A privilege to be working on my birthday, says Aditya Dhar

For me, if I am working on my birthday, it can’t be better than that,” exclaims director Aditya Dhar, who turns 37 today. Last year had been great for him — his debut film Uri: The Surgical Strike hit the bullseye, both in terms of reviews and collections. This time around, he’s busy with his next, Ashwatthama, and considers it a privilege to be working on the film on his birthday.

Dhar says the film was just a thought in his head and he never thought it’d materialise so fast. “I had started work on it in 2011, and never thought it’d happen so soon in my career. The scale of it is something that has never been done in India. I hope that the way we are visualising it, it might turn out to be one of the most important films in Indian cinematic history. If it happens the right way, we might bring in a new trend of looking at movies. That was the intention with Uri, too,’ he says. However, with that one, there were many naysayers.

“People kept on saying, ‘War films don’t work in India, the last one which worked was Border (1997)’,” he continues, “But after Uri, we have 20-22 war films happening! It’s amazing...”

We probe Dhar more on what Ashwatthama will be all about. All that he reveals is, “It’s a modern take on a mythological character, which is in the superhero space. I enjoy the pressure of meeting the expectations set by Uri. It keeps me on my toes. I know the pressure of people’s expectations, which is to create something which will be remembered for the next 100200 years. This pressure is a privilege, because it means you are not a failure.”

Rishabh Suri