As told to Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 1, 2020)

Today, a scene from my 2013 film, D-Day, flashes through my mind. Irrfan (Khan) looking at Chintuji, and laughing, amazed that they had finally managed to capture this much-wanted terrorist, despite their carefully-laid plans having failed. I remember Irrfan urging me to let the camera continue to roll, and what emerged was this moment of delicious irony.

We were shooting in the desert and while Irrfan and a lot of team bunked out in tents, Chintuji would drive two hours back to the hotel. He was averse to early morning shoots, but there was this sunrise shot we had to shoot with him and he was refusing to comply, saying, “I’m an actor, not a doodhwala.” Irrfan finally managed to convince him to spend the night in the desert with us with the promise of Chicken Jungli and alcohol. It was a near-impossible feat in Kutch, but he delivered on his promise and I got my shot.

Chintuji’s bungalow and our building in Bandra shared a common boundary wall. Every evening, while returning from R K Studios at 7.30 pm, he’d look out for my car, and if he saw it standing, he’d call me and invite me over for a jashn during which he would berate me for that Friday’s release, even when I reminded him I had not made the film. To be fair, he was also wowed by a few young filmmakers. My own Chandni Chowk To China’s trailer had impressed him. He’d called all his friends to say the film was another Sholay and I was the next Ramesh Sippy. After its release, I got an earful from him, saying I had made him look like a ch****a. More recently, he called me from New York, saying “Just saw the Batla House trailer… Fabulous”. Then, adding, “Par trailer toh tu hamesha achcha hi kaat ta hai, hope you’ve not f***ed up the film.”

On Wednesday evening, after speaking to his secretary, Shantiji, I messaged him, “I heard that you are unwell. Prayers and wishes for you always, sir.” The next morning, he was gone...our jashns are over.

Neha Maheshwri (BOMBAY TIMES; August 14, 2019)

When Nikkhil Advani came on board as the director of Batla House, he barely knew about the controversial encounter that shook the Delhi Police in 2008. However, it was his urge to tell the story that kept the writer-director-producer intrigued and invested in the subject. In a chat with Bombay Times, Nikkhil talks about what went into the making of Batla House, what the experience has taught him, and how he has tried to present an unbiased narrative. Excerpts…

Your last directorial venture was Guddu Engineer (2016). While you have written films like Baazaar (2018) and produced films like Lucknow Central (2017) and Satyameva Jayate (2018) after that, you stayed away from direction. What’s it about this subject that made you want to direct the film?
I am not a producer who has become a director; I am a director who turned producer, so that I could tell the stories that I wanted to. I am not a producer, who wants to make Rs 200 or 300 crore from my films, I don’t choose a script thinking about its box-office performance. If I knew how to do it, I wouldn’t be making a film like Batla House. With this movie, John Abraham, Ritesh Shah (writer) and I hope to trigger conversations and make people aware of this incident. The (glossy) films I made earlier also had a dose of reality in them, but today, it’s all about content-based cinema. And, that’s the kind of cinema I would like to associate with.

The fact that we hadn’t yet documented an incident (Batla House) of such magnitude, drew me to it. Still, it took me four years; we made 30-40 drafts, and I felt that the story was missing something until we hit upon the final draft. Around a couple of years ago, I suggested to Ritesh that we swap the beginning and end. We got flash cards, wrote a line for every scene and laid them down on the floor of the office. And then, we rearranged them. That’s how we threaded the story together. Besides the encounter, the personal journey of Sanjeev Kumar Yadav (the real-life police officer, who inspired John Abraham’s character) and his wife Shobhna, caught my interest. I told Sanjeev Kumar that I wanted to know everything that happened in his personal life. The aftermath of the incident made him wonder if he was actually guilty, as assumed by the rest of the world. He even tried to commit suicide thrice. Come to think of it, he won three medals post that incident. When I met them in 2015, Shobhna told me that she had asked him for a divorce just a few hours before the encounter, but later, decided to be with him. Sanjeev had thought that he would emerge as a hero after the encounter. On the contrary, he drew a lot of flak.

