Theatre actor and director of the city Sanjay Mehta has worked in a movie Mohalla Assi to be released in theatre across the country on Friday. Directed by National Award winner Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, the feature film is based on novel Kashi Ka Assi, by Kashinath Singh. Sunny Deol, Sakshi Tanwar, Ravi Kishan, Rajendra Gupta, Saurabh Shukla, Mukesh Tiwari were in lead roles. Mohalla Assi is a political satire on cultural changes of a country like India which has a deep rooted cultural heritage in general and a holy city like Varanasi in particular during the globalisation period that happened during the time frame of 1988 to 1998.
Mehta told Free Press, “It was a good experience. I got chance for the first time to work with Chandra Prakash Dwivedi and Sunny Deol. We have two scenes with Deol in group at tea stall. He is very sober. He is very punctual and used to reach shooting spot 30 minutes before from schedule time. Dwivedi is good friend of mine. I have heard about his work ‘Chankya’. He is very sincere, cam and honest towards his work.
The movie travels its voyage on three levels i.e. person, society and country. It tells the story of Dharm Nath Pandey (Sunny Deol), a man of principles and idealism. He has his hold on his surroundings and society as a caretaker of religion and culture.
About his role, the actor said, “The name of my character in the movie is Deenbandhu Tiwari. He is a socialist who discuss about the cultural and political downfall of the country sitting at tea stall in cultural and political capital Varanasi along with other friends. There are six scenes of mine in the movie while the number of characters is 10.”
“The movie was made five years back but due to some reason it couldn’t release earlier. My resume and photographs was asked through mail for the movie. I gave look test in Mumbai and got selected. My shooting was of 15 days in Mumbai. The whole movie was shot in Varanasi and Mumbai,” Mehta added. It is fifth movie of Mehta. Before this, he has worked in the movies like ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2003),’ ‘American Desi (2001)’, ‘Filmistaanand (2014)’ and ‘Gaon Hamara, Shahar Se Pyara (2015).
