Meera Vohra (BOMBAY TIMES; December 15, 2019)

Despite an early morning call time, heavy rains lashing Varanasi on Friday delayed the shooting of Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra. The shooting could only begin in the afternoon, once the rain had stopped. The main leads of the film, Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, reached Gai Ghat for the shoot and later, they boarded a boat to reach Guleria Ghat, where a dance sequence was canned on a chabutra.

A song, choreographed by Remo D’Souza, had Ranbir and Alia grooving to it.The colourful scene attracted a huge crowd, who were kept at bay by bouncers deployed at the shoot site. A lot of local artistes were also part of the scene.

After wrapping up the Manali schedule of the film, Ranbir and Alia reached Varanasi on Thursday afternoon for the second leg of the film’s shoot. The duo had earlier been part of the shooting schedule of the film in June that had to be discontinued due to the heat as Alia, reportedly fell ill because of soaring temperature.

During their nearly 10-day schedule in June, the actors had canned scenes at Chet Singh Ghat and Ramnagar Fort in Varanasi. They had also taken time off and had gone for darshan at Kashi Vishwanath Temple. This time, the shooting will take place for nearly a week on different ghats of Varanasi.