Was DCP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav (then ACP) open to the idea of baring his life for a Bollywood film?
He isn’t open about such things; Shobhna is. I think that’s also because she shielded him and bore the brunt — she was subjected to nasty remarks, rants and accusatory glances, almost implying that her husband was a murderer. He believed so strongly in the system that he was sure it will exonerate him. However, the system kept playing games with him till he realised that he would have to fight it out. The incident changed him; he feels that he has become smarter. He wanted me to get the details right, so much so, he insisted that we use the same model of the car, which was used by him and his team. He told me, ‘Tum log Bollywood mein kuchh bhi karte ho. Aisa mat karo, because a lot is at stake for many people with this film’. He is very quiet and cautious. I have to give him credit for allowing me to present the other viewpoints.

While doing research on the film, you must have visited Batla House (the place where the encounter took place) and interacted with its current inhabitants. The incident must have left them scarred for life…
Yes, it has and will continue to, even after this film. We visited Batla House like any other naive film unit, taking photographs, while people stared at us in bewilderment. We realised that L-18 Batla House (the building where the alleged terrorists were holed up) is stuck in time. It’s unusually quiet, people hardly look you in the eye. My narrative is around Sanjeev Kumar, his wife, the special cell, the group of boys and what led them to court. I can assure you that the residents of Batla House will find the film biased, though I have shown both perspectives. The moment I cast John Abraham to play the police officer, I knew that everyone would assume that my perspective is in Delhi Police’s favour. That’s why for me, the most important casting in the film was of the defence lawyer. I wanted a strong artiste to convince the audience that I have not cheated them. Hence, I got Rajesh Sharma on board, he is ruthless in the court scenes. Though we have stuck to facts, I grappled with my own biases. The film is about perspectives — who is right and which side is to be believed, and how a particular perspective can change the entire narrative.

You have made several typical Bollywood commercial movies over the years, including Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Salaam-E-Ishq: A Tribute To Love (2007), Chandni Chowk To China (2009) and Katti Batti (2015). Some were commercial successes, some were critically acclaimed, while there were a few which didn’t leave a mark. However, with outings like D-Day (2013) and now Batla House, have you found the zone that you really want to be in?
I like stories that are a little politically motivated, thrilling and edge-of-the-seat. So, if this is my zone, I accept it whole-heartedly. Having said that, my association with glossy cinema is something I will cherish for life because it allowed me to make my first film. My friends Irrfan, Saurabh Shukla, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Anurag Kashyap and Manoj Bajpayee would often call me a sell-out (laughs!). Before Kal Ho Naa Ho, Shah Rukh Khan and I wanted to make a film on the lines of Dil Se, but we couldn’t get the right script and Yash (Johar) uncle told me that we should make a love story first. He said, ‘Uske baad tujhe jo karna hai kar’. On a serious note, a lot of hard work went into making Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), I was an associate director on both movies. Kal Ho Naa Ho also took a lot of hard work and all these are iconic Bollywood movies. As a generation of filmmakers, we brought organisation to our craft. We decided that we will no longer make a film over three years. We would work on one film at a time and expected the actors to be invested completely in it, unlike earlier when an actor shot two projects at a time. Big stars like Shah Rukh, Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar accepted the change and are advocating it themselves. A lot of change, that nobody gives us credit for, was done behind the camera, too, like the way we approached production, scheduling and budgeting.

You spent almost four years to complete Batla House, including research and filming. That’s a lot of time to invest in a film. What has this experience taught you?
It has taught me patience. I feel that after D-Day, I should have waited for Batla House. I am not saying that Hero (2015) and Katti Batti are mistakes; they are missteps. I don’t think I gave enough to those films, because I didn’t believe in them as much as I should have. As filmmakers, our decisions are governed by several factors, like running the house, paying instalments, rent, school fees or going on holidays and that’s when we start compromising. The decision to make a film should only be governed by a good story. If you can take care of other factors, you are in a wonderful space. That’s what I aspire to do.

