Pradeep Rawat’s Ghajini scarred audiences with one iron rod clink: How he got Aamir Khan on board

Some faces you forget. Pradeep Rawat's was not one of them.

2008 came with a scar: A bald, hulking figure with a flat, unblinking stare, and the sound of the iron weapon on the floor.

Three times.

Before Ghajini became known for Aamir Khan's chiselled physique or his character's short-term memory loss, it was known for Pradeep Rawat's antagonist, a man whose violence was so unflinching, so matter-of-fact, that it burrowed under the skin of everyone who saw it and stayed there.

You might remember the scene: Suriya's Sanjay Ramaswamy (in Bollywood, Aamir Khan's Sanjay Singhania) rushes inside Kalpana's apartment after a panicked phone call. She tumbles in, with a knife thrust in her back. Ghajini appears with an iron rod. You hear the clinks, and the silent cries. Kalpana doesn't survive, and Sanjay is only a shell of a person.

Rawat's Ghajini killed Asin's Kalpana, shattered Sanjay, so completely that the film's entire revenge arc grew out of the wreckage. The Tamil film released in 2005, Bollywood followed later in 2008.

The antagonist and the backstory

What audiences didn't know at the time was that Rawat's connection to Ghajini ran far deeper than the role itself. In an earlier interview with Siddharth Kannan, the late actor revealed that he was the reason Aamir Khan ever watched the original Tamil film in the first place, a conversation that, without him, might never have led to the Hindi remake at all.

Rawat had originated the role in director A.R. Murugadoss' Tamil version of Ghajini, opposite Suriya, having landed the part only after Prakash Raj, the actor originally considered, didn't come on board. When the Tamil film became a massive hit, Murugadoss set his sights on a Hindi remake and repeatedly turned to Rawat for help, given his ties to the Hindi film industry.

"Murugadoss kept requesting me to help him make the film in Hindi. He would say, 'You know Salman Khan and Aamir Khan. Please talk to them.' I said, 'Sure, why not?' When the film became such a huge success, I thought, why not help him? My selfish motive was that I would get to play the role in Hindi as well," Rawat recalled.

Why Rawat pushed for Aamir Khan over Salman Khan

Murugadoss initially had his eye on Salman Khan for the remake. Rawat, however, felt otherwise.

"Murugadoss was very keen on casting Salman Khan. But in my heart, I thought Salman was short-tempered, while the director did not even know the language. I felt Aamir Khan would be the right choice because he is calm and always behaves well with people. I have never heard of Aamir Khan misbehaving with anyone," he said.

Rather than pitching the remake directly, Rawat took a different route.

"I simply told him that I had made a film in Tamil and wanted him to watch it. Aamir is well behaved, but he is also extremely shrewd," he said.

A six-month campaign

Rawat recalled repeatedly asking Aamir the same question, again and again, every time their paths crossed.

"Every time I met him, I would ask only one thing: 'Have you watched the film?' If Ghajini was made in Hindi, it was because I persuaded him to watch it. He could not say no to me. After six months, he finally watched the film. After watching the first half, he said, 'I am doing this film.'"

The single decision reshaped Hindi cinema's commercial landscape. Released in 2008, Aamir Khan's Ghajini became a box-office phenomenon, going on to become the first Hindi film to cross the Rs 100 crore mark domestically.