MID-DAY (July 5, 2017)

Filmmaker Gurinder Chadha says late actor Om Puri would often dance to Hans Raj Hans’s version of Dama Dam Mast Qalandar, which is part of her upcoming film, Partition: 1947. The Huma Qureshi-starrer features Puri, who died in January, as her father. “In a scene, he finishes his food and is set to go to bed, but as soon as Hans Raj Hans’s song would start playing, he would start dancing. I had to tell him, ‘you don’t have to dance’. But, he enjoyed the music. He enjoyed being on the sets. This is the memory I have of him,” Chadha said in an interview.

Speaking at a promotional event, Chadha also said that the song, Do Dilon Ke, which has been composed by AR Rahman and sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Hariharan, reminded her of the tragic stories she heard from her maternal grandmother about the Partition, while growing up in England. “I grew up in England and I made a film like this in India. It is a big deal. We do feel terrible about the things we witnessed, not just in India, but in Europe and America. We fear for our children. I have two small children and want them to live in a world where people love and respect each other.”

The song puts the spotlight on the fondness that Edwina Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru shared for each other. “I believe that Nehruji and Lady Mountbatten were very close, and I wanted to show that... But, I was not interested in learning anything about this relationship as that is not the story... It takes away from the story of the ordinary people and the Partition.”