Patna's Azad Alam (32) has been making the right noises lately. He though wants to make a splash on Friday with The Ghazi Attack - India's first underwater war film - based on the mysterious sinking of the PNS Ghazi off the coast of Visakhapatnam during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Almost like the film's catchline: The war you did not know about - very few people are aware of Alam's work though the dialogue writer and co-director of the movie has lent his creativity to some top-banner films like Vishwaroopam and Yeh Hai Bakrapur.
His father Heshammuddin (retired from Bihar State Electricity Board) and mother Maimunnisa have been living in Patna for the past nine years. He passed his Class X exams from a government school in Begusrai, after which he shifted to Harcourt Butler Senior Secondary School, New Delhi, from where completed his Class XII in commerce followed by an honours in English literature from Delhi University in 2006.
He told The Telegraph over phone from Mumbai: "After completing my graduation, I took admission in Triveni Kala Sangam near Mandi House in New Delhi from where I did a one-year course in still photography. I joined many organisations and agencies where I used to write transcripts. I also worked as a moderator in many agencies for almost four years."
Alam said that in 2008, he shifted to Chennai from where he did a two-year course on film direction from L.V. Prasad Film & TV Academy. In 2010, he had to come back to Patna owing to family responsibilities. In Patna, his family lives at Alinagar in the Anishabad locality.
"In 2011, I did an internship with Ram Gopal Verma Productions in the writing department where I worked for around seven months in Mumbai. In October 2011, I came to Chennai to work with Kamal Hassan as a script supervisor and worked as his assistant director for his films Vishwaroopam and Vishwaroopam II. The second part has not released yet," said Alam, the youngest of seven siblings - five brothers and two sisters.
He got his first break as dialogue writer and additional screenplay writer with national award winner film maker Janaki Vishwanathan in the film Yeh Hai Bakrapur. In 2014, he made a 15-minute short film With You, For You Always based on crime against women. "My short film won nine awards in international film festival and the recent was the South Asian International Film Festival in New York. The film got an award under the HBO Short Film Competition section," Alam said.
"It took me more than a year to research on the India-Pakistan war of 1971. It is the first Bollywood film which depicts war at sea. I had to really work hard to understand the naval terminology and you will feel it in the film while watching it. I had to refer to the naval dictionary especially the sub-marine to give the feel in the film," Alam said, who stays at the Malad locality in Mumbai. He added that in future, he will direct his own film.
