Historic delay hits Savarkar film

But Phadke’s alleged interference in the film’s direction and script-writing has come in for a lot of flak. His “masterly role” has come into the limelight because all the directors discarded by him are bigwigs in the world of cinema: Rajdatta, BasuBhattacharya, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi, Ved Rahi, Pradeep Dikshit and Prabhakar Pendharkar.

Phadke has also discarded the work of noted Hindi/Marathi script-writers like G R Kamat, Ved Rahi, Dr Dwivedi, Vasant Dev and Srinivas Joshi, among others. “None of the script-writers have understood Savarkar,” Phadke charged.

His former associates narrate a different tale, though. They allege that his excessive love for Savarkar has marred the project. When Phadke insisted that Veer Savarkar’s confinement in Andaman be canned in the very cell where he had been kept, Basu Bhattacharya had a tough time convincing him of the difficulty of shooting in the small place.

Phadke also wanted the actors screen-tested for the central character’s role to wear Savarkar’s original coat, even when none of them fitted into it.“Veer Savarkar is not a director’s film, it’s not even a script-writer’s film. It is Sudhir Phadke’s film, and he’ll deal with it the way he wants to. From all that I’veseen, Phadke wants a larger-than-life Savarkar,” said script-writer G R Kamat. Director-script-writer Ved Rahi had similar problems. “Film is essentially a director’s medium. One can’t take the dictates of a non-technical person,” said Rahi. “Phadke says he has spent time near Savarkar’s feet. What he fails to understand is that one can’t gauge the height of a mountain by sitting near it. Its height can be gauged only from a distance,” he pointed out.

The film has been funded by generous donors from all over Maharashtra and has received an aid of 2 lakh dollars from the US-based India Heritage Foundation.

In its new avataar, it has Miraj-based actor Shailendra Gaud playing the lead role. The indoor scenes of the film are going to be shot in Kolhapur and Pune, and foreign locations will be canned sometime in October.But Veer Savarkar is still far from complete, and it may probably join the ranks of K Asif’s Love And God and Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah — films that took a very longtime to complete.