Kabir Khan | Salil Bera
Kabir Khan’s 83 seems to have pressed all the right buttons. Movie critics and cricket lovers alike are hailing the film as a remarkable recreation of India’s historic World Cup win of 1983. In a freewheeling chat, Khan talks about recreating the social and political milieu of that time, the challenges of casting the actors and his research for the film. Excerpts:
Q\ Expectations are very high from this film. Did you feel the pressure while making it?
A\ At the end of the day, it is a film that we were really excited to make because it is a fabulous, true and iconic story. So, it was a great responsibility to recreate that event, along with the physical transformation of the actors or the attempt to recreate the matches and the gear that was used.
But, more importantly, the challenge was to recreate the emotions that the country felt more than three decades ago. If we can bring even a fraction of that euphoria back into the theatres, then we have a winner.
Q\ Tell us about the rollercoaster of emotions that you went through.
A\ I often say that this is a film that has been blessed by the gods of cricket, because while we were shooting it, we had legends like Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge, Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Viswanath and Jimmy Amarnath just strolling about on our sets and watching the shoot.
One of the most iconic moments for me, which I will never forget, was when we were shooting the finale of Kapil Dev receiving the World Cup at the Lord’s balcony. As we were about to shoot, in came Clive Lloyd, captain of the West Indies team of 1983. He sat next to me and I was so nervous. Then I looked at him and asked, ‘Do you want to go closer to watch it?’ And he replied, ‘Do you want me to see the Cup being given away for the second time?’ Then we laughed.
Again, around the same time, something magical happened. We had [been using] a replica of the World Cup. Just as we were shooting with Ranveer [Singh], who was to get the Cup, two ladies wearing white gloves rolled in a trolley which had something covered in velvet. They unveiled it to reveal the original 1983 World Cup. ‘We want you to shoot the scene with the real Cup,’ they said. There was a stunned silence on the set.
I just walked up to Ranveer, gave him the Cup and called for action. The moment I said ‘cut’, he put the Cup down and everybody just started crying. These kinds of moments made the journey so memorable.
Q\ You also gave special focus to the social and political milieu of that time.
A\ In my films, I always try to put the social and political layers behind the human story. This is the story of not only a team, but also the coming of age of a country. It is one of our first true achievements on the international stage post-independence. There is a dialogue in which [P.R.] Man Singh says: ‘Thirty-five years ago we had won Independence, but we still have to win respect, captain’.
The early 1980s were a tumultuous period. In England, there was a lot of racism at the time and the team had to face it, if not overtly, then in terms of the attitude. Like how every London newspaper wrote that India should not even be invited to the World Cup, because they bring the level of cricket down.
Q\ This film’s release kept getting postponed.
A\ I knew it would take a long time to research and write it. Because, unfortunately in India, we do not archive material very well. Fortunately, the Lord’s archives were open to us, and we managed to get a lot of material from them. I would be in London almost every month for research. And then tracking down people who had been in the stadiums during the matches also took time. We had a mountain of anecdotes which took time to be made into a cohesive screenplay. And after the film was ready, the pandemic happened.
Q\ How did you finalise the cast? Each and every one looks the part.
A\ We spent almost a year-and-a-half on the casting. We auditioned more than 2,000 actors for the roles of the original players of the 1983 team. Not only did they have to be actors, but they also had to have good cricketing skills. So, we had a pitch where they would come and show off their sporting abilities. Only if found worthy would they then go on to the acting audition.
Hardy Sandhu, for instance, known as a popular pop star in Punjab, was one of the best cricketers in our team. People do not know that he has also played for the India Under-19 team. I met him in Chandigarh. At that time, we were struggling to cast for Madan Lal, because his bowling action is very difficult to execute.
I only asked Hardy one question: ‘Hardy, can you bowl like Madan Lal?’ And he said, ‘Sir, give me four days’. And true to his word, four days later, he sent me a video and we literally fell off our seats. In four days, Hardy had cracked Madan Lal’s action. We were so thrilled that we had found our Madan Lal.
Q\ Has it come out exactly the way you envisioned it? Is 83 a perfectly recreated film?
A\ Yes. I would not want to change anything. It has gone through several layers of checks. Everything about cricket has been passed by the legends themselves. There is no doubt that we live in a country where everybody is a cricket guru. They can say that Hardy is not bowling like Madan Lal, but I will not be bothered by that, because Madan Lal himself has approved Hardy’s bowling. Kapil Dev himself has said that Ranveer is bowling exactly like him. So, when I have that gratification, I don’t think I am going to be bothered by some self-styled guru pointing out the flaws.