Haider, based on Hamlet and set in 1995 during the peak of militancy in Kashmir, narrates the story of a family against the backdrop of politics. Talking about filming it in Kashmir, Vishal Bhardwaj says, “At that time, the average Kashmiri youth felt that Bollywood had cheated them, always portraying them as terrorists in phirans with AK-47s. So, they weren’t very cooperative. But later, when they saw the film, they called me.”

As the film completes 10 years, Vishal feels it was destined to be made. He says, “Now, when I look back, I feel so fortunate that I could register my time with Haider.”

As the film completes 10 years, we spoke to co-writer, director, composer, and producer Vishal Bhardwaj about the making of Haider, which has inspired numerous dissertations and research papers.

Vishal says, "I had been planning a Shakespeare trilogy and was working on Hamlet. Earlier, I had a different setting in mind for Hamlet. It was set in an espionage background. But when Gulzar Sahab read it, he mentioned that it felt like just another CIA movie with the tragedy of Hamlet in it. He was absolutely right. Then, simultaneously, things happened. I remember Rekha (Bhardwaj) reading Basharat’s book (Bashrat Peer's Curfewed Night) and her reaction to it. After that, I read the book and realized that, for a long time, I had also wanted to make a film about Kashmir. All these things came together. The structure became clear, we knew our characters, and of course, the history was there. It didn't take much time because there was so much clarity in our thoughts and in what we wanted to create."

Vishal Bhardwaj says that there are multiple scenes in the film that are not just memorable from the film, but from his entire career. He says, "And I'm not just talking about Shahid's monologue, which is very obvious. It was written for the gallery. But there are also 2-3 scenes between Tabu and Shahid, where they're in the Chinar Bagh before the interval, when they confront each other. Then there's a moment in the film when Shahid finally finds his father’s grave, and he breaks down. That scene was really... I had prepped Shahid, and we wanted to shoot with a telephoto lens, so the camera was really far. I told Shahid, 'Don't feel insecure because it's not a close-up. It's actually a very big close-up, and creatively, we want to shoot it with the tele-lens from very far'. He performed that scene so beautifully. He started crying, and we had two cameras capturing it. The way he was crying, I didn’t have the heart to shout cut. The camera was 400 meters away, and in the snow, I walked up to him, let him cry, and then hugged him, saying, 'It's cut, Shahid. It's done'."

Recalling another moment, he says, "We were shooting in the basement of a bungalow. So, -5°C felt like -15°C. Just as we were about to take the shot, Irrfan came to me and said, 'These lines are too few. Earlier, there were just 1-2 lines. I feel like saying more. I wish there was a poem written here'. I said, 'Okay, give me an hour, and I'll write a poem'. Everybody waited, and I wrote the poem right then and there. And then Irrfan performed it. My God, the way he performed it! When Shahid is leaving, and he recites that Faiz line, - Gulon mein rang bhare, baad-e-naubahaar chale, chale bhi aao ke gulshan ka karobaar chale. The way he says it - such a beautiful romantic couplet - and the way he performs it like a coded message in an espionage film. Irrfan ki kami na, every day in some way or the other, I feel the void of him not being here."

For casting, Vishal says, Tabu and Irrfan were both in his and Basharat's mind when they were writing those parts. He says, "But it took a long time to woo Tabu into that. She was very reluctant to play the mother. She rejected it twice, saying, 'No, I’m not going to play this. Why do you keep coming back to me? ' When I wrote the first draft and we started casting, after the rest of the cast was finalized, I went to her again, and she said, 'No, I’m not playing the mother.' The third time I went to her, I said, 'I'm coming to you because you're my friend; otherwise, I would have taken it on my ego. But you're my friend, and I want you to know that you're being blinded by the fact that you're playing a mother. Why don't you see it as Gertrude? See it as Gertrude's role, not Hamlet's mother'. I think that struck her. When she realized that, I told her that such parts are rarely written and that I'd be in pain all my life if she didn't play the role. And then she agreed to do it."

As for Irrfan, he says,"Uska toh jawab hi nahi tha. When he read the script, he said, 'This is such an important film to be made'."

