Action Replay

Tom Clancy,Web Griffin and Alistair McLean. Entire generations in India have grown up reading about the exploits of literary daredevils in the West. For years there was no local representation to turn to,until the release of Mukul Deva’s Lashkar,in 2008. Widely recognised as India’s first military thriller,the ex-army officer’s work is now being turned into a film by Shubho Shekhar Bhattacharjee. “I started reading Lashkar around midnight and it was so enthralling that I was unable to put it down. Halfway through,I knew I had to turn it into a movie,” says Bhattacharjee.

The filmmaker has recently received the rights for the book and is eagerly waiting for the shooting to begin. “The first draft of the script is ready and we will hopefully begin pitching the script to actors within a month. The shoots will be arduous because the plot demands that the movie should have a lot of real-location shots. We are looking at an August 2012 release,” states Bhattacharjee. Excited about the project,Deva says that he always expected his books to be translated into movies. “I never had any doubt that Lashkar would be made into a film,” says the author.