Ashish cautions not to get carried away by narratives

ASHISH SHARMA,

Ifeel certain stories are the need of the hour, relevant to the current times and to the sociopolitical narratives. We need a balanced narrative in the country,” says Ashish Sharma, who after his award winning film Khejdi (2018), is working on Karan Razdan’s Hinduvta.

“It’s a sensitive topic. There are certain narratives woven around the ideology and which leads to trolling. Every ideology will have an opposition. Amid the debates, we lose the balance, the truth and what Hindutva stands for. Our country has always been about balance. Cinema has the reach and power to tell people that we shouldn’t get carried away with narratives and we should apply our understanding and find our own meaning of ideologies,” he says.

His last project was the web series Modi: Journey of a Common Man (2019), based on the life of PM Narendra Modi. Doing back-toback projects with a political angle is something he is drawn to, says Sharma, adding, “I believe that, in the largest democracy, if someone says they are apolitical, they’re lying. Everyone is political as our daily lives are affected by government’s decisions. But as for projects, it was not a conscious choice.”

After a long career on TV, he claims he has not found interesting projects. “Stories started getting exhausting and I couldn’t explore much on TV. With OTT, many good stories have come, which wouldn’t have been possible three to four years ago,” says the actor.

PActor