Keen to have a dance number in Batla House, director Nikkhil Advani explains why he chalked out a special role for Nora Fatehi
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; August 8, 2019)

Regardless of the film's subject, item numbers have become a staple in Hindi movies. While John Abraham's Batla House is a cop drama about the 2008 police encounter in Delhi, the narrative makes room for Nora Fatehi's dance number, O Saki Saki remix. Quiz director Nikkhil Advani on it, and he says it is the result of having his fingers burnt in the past. "To this day, critics tell me that they loved D-Day [2013]. But the audience did not go to theatres to watch it. I want people to watch Batla House. If that means John's character needs to crush a phone by his hand or we need [to include] an item number, I will do it," he argues.

However, the conscientious director reveals that he could not make peace with incorporating an item number to grab eyeballs. One to understand the value of a story, Advani chalked out a character for Fatehi that fit organically in the cop drama. "It was the toughest part of the film to work on because I didn't want Nora to be just an item girl. I made sure she had a role and did acting and dialogue workshops with her. She is an integral part of the movie. I am convinced about Saki Saki being a part of Batla House."

Asserting that he feels a sense of responsibility with his projects, he adds, "I think about how my 12-year-old child will react to a scene, or my wife, for that matter. I had an item song planned for D-Day where the girl was supposed to dance around Rishi Kapoor's character. That's when the Nirbhaya [case] happened. So, I decided not to shoot the song as the timing was wrong."

Actress on why she chose to start her Hindi film innings with 40-plus actors
Hiren Kotwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 6, 2019)

Mrunal Thakur, best known as Bulbul from Kumkum Bhagya, made a successful transition to the big screen with an international production, Love Sonia, before signing up with Hrithik Roshan for math whiz Anand Kumar’s biopic, Super 30. This Independence Day, she teams up with John Abraham for Batla House. Excerpts from an interview:

Isn’t it a coincidence that your first Bollywood outing—Super 30 and Batla House — are drawn from real stories?
Well, I wasn’t working to a plan, I was filming Super 30 when I met Nikkhil Advani for another film. While that didn’t work out, he offered me Batla House. I had seen D-Day and I grabbed the opportunity. He’s the best director for such a subject. I’m happy he chose me.

Were you familiar with the 2008 encounter?
I knew it as one of the most controversial encounters but didn’t know the exact details. Before the narration, Nikkhil explained that it came in a way of a series of bomb blasts around Delhi. Two, including a cop, were killed and two arrested. One escaped and a constable was injured in the gunfight. Besides being the story of a cop (inspired by Sanjeev Kumar Yadav), it’s also the story of a journalist as his wife Shobhna was one. I followed her work while promoting Love Sonia and having studied mass media, I know how journos source a story, develop it into news and fight to get it out before a rival channel. I met her recently and she said she saw herself in me on screen.

I didn’t want to play just a wife who is singing, cooking and waiting for her husband to return home. Nandita is a working journalist and that made the part challenging. Nikkhil started with the fun-filled flashback scenes first because he thought it was important for John and me to connect and that helped ease us into the later scenes.

Both Hrithik and John are 40-plus actors...
Do they look 40? Both Hrithik and John are the hottest men in Bollywood today and I’m privileged to have begun my innings with them. They were like strong pillars, supporting me during my initial phase. I would love to pair up with different actors, but their age doesn’t really matter.

Why aren’t you signing more films?
I’m committed to a big show. I want people to watch Batla House and offer me roles.

And can we now hope to see you in a more glamorous avatar, doing a song-and-dance routine?
Yes, of course, I want that too. Romance is my genre but I also want to do comedy, drama and action. Let’s see what comes my way.

Love Sonia got you praise even from the UN. Are more such projects in the pipeline?
I’d love to do films like Love Sonia, which continues to be screened in various countries. Recently, it was shown in the Parliament at Uzbekistan where issues about gender equality and violation against women were raised. If an Indian film can make such an impact on an international platform, I’m happy and proud to be a part of such storytelling. Article 15 is another example. It’s great that Ayushmann Khurrana did it. Such films make people think, they see their matinee idol taking a stand and want to support the cause. I want to be a part of films that make a difference and start healthy conversations about import ant issues.

