Actor-politician Kamal Haasan, in conversation with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, said that he talks a lot about Mahatma Gandhi but his environment made him a bitter critic of the Father of the Nation in his teens. The duo sat down for a conversation more than a week after Kamal Haasan joined Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders during the Delhi-leg of Bharat Jodo Yatra.
“I talk a lot about Gandhi ji now, but it wasn’t right from the beginning. My father was a Congressman but my environment made me a bitter critic of Gandhi ji when I was in my teens. My father said, ‘Just read history, you are talking from today.’ But today matters, is what (I had said). He is a lawyer, but he didn’t argue with me on this,” the actor said.
Haasan recalled how he started drifting towards Gandhi and his teaching in his mid 20s and eventually decided to mount Hey Ram. The film followed an alternate history and depicted India’s Partition and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse. “Around when I was 24-25, I discovered Gandhi ji on my own and over the years I have exponentially become a fan. To actually correct yourself and say sorry, that’s why I made Hey Ram, where I played a parallel assassin, wanting to kill Gandhi ji. As he goes nearer to the person–and the truth–he changes. But it’s too late, somebody else does the job that he wanted to but changed his mind. That’s the story of the film.”
When Rahul Gandhi asked, if he came up with the idea of the film, Haasan said yes and added, “It was my way of saying sorry to my Bapu. I have to take the onus of the crimes, including what happened in your family. We let it happen.”
(Source: YouTube)
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