Kavita Awaasthi (HINDUSTAN TIMES; January 13, 2020)

When filmmaker Kabir Khan made a documentary in 1999, called The Forgotten Army, little did he know that his endeavour to make it for television would take 20 years. The documentary got him a lot of attention and became his “calling card”, which led to his debut directorial, Kabul Express (2006). But the thought of making his “dream project” never left him.

“I was naïve when I wrote a film script and didn’t realise that no one would be willing to give so much money to a documentary filmmaker in Mumbai. After every film, I would ask Aditya Chopra (producer) that can we make this into a film? He would tell me to wait and I kept making other films. But then, I met the heads of this OTT and while ideating, I brought up my story and felt it would lend itself to an original limited series and things materialised,” says Kabir, sharing that he can’t get enough of the untold chapter from this significant Indian history. The upcoming series helmed by Kabir, The Forgotten Army - Azaadi Ke Liye, is based on true events tracing the story of the brave soldiers from the Indian National Army (INA) who marched towards the capital, with the war cry ‘Challo Dilli’, to win back their country from the British.

Kabir loves that the show ultimately happened on a digital platform as it “doesn’t need to be over simplified for a universal appeal” and how he “didn’t have to curtail the logistics” of the shoot. Making a web show also means no pressure to deliver numbers at the box office. Ask him about the same, and he says, “Probably yes. But I don’t take box office numbers seriously because if you do that, then you drive yourself crazy. No one understands box office. It is liberating to not be judged on the opening day figures.”

Most of Kabir’s films — New York (2009), Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015), Tubelight (2017) — have elements of terrorism or war and he admits that he likes it that way. He adds, “It is a conscious decision to have a larger than life political backdrop to my films with a human story at the fore. As an audience, I would always struggle while watching mainstream cinema as often it has no context. I can’t connect to love stories set in la la land. Therefore, my favourite filmmaker is Mani Ratnam who always has context in his films. Whether it is war or terrorism, the attempt is to bring a strong political and social context to my films. And the beauty of history is that it is always relevant.”