Love Sonia’s director Tabrez Noorani is influential in Hollywood. Any more collaborations with him?
Tabrez is my mentor and the only director who hasn’t signed me for a three-film deal. I really want to work with him again. We have spoken, there’s something in the pipeline. But such things take time, and I’m hoping and praying they work out.

The popular ‘get in, take out militants’ sentiment has existed long before it got actualised for the general public with the 2016 and 2019 surgical strikes. Before that, the shroud of mystery around cross-border ops was a vacuum gladly filled by Bollywood, with several films — successfully or not — fulfilling popular fantasy
Abhimanyu Mathur (BOMBAY TIMES; March 1, 2019)

When 12 Mirage 2000 jets of the Indian Air Force flew across the LoC in the early hours of February 26 to target terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad’s training camps in Balakot, Chakothi, and Muzaffarabad, it marked a seminal moment for India. Not only was it the first time in over four decades that Indian fighter jets crossed the LoC, it was also the first time ever that the Indian forces were going for a terror mastermind beyond the Indian boundaries. Senior Jaish leader Maulana Yousuf Azhar was one of the targets at the Balakot camp. While in reality, it may have been the first-of-its-kind operation, on screen, India has time and again carried out successful operations behind enemy lines, bringing to justice terror masterminds (based on characters) like Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, and Dawood Ibrahim.


WHEN BOLLYWOOD TURNED CROSS-BORDER AVENGER

The first film to tackle this was Zameen in 2003. Based on the IC-814 hijacking, the movie saw an army officer (Ajay Devgn) and a cop (Abhishek Bachchan) rescue hostages from a hijacked plane in Pak-occupied-Kashmir and nab the mastermind Baba Zaheer (based on Masood Azhar). Indian cinema did not attempt another covert terror mastermind extraction for another decade till Nikhil Advani had the intelligence forces bring back a Dawood Ibrahim clone in the 2013 film, D-Day. The director tells us, “The idea of D-Day germinated when the US went to get Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011. So, when I was driving from my house to my office, my driver asked me that if USA can do this, why can’t India do it, why can’t we bring Dawood Ibrahim? When I reached office, all my assistants were on social media and the only question doing the rounds was, why couldn’t India do it? So, what occurred to me was whether it was someone like my chauffeur, who was completely uneducated, or my assistants, who were graduates from FTII, Jamia, the conversation was the same. The question, the thought, resonated across social and class structures. There was this whole notion of why does India tend to not retaliate or not do what is possible.”

If the US had 9/11, India had its own tragedy to draw inspiration from. While the terrorists who executed the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai were either killed or captured and executed later, there has been a feeling that their handlers and the masterminds have remained unpunished. Hussain Zaidi’s book Mumbai Avengers chronicled a fictitious operation of Indian forces bringing back the 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed (Haaris Saeed in the book) back to India to face trial. The book inspired the 2015 film, Phantom. Speaking to us prior to the film’s release, director Kabir Khan had said, “This is a film that is in some way living out the fantasy of a lot of people in this country. Having said that, it is in no way saying that this is what India should do, as there are many other reasons and that counterpoint is also present in the film as to why India, in reality, does not do it. We have never believed in vigilante justice. We have never gone into this cowboy kind of adventure that America does.” The same year saw the release of Baby. The Neeraj Pandey film saw an Indian task force capture and bring back Pak-based terror mastermind Maulana (Masood Azhar anyone?) from UAE to India. “Equal measures of fiction and research was bound together in the script of Baby. It is my ode to those unknown heroes, who give a damn and put the country before self to keep us safe in our homes,” Neeraj Pandey had said while talking about what prompted him to make the film.

The common thread in all these films is that they were covert operations. A small team, mostly led by intelligence operatives, crosses enemy lines and brings back the mastermind without much pomp and show. In contrast, when the US went to capture and kill Laden, they had two choppers and dozens of Navy SEALs on the ground in Pakistani territory. Kabir Khan had expressed his desire to see India launch such an operation, but cautiously added why he feels it would remain on the screen only. “I sometimes do feel I wish I could see such a scenario being played out, but I also understand the larger ramifications. So, I also understand that this kind of adventure can only be carried out in cinema and not in real life,” the director had told us in 2015.

