Patna, Jan. 13: Most Class IX students would pore over history books before exams to brush up their knowledge about martyrs who fought for India’s Independence. Not Aakash Jha, who has gone beyond to find the condition of the martyr’s descendants.

The 14-year-old student of St Thomas School, Ghaziabad, has made a short film — Ek Khoj: Bharat Ki-Swatantrata Aandolan 1857-1947 Ke Shahidon Ke Gumnam Jivit Vanshaj — on the condition of the descendants of the martyrs and forgotten heroes of the country. Aakash’s parents, Shivnath and Neena Jha, who hail from Bihar, are the teen’s inspiration.

On how he got the idea to film a documentary, Aakash said: “I have seen my parents launch a nationwide movement, Andolan Ek Pustak Se, for the forgotten heroes and freedom fighters. They also released a book on them. Later, I suggested my father that converting the book into a documentary would make it easier for schoolchildren to understand. He liked my idea and gave me the go-ahead. I took two years to meet the families of the martyrs, gather information and then combined all the facts into a 90-minute documentary.”

He started work on his documentary in 2009. The film, which has been financed by Aakash’s parents, will be released on January 24 at the Press Club of India, New Delhi.

The movement started by Aakash’s parents aims to rehabilitate the descendants of those who fought for the country’s Independence and eminent personalities and bring them back in public focus. Many of them are neglected by society and are hardly known.

The building block for Aakash’s documentary was his parents’ coffee-table book Forgotten Indian Heroes and Martyrs: Their Neglected Descendants — 1857-1947 released on April 13 last year by 58-year-old Jeet Singh, a daily wager and grandson of Shaheed-e-Azam Udham Singh.

While most students struggle to juggle studies and fun these days, Aakash managed his studies and research for the documentary. Accompanied by his parents, Aakash went to meet every person mentioned in the book to know their present condition and film them for his documentary. Some of the places he went to were Punjab, Calcutta, Midnapore (Bengal), Pune and Meerut. He also came to Patna.

Aakash said: “Like every child, I used to go out with my parents too. The only difference was I didn’t go for shopping or movies. Rather, I visited the families of Ustad Bismillah Khan, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Tantia Tope, Mangal Pandey and others to know their stories. I am thankful to my parents who took me to meet the families every weekend.”

On his experience, Aakash said: “It was great, as I learnt a lot and got the chance to interact with the families of the martyrs and forgotten heroes. The sources were more authentic than books written on them. I even read a lot of books and visited museums before filming the documentary.”

He added: “My objective is to let youths know the real condition of the families and make them think. This is the reason the documentary will also be screened in various schools.”

While filmmaking is Aakash’s hobby, he aspires to become an aeronautical engineer. He said: “Handling the camera was not difficult for me as most of the persons in my family are journalists. So I am quite familiar with handling a story or camera. I love to spend time learning the technicalities of filming and camera handling.”