The film was shot by cinematographer Pankaj Kumar, who was also the cinematographer for Ship of Theseus and Tumbbad. Vishal recalls, "At that time, Tumbbad hadn’t been released yet, and I was very impressed with the work on Ship Of Theseus. I then requested Anand Gandhi to show me some parts of Tumbbad, and when I saw it, I knew Pankaj was going to be my cameraman. I decided to shoot on location."

Haider’s ‘Hum hai, ya hum nahi’ monologue at Lal Chowk reminded people of Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ and introduced the Indian audience to ‘chutzpah’.

About the scene’s shoot, Vishal says, “At that time, Lal Chowk was a different zone, and we were shooting behind Lal Chowk in the Press Club. And we shot it! It was destined. This film was destined to be made.”

Vishal recalls that there were multiple such locations. He says, “We went and shot at the Zaina Kadal Bridge, and nobody had shot there in the last 30-35 years since militancy started. And we went there and shot with mainstream stars like Tabu, Shahid, and Irrfan.”'

Vishal Bhardwaj says that music was very close to the script of the film. He says,"Uss tarah ke deep romantic gaane banana, ya uss pace ka gaana banana jis tarah ka gaana Jhelum hai ya Khul Kabhi, uss tarah ke gaane - that's the pace of my soul. My real self is songs like Khul Kabhi Toh or Paani Paani Re (from Maachis) - those kinds of songs. It’s actually a texture of me."

"Jhelum gaana mera bahut purana composition hai. It had such a deep connection. The day my father died, I had composed the song that morning. I was sitting with him, and in the afternoon, he passed away. That song had such an emotional bond with me that I didn’t have the courage to use that composition for 30 years. Then Haider, being a father-son story, felt like the right place to use it. I never told this to anyone. That’s why Jhelum remains a very, very special song to me."

"We created this song like a mousetrap where Shahid performs a play within a play. I wanted to create our own Ek Hasina Thi, Ek Deewana Tha moment in my way for Hamlet (laughs). Karz had a similar situation where Rishi Kapoor performs in front of Simi Garewal about the murder. Sukhwinder ko bahut khula gaane ki aadat hai - he's used to improvising a lot - but I told him, 'Is gaane mein track pe gaana padega, this is like an opera. We are telling a story in it'. Itna khoobsurat Gulzar sahab ne likha hai. I had only given him the phrase Bismil bismil bulbule bismil, and from that, he wrote an entire epic. He’s a master."

The song was choreographed by Sudesh Adhana, who is a professor of contemporary dance in Norway at Oslo University. Vishal Bhardwaj met him when he was directing an opera in Paris at the Châtelet Theatre called The Flowering Tree.

Vishal says, "In that opera, I used long, oversized puppets by Dadi Pudumjee, a great puppeteer, and he introduced me to Sudesh. I worked with them for two months continuously in Paris, and right after that, I started shooting Haider. I brought all the sensibilities I learned during the opera, working with Dadi Pudumjee and Sudesh. It was so unconventional, so un-Bollywood-like. I'm saying this and I belong to Bollywood. And Sudesh won a National Award for that choreography."

Vishal shares, "There was a guy who was president of (student union) Kashmir University. When we were shooting in the university, a lot of problems occurred - there was a lathi charge, bottles were thrown, pata nahi kya-kya hua. The CRPF had to take us out and safeguard us. It felt like a battle between students and cops. The next day, we were shooting at another location, and that guy was there. We were showing the court chamber, and there was a character of a stenographer, and he was playing that role. After the shoot, he came to me and said, 'I was in disguise and wanted to check what you were shooting! (laughs). I think we made a mistake. You're not making the kind of film people usually come here to make'. When the film released, he somehow found my number and apologized to me for half an hour."

-In July, when Vishal attended a tourism conference in Kashmir, he was told that after the film, the Martand Sun Temple where Bismil was shot became a popular tourist attraction, which prompted the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) to remove encroachments from the site.

- Gulzar shot the song Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koi Shikwa Toh Nahi; at the same Martand Temple where Bismil was filmed.

- Khul Kabhi song from the film was Arijit Singh's first collaboration with Vishal Bhardwaj