The IAF operation has been closer to the American approach in that regard. The government’s stance that this is a ‘new India that strikes back’ is reflected in that approach. Filmmakers, however, say that the situation might have changed, but their films won’t. Even if they made them today, they would still make them much the same way. D-Day director Nikhil Advani tells us, “I don’t think a film like D-Day would be written any differently today. D-Day is about bringing Dawood Ibrahim back. It will be the same thing today. We can’t go into Karachi. There are apparently satellite photographs as evidence that Dawood stays at Clifton, Karachi, but Pakistan won’t agree to it. Bringing Dawood the way we have shown in the film is still dramatic, but there are various missions that have been tabled, but couldn’t get through.”

— With inputs from Divya Kaushik


CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS ON SCREEN

ZAMEEN (2003)
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu
Directed by: Rohit Shetty
Plot: After a terrorist who masterminded an attack on the Indian Parliament (Baba Zaheer, based on Maulana Masood Azhar) is captured by the Indian Army, his organisation hijacks a plane and takes it to PoK, demanding their leader’s release. The Indian Army, assisted by an ACP from the Anti-Terrorist Squad, undertakes a daring rescue operation, freeing all the hostages, recapturing the freed Baba Zaheer, and throwing him out of a helicopter. The entire rescue operation was inspired by the Israel Defence Forces’ famous rescue of their hostages from a hijacked plane at the Entebbe Airport in 1976.

D-DAY (2013)
Starring: Irrfan, Rishi Kapoor, Arjun Rampal
Directed by: Nikhil Advani
Plot: An undercover RAW operative in Pakistan (Irrfan) is tasked with finding ways to assassinate a D-company leader, identified in the film by his codename Goldman (Rishi Kapoor). Goldman’s appearance and the fact that his son is to marry a Pakistani cricketer’s daughter are obvious reference to Dawood Ibrahim. In the end, a small team of Indian Army and intelligence operatives capture Goldman from his son’s wedding and bring him to Indian territory, before shooting him. Coincidentally, the film’s tagline was ‘India Strikes Back’, one of the trending hashtags after the IAF mission this week.


BABY (2015)
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, Taapsee Pannu, Rana Daggubati.
Directed by: Neeraj Pandey
Plot: The film follows the journey of a task force codenamed Baby that was formed after the 26/11 attacks. They find and eliminate terror threats to India from beyond Indian borders and during one such mission, encounter the 26/11 mastermind (identified as Maulana Mohammad Saeed Rahman) in Dubai. The team captures and brings Maulana back to India and hands him over to the army in secret.

PHANTOM (2015)
Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Katrina Kaif. Directed by: Kabir Khan
Plot: A team of RAW and army operatives get together to bring the perpetrators and planners of the 26/11 attacks to justice. The film used real names like David Headley, while slightly tweaking the name of the alleged mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba founder, Hafiz Saeed to Haaris Saeed. The film saw the heroes find and kill all major planners of the attack, one after the other. The plot was inspired by Israeli intelligence Mossad’s assassination of all the Palestinian attackers involved in the 1972 Munich attack.

Nikkhil Advani on the biggest take-up from his next action thriller, why the hiatus from direction and the aces he has up his sleeve
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 6, 2018)

Satyameva Jayate is very different from the films you have directed. What has been your contribution as a producer?
Well, I was on the set almost 80 per cent of the time at Milap’s (director Milap Zaveri) insistence because he’d not made a film with such big actors (John Abraham and Manoj Bajpayee) before. Since I’m a producer by default and my forte is direction, I try to bring a bit of myself into every project I collaborate on but this time I successfully managed to hold myself back. I knew if I brought in my aesthetics and character development into Satyameva Jayate, it would cease to be the film Milap had set out to make and which John and Manoj had given the nod to.

