Preity Zinta gets emotional at Hindu College, says she is proud to be Indian
The auditorium at Hindu College was full before she arrived. Students had been waiting since morning, some with phones already raised, ready. When Preity Zinta walked in, the room did what rooms full of young people do when someone from another world enters theirs. It got loud. But what happened after the noise settled was something quieter and more unexpected. She got emotional. And so, a little did they. Zinta was at the University of Delhi on Wednesday to speak about Batwara 1947, the partition film directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi that releases on August 14, one day before Independence Day.
She spoke about the film, about the story it tells, and about partition being a chapter of history that Indian cinema has largely avoided turning into mainstream drama. But then she said something that had nothing to do with the film’s promotions.
She said she is proud to be born in India. She said the kind of opportunity and freedom this country gives is immense. She said she can be everything here. She can be an actor and an entrepreneur. She said that this, the ability to be everything at once, is possible in this country. The students listened to this from a woman who actually did both, who built a career in films and then built a business in cricket, and who has lived enough of her life outside India to know what the comparison looks like.
Batwara 1947 is Raj Kumar Santoshi’s adaptation of Asghar Wajahat’s play about the partition’s human cost, shaped around a character named Sikandar Mirza, played by Sunny Deol, a man who leaves his home in Lucknow to settle in Lahore as violence grips the subcontinent. At an allocated mansion in Lahore, he finds an old Hindu woman still living inside and vows to protect her from extremists. Santoshi has said Mirza is the most courageous character he has written. The film also stars Shabana Azmi, Karan Deol, Ali Fazal, and Abhimanyu Singh.
The reunion between Santoshi and Sunny Deol, who previously made Ghayal in 1990, Damini in 1993, and Ghatak in 1996, has been nearly three decades in the making. Santoshi had narrated the script to Sunny as early as 2010. Producers took years to come around. It was Gadar 2’s success that finally opened the door. Sunny has said that before Gadar 2, the industry did not believe the two of them were commercially sellable.
Zinta, speaking to students and press on Wednesday, said the film has unique elements. There are not many partition-based stories made in Indian cinema, she said, and this one has something worth telling. She urged the audience to watch it. “Through your platform, we would like to encourage audiences to watch it because it is a wonderful and meaningful film. It is a movie that has a strong message and is worth watching by all,” she said.
The film releases on August 14, the day before India turns 79.
