As a team, they’ve given us landmark films — Shahid to Citylights to Aligarh. Now, Rajkummar Rao and Hansal Mehta put together their creative forces for the web-series Bose: Dead/ Alive. Streaming on November 20 on Ekta Kapoor’s AltBalaji app, the nine-episode series has been shot in Calcutta, Mumbai, Ladakh, Thailand, Poland, Austria and Germany.
On Monday, Team Bose — Rajkummar, who plays Bose, Hansal, who’s creative-produced the series, Patralekhaa, who plays an important character, and Ekta — was in Calcutta to talk about the series that Rajkummar says is his “most ambitious project yet”. t2 caught up with Rajkummar and Hansal at JW Marriott to talk Bose and beyond.
What was your understanding of Subhas Chandra Bose before you made this series and how has that changed now?
Rajkummar Rao: Honestly, our history books do no justice to Bose. We probably had just a chapter on his life. But when I started reading about him, I found a lot of material available. He’s lived such an amazing life (smiles). He played a huge role in our freedom struggle, but he had the vision to think even 20 years ahead....
Hansal Mehta: At every stage, there is a convenient kind of history that the ruling establishment writes and in that convenience of presenting one version, a hero like Bose was almost forgotten to an entire generation. He got reduced to only the mystery surrounding his disappearance… did he survive the plane crash or didn’t he? Everyone should know that independence was not won by one man alone with a stick… it was won with a stick… and with an army (Netaji’s Indian National Army) that shook the foundations of the British empire. I got involved in this project because I wanted my children to know that the freedom we have today is not because of what they have been taught, but what actually happened.
What the series did to me was make me wonder what if he was alive and he led the country. Perhaps we would have become a superpower very early on. It’s made me believe even more strongly that today, more than ever, we need Bose… we need a leader of his stature, a man of his personality.
Given the scale and story, did you, at any point, think that this could be a film?
Hansal: The digital medium has emerged as the primary source of great stories. I thought this medium was apt to tell the story of this great man because we didn’t want his story to be counted in terms of weekend box-office numbers or flimsy TRPs on TV. Bose has much more to offer than a weekend of (Rs) 100 crore. The digital medium will give it that respect and a shelf life that’s perpetual.
Is it also because this medium — that doesn’t have censorship — gave you more freedom to tell Bose’s story without worrying about ruffling feathers?
Hansal: I feel censorship is also psychological. When you know that there is a body to keep an eye on what you come up with, you automatically make your product that way. In that sense, the web still allows that freedom and that breathing space. But it’s also your responsibility as an artiste to exercise self-censorship.
While making this, did anything about Bose’s life and leadership take you by surprise?
Rajkummar: Definitely! There are so many aspects to this man that we were discovering something new about him all the time. There are some incidents in the series, especially during his student days, that really took me by surprise.
Hansal: It’s a well-made series and I’m not saying this because I’m a part of it (smiles). But even the minute aspects of Bose’s life have been shown in a fresh and modern way. What makes his life worth telling is that it’s a thrilling combination of historical facts and speculation.
Raj, you have said that you didn’t think casting you as Bose was conventional casting...
Rajkummar: I was taken completely by surprise. When (producer) Big Synergy first approached me, I thought they wanted me to play Bhagat Singh or something! (Laughs) They were like, ‘No, we want you to play Bose!’ And I was like (makes a surprised face) ‘Okay!’ But then I jumped at it. I always knew it was a challenge I would be proud of for years to come and that’s exactly what’s happened. We are very proud of it.
Four films, including upcoming release Omerta and now a web-series, what is it that works for the Hansal Mehta-Rajkummar Rao combination?
Hansal: This question scares me! (Laughs)
Rajkummar: Sometimes you just form a bond with someone, and we are lucky this bond has translated to some landmark work. I’m so lucky to have him in my life. Our vision is almost always the same and we want to tell the same kind of stories.
Hansal: We also find a common ground in the fact that we are constantly looking for challenges. For me, his role of a migrant in Citylights is the best performance of his career so far. People on the roads actually felt he was a poor man looking for work… we hid the camera and filmed it and no one even realised he wasn’t a migrant!
Rajkummar: They used to feel so sorry for me, they would tell me, ‘Wahaan jaake kaam dhoondo.’
Hansal: He failed to get a job at the dhobi ghat because they felt he was too frail to be a dhobi!
Rajkummar: Someone even offered me a taxi driver’s job! (Both laugh)
Raj has been having a purple patch this year. As a mentor, you must be so proud…
Hansal: His ‘purplest’ patch is yet to come… take that from me. This is just the beginning. I’m happy he’s doing so many films now.
Raj, is it almost a release a month now?
Rajkummar: (Laughs out loud) No, no, no… come on! I’m just being offered some great roles and I’m finding it hard to say ‘no’. The ultimate goal is to do one film a year or one in two years…
Hansal: I don’t want that to happen… because that would mean cutting down on my films! (Both laugh)
Rajkummar: Honestly, I am a greedy actor and I just don’t want to miss out. I don’t want to tell anyone that I want to sit at home and relax. So even if I don’t have dates, I say, ‘Can I finish this one and do your one?’ (Laughs) I love working!
The kind of things that Raj does for his role — subsisting only on carrots and coffee for weeks for Trapped, shaving off half his head for Bose — how much do you think it adds to him as an actor?
Hansal: He puts himself through intense physical transformations for most roles… and I admire that. It needs a lot of dedication and discipline. But for me, it’s also overrated. If tomorrow, Rajkummar had to play a character without transforming himself physically, he would still bring in everything else —his honesty, his interpretation of the character, his understanding of its soul.
Do you ever tell him that perhaps he doesn’t need to do so much?
Hansal: Sometimes for my own selfish reasons… like when we go out for dinner and I’m the only one eating! (Both laugh)
Rajkummar: Except during Bose when I had to put on weight… so I kept eating!
Hansal: He would just eat rosogollas!
Rajkummar: Breakfast was sometimes seven-eight rosogollas!
Hansal: And the number of rosogollas I have eaten just sitting with him… I was like, ‘He’s eating, how can I resist?’ So we both put on weight! (Laughs)
Priyanka Roy
Pictures: B. Halder
Ekta Kapoor on ‘superhero’ Bose
On Subhas Chandra Bose: My fascination with Bose babu started many years ago. His life has been an inspiration for me. I always knew I would make something on him… it was a matter of time and the right project. He was a man who was very individualistic and that is something I really admire.
On the idea behind Bose: Dead/ Alive: We did a lot of research and included only those bits that we thought were worth telling and inspiring. Even the conspiracy theories were included after careful research to see if they could be validated in some way. We made sure that even if we had to compromise on drama, we didn’t compromise on any facts. The show’s been written in an interesting way… it’s got a bit of Rashomon in the narrative… and it all boils down to your belief: if you believe he was alive after the plane crash, this is how it was; if you feel he didn’t, then this is how it could have been.
On her Calcutta connect: My association with Calcutta has been right from the beginning… I made my most popular show Kasautii (Zindagii Kay) here. I am excited to see how Bengal accepts this show because Netaji was a national hero, no doubt, but his roots were here. He’s someone we all look at with pride, with aspiration…. Today, India needs superheroes like him. Bose babu was our very own superhero.
On going digital: I have made Bose into a web series and not into a TV series or a film to not play safe. I am tired of playing safe. I feel the dignity to such a hero can be given only through a detailed and well-researched piece of work like this web series is. We didn’t play safe… we played true.
