Veteran filmmaker Rajiv Rai, known for action-packed blockbusters like Tridev and Gupt, recently opened up to Bollywood Hungama about an ambitious project that never made it to the screen: a period film on Udham Singh, the revolutionary who assassinated Michael O’Dwyer in 1940 to avenge the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
EXCLUSIVE: Rajiv Rai reveals why his ambitious Udham Singh film never took off: “The characters are all British—how do I make British characters speak Hindi?”
Rai revealed that not only was he writing the film, but he also planned to direct and produce it. “I have the rights to the script—it’s registered in LA. I own the subject, the script,” he said, adding that the project was deeply personal and meticulously researched. However, despite years of effort, the film never materialized.
The director explained that the film was conceived in English due to its historical setting in British India, spanning World War I to the start of World War II. “The characters are all British—how do I make British characters speak Hindi? It wasn’t working for me,” Rai said. “It was a period film—a very difficult and very interesting one.”
The biggest challenge, he revealed, was the lack of comprehensive historical documentation on Udham Singh. Unlike figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, whose lives were extensively chronicled, Singh operated in secrecy, often underground and moving across continents—from San Francisco to Africa. “No camera followed him in his life. He was a shadow. He was a spy,” Rai said. “He was in an orphanage, had a brother who died, and parents who died. There’s very little available.”
Rai dedicated nearly a year to research, sourcing 20 to 30 Punjabi books, which were later translated into English. But even after writing and rewriting the script over two years, the project hit a wall when it came to production and financing.
“When you talk to anybody in India, they said you need to talk about this in Hollywood because it’s in English. We can’t take a decision here. And when you go to Hollywood, they don’t understand the Indian history. For them, it’s not commercial,” Rai lamented.
Rajiv further elaborated, “I actually wanted to do it in English because the characters in the film are all speaking English. It’s not that I like to do English in that way but it’s all about British in that period so how do I make British characters speak Hindi? It wasn’t working for me.”
He said, “That was an exercise during my time in exile. I came back with eight or ten ideas and thought, ‘Which is the cheapest—not the easiest— monetary wise on my pocket you know it won’t put a dent in my bank account?’ Because a murder mystery, you need to concentrate on lighting, camera angles, background—you don’t need massive sets. It depends on your subject. And it’s not a horror film; it’s a ghost story.”
Despite shelving Udham Singh for now, Rai hasn’t ruled it out completely. “If I can make it one day, I would like to. If I can’t, I have other subjects.”
As for what lies ahead, Rai remains uncertain. “After this film, I really don’t know if I’ll be in business. People may really like the experiment I’ve done, or they may think it’s not entertaining,” he said candidly.
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