Having said that, I was sure that despite drama and dialoguebaazi being Milap’s USP, this could not be the songless film he had narrated, not with Bhushan Kumar of T-Series as my co-producer. Also, it couldn’t have minimal action because people pay to see John Abraham kick and punch and even a serious film like Parmanu had action. D-Day gave me the expertise to handle a certain kind of action while my Kal Ho Naa Ho and Salaam-e-Ishq are still remembered for their songs and that was where I came in for Satyameva Jayate. (Smiles) I was also the Great Wall between my director and the world, making sure he wasn’t bothered with anything unless it was imperative.

Bloody and brutal, the film reminds you of Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan maar dhaad dramas from the ’80s.
Milap wanted to revisit films like Ghayal and Ghatak and while sitting with him and the action director, I was reminded of Sunny paaji (Deol) who confided in an interview that he didn’t understand today’s action where the hero keeps beating up the bad guy. He asserted that one punch was enough to make him fall. Even Salim-Javed who gave Hindi cinema its ‘angry young man’ had pointed out that in Zanjeer, when Amitabh Bachchan kicks the chair in the police station as Pran saab is about to sit on it, in that one gesture he embodied the anger of an entire generation during the Emergency.

You’re returning as a director after three years with the true life terror drama Batla House that rolls out next month. Why the long hibernation?
I had set out to remake a classic and though Hero opened well, it didn’t work. Neither did Katti Batti which arrived a week later even though I had enjoyed making it. After two back-to-back flops, I was on the back foot. Also, I had just launched my own production company with my sister Monisha and our friend Madhu (Bhojwani) and realised that I couldn’t be the only one making films, I needed to nurture other filmmakers as a producer.

Then, during Airlift, Ritesh Shah came to me with the script of Batla House. D-Day had got me lots of accolades and this was in the same space. I wanted to make it but as I had many films on the floors, I told Ritesh to wait for me. We didn’t know then that he’d have to wait four years. But the timing is right. Satyameva Jayate helped me build a relationship with Bhushan Kumar and with him on board on Batla House too, I felt it was time to get back to direction. I have a huge responsibility to make a film on the September 19, 2008 encounter against the Indian Mujahideen that resonates with the audience.

Buzz is, John who plays the lead in Batla House too, and you are going to be producing films together in the near future?
The biggest takeaway for me from Satyameva Jayate is that I’ve found a production partner in John. While we were working on this film, he and I realised that the same subjects appealed to us and we were both interested in giving a platform to new talent and interesting content and instead of doing it individually, why not do it together. We will be making a few web series and several films in partnership.

Besides that, anything more on the cards for 2019?
Ranjit Tiwari, who co-wrote and directed Lucknow Central, is inspired by a true event. His film will roll in January. Gauravv Chawla who has directed Baazaar with Saif (Ali Khan), Radhika (Apte) and debutante Rohan (Mehra) wants to make a bouquet of love stories on the lines of Salaam-e-Ishq. T-Series and I will also be backing Milap’s next, a violent love story. There are also a number of web shows including one on the Mughals. Besides Batla House, I’m also directing the film on the Mangalyaan Yatra which should take off towards the end of next year.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 16, 2018)

Five years after their acclaimed espionage thriller, D-Day, with Rishi Kapoor in a Dawood Ibrahim-esque avatar, director Nikkhil Advani and writer Ritesh Shah are back with another thriller-drama, Batla House. This one is based on a real encounter that took place a decade ago on September 19. The film rolls in September this year and Nikkhil plans to wrap it up in 50 days with shoots in Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai and Nepal. John Abraham plays DCP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, who’s won eight President Gallantry Awards, including one for this operation.

In 2008, a seven-member Special Cell Team barged into Flat 108 of L-18 Batla House in search of Atif Bashir, Chief of the Indian Mujahideen, a terrorist group believed to be behind several bomb explosions across the country between 2003–2008, culminating in a series of blasts in the national capital, purportedly to impress the ISIS. In the cross-fire, Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, and Head Constable Balwant Singh, along with two young militants, Atif Ameen and Mohammed Sajid, sustained bullet injuries. Another terrorist, Mohammed Saif, was arrested, while two others, Shahzad Ahmed aka Pappu and Ariz Khan, escaped. Sharma later succumbed to his injuries while then ACP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav had to fight conspiracy theories and face judicial enquiries for years after the then Congress general secretary, Digvijay Singh, termed the encounter fake. In 2010, Shahzad was arrested in Azamgarh, but it was only after Ariz was nabbed on February 13 this year, that the fake encounter theory was buried and Yadav was vindicated.

