Celebrated ad filmmaker and director Ram Madhvani is back with his latest OTT show, The Waking of a Nation, which is based on the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. This marks his second stint on OTT after the immensely successful run of Aarya, led by Sushmita Sen. Though he made his directorial debut in 2002 with Let’s Talk, his big break as a film director came with Neerja, starring Sonam Kapoor and Shabana Azmi. The film was based on the life of air hostess Neerja Bhanot.
In an exclusive interview with ETimes, Madhvani reflected on the film and said, “Shabana did a great job, and so did Sonam Kapoor. I think that speech Shabana delivered in the climax made people call their mothers immediately after watching the film. I look back on it with a great sense of pride. I hope I can match up to what we achieved with Neerja. I am grateful to the Bhanot family and Atul Kasbekar, who trusted me back then.When I met Neerja’s mother, I was trying to understand how she overcame the loss of her child and how the family coped with such a profound loss. It was incredibly inspiring to meet them. That’s what I wanted to capture in the film—the essence of resilience, as conveyed in the final song, Jeete Hain Chal, and the Mahamrityunjaya mantra embedded within it.”
Madhvani also shared how he felt a deep connection to Neerja despite never having met her. He said, “One of my wife’s closest friends, Eliza Lewis Ellie, was in school with Neerja. Additionally, one of my close friends, Ayesha Saini, directed the last ad Neerja ever shot. From that ad, Neerja boarded her final flight. Though I never worked with her personally, I always felt a strong connection to her story.I appreciate the fact that my films make people cry. We’ve lost touch with the act of crying—it’s a form of catharsis, a way to cleanse oneself emotionally. If my work allows people to experience that, I consider it an achievement.”
