Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha will be dropped on August 11. In a new interaction, the actor was inquired as to why he was playing a Sikh character in the Hindi remake of Tom Hanks’ Hollywood classic Forrest Gump. The actor said that although ‘technically’ the character could be anyone, the film’s screenwriter, Atul Kulkarni, had written the story in such a manner that the audiences could ‘invest their emotions very strongly’ in the character, and the events from 1983-84. The actor shared that the Sikh community ‘went through a lot of difficulties at that time.’
“Atul (Atul Kulkarni) in his adaptation (of Forrest Gump) had already placed him as a Sikh… When we received it as a script, we were already reading a Sikh character. So, it felt very natural to us and organic to us. So, none of us questioned why he is a Sikh. But now that I think about it, technically, he could be anyone, he could be south Indian. But I think Atul did that because, in our timeline of recent socio-political history, 1983-84 was a very key time, a very difficult time, and the Sikh community went through a lot of difficulties at that time,” Aamir told journalist Baradwaj Rangan.
Aamir added that by making the lead character Sikh, the film’s writer, Atul Kulkarni, was attempting to capture the audience’s emotions. “By making the lead character a Sikh, I think what Atul was trying to do and I think he did that rather well, is that you are actually investing your emotions very strongly in the character, in the incident and then from there on… in the film,” Aamir said.