Nikkhil, who has been busy with the production of three-four films and about four shows, reveals that when Ritesh came to him with the script of Batla House, he knew he had to direct it. “The encounter will be seen from three perspectives — that of the police, those present near the location, many of whom believed that the bullets flying were for the TV serial Swabhimaan, which was being shot in the vicinity just two days ago, and the real picture,” he informs.

Nikkhil believes John, who he had directed in Salaam-e-Ishq in 2007, and reconnected recently when he signed him for the Milap Zaveri-directed thriller, Satyamev Jayate, is the right choice to play Yadav, an unassuming man of few words and a long list of extraordinary achievements. “Sanjeev Kumar Yadav wanted a physically and mentally strong actor and John fits the bill. With a little light on him and a flash of those dimples, John stands out in a crowd. The biggest challenge will be to make him blend in,” muses Nikkhil.

The actor is looking forward to playing the country’s most decorated officer, who fought for close to a decade to reinstate his credibility. “We have yet to meet, but I’ve been devouring all the material on him, and from what I’ve read, he seems like a humble man with an interesting back story,” says John, who’s happy about reuniting with Nikkhil. “D-Day has put him in a different space and after Madras Café and Parmanu, I understand that space too. His eyes light up when he speaks about Batla House, I see a hunger and passion in him and having him around as producer on Satyamev Jayate makes me believe we will work well together on this story. The biggest challenge will be to find the balance between duty and country, that fine line Sanjeev Kumar Yadav walk so perfectly and project it on screen,” John says.

Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; September 12, 2017)

In a forthcoming autobiography, the actor opens up on the Don and depression
THE TIMES OF INDIA (January 15, 2017)

Sandhya Mridul enjoys the tough love that the director of her latest TV show showers
Letty Mariam Abraham (MID-DAY; November 16, 2016)

After her last big screen outing in Pan Nalin’s highlyacclaimed Angry Indian Goddesses (2015), Sandhya Mridul returns, this time to the small screen as Nazneen Khan, wife to prisoner of war and squadron leader Imaan Khan, in Nikkhil Advani’s P.O.W.: Bandi Yuddh Ke. She is as much a prisoner as he, having waited 17 years, watching her life in limbo.

In her first collaboration with Advani, Sandhya admits he is one of the finest she has worked with. “I don’t watch a lot of films, but I really loved D-Day [Advani’s film]. I am glad I gave him the green signal. He’s passionate and emotional. I love the way he has surrendered himself to the show.”

Are stories about his legendary short temper true? “Nikkhil shouts a lot and I love it. It is the kind of screaming that makes people work. There is no ego involved, he forgets about it in a few minutes. It is hard to preserve the quality of a show and Nikkhil realises that. He probably didn’t know what he was getting into with a daily, but now that he has, he is pushing the envelope.”

That the finite series has a film director helming it, gives it a different feel. But the story is one, Sandhya says, that may end up challenging the Indian daily soap formula. “In this industry, if something does well, we exhaust the trend by mimicking it. POW is going to break that mould. While a show like Naagin has an audience, there are those who don’t wish to watch it. POW could cater to them.”

Chandan Roy Sanyal is that actor you wouldn't even realise you have seen in many films because he is so adept at becoming the character he plays
Indu Mirani (BOMBAY TIMES; April 25, 2015)

Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 26, 2014)

More than a year after its release, Nikhil Advani's D-Day went back to the censors on Tuesday. afternoon. In response to a PIL filed by social activist Teena Sharma, the Delhi High Court, in an unprecedented move, asked the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to review the certification of the film which focused on the Indian intelligence agency RAW's (Research and Analysis Wing) operations in Pakistan.

