In a new edition of This Day That Year, Subhash K Jha revisits Diljit Dosanjh’s sports biopic, Soorma, directed by Shaad Ali which released in 2018. We also hear from Dilijit Dosanjh about the making of the film and becoming Sandeep Singh in a throwback interview.
At a time when supposedly responsible filmmakers are glorifying gangsters, terrorists and sociopaths in ostensible bio-pics, Soorma, about the struggles of hockey champ Sandeep Singh to overcome crippling obstacles to claim a name among sports legends, comes as a gust of unpolluted air.
This is a film that needed to be made, a story about a man whom future generations need to know about and look up to. Damn, the young need role models from our everyday life, not imported super-heroes who can’t save their own egos even as they purport to save civilization from destruction.
Soorma serves up an appetizing homemade dish of inspirational drama and some beautifully furtive flights of flirtation where Diljit Dosanjh’s Sandeep Singh courts Taapsee Pannu’s Harpreet with hockey and love songs. There is a resonant ring of authenticity to the courtship, as though director Shaad Ali were addressing love not as a second-hand emotion but a first-hand dip into emotions that are so real and pure, they make us smile.
A lot of the time Shaad’s narrative deploys the standards sports tropes: protagonist undertaking punishing regiment, cruel coache and grueling tasks for the hero , savage setbacks and those inspiring songs about akela-chala-chal(very cutely redolent in Gulzar’s poetry). These stereotypical signposts of sportive cinema are sprinkled into Sandeep Singh’s life-story with inspiring gusto.
Shaad Ali films Sandeep Singh’s story with tremendous empathy. There are no attempts to titivate the tale with an august aura, or make the characters more appealing than they really are. It is the narrative’s good fortune that it gets the actors it deserves. Not just Diljit Dosanjh who simply takes charge of Sandeep Singh’s character with pride and affection, but the rest of cast who huddle together in a circle of shared kinship that moved me to tears, specially when Sandeep is wounded by a near-fatal gunshot.
There is a sequence where a man kindly inquires about Sandeep’s health , and Sandeep’s father(played with contagious compassion by Satish Kaushik) looks so forlorn for a few minutes he becomes every disappointed father who ever dreams of seeing his child conquer the world.
Angad Bedi as Sandeep’s Veerji is also splendid. Physically and emotionally potent, Angad makes the supportive sibling’s part look so real you wish you could take him home to be your real-life bro. Vijay Raaz as Sandeep’s Bihari coach reins in his emotions with expertise. Taapsee Pannu as the hockey player who is wooed by Sandeep Singh has seldom looked so pretty.She lends emotional heft to the film’s second-half when she must move away from love to redeem the loved one.
The irony of the situation is not lost on the narrative. Director Shaad Ali, making as triumphant a comeback after the crippling failures of Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom , Kill Dill and OK Jaanu, as Sandeep Singh after the freak gunshot, keeps the narrative straight and uncluttered. He gets fabulous support from his leading man. Diljit Dosanjh makes the character and his struggles look so artless and credible you want to reach into the innards of the plot and hold the protagonist’s hand and tell him, ‘It’s okay. You will be fine. I’ve suffered too.’
In a sequence like the one where Diljit pleads and rages over the phone against his beloved’s seeming betrayal, Diljit’s gentle control over the swelling emotions is laudatory.
If this performance doesn’t fetch Dosanjh a National award, what will?
Don’t look for subtleties in this tale of valour and resilience. In fact, some portions, for instance the buildup in the train to the gun-shot, are purposely constructed in a unvarnished style to impress on us the immediacy and longevity of a saga that goes beyond one individual’s ability to make a comeback.
If Sandeep Singh was nicknamed ‘Flicker Singh’ this film takes that flicker into sphere of a burning flame. Soorma just makes you happy for the unsung heroes whom cinema has the power and reach to put on a pedestal.
Playing the real-life hockey champ Sandeep Singh in Shaad Ali’s biopic Soorma, Diljit breathed life into the character. He didn’t ‘play’ Sandeep Singh. He internalized the struggles of the character so effortlessly that we could no longer see Diljit on screen. A truly award-worthy performance.
But guess what! Diljit initially didn’t want to do the film
In an interview with this writer in 2015 Diljit had said, “I knew Soorma was a role of a lifetime. I am ashamed to say that when Shaad Sir (director Shaad Ali) came to me with the project I did not know anything about Sandeep Paaji.”
He also spoke about the lack of respect in the country for hockey players. “It’s a shame that we do not give the same respect and position to hockey as we do to other games in the country.”
The preparations to play the part took Diljit right into the field. “A role like Soorma happens once in a lifetime. I learnt to play hockey from scratch. And it had to be hockey on a competent level. I was playing Sandeep Singh. I couldn’t afford to look like an amateur. I learnt the game from Sandeep Paaji and his elder brother (Bikram Singh). By the time I was ready to face the camera I was confident of my game. Bahot mehnat karni padti hai (One has to work really hard). The fact that people have found me convincing as Sandeep Singh is reward enough for me.”
While playing Sandeep Patil, Diljit came to respect Sandeep immensely. “I was playing a legend whom I had come to respect immensely as I got to know about him. I could not afford to goof up. Now I am humbled by the response to my performance. Sandeep Paaji has brought great honours for our country. I’m honoured to play him.”
Diljit hoped Soorma would create awareness about the game of hockey, “When I go to Haryana and my home state Punjab I see children everywhere playing hockey. But not outside these two states. Why? Why is there no glamour prestige and power attached to the game of hockey in the rest of the country? If Soorma can create even some awareness of what a difficult and involving a game hockey is, I would think my efforts have paid off.”
