads “Let’s remake, sir. Yami is perfectly capable artist to bear the weight. The real story needs to be heard by everyone without any manipulation and biases. We will support the GoFundMe campaign. Kindly consider (sic).”
Sikka agrees.
The feud between the author and Meghna Gulzar goes back to the time of the making of Raazi. The story goes that at some point in her interaction with the author Sikka , Meghna for reasons best known to her, decided to go her own way, radically away from Sikka’s narrative.
While Sikka’s Calling Sehmat was distinctly anti-Pakistani, Meghna Gulzar decided to make the Pakistani characters humane and sympathetic. No harm in that. But in the process of humanizing the enemy Raazi, nee Sehmat, lost much of its original sting.
If we see the film now, its politics seems extremely ambivalent. Whose side is this film on? And let’s be honest. In a film about an Indian spy who sneaks into Pakistan and marries into an army family to steal state secrets, taking sides is important.
Interestingly, director Meghna Gulzar’s father the great Gulzar had been offered the same script to direct several years before by a different producer. But Gulzar Saab had bid farewell to his career as a director. After Hu-tu-tu in 1999 he never looked back.
Raazi was to be shot in Kashmir. But then the unrest took over and the venue had to be shifted to Film City in Mumbai. Patiala masqueraded as Pakistan in Raazi. No Indian film in living memory has been given permission to shoot in Pakistan.
Raazi was a big turning point for Alia Bhatt’s career.If remade with Yami Gautam there will be interesting comparisons between the two performances.
