Paresh Rawal is an actor par excellence. From character roles to negative to comedy to serious, he has done everything with aplomb. This veteran of acting is all praise for his forthcoming film ‘Road To Sangam’, releasing on 29th January 2010.
.JPG "Paresh Rawal at Firaaq film press meet in juhu on 4th March 2009 (7)")
Paresh comments, “My character of Hashmat Ullah is a very subdued but strong man. His demeanor is of a quite easy going man but in time of crisis, his personality is strong as iron. In fact like Sardar Patel, this film will be another milestone for me. Although Amit Ria is a new director, but his vision is extremely clear. He knows what he wants and would at times argue with me for certain scenes. Even if I disagreed, he made sure that I also shot the scene from his point of view.”
When asked that which are the films that will go in his personal library, he replied with a ‘Road to Sangam’ and ‘Sardar Patel’, because these are the films that posed a challenge to him as an actor.
‘Road to Sangam’ is a film woven around the crucial fact of the last journey of Gandhi ji. One of the urns with Gandhi ji’s ashes is discovered locked and forgotten in the locker of a bank. It is retrieved and taken to Allahabad for immersion. A simple god fearing, devout Muslim mechanic named Hashmat Ullah (Paresh Rawal) is entrusted the job of repairing the old V8 ford engine of the truck, to carry the ashes. He is not aware of the historic significance, that earlier too, it had carried the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.
Talking more about the learning experience of ‘Road to Sangam’ Paresh said, “We haven’t learned the complete history and while doing this film I got to learn so much about a particular community and their belief. ‘Road to Sangam’ deals with issues which have always been close to my heart, and that’s one of the reasons why I accepted to do this film.”
