Minissha Lamba and Rahul Bose in Shaurya

On the eve of the release of his second film, Shaurya, journalist-turned-film-maker Samar Khan talks about his inspiration for the subject and his personal moments of courage...

Shaurya sounds totally different from Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye. What inspired you to make it?

When my first film Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye didn’t do well, I felt that it perhaps did not succeed at the box office because of its subject. That may have influenced the choice of the theme for my second film. I decided to do something radically different. Shaurya’s story truly inspired me and I wanted to showcase it to the entire world.

However, when I finally decided to make Shaurya, thoughts like how different it would be from my previous film honestly never entered my mind.

What does Shaurya mean to you?

To me, Shaurya means courage of conviction, the strength to say something, do something and be completely convinced that what you are doing is right. And, if someone points out that you are wrong, it is the courage to admit that you are wrong.

What would you say is the defining Shaurya moment in your life?

For me, it is the fact that I get up every day, am alive and go back to sleep at night, convinced that I have done well today. You need to stand by your own convictions and not be touched by corruption in a morally corrupt world.

How did Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye’s box-office failure affect your life?

The fact that it flopped was a learning experience for me. I realised that a film mirrors the director’s vision. When people are investing a great deal of money and faith in you, a director must live up to all these responsibilities and not let anyone down.

I’m hoping that the audiences do not find the same faults in Shaurya that they did in my last film and that they do think that Shaurya is a better product than what Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye was.

You were once quoted as saying that after Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye you went into depression...

It was a flip statement. When your film does not do well, you do feel let down because you have put a lot of your emotional self in it. The most important thing after a failure is to realise what went wrong; where you erred. Failure is never illogical; there is always a reason behind it. Then, you should try and work and not repeat the same mistakes. It is important to come up with something that people will believe in.

And what conclusion did you arrive at — what went wrong with Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye?

What I do know is that the audience was not able to connect with the film on the basic emotional level. Somewhere, the emotion was missing and the fault obviously lay with the director, me.

How did you keep yourself busy till you began work on Shaurya?

I got busy on the television front, doing shows like Sabsey Favourite Kaun. It naturally takes long to put a project like Shaurya in place. I knew that my film’s subject had to be so strong that when I approached any actor with it, he would not think about the failure of my last film. He would instead be convinced that this was such a great film that he just had to be a part of it.

How did you assemble your star cast?

When you are writing the story, names of actors and actresses who would suit the roles automatically come to mind. While I was writing the script, these actors came to my mind. I was lucky that they all agreed to be a part of my film.

Was the switch from journalism easy?

Nothing is easy nor is anything difficult in the world. When you are convinced about something, then you work diligently towards it. The fact that I was a journalist helped me understand the medium. I became aware of the nuances of telling a story. I was clued into what was going on in the world. Film-making and journalism are very different from each other, almost like chalk and cheese!

Lastly, does the film really require a Shah Rukh Khan to recite a poem?

The thought of the poem had its genesis in the script, while it was being written. It captures the entire essence of the film. When Jaideep (Sarkar) wrote the lines, they were so beautiful that the moment I read them I knew that they had to be rendered in a special way. I approached Shah Rukh Khan with a great deal of fear and anxiety. He agreed to do it. I am so happy because he has added depth and feeling to those lines.