Still of Anupam Kher from The Kashmir Files
Highlights
- The Kashmir Files’ is based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits that took place in 1990
- It is directed by Vivek Agnihotri starring Anupam Kher in important role
- Kher said just because he is a Kashmiri Pandit himself things were not easy
Based on true incidents director Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Kashmir Files’ is a dramatised version of events that occurred in 1989. The exodus and killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s are narrated from the Kashmiri Pandit’s point of view. During a recent media interaction, Anupam Kher, who plays the role of Pushkar Nath in the film opened up on how he portrayed the character and tried to bring out the pain and agony on screen. He also made a point that just because he is a Kashmiri Pandit himself, things were not easy. In fact, they were a bit more difficult.
“It is very difficult to play a part that you have experienced first-hand. Because when you’re performing it as an actor, just feeling it, is not important as you’re performing it in the bracket of a film. There are two sides to this character for me, as a person and as a film’s character. As a person, no matter how much someone can relate to a character you can’t act it out, because it is the job of an actor. Every individual feels emotions, but not everyone can act them out,” he said.
“I want to put it out here. Just because I’m a Kashmiri Pandit doesn’t mean I will be able to portray that pain brilliantly unless I can project what I’m feeling,” he added.
Anupam shares that the name of his character in the film is Pushkar Nath. Coincidentally, his father was also named the same.Â
“When I reached Dehradun, the shooting of the film was already in process. To me, it appeared that something important is in the making but then it suddenly struck me that Pushkar Nath is a very simple man who doesn’t know what is happening around him. I was representing an absolutely normal Kashmiri Pandit, something that my father was. It is here that it got difficult for me. How do I separate the emotions of Anupam Kher from the actor? What is real and what is acting, to separate that was a difficult task. On top of it, it was stories that I’ve had heard from my relatives and my mother,” he shared.
“They were painful emotions that we had brushed under a rug. But I’m glad Vivek did this film because when the pain reaches people who see it on the screen, I think half the job is done.”
The film, based on the true stories of the victims of the Kashmir genocide also stars Pallavi Joshi, Prakash Belavadi, Mithun Chakraborty, Darshan Kumar, Bhasha Sumbali, Chinmay Mandlekar, Puneet Issar, Mrinal Kulkarni, Atul Srivastava and Prithviraj Sarnaik besides Anupam Kher. The film has been released in theaters.
You can watch the video here:
