EXCLUSIVE | Sooraj Barjatya: ‘Having Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Danny together for Uunchai was a dream’

As a director, Sooraj Barjatya has already achieved his Uunchai, but he believes that there is always another mountain to climb and there is always another Uunchai to reach for all of us in life. He is known for his leadership as a director and is known for representing goodness, happiness and celebration in all his previous film. But this time keeping the happiness intact, the premise is different with Uunchai. During the pandemic, Sooraj felt that it is all about courage and rarely do you get to see films on courage. _Uunchai_ talks about courage, friendship and bond that people of all age group can relate to. Edited excerpts from the interview Your journey with _Uunchai_ ? Actually this journey of Uunchai started in 2016 when one Gujrati gentleman came to me with a story and when I heard it, I realised this is how life should be lived. I initially bought the rights for the story and I wanted to hunt for a director who could do justice and I could never in my dream think that I will do it. In 2020 we were all struggling with our day to day life and one who had courage was the hero I felt. And I thought I want to make this story because this is life to me and it talks about a fifty-year-old friendship of four very ordinary men in their sixties and how they dealt with the death of one of their friends. This story is about elders, but I feel everybody in life is moving towards their Uunchai and I am sure the youngsters will also be able to relate to it. It is not just about climbing mountains, but every day you are climbing a small step in your life and that itself is a Uunchai. I wanted to do this story on people who lead a normal life and whom we will not look at two times when we cross. The characters are very real. Lukla is one of the most dangerous airports in the world. I wanted to conceive this story. I told myself it is time to do a story which will come from a very creative place of my heart. I wanted to take these characters to the place. I am not much of an outdoor person otherwise, but I was ready to do it for Uunchai. Did you feel like ever going back home considering that it was both physically and emotionally draining? Many a times while shooting the film, I felt let’s go back. The mountains were a very difficult trek and every night I used to think let’s go back, but the moment I woke up in the morning and saw the mountains, I felt it was worth the effort. My whole crew used to be ready with cameras and I was truly touched by the enthusiasm of the entire crew. As you stand and look at the mountains it is like it is coming closer to you as if it is calling you. It was an absolutely mesmerizing experience, sometimes the light comes in and sometimes it is snowing. Everyday the image of the same mountain range was changing. It’s very humbling and it is like coming close to mother nature. Did you have any worries about the safety of the crew while doing the shoot? As a director, I always have my worries, but I envy actors because I have noticed that once the actors get into characters, they get a different kind of strength. Like Anupam Kher has his own way of getting into characters, he says that the character talks to me. How difficult was it to get all the actors together? If you ask me how difficult it was, I would say it wasn’t at all. It was during the pandemic that we started the shoot. I didn’t know what days we would shoot, so we delayed it, cancelled it many times. But all I knew was that I had these beautiful characters and we needed to speak about them. I am sure the people will identify with the characters of Uunchai. All the artists in fact wanted to do the film because they could relate to the characters. Had Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani and Danny not agreed to do this film, then probably I wouldn’t have been able to do this movie so peacefully. For any director, the cast is like a dream and I would say having all these brilliant artists together was my dream. When we started this film, there were many who questioned me that since I am doing this film with actors who are in their sixties, they would ask me how youthful will you make the film. To which I said, I have reached a stage where I am doing this film not to appeal to anybody, but to do justice to myself. In the past all my films have been moment based, I choose a function and I worked the story around it. The characters are as ordinary as they can be. But this time it is different and I am celebrating all the characters in the film. While doing this film, I felt I was cleansing myself.

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