Actor Akshay Kumar on Wednesday shared a photo of him dressed in a kathakali dance costume, hailing it as “a symbol of tradition, resistance and truth of the nation”.
Akshay is awaiting the April 18 release of Karan Singh Tyagi’s upcoming historical drama Kesari Chapter 2, billed as a film that unravels the reality behind the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
“This is not a costume. It’s a symbol — of tradition, of resistance, of truth, of my nation. C Sankaran Nair didn’t fight with a weapon. He fought the British Empire with the law — and with fire in his soul,” the 57-year-old actor wrote alongside the picture on Instagram.
It is not clear whether Akshay donned the outfit for a promotional shoot, or if it is part of a sequence in the film.
Dropped by Dharma Productions earlier this month, the trailer of Kesari Chapter 2 shows Kumar’s Nair facing off against R. Madhavan’s “genius” solicitor Neville Mckinley.
The trailer follows proceedings in a courtroom, where Nair challenges Colonel Reginald Edward Harry Dyer’s (Mark Bennington) decision to open fire on protestors without warning. To counter Nair’s accusations, the British government enlists McKinley, who puts pressure on Nair by demanding proof, witnesses and evidence. Ananya Panday appears as young lawyer Dilreet Gill, who joins Nair in his fight for justice.
The video is interposed with harrowing visuals of helpless protestors being gunned down at Jallianwala Bagh under Dyer’s command.
Kesari Chapter 2 - The Untold Story Of Jallianwala Bagh follows Anurag Singh’s 2019 film Kesari, which narrated the story of the Battle of Saragarhi. In the battle, an army of 21 Sikhs fought against 10,000 Afghans in 1897.