Spend On Basic Requirements

Simple and down to earth Vicky Kaushal, who was recently seen in the lead role in the movie Sardar Udham, says that coming from a Punjabi family he was culturally familiar with the character, Udham Singh. Recreating the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, however, was the most mentally and emotionally taxing part for him.

Vicky feels that the biggest lesson learnt from the pandemic is to live in the ‘now’ and be conscious of your roots. He adds, “The pandemic made me connect with my family, my friends and with myself because in the mad race that you are always running, you tend to forget to press the pause button. There has been a lot of learning in totality and I hope once things get back to normal, we don’t forget these lessons. It helped us to return to our basics.” The uncertainty taught us to be prepared for any kind of crisis.

Vicky believes in just spending on the basic requirements. What the healthcare chaos that was going on (during the pandemic) brought forth was that people didn’t have the means to avail of basic medical aid. And that made him realise that one should always be prepared financially for medical emergencies.

Vicky doesn’t believe in over-spending and says that the whole of last year he didn’t have any expenses at all other than what was spent on the basic requirements.

It is this simplicity coupled with the-boy-next-door looks and hardworking attitude that make him unique and a star with whom one can relate to. Speaking about the preparation for his role as Sardar Udham, he says, “When I got this part, I was aware of who this freedom fighter was. But this person’s journey and the emotional aspect were a revelation to me. When it came to physical preparation, I realised that I had to play a 20-year-old Udham Singh and a 40-year-old Udham Singh. So, I had to reduce 14 kg to play the 20-year-old and had to immediately gain all of that in 25 days to look like the 40-year-old.”

To mentally prepare for the role, he depended on  his director Shoojit Sircar’s vision of how he wanted Sardar Udham Singh to  come across to the people. “Generally, when we  portray a freedom fighter, we show them as superman; someone we cannot touch. But here we wanted to make him very humane; a person whom you can touch, sit with. We wanted that, on watching the film, the audience should feel that there was a Sardar Udham in all of us.”

Vicky was the second choice for the role; the first was late actor Irrfan Khan. But Vicky has no qualms about replacing Khan. “Actually, there was an immediate sense of honour in replacing Irrfan Khan. It was a big responsibility to replace an actor of his caliber. In this film, if I have been able to achieve even one per cent of what Irrfan Khan could have done, I would feel that my job is done. So,
it is my small tribute to Irrfan Khan, an actor whom I love, an actor whom I admire, and an actor who left us too soon,” says Vicky.

Vicky signs off saying, “I will be happy if everybody feels that there is a Sardar Udham in them. We don’t want him to be a martyr in history books that you just read about and close the book and keep it aside. We want him to be alive with us.”