Arjun Rampal is going through the best phase of his career. Arjun’s role in Honey Trehan’s Punjab 95 as a CBI officer probing the disappearance of Sikhs human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, is his best yet.
“You think so? And look how our film is stuck with the censor board! They are asking for 127 cuts. Can you believe it! How can any film survive so many cuts? It is a film about the human right to live, about how excessive power in the hands of any one government machinery leads to inhuman collateral damage. Frankly, we don’t know what to do,” says Arjun with a long sigh.
Is there any way the film can be salvaged? Says Arjun, “We are showing the film to selected critics and opinion makers, hoping their voices would give the film the legitimacy it deserves.”
Arjun feels passionately about human rights. “When I heard about Jaswant Singh Khalra my heart broke. The activist lost his life trying to find the sons and husbands who disappeared during operations against militancy. What did he gain out of it? Such selflessness is almost extinct in today’s day and age of me me me.”
Arjun met Jaswant Singh Khalra’s wife and children during his preparation for his part. “His wife continues his struggle to bring justice to those families which lost their breadearner in combing operations. His children are fortunately well-settled.”
Arjun says Punjab 95 is his most precious film to date. “This is the film I will be remembered by. I want my son to see it as soon as he is old enough. Before that I want people to watch this eye-opener. Do you know a High School in the UK is named after Jaswant Singh Khalra? The least we can do to honour the memory of this martyr is to allow his story to be told.”
