Piyush Jha’s Sikandar could be located anywhere —here, in some other country, some other continent also. But he chose Kashmir. “I had always felt that, in our minds, we had alienated Kashmir from the rest of the country. Reason why I always wanted to see how true our apprehensions were,” says Jha, as his third film prepares for release. One of the first things that people asked the director, when they heard he was preparing to shoot in Kashmir, was how safe and how smart a decision it was. “It just confirmed my suspicion that we have subconsciously pushed Kashmir away from us due a combination of factors,” he adds. And Jha was hell bent on breaking both the myths and clichés that contemporary India seems to have showered on Kashmir.

So, including Kashmir as a subtext in the film, just added to Jha’s story of ‘manipulation of young minds’. Sikandar, which stars Parzaan Dastur (of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Parzania fame) and Ayesha Kapoor (Black) is about a boy who is crazy about football. “All he wants to do is play soccer. But one day, he stumbles upon a gun. His life is never the same again,” says Jha.

While shooting in Kashmir turned out to be a cakewalk, it was the protagonist of his story who turned out to be hurdle of sorts. “There’s a presumption in the industry, that when you have two fourteen-year-olds in the lead, you have a children’s film in hand. Sikandar doesn’t fall into that category at all,” says Jha. While Jha himself has no apprehensions about the commercial viability of his venture, there were several who refused to share his vision. Until Sudhir Mishra stepped in.

... contd.