Filmmaker Nikkhil Advani might have stepped into the world of cinema by assisting some of the stalwarts of Indian arthouse cinema but ever since he made his directorial debut with Dharma Production’s Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), he has proved to be quite adept at handling a big project, cast and canvas. That experience comes in handy when he takes up the mammoth task of giving shape to the story about events leading up to India’s Independence and its tragic aftermath.
When the narrative of Freedom at Midnight S2 unfolds, the storytelling seems seamless and picks up from where the first season ended.
You can’t create a seamless narrative unless you shoot it together. In the case of Freedom at Midnight, if we are doing a scene with Jawaharlal Nehru at his office in Episode 2 and we have another scene in Episode 8 or 9, we shoot them back to back as the set is dismantled later on. So, you build the office and you finish all the scenes, which means that you do extensive prep. So, before we started shooting, we rehearsed, did workshops, discussed and did readings of all the 14 episodes with the cast and crew.
The series is an adaptation of the book Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre and six screenwriters are credited for this. To build the narrative spanning 14 episodes, did your research go beyond the book?
The six writers — Abhinandan Gupta, Gundeep Kaur, Adwitiya Kareng Das, Divy Nidhi Sharma, Revanta Sarabhai and Ethan Taylor — had their own team. Though the book was our source material, we realised that there are certain things mentioned in it that might be questionable today and that might be only one person’s perspective. We had to figure out how to create a scene in such a way that we were taking into account other perspectives and information that are available to us right now. I am not here to provoke anyone. I basically want to take the viewers into that room, where Gandhi, Nehru and Sardar Patel are talking or where Nehru is having a conversation with Mountbatten. I want the viewers to experience their reactions or the process of taking a decision as they were dealing with a lot of chaos and emotions at that time. Retrospect is a powerful tool. Looking back, anyone can say, if they had done this or that, this would not have happened. For instance, if everybody knew that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was dying (he passed away 13 months after Pakistan was formed), the Partition may never have taken place.
Director Nikkhil Advani.
Being the director, did you give any instruction to the writers about how they should maintain uniformity in the tone and how every character is treated.
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It’s very simple to do if it’s great material that you are working with. This writing room was one of the best I’ve ever worked with. The writers were wonderful. My only brief to Divy Nidhi was that I want Salim-Javed type dialogues. Mainly because Indian viewers remember songs and dialogues. The readings, the writing and the incredible actors contributed to deciding the tone. When the cast features actors such as Rajendra Chawla, Sidhant Gupta, Arif Zakaria and Chirag Vora, my job becomes easy. Then, I follow what Irrfan once told me: ‘If you have a good team, script and actors, you sit behind the monitor and mazze loot (have fun)’.
Your directorial debut Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) received two National Film Awards — Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for Best Music Direction and Sonu Nigam for Best Male Playback Singer. Many loved the music of Freedom at Midnight. Do you have a special relationship with music?
The advantage of working with musicians like Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy early in my career is that the experience shaped what I wanted to do. At the time, Karan Johar, who was producing Kal Ho Naa Ho, said I won’t be able to beat Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’s popular title song. After listening to the Kal Ho Naa Ho tune, he said that it was better. With Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, I’ve collaborated for Salaam-e-Ishq (2007), Chandni Chowk to China (2009) and Katti Batti (2015) among others. Later, when I started working on web-series, I collaborated with Ashutosh Phatak for Freedom at Midnight and upcoming The Revolutionaries.
Sudhir Mishra, whom I assisted, and Renu Saluja were instrumental in exposing me to Hindustani classical music and ghazals. One New Year’s Day, when we were partying at Shaad Ali’s house, Sudhir asked me to come over to Shekhar Kapur’s home. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who had just finished recording for Bandit Queen’s background music, was there. He came there and he sang. It was like a mehfil.
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How was it working with Sudhir Mishra and Saeed Mirza at the beginning of your career.
It was like going to a film school. I was an assistant director with Saeed Mirza, Aziz Mirza, Kundan Shah, Manjul Sinha and Sudhir Mishra. Each one had a different style yet they had a commonality in what they wanted to express. They were all highly academic in terms of their approach to storytelling. For instance, every episode of Naya Nukkad talked about harmony, secularism and socialism among others. I was a student from Mumbai’s St Xavier’s College, who had done a film appreciation course from FTII. One would watch them at work, wide-eyed.
You have not made another rom-com after Katti Batti. Why?
I really enjoyed making it and it was devastating that it did not do well. Prior to that, Hero had not done well. That drove me to a place where I realised I have now got nothing to lose. Soon after, we produced Airlift (2016). Then, I directed P.O.W. – Bandi Yuddh Ke (based on the Israeli drama Prisoners of War) and Batla House (2019). However, I’m directing a rom-com next year. Right now, I am wrapping up The Revolutionaries, a series based on the book Revolutionaries: The Other Story Of How India Won Its Freedom by Sanjeev Sanyal. The show is audacious and tells the stories of young revolutionaries, who were engaged in armed resistance against the British, much before Gandhi entered the scene.
What would be your advice to aspiring filmmakers?
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They have to be fearless and disruptors. The way films are being made today — be it a subject chosen by filmmakers or how the actors are presented or the kind of collaborations they are opting for — there has to be an X-Factor. Otherwise, it is going to be tough for you to be able to get the right people to watch what you are making, no matter how good it is. Whatever is working right now is because they all have an X Factor — be it Black Warrant, Saiyaara
or Dhurandhar.
Director Nikkhil Advani.
Stills from Freedom at Midnight.
