Diljit in game mode

The actor who plays hockey player Sandeep Singh in a biopic, says his takeaway from the film was learning never to give up

Diljit Dosanjh will be seen playing the role of hockey player Sandeep Singh in the upcoming biopic Soorma, but says it is sad that when the film was offered to him, he was not aware of his story. Soorma tells the story of Singh, a professional hockey player and former captain of the Indian national team. Singh was seriously injured after hit by an accidental gunshot in a train in 2006 but he did not give up and continued playing. “I knew that he was the captain, but didn’t know he was shot on his back. When I started playing hockey, I realised the entire game relies on your backyou have to bend to play it. So the pressure is double. What I didn’t know was, how a man who was shot, stood up, recovered and made a world record. It was shameful, but we didn’t know,” Diljit said.

Diljit said his takeaway from the film is to never give up, something he realised while working on it. “A biopic teaches you a lot. The shooting and training was tough, but how he bounced back from that incident, that ‘jazbaa’ taught us a lot too. But there was no pressure. Sandeep, his brother, producer and director were on sets, so they had pressure, I didn’t.”

Taapsee Pannu, who features in the film and is also seen playing hockey, said while it was thrilling to play a sport she had never tried, there was a bit of “embarrassment” too that despite being an Indian and a sport enthusiast, she “didn’t know about the story and wasn’t aware of the person”.

In the film, Diljit will also be seen on a wheelchair as this was the time when Singh was shot in the back and was recovering. The

Udta Punjab star said just the feeling of being wheelchairbound was “dangerous.”

“We shot the rehab scenes for four-five days and it was really scary. You feel depressed when you feel yourself in that zone. Perhaps very few people can stand back up.”