Veteran Indian actor Om Puri’s final film Lashtam Pashtam saw its red-carpet premiere in Dubai on Sunday. The Indian National Award winning actor died of a heart attack in January last year.
Director Manav Bhalla recalled some poignant moments shooting with Puri, who, incidentally, slashed his remuneration to be a part of the project.
“My first meeting with Om Puri sahib [sir] was surreal. He heard my film’s narration and by the end, he had tears in his eyes and told me he wanted to do the film,” Bhalla told Gulf News tabloid! “I was worried that we couldn’t afford him and he magnanimously slashed his fees.”
In the film, Puri plays a Pakistani taxi driver who lends a helping hand when an Indian national escapes to Islamabad to hunt for his childhood friend from Dubai.
The buddies in question are Sid Oberoi and Fahd Khan, played by debutant Samar Virmani and Vibhav Roy, respectively. Their relationship reaches a pivotal point when dividing borders pull them apart, explained the two hopefuls.
“When you talk about India and Pakistan back home, there is a general sense of animosity or misconceptions,” explained Virmani. “In the film, these two boys, while growing up in Dubai, don’t understand the meaning of being Indian or Pakistani. They don’t have these cultural divides.”
“It’s a film about the inherent prejudices and mind sets that you are conditioned to living in elsewhere. But such prejudices don’t exist when you live in a multicultural environment,” said Roy.
The duo appeared excited that their film and its important message of brotherhood with boundaries is releasing ahead of the Independence Day festivities in Pakistan and India, which are celebrated on August 14 and 15, respectively.
Asked about the meaning of Lashtam Pashtam, which has turned into a viral meme on social media, Roy described it as an ‘emotion’, saying: “You can’t articulate it. But when you watch the film, you will come out with a perception of that emotion.”
Lashtam Pashtam releases in the UAE on August 9.
Read the full interview in Gulf News tabloid! soon.
