Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali is riding high on the success of his latest directoral film Amar Singh Chamkila. It is a biopic of the slain Punjabi musician Amar Singh Chamkila which stars Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra in the lead roles. Diljit's face flushed with amazement when the director disclosed an unplanned on-set improvisation by supporting cast members.
In an interview with CNN-News 18, Imtiaz talked about the scene in which women in groups were discussing the controversial lyrics of Chamkila, and another scene involving an old lady, were highly improvised. He had no idea the talk between the two elderly women would go in that way or linger as long as it did. The original plan was for Amarjot and Chamkila to pass by these women as they were leaving a house.
Instead of cutting the scene, Imtiaz went on with the flow of the sequence. He said, "After a while I stopped speaking, and they just took off, and a lot of what you see in the film before the ‘Naram Kalja’ song has come from this improvisation of these old ladies."
He further expressed, "When that shot finally cut, by that time all kinds of things had been said by these old women, Diljit’s face was red. He turned and said, ‘Baap re baap, inn logon ne kaise baatein boldi.’ They say very, very vulgar songs during festivities. You must have heard these traditional songs being sung in many, many cultures of our country, in small villages during marriages. They’re very vulgar songs. So, I feel, in some way, what had happened also is that to objectify men happens in these songs.”
Amar Singh Chamkila was the highest record-selling artist in Punjab at his peak and is the singer. The film based on him is written and directed by Imtiaz Ali, and Sajid Ali. It is now streaming on Netflix.
