‘Ikkis and Dhurandhar should co-exist in a democracy’: Ikkis writers on facing trolls, working with Dharmendra

Perhaps unsurprisingly, despite glowing word of mouth, Ikkis and its writers have faced sustained online trolling for daring to tread this path. In an exclusive conversation with SCREEN, Surti and Biswas reflect on the creative decisions behind the film. While they choose not to comment on the controversial disclaimer that appears in the closing moments, they speak candidly about their process, Dharmendra’s instinctive improvisations, the writing of key scenes, and the comparisons with Dhurandhar. (The disclaimer says ‘our neighbouring country is not trustworthy at all. Pakistan’s armies, both during war and in times of peace, have behaved very cruelly and inhumanely with our soldiers and citizens’. It also says that the humane behaviour of Pakistani Brigadier KM Sisar (played by Jaideep Ahlawat) is an exception).

Excerpts edited for clarity and brevity

All your films open with a quote. For Ikkis, you choose lines by Kaifi Azmi. Why?

Surti: So, we were looking for a good quote throughout the making of the movie, and we kept saying, “We must get a good quote, we must get a good quote.” This one was always at the back of our minds, but since it was from an earlier war film (Haqeeqat), Sriram kept saying, “Let’s find another quote.” But we just couldn’t come up with an alternative. And this one is, of course, gorgeous, only a poet like Kaifi Azmi can express such ideas so succinctly and beautifully.

Biswas: Just to add, in all our other films, we have quoted from an outside source. In Badlapur, it starts with an African proverb; in Agent Vinod, we quoted The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But with Ikkis, we wanted to look within, and Kaifi Azmi really suited our milieu.

Ikkis is, of course, Sriram’s first foray into the war genre. How was the writing process different from your previous collaborations?

Biswas: Even when Andhadhun was happening, this story was something Sriram had discussed with Dinesh Vijan. It got delayed because of COVID and other factors. I have a day job, so I couldn’t travel much, but Pooja and Sriram made trips to NDA in 2019 to meet Arun’s batchmates and tankmen for research. As for the writing process, we always keep turning out versions of scenes, like say, “What can be Arun’s introduction? What can be this or that?” Everything is tossed and turned repeatedly. A lot of back and forth happens. And a lot also depended on the shooting schedule, say, when we were filming with Dharam Ji, whether it’s on set or somewhere else. We treated action as placeholders in the script; the actual scenes evolved depending on available days, extras, and logistics. So, in some ways, it was a fluid script.

Surti: But we did have a formal script before shooting because we needed army permissions and approvals; logistics for a war film demanded it. That said, our previous scripts, like Badlapur and Andhadhun, were also fluid, organic in nature. For instance, after casting Dharam Ji in Johnny Gaddar, many elements came from him personally. Similarly, with Nawaz in Badlapur or Tabu in Andhadhun, the actors brought parts of themselves to the script. Sriram likes this openness; the writing is flexible enough for actors to interpret and add their own touch. This time, though, given the scale and official requirements, it was a more formal script.

Sriram Raghavan started working on Ikkis right after Andhadhun.

Ikkis feels like two films in one: Arun (Agastya Nanda) fighting a full-scale war, and his father Madan Lal (Dharmendra) revisiting the same battlefield years later. The two narratives often seem at odds, almost like an antithesis. How did you approach this at the scripting level?

Surti: Firstly, it’s a true story, both the father’s and the son’s versions. On a writing level, we had a broad map of what happened and how it would end. But the driving force was literal: the son is in Pakistan, the father is in Pakistan 30 years later. For me, it’s both their battles. The son fights at Basantar; the father confronts someone claiming to have killed his son. Both are battles, different in nature, but no less intense. The fact that a father has to come face to face with the person who killed his son requires enormous steel. Many people right now are mistaking this for weakness, but I don’t see it that way. It’s a different kind of strength.

Biswas: See, at its core, it’s a humane story, one that could have happened in any war, between any warring nations. The toughest challenge was the structure: with the father’s story, there’s a natural arc, but with Arun, he becomes a hero only in the last 40 minutes of his life. Yet, he always carried inner angst, coming from a military family, trying to prove himself. The question was always: how do you build the life of a boy that culminates in those final 40 minutes? I think we’ve managed to keep that balance, showing the sweetness and struggles of a kid striving to become an officer. There are many fantastic events we couldn’t include, but we did manage to show glimpses of his life, like his time at NDA, his mates, and, for whatever it’s worth, his poignant little love story.

