THE QUESTION OF GANDHI

RAJKUMAR SANTOSHI TALKS ABOUT HIS LATEST FILM AND WHY INDIAN FILMMAKERS REMAIN WARY OF CASTING THEIR LENS ON GANDHI

- Suhani Singh

When Shah Rukh Khan returned to the big screen after 1,484 days, the hero he was up against for box-office glory was a real-life one: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Rajkumar Santoshi's film, Gandhi GodseEk Yudh, lost the battle for eyeballs, but it didn't have as hard a run with the censors at the Central Board of Film Certification as the producers of Khan's film, Yash Raj Films, did. What Santoshi did have a tough time with was finding producers to fund his political drama due to its controversial nature, as it pitted Gandhi against his assassin in a verbal duel. "They [producers] didn't want to touch it," says Santoshi. It did not help that he did not want to "take any stars" for his first film in nine years. "Gandhi himself is a big star, Godse is immensely popular," he says.