Fighting spirit

Mona

In class sixth match-the-column question, a very confident Gautam Narwat looked for ‘cricket’ as he tried to find answer for the national game. To his dismay, there was only one sport mentioned — hockey. With cricket all around and hockey nowhere in picture, the young boy decided that he would do something for our god-forsaken national game!

Post his B-Tech in electronics and communication, Gautam thought of giving his dream the real shape. The result is Bhid Ja – a Hindi-Punjabi film that charts the journey of three players — an amateur, a professional and an ex-player. In and around Chandigarh, the film has been shot by a single man crew — Gautam Narwat.

Borrowing money from his family, Gautam got a high-end camera and a computer; learnt filming and editing on his own. He has been the writer, director and editor of this 101-minute film that’s duly cleared by Censor Board. Gautam now plans to release the film in Chandigarh and Jalandhar in PVR cinema on September 4.

The cast has some freshers — Himanshu Sharma, Michael Chang and also veterans like Baljinder Singh Darapuri. Interestingly, even Gautam plays a significant character in the film and since there was no cameraman, the shooting for such scenes was done on self mode. With a theatre background, Gautam got in touch with artistes who worked with him without taking any fee.

“The sheer passion of Gautam was infectious. Since I am in job and the only time I could shoot was before office time, Gautam would show up at my house at four in the morning and duly drop me to work in time.

Gautam has plans to send his film to various festivals now. “I want to express my experiences through the big screen,” says the young man who sees his hero in Francis Ford Coppola, the man who gave us Godfather!

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