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One of the moments that really struck me is when Madan Lal, returning from his college reunion in Pakistan, is faced with a dilemma: he can’t believe what is real, the hospitality he just witnessed, or the bullets fired on the battlefield.

Biswas: People online are misinterpreting this scene, gravely appropriating the dialogue “Kaun dushman?” They fail to understand that the father is asking a simple, logical question: what is real, the warmth he is receiving here, or the battle in which his son lost his life? Both are truths, yet they cannot coexist. Tragically, in our countries and in our times, both truths do coexist. Somewhere, we have to come to terms with that.

Speaking of online discourse, the film has often been compared to Dhurandhar, with some arguing that the latter is more “of the hour” and should be prioritized over Ikkis. How do you respond to such comparisons?

Biswas: Dhurandhar exists in a very different ecosystem, it’s about mafia, about gangsters, with its own rules. You can’t expect the moral code of a gangster film to align with a war film, which is governed by the warrior’s code.

Surti: I wouldn’t want to pit one against the other. Both films are wildly different and inhabit complex worlds. In a democracy, there should be room for both Dhurandhar and Ikkis to coexist.

Comparing Dhurandhar with Ikkis doesn’t make sense, as they operate in entirely different ecosystems, says writer Arijit Biswas.

There’s a powerful scene when Arun tells his mother he’s going to war, and she simply tells him to eat first. In many other films, this might have been melodramatic, why did you choose not to?

Surti: That’s what I mean by different kinds of bravery. She would have cried, she must have. But saying this is what I mean by having steel. She isn’t celebrating her son going to war; she knows he may never return, yet she puts on a brave face for him.

Biswas: And telling him to eat first, it’s such a trivial, motherly thing, yet so deep. It’s heartbreakingly intimate. That’s how a mother operates.

Surti: We had taken a shot we didn’t use in the film. She finally receives a telegram, which simply reads: “Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal, regretful to inform, killed in action.” She collapses on receiving it. We didn’t know how to integrate that; it may have added too many endings.

Biswas: The scene was written against the backdrop of firecrackers, a postman on his cycle, people distributing laddoos, celebrating the ceasefire and the war victory. The idea was to contrast between public joy, the country winning, and individual sorrow, a family’s loss, which highlights that the nation’s triumph comes at the cost of so many personal tragedies.

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You’ve beautifully used the motif of the tree in the film. One Ikkis scene that moves deeply is when Madan Lal visits his ancestral home in Pakistan, sees the tree, and says it reminds him of his late father. How did this idea come about?

Surti: That entirely came from Dharam Ji. When we narrated the script to him, he shared that when he went to Punjab, his father, a school headmaster, had a neem tree. He said he could hear his father’s voice in that tree. When we found a similar location during scouting, we told him, and he was elated. The lines about the tree reminding him of his father are his own words.

Dharmendra felt Ikkis was a story that needed to be told.

Another powerful moment is when Deepak Dobriyal’s character, a Pakistani officer, is angered by Madan Lal’s presence and begins to abuse him, yet Madan Lal responds by hugging him. How did this idea come about?

Biswas: That was again entirely Dharam Ji’s idea. Sriram called me and said, “Dharam Ji has this idea, he wants to hug this Pakistani soldier, what if the character comes at him aggressively?” I thought it was superb. We fleshed out the scene, but the core, the hug breaking the hatred, was his. Deepak was also wonderful; the moment works because of how Dharam ji envelopes him in that hug.

Surti: That hug is entirely Dharam Ji’s. The sheer beauty of Urdu in his voice, the humanity, it’s unmatched. Internally, we had a bit of a debate about casting him; some felt he was no longer relevant. But Sriram was sure, it had to be him. All three of us were sure it had to be him. We have been his fans all along, and it’s sad that he is no longer with us. But the passion he had for his work, the fact that he used to write all the dialogues, including those of other actors in Urdu, and even be on set for filler shots, is something I’ll never forget. In fact, I remember the zeal he had; it’s something even the younger lot doesn’t possess. I vividly remember when he heard the script, he said, “This is me. How can anyone else do this?” He was so happy and even told Sriram that if, for any reason, he couldn’t do it, the story must still be made, it’s too important to not be told in these times.