 "Atul Kasbekar")
With Neerja earning widespread critical acclaim as well as commercial success for its sensitive storytelling, Atul Kasbekar speaks to Avantika Bhuyan about his debut venture as a producer and the extensive research that went into making the film
Neerja marks your debut as a producer. Why the switch to production?
I have been managing celebrities for the past eight years as part of Bling! Entertainment and have spent more than 20 years as a photographer, so producing a movie seemed like a logical progression. My work has generated a lot of goodwill in the industry. Even then, it might have been easier for me to put together a simple project than about someone who had passed away years ago. But I was sure I wanted to make Neerja, a female-oriented film. I find myself drawn to stories of strong women. And I really want to thank Fox Star Studios for understanding that.
I believe you always had Ram Madhvani [ad film maker and director of Let's Talk] in mind to helm the biopic.
Yes, that's true. Making a movie takes a lot out of you, in terms of time and effort - at least a year and a half. Unless you are passionate about the subject, you shouldn't do it. In this business, there are lots and lots of pundits. Everyone thinks that they have got the formula right. But people who have been weaned on this business, are from filmi families have also made flops. So, I thought that even if I bomb, I won't be the first one. But if we were going to do this, we would do it our way. I felt that Madhvani had the technical expertise plus the emotional gravitas to pull off this story. It was a meeting of minds really.
As you researched the subject, what amazed you about Neerja Bhanot's personality the most?
Something really bothers me about the general attitude in India. Every great civil society should know its heroes. This was a girl next door - from Bombay Scottish, went on to study at St Xavier's College - we all know someone equivalent to her. Next morning you hear that she has done something amazingly brave. Three countries honoured her posthumously - Pakistan awarded her the Tamgha-e-Insaniyat, the US gave her the "Justice for Crimes" award and India awarded her the Ashoka Chakra. But when I started talking to people, I realised that they were mixing up the Pan Am Flight 73 hijack with the Kandahar hijacking. I wanted to clear those misconceptions as well.
From permissions from the Bhanot family to getting the aircraft made from scratch to resemble the original - how did you go about getting the facts and setting right?
It is incredible how blessed this project has been. Rama Bhanot (Neerja's mother) passed away in December, before the film's release. She was 5'3' tall and spoke Hindi, heavily laced with Punjabi, but she had such a presence. Over the course of time, she became extremely fond of us. The family had been requested several times by others in the past 30 years for permissions to Neerja's life, but they always refused. They asked me if I had ever made a movie before. I said no, but we will never tarnish her memory. Rama ji said "okay". It was amazing how everything else came together - Naresh Goyal gave us use of his training centre, GVK Sanjay Reddy put the international airport at our disposal. Aaditya Thackeray, Sanjiv Goenka, Piyush Goyal - all went out of their way to help us.
You have been putting up rare images of Neerja Bhanot, old clippings and other material on Twitter and other social media. What was the research process like?
Both Madhvani and I are voracious readers, so we read a lot on the subject. He engaged a researcher to meet anyone ready to talk about Neerja. We collected every scrap of paper on the subject, including depositions in court. Rama ji was been shattered when her daughter passed away. Someone contacted her sometime back that Neerja wanted to talk to her. So, Rama ji, with the help of "auto-writing", tried to communicate with her daughter's spirit. We got those insights as well. We also spoke to lots and lots of survivors. Each of their different takes on the situation helped us put the story together.