The film was cleared with a U/A certificate, before its July 2013 release, by former CBFC CEO Pankaja Thakur, reportedly in collaboration with Kanika Dang, one of the actors in the film. After its release, Teena approached the court to contest the certification, arguing that the film featured adult content. A year later, the court has sent D-Day back to the CBFC for a review, in the presence of the film's producer Vivek Rangachari.

While the Delhi Regional Officer who presided over the review refrained from stating whether the certification has been changed, Rangachari claimed, "The film has retained the U/A certificate. But yes, there are three to four points in the film where new cuts have been made." And what are they? "Rishi Kapoor's foul language had to be edited out," he admitted.

Rishi played Iqbal Seth, a character reportedly modelled on Dawood Ibrahim, one of India's most wanted criminals.

When contacted, Teena said that if the film retains its U/A certificate, she will move court again. "If the Delhi High Court demanded that the CBFC should see the film again, isn't it clear that my concerns were legitimate? If need be, I shall request the intervention of CBI," she asserted. A source close to the development pointed out that the producer will now try to sell the satellite rights so that he can make a quick buck. "If he gets an A certificate, the price will drop," added the source.

V Lakshmi (BOMBAY TIMES; February 2, 2014)

Bollywood director Nikhil Advani and actress Shruti Haasan recently voiced their objection to the release of their D-Day in Tamil as Dawood. While Nikhil levelled allegations against the film’s co-producers, the Rangacharis — Arun and Vivek — for selling the rights of the film without his knowledge, Shruti issued a press statement saying she was dissociating herself from the film’s Tamil version as it was being made without her consent, which she said was a “clear breach of contract”.

However, the spokesperson of the Rangacharis’ production house tells us that as soon as the change in the title was brought to their notice by the director, they addressed the issue with the distributors.

 “D-Day was co-produced by us and Nikhil Advani’s production house; while we funded the project, the creative of the film was Nikhil’s prerogative. Even the contracts that were signed by the actors were with his company. The distributors for the film were finalised in concurrence with Nikhil and the same was shared with him and his company via e-mail in 2013. The distributors were given the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu India rights in consultation with them. Nikhil brought to our notice the change in title and inappropriate posters on January 29, and we immediately addressed the issue. We got in touch with the distributors through the right channels and got it rectified. But, we were shocked to see defamatory articles in the press the next day. Factually, whatever has been said is wrong because the very next day after Nikhil spoke to us, the title was changed to D-Day and the earlier posters were recalled. According to the standard distribution process, we gave the Hindi creatives to the distributors in the faith that those would be used. The distributors don’t show us the posters before they publicise the film. And as far as the consultation with actors goes, Nikhil and his company have to inform us as they were the ones who had signed the contracts,” he says.

“Nikhil knew that steps had been taken on Wednesday, the day he spoke to us, and he even agreed to what was being done. The title was changed and Hindi posters were used from the next day. He sent an advisory notice, drafted by a legal team, accusing us of a few things. He was aware of the commercial understanding, and I think he was trying to save face with Shruti,” says Vivek, who’s now consulting his legal team for further action. Adds Vivek, “Nikhil and his team went through every contract we drew up and now, he's saying he is unaware of them and putting the blame on us. We will give them an appropriate answer.” 

According to him, the film might release in Tamil as D-Day on February 7.

Director Nikhil Advani also considers similar move against his partners 
Sunanya Suresh (BOMBAY TIMES; January 31, 2014)

Actress Shruti Haasan and Nikhil Advani are both planning to dissociate themselves from DAR Motion Pictures, the producers of D-Day. The film is also being released in Tamil as Dawood.

Nikhil, who co-produced the film with the Rangacharis, is upset that the rights of the film were sold without his knowledge. He says, “I am shocked and disappointed to learn about the irresponsible way my film D-Day is being released in Tamil. We have not been consulted by the exploitation rights holders on making alterations to the marketing material. And the Tamil version of the film being titled Dawood is mischievous and misleading. We are examining the matter and may be forced to act legally.”

Shruti, a known face in the South industries, says she, too, plans to take action against the makers. She says, “I’m dissociating myself from the Tamil version of D-Day as it is being done without my consent and this is a clear breach of contract. In fact, we will be taking legal action on this issue.” The paperwork is currently underway.