On Saturday we wrote that Prahaar launching its trailer at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus was either brave or tasteless, and that the venue set a bar the makers would have to clear.
We said no red carpet, no hype reel, nobody saying the word blockbuster within a hundred metres of platform 13, and that we would be watching on the 29th.
They cleared it.
What Happened At CSMT
The trailer for Prahaar: The Untold Story of Ujjwal Nikam was unveiled at the station on Tuesday, with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis present, alongside Ujjwal Nikam himself, Rajkummar Rao, director Avinash Arun Dhaware and producer Dinesh Vijan.
Per ANI, the tone was built around the case rather than the film. Nikam said: “26/11 is a chapter that Mumbai and our country can never forget. My association with that case was a responsibility I carried with understanding.”
Dhaware framed what the film is attempting: “Prahaar is not just a retelling. It is an attempt to look at what happened after the headlines faded.”
Dinesh Vijan, on the city: “That’s the professionalism, that’s the spirit of the city. But that doesn’t mean we can forget or forgive the terror.”
The Thing That Made The Event Work
Rajkummar Rao did not talk about the film.
He talked about being twenty-four and terrified. Per Free Press Journal, he described arriving in Mumbai from Pune that year, straight out of film school, and looking for work.
“February mein Mumbai shift hua tha Pune se, film school ke baad mein. Un dino kaam dhundh rahe the to daily bahar jaate the, raat ko ghar wapas aate the.”
Then the nights of 26 November: “To news jab aana shuru hui to uske baad mujhe yaad hai agle 3 din tak hum sab apne television ke saamne baithe hue the.”
On the rumours running through the city: “Bahut saari baatein aur failne lagi thi. Bahut saare aur terrorists hain jo sheher mein ghus gaye hain.”
And: “Those three days were very very scary, aur bahut dar mein the hum log.”
That is not a promotional line. That is a man standing in a railway station describing what it felt like to be a nobody in a city under attack, eighteen years before he came back to the same building to promote a film about it.
He also spoke about the part he is playing: “Playing Ujjwal Nikam was a responsibility I felt deeply in my heart from the very beginning. I wanted to understand the man behind the name.”
The Chief Minister Question
A sitting Chief Minister at a film trailer launch is worth pausing on, and we said on Saturday that both readings of this event would remain available.
The defensible version is that a film about the prosecution of the 26/11 case, launched at an attack site, is a matter of public memory as much as commerce, and the state has a legitimate place in that.
The uncomfortable version is that a Maddock production has secured the most senior political figure in Maharashtra for a marketing event, and that the line between commemoration and endorsement is thinner than anyone at the event would want to examine.
Both are true. What keeps this one on the right side of the line is that the film’s subject is a prosecutor, the process and the verdict, rather than a heroic reconstruction of the siege. A film that argues due process held under maximum pressure is a film the state can reasonably show up for.
What The Trailer Shows
Per Free Press Journal, the trailer sits with the trial of Ajmal Kasab rather than the attack itself. Rajkummar Rao plays Nikam. Wamiqa Gabbi plays his wife, on limited screen time in the trailer. Lalit Prabhakar plays Kasab. Sikandar Kher and Jaideep Ahlawat are both in it and both register.
Directed by Avinash Arun Dhaware, produced by Dinesh Vijan for Maddock Films. Releasing 16 October, Dussehra weekend, moved from an earlier August date.
Bengaluru Baath Take
We set a bar on Saturday and we are obliged to say when it is met. It was met.
No paparazzi wall worth the name, no outfit coverage leading the reports, and the actor’s contribution was a memory of being frightened rather than a claim about the film’s scale. The producer talked about the city. The prosecutor talked about responsibility. The director talked about what happens after the headlines fade, which is the only sentence anyone needed to say about why this film exists.
The venue was always going to be the risk. Held properly, it turned out to be the argument.
The film still has to be good, and a courtroom drama about a capital prosecution has a much harder job than a siege thriller. But the people making it have shown they understand what they are handling, and on this subject that was the thing worth finding out first.
16 October.
Sources
- ANI, event attendees and quotes from Nikam, Rao, Dhaware and Vijan
- Free Press Journal, Rajkummar Rao’s 26/11 recollections, trailer content and cast
- PeepingMoon, Devendra Fadnavis attendance
- Bollywood Hungama, first film